'I shall never be able to realize the too sanguine hopes of my friends, for at twenty-nine I am a thoroughly _old man_, mentally and bodily--far more, indeed, than I am willing to express. God knows I do not scribble like a poetaster when I quote Byron's terribly truthful words-- '"No more--no more--oh! never more on me The freshness of the heart shall fall like dew, Which, out of all the lovely things we see, Extracts emotions beautiful and new!" 'I used to think that if I could have, for a week, the free range of the British Museum--the library included--I could feel as though I were placed for seven days in Paradise; but now, really, dear sir, my eyes would rest upon the Elgin marbles, the Egyptian saloon, and the most treasured columns, like the eyes of a dead cod-fish. 'My rude, rough acquaintances here ascribe my unhappiness solely to causes produced by my sometimes irregular life, because they have known no other pains than those resulting from excess or want of ready cash. They do not know that I would rather want a shirt than want a springy mind, and that my total want of happiness, were I to step into York Minster now, would be far, far worse than their want of a hundred pounds when they might happen to need it; and that, if a dozen glasses, or a bottle of wine, drives off their cares, such cures only make me outwardly passable in company, but _never_ drive off mine. 'I know only that it is time for me to be something, when I am nothing, that my father cannot have long to live, and that, when he dies, my evening, which is already twilight, will become night; that I shall then have a constitution still so strong that it will keep me years in torture and despair, when I should every hour pray that I might die. 'I know that I am avoiding, while I write, one greatest cause of my utter despair; but, by G----, sir, it is nearly too bitter for me to allude to it!' Here follow a number of references to the subject, with which the reader is already familiar, and therefore it is unnecessary to repeat them here. Then Branwell continues: 'To no one living have I said what I now say to you, and I should not bother yourself with my incoherent account, did I not believe that you would be able to understand somewhat of what I meant--though _not all_, sir; for he who is without hope, and knows that his clock is at twelve at night, cannot communicate his feelings to one who finds _his_ at twelve at noon.' CHAPTER X. BRANWELL BRONTË AND 'WUTHERING HEIGHTS.'