The rain had ceased; there was no more thunder and lightning; the wind had paused.  My heart no longer beat wildly; I did not feel any fever:  but I was chilled; my knees sunk under me—­I almost slept as I walked with excess of weariness; every limb trembled.  I was silent:  all was silent except the roaring of the sea which became louder and more dreadful.  Yet we advanced slowly:  sometimes I thought that we should never arrive; that the sound of waves would still allure us, and that we should walk on for ever and ever:  field succeeding field, never would our weary journey cease, nor night nor day; but still we should hear the dashing of the sea, and to all this there would be no end.  Wild beyond the imagination of the happy are the thoughts bred by misery and despair.

At length we reached the overhanging beach; a cottage stood beside the path; we knocked at the door and it was opened:  the bed within instantly caught my eye; something stiff and straight lay on it, covered by a sheet; the cottagers looked aghast.  The first words that they uttered confirmed what I before knew.  I did not feel shocked or overcome:  I believe that I asked one or two questions and listened to the answers.  I har[d]ly know, but in a few moments I sank lifeless to the ground; and so would that then all had been at an end!

CHAPTER VIII

I was carried to the next town:  fever succeeded to convulsions and faintings, & for some weeks my unhappy spirit hovered on the very verge of death.  But life was yet strong within me; I recovered:  nor did it a little aid my returning health that my recollections were at first vague, and that I was too weak to feel any violent emotion.  I often said to myself, my father is dead.  He loved me with a guilty passion, and stung by remorse and despair he killed himself.  Why is it that I feel no horror?  Are these circumstances not dreadful?  Is it not enough that I shall never more meet the eyes of my beloved father; never more hear his voice; no caress, no look?  All cold, and stiff, and dead!  Alas!  I am quite callous:  the night I was out in was fearful and the cold rain that fell about my heart has acted like the waters of the cavern of Antiparos[43] and has changed it to stone.  I do not weep or sigh; but I must reason with myself, and force myself to feel sorrow and despair.  This is not resignation that I feel, for I am dead to all regret.

I communed in this manner with myself, but I was silent to all around me.  I hardly replied to the slightest question, and was uneasy when I saw a human creature near me.  I was surrounded by my female relations, but they were all of them nearly strangers to me:  I did not listen to their consolations; and so little did they work their designed effect that they seemed to me to be spoken in an unknown tongue.  I found if sorrow was dead within me, so was love and desire of sympathy.  Yet sorrow only slept to revive more fierce, but love never woke again—­its ghost, ever hovering over my father’s grave, alone survived—­since his death all the world was to me a blank except where woe had stampt its burning words telling me to smile no more—­the living were not fit companions for me, and I was ever meditating by what means I might shake them all off, and never be heard of again.