I was long wrapt by such ideas; but the soul wearies of a pauseless flight; and, stooping from its wheeling circuits round and round this spot, suddenly it fell ten thousand fathom deep, into the abyss of the present—­ into self-knowledge—­into tenfold sadness.  I roused myself—­I cast off my waking dreams; and I, who just now could almost hear the shouts of the Roman throng, and was hustled by countless multitudes, now beheld the desart ruins of Rome sleeping under its own blue sky; the shadows lay tranquilly on the ground; sheep were grazing untended on the Palatine, and a buffalo stalked down the Sacred Way that led to the Capitol.  I was alone in the Forum; alone in Rome; alone in the world.  Would not one living man —­one companion in my weary solitude, be worth all the glory and remembered power of this time-honoured city?  Double sorrow—­sadness, bred in Cimmerian caves, robed my soul in a mourning garb.  The generations I had conjured up to my fancy, contrasted more strongly with the end of all —­the single point in which, as a pyramid, the mighty fabric of society had ended, while I, on the giddy height, saw vacant space around me.

From such vague laments I turned to the contemplation of the minutiae of my situation.  So far, I had not succeeded in the sole object of my desires, the finding a companion for my desolation.  Yet I did not despair.  It is true that my inscriptions were set up for the most part, in insignificant towns and villages; yet, even without these memorials, it was possible that the person, who like me should find himself alone in a depopulate land, should, like me, come to Rome.  The more slender my expectation was, the more I chose to build on it, and to accommodate my actions to this vague possibility.

It became necessary therefore, that for a time I should domesticate myself at Rome.  It became necessary, that I should look my disaster in the face—­ not playing the school-boy’s part of obedience without submission; enduring life, and yet rebelling against the laws by which I lived.

Yet how could I resign myself?  Without love, without sympathy, without communion with any, how could I meet the morning sun, and with it trace its oft repeated journey to the evening shades?  Why did I continue to live—­ why not throw off the weary weight of time, and with my own hand, let out the fluttering prisoner from my agonized breast?—­It was not cowardice that withheld me; for the true fortitude was to endure; and death had a soothing sound accompanying it, that would easily entice me to enter its demesne.  But this I would not do.  I had, from the moment I had reasoned on the subject, instituted myself the subject to fate, and the servant of necessity, the visible laws of the invisible God—­I believed that my obedience was the result of sound reasoning, pure feeling, and an exalted sense of the true excellence and nobility of my nature.  Could I have seen in this empty earth, in the seasons and their change,