What I have lost was certain, for I have certainly possessed
it; but of twenty months to come, who can assure me?"
The consciousness of his own folly pierced him deeply, and he was
long before he could be reconciled to himself. "The rest of my
time," said he, "has been lost by the crime or folly of my
ancestors, and the absurd institutions of my country; I remember it
with disgust, yet without remorse: but the months that have passed
since new light darted into my soul, since I formed a scheme of
reasonable felicity, have been squandered by my own fault. I have
lost that which can never be restored; I have seen the sun rise and
set for twenty months, an idle gazer on the light of heaven; in
this time the birds have left the nest of their mother, and
committed themselves to the woods and to the skies; the kid has
forsaken the teat, and learned by degrees to climb the rocks in
quest of independent sustenance. I only have made no advances, but
am still helpless and ignorant. The moon, by more than twenty
changes, admonished me of the flux of life; the stream that rolled
before my feet upbraided my inactivity.
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