I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in
study without experience--in the attainment of sciences which can
for the most part be but remotely useful to mankind. I have
purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of
life; I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship,
and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness. If I have obtained
any prerogatives above other students, they have been accompanied
with fear, disquiet, and scrupulosity; but even of these
prerogatives, whatever they were, I have, since my thoughts have
been diversified by more intercourse with the world, begun to
question the reality. When I have been for a few days lost in
pleasing dissipation, I am always tempted to think that my
inquiries have ended in error, and that I have suffered much, and
suffered it in vain."
Imlac was delighted to find that the sage's understanding was
breaking through its mists, and resolved to detain him from the
planets till he should forget his task of ruling them, and reason
should recover its original influence.
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