"The new year is already old in my account, I am not, indeed,
sufficiently second-sighted to be able to boast by anticipation an
acquaintance with the events of it yet unborn, but rest convinced that,
be they what they may, not one of them comes a messenger of good to me.
If even death itself should be of the number, he is no friend of mine.
It is an alleviation of the woes even of an unenlightened man, that he
can wish for death, and indulge a hope, at least, that in death he
shall find deliverance. But, loaded as my life is with despair, I have
no such comfort as would result from a supposed probability of better
things to come, were it once ended. For, more unhappy than the
traveller with whom I set out, pass through what difficulties I may,
through whatever dangers and afflictions, I am not a whit nearer the
home, unless a dungeon may be called so. This is no very agreeable
theme; but in so great a dearth of subjects to write upon, and
especially impressed as I am at this moment with a sense of my own
condition, I could choose no other.
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