I Am Ashes Where Once I Was

To Withdraw Myself From Myself Has Ever Been My Sole, My Entire, My Sincere Motive In Scribbling At All.

I Am As Comfortless As A Pilgrim With Peas In His Shoes - And As Cold As Charity, Chastity Or Any Other Virtue.

Once More Upon The Waters! Yet Once More! And The Waves Bound Beneath Me As A Steed That Knows His Rider.

What Should I Have Known Or Written Had I Been A Quiet, Mercantile Politician Or A Lord In Waiting? A Man Must Travel, And Turmoil, Or There Is No Existence.

A Man Must Serve His Time To Every Trade, Save Censure-critics All Are Ready Made. Take Hackney'd Jokes From Miller, Got By Rote With Just Enough Learning To Misquote.