They who once
pursued me, were now satisfied to escape from me; and they who had
before thought me presumptuous in hoping to overtake them, had now their
utmost wish, if they were permitted, at no great distance, quietly to
follow me.
My wants were not madly multiplied as my acquisitions increased, and the
time came, at length, when I thought myself enabled to gratify all
reasonable desires, and when, therefore, I resolved to enjoy that plenty
and serenity which I had been hitherto labouring to procure, to enjoy
them while I was yet neither crushed by age into infirmity, nor so
habituated to a particular manner of life as to be unqualified for new
studies or entertainments.
I now quitted my profession, and, to set myself at once free from all
importunities to resume it, changed my residence, and devoted the
remaining part of my time to quiet and amusement. Amidst innumerable
projects of pleasure, which restless idleness incited me to form, and of
which most, when they came to the moment of execution, were rejected for
others of no longer continuance, some accident revived in my imagination
the pleasing ideas of my native place. It was now in my power to visit
those from whom I had been so long absent, in such a manner as was
consistent with my former resolution, and I wondered how it could happen
that I had so long delayed my own happiness.
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