Return to My Beloved Country

I fear, my friend, that I shall render myself tedious by dwelling on these

preliminary circumstances; but they were days of comparative happiness, and I think of them with pleasure.

My country, my beloved country! who but a native can tell the delight I took in again

beholding thy streams, thy mountains, and, more than all, thy lovely lake.

Yet, as I drew nearer home, grief and fear again overcame me.

Night also closed around; and when I could hardly see the dark mountains, I felt still more

gloomily. The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of evil, and I foresaw obscurely

that I was destined to become the most wretched of human beings. Alas!