A Night Journey Round my Room

Before re-entering my room I cast a glance on the dark city and the country round Turin, which I was about to quit, perhaps forever, and I bade them my last farewell. Never had night seemed to me beautiful, or the spectacle beneath my gaze so intensely fascinating. After saluting the mountain and church of the Superga, I took leave of the towers, the steeples, and of all the well-known objects, at leaving which I felt so great but so unexpected a regret; also of the air, the sky, and the river, whose dull murmur seemed to answer responsive to my farewells.

Oh! could I but describe the feelings, tender and cruel at the same time, which filled my heart, and all the memories of the sweetest half of my past life, which, like hobgoblins, thronged round me, to keep me in Turin. But, alas! the recollections of past pleasures are the wrinkles on the face of the soul. When we are unhappy we ought to drive them from our thoughts like mocking phantoms which come to triumph over our present situation. It is better then, a thousand times, to give oneself up to the illusions of hope, and above all to put a good face on it when the game is going against us, and to be very careful not to let anyone into the secret of our misfortunes. I have observed, in my experience of the world and mankind, that those who are always complaining of their woes are, in the end, held up to ridicule.