Explore "First Person Paramount" by Ambrose Pratt on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Clever rascals are of necessity friendless and incomparably lonely men. Prudence prevents them from confiding their affairs to any other, even their nearest and dearest; therefore they are obliged to lead self-centred and segregated lives in the truest sense of the term, and are absolutely prohibited from tasting that greatest of luxuries, human sympathy. Since my last embarkation upon a career of villainy, I had so far escaped the pangs of ennui, because my mind had been always occupied with my ambition, and action had followed mercifully fast upon design. The mere fact, however, of having succeeded in making myself a rich man, robbed me of that precious concern for the future which had hitherto been my refuge from reflection.
It is true that considerations of vengeance partially supplied its place, but as I had yet to find my enemy before I could exchange purpose for practice, I began to realize the utter isolation of my state. I arrived at Paris in a desolate and listless mood, and so wearied with my own companionship that I was ready to make friends with a dog.