purpose, and in energy of will,--all which advantages, besides,
borrowed a ratification from an obscure sense, on my part, of duty as
incident to what seemed an appointment of Providence,--inevitably _had_
controlled, and for years to come _would have_ controlled, the free
spontaneous movements of a contemplative dreamer like myself.
Consequently, this separation, which proved an eternal one, and
contributed to deepen my constitutional propensity to gloomy meditation,
had for me (partly on that account, but much more through the sudden
birth of perfect independence which so unexpectedly it opened) the
value of a revolutionary experience. A new date, a new starting point,
a redemption (as it might be called) into the golden sleep of halcyon
quiet, after everlasting storms, suddenly dawned upon me; and not as
any casual intercalation of holidays that would come to an end, but,
for any thing that appeared to the contrary, as the perpetual tenor
of my future career. No longer was the factory a Carthage for me: if
any obdurate old Cato there were who found his amusement in denouncing
it with a daily _"Delenda est,"_ take notice, (I said silently to
myself,) that I acknowledge no such tiger for a friend of mine.
Nevermore was the bridge across the Irwell a bridge of sighs for me.
And the meanest of the factory population--thanks be to their
discrimination--despised my pretensions too entirely to waste a thought
or a menace upon a cipher so abject.

This change, therefore, being so sudden and so total, ought to signalize
itself externally by a commensurate break in the narrative. A new
chapter, at the least, with a huge interspace of blank white paper,
or even a new book, ought rightfully to solemnize so profound a
revolution. And virtually it shall. But, according to the general
agreement of antiquity, it is not felt as at all disturbing to the
unity of that event which winds up the "Iliad," viz., the death of