Chapter III

"Sorrow, cruel fellowship," from which he cannot disengage himself, now reigns within him, and distorts with "lying lip"[7] all Nature and her beneficent workings; making these seem to have no purpose or end. All which is but an echo of his own dark feelings. Shall he then believe this false guide--

"Embrace her as my natural good;
Or crush her, like a vice of blood,
Upon the threshold of the mind?"

reject, and turn away from the impostures of a sorrowing imagination?