consolation--deep, dark, deathlike solitude.

My father observed with pain the alteration perceptible in my
disposition and habits and endeavoured by arguments deduced from the
feelings of his serene conscience and guiltless life to inspire me with
fortitude and awaken in me the courage to dispel the dark cloud which
brooded over me. "Do you think, Victor," said he, "that I do not
suffer also? No one could love a child more than I loved your
brother"--tears came into his eyes as he spoke--"but is it not a duty
to the survivors that we should refrain from augmenting their
unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief? It is also a duty
owed to yourself, for excessive sorrow prevents improvement or
enjoyment, or even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no
man is fit for society."

This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case; I
should have been the first to hide my grief and console my friends if
remorse had not mingled its bitterness, and terror its alarm, with my
other sensations. Now I could only answer my father with a look of
despair and endeavour to hide myself from his view.

About this time we retired to our house at Belrive. This change was
particularly agreeable to me. The shutting of the gates regularly at
ten o'clock and the impossibility of remaining on the lake after that
hour had rendered our residence within the walls of Geneva very irksome
to me. I was now free. Often, after the rest of the family had
retired for the night, I took the boat and passed many hours upon the
water. Sometimes, with my sails set, I was carried by the wind; and
sometimes, after rowing into the middle of the lake, I left the boat to
pursue its own course and gave way to my own miserable reflections. I
was often tempted, when all was at peace around me, and I the only
unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and
heavenly--if I except some bat, or the frogs, whose harsh and
interrupted croaking was heard only when I approached the shore--often,
I say, I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters
might close over me and my calamities forever. But I was restrained,
when I thought of the heroic and suffering Elizabeth, whom I tenderly
loved, and whose existence was bound up in mine. I thought also of my
father and surviving brother; should I by my base desertion leave them
exposed and unprotected to the malice of the fiend whom I had let loose
among