THAT
        homely proverb,
           used on so many occasions
               in England,
         viz.

    "That what is
         bred in the bone
        will not
              go out of the flesh,"
            was never more
                  verified than
                       in the story
                           of my Life.

    Any one would think
         that after
               thirty-five years' affliction,
           and a variety
               of unhappy circumstances,
         which few men,
           if any,
         ever went through before,
           and after
               near seven years of peace
                   and enjoyment
                 in the fulness of
                       all things;
        grown old,
           and when,
         if ever,
           it might be allowed me
              to have had
             experience of
                   every state of middle life,
          and to know
              which was most adapted
                  to make
                       a man completely happy;
         I say,
           after all this,
         any one would have thought
             that the native propensity
                   to rambling which
             I gave an account of
                   in my first
                  setting out in the world
                to have been so predominant
                       in my thoughts,
           should be worn out,
         and I might,
           at sixty
               one years
             of age,
         have been a little inclined
              to stay at home,
           and have done
               venturing life
                   and fortune any more.

    Nay,
           farther,
         the common motive
               of foreign adventures
            was taken away in me,
           for I
            had no fortune to make;
        I had nothing to seek:
            if I
            had gained ten thousand pounds
             I had been no richer;
        for I
            had already sufficient for me,
           and for those
             I had
                  to leave it to;
        and what
             I had was visibly increasing;
        for,
           having no great family,
         I could not
              spend the income of
             what I had
               unless I
                would set
                       up for an expensive way
                           of living,
           such as a great family,
         servants,
            equipage,
         gaiety,
           and the like,
         which were things
             I had no notion of,
           or inclination to;
        so that I had nothing,
           indeed,
         to do
             but to sit still,
           and fully enjoy
             what I had got,
         and see it increase daily
               upon my hands.

    Yet all these things
        had no effect upon me,
            or at least not enough
              to resist the strong inclination
             I had
                  to go abroad again,
         which hung about me
              like a chronic distemper.

    In particular,
           the desire
               of seeing my new plantation
             in the island,
          and the colony
             I left there,
           ran in my head continually.

    I dreamed of it
           all night,
         and my imagination
            ran upon it all day:
         it was uppermost
               in all my thoughts,
           and my fancy
               worked so steadily and strongly
                   upon it
             that I talked
                   of it in my sleep;
        in short,
           nothing could
              remove it
                   out of my mind:
         it even
            broke so violently
                   into all my discourses
             that it
                  made my conversation tiresome,
           for I
            could talk of nothing else;
        all my discourse
            ran into it,
           even to impertinence;
        and I saw it myself.

    I have often
          heard persons
               of good judgment say
         that all the stir
             that people make
                   in the world
                 about ghosts and apparitions
                is owing
                       to the strength of imagination,
           and the powerful operation
               of fancy
             in their minds;
        that there is
               no such thing
             as a spirit appearing,
            or a ghost walking;
        that people's poring affectionately
               upon the
             past conversation
                   of their deceased friends
                       so realises it
                   to them
             that they
                are capable of fancying,
           upon some extraordinary circumstances,
         that they see them,
           talk to them,
         and are answered by them,
           when,
         in truth,
           there is nothing
             but shadow and vapour
                   in the thing,
         and they really
              know nothing of the matter.

    For my part,
           I know not
               to this hour
             whether there are
                   any such things
                 as real apparitions,
         spectres,
           or walking of people after
             they are dead;
        or whether