But, alas! the fields where is garnered the harvest of expended doubloons, and where vernal loves bloom anew, are yet to be discovered; and the result of my prodigality was that, one fine morning, I found myself a bankrupt in heart, with my purse at ebb-tide.  Suddenly disgusted with the world and myself, weary, discouraged, mistrusting men (ay, and women too), I fled to a desert on the extinct volcano of M------, where, for several months, I lived the life of a cenobite, with no companion but a poor lunatic whom I had met on a small island, and who had attached himself to me.  He followed me everywhere, and loved me with that absurd and touching constancy of which dogs and madmen alone are capable.  My friend, whose insanity was of a mild and harmless character, fancied himself the greatest genius in the world.  He was, moreover, under the impression that he suffered from a gigantic, monstrous tooth.  Of the two idiosyncrasies, the latter alone made his lunacy discernible, too many individuals being affected with the other symptom to render it an anomalous feature of the human mind.  My friend was in the habit of protesting that this enormous tooth increased periodically, and threatened to encroach upon his entire jaw.  Tormented, at the same time, with the desire of regenerating humanity, he divided his leisure between the study of dentistry, to which he applied himself in order to impede the progress of his hypothetical tyrant, and a voluminous correspondence which he kept up with the Pope, his brother, and the Emperor of the French, his cousin.  In the latter occupation he pleaded the interests of humanity, styled himself ’the Prince of Thought,’ and exalted me to the dignity of his illustrious friend and benefactor.  In the midst of the wreck of his intellect, one thing still survived—­his love of music.  He played the violin; and, strange as it may appear, although insane, he could not understand the so-called music of the future.

“My hut, perched on the verge of the crater, at the very summit of the mountain, commanded a view of all the surrounding country.  The rock upon which it was built projected over a precipice whose abysses were concealed by creeping plants, cactus, and bamboos.  The species of table-rock thus formed had been encircled with a railing, and transformed into a terrace on a level with the sleeping-room, by my predecessor in this hermitage.  His last wish had been to be buried there; and from my bed I could see his white tombstone gleaming in the moonlight a few steps from my window.  Every evening I rolled my piano out upon the terrace; and there, facing the most incomparably beautiful landscape, all bathed in the soft and limpid atmosphere of the tropics, I poured forth on the instrument, and for myself alone, the thoughts with which the scene inspired me.  And what a scene!  Picture to yourself a gigantic amphitheatre hewn out of the mountains by an army of Titans; right and left, immense virgin forests full