I was better off hidden away, far from the crimes wrought by envy, shunted off from it all, on the cliffs of the Corsican sea.… How glad I was there, my eyes on Nature’s masterwork— the sky, and the sacred paths of the sun, the cosmos’ motions, the allotments of night and day, the sphere of the Moon, that glory of upper air, spreading its light to a ring of unanchored stars.
