─ i see by your eagerness, and the wonder and hope which your eyes express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with which i am acquainted; that cannot be: listen patiently until the end of my story, and you will easily perceive why i am reserved upon that subject. i will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as i then was, to your destruction and infallible misery. learn from me, if not by my precepts, atleast by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge, and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature will allow.