I lived in this condition near two years more; but my unlucky head, that was always to let me know it was born to make my body miserable, was all these two years filled with projects and designs how, if it were possible, I might get away from this island: for sometimes I was for making another voyage to the wreck, though my reason told me that there was nothing left there worth the hazard of my voyage; sometimes for a ramble one way, sometimes another—and I believe verily, if I had had the boat that I went from Sallee in, I should have ventured to sea, bound anywhere, I knew not whither.
Io sono stato in tutti i casi della mia vita una grande lezione per coloro che si sentono percossi da quella malattia generale della specie umana, malattia donde, a quanto so io, procede una metà delle loro sventure: quella cioè di non esser paghi della condizione ove Dio e la natura li collocò. Dappoichè, per non dir della follia che mi fece dimenticare i buoni consigli di mio padre, e che fu quasi il mio peccato originale, sempre di tal fatta sono stati gli errori che mi gittarono in questo miserable stato.