"One may live to a hundred, but his youth lasts only seven or eight years. What a pity that I should have to spend these purest and most beautiful seven or eight years in this unfeeling island country. And, alas, I am already twenty-one!
"Dead as dried wood at twenty-one!
"Dead as cold ashes at twenty-one!
"Far better for me to turn into some kind of mineral, for it's unlikely that I will ever bloom.
"I want neither knowledge nor fame. All I want is a 'heart' that can understand and comfort me, a warm and passionate heart and the sympathy that it generates and the love born out of that sympathy!
"What I want is love.
"If there were one beautiful woman who understood my suffering, I would be willing to die for her.
"If there were one woman who could love me sincerely, I would also be willing to die for her, be she beautiful or ugly.
"For what I want is love from the opposite sex.
"O ye Heavens above, I want neither knowledge nor fame nor useless lucre. I shall be wholly content if you can grant me an Eve from the Garden of Eden, allowing me to possess her body and soul."
