sun at noon
`` Well then , Jane , call to aid your fancy : -- suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined , but a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards ; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land ; conceive that you there commit a capital error , no matter of what nature or from what motives , but one whose consequences must follow you through life and taint all your existence . Mind , I do n't say a _ crime _ ; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act , which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law : my word is _ error _ . The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable ; you take measures to obtain relief : unusual measures , but neither unlawful nor culpable . Still you are miserable ; for hope has quitted you on the very confines of life : your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse , which you feel will not leave it till the time of setting . Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory : you wander here and there , seeking rest in exile : happiness in pleasure -- I mean in heartless , sensual pleasure -- such as dulls intellect and blights feeling . Heart-weary and soul-withered , you come home after years of voluntary banishment : you make a new acquaintance -- how or where no matter : you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years , and never before encountered ; and they are all fresh , healthy , without soil and without taint . Such society revives , regenerates : you feel better days come back -- higher wishes , purer feelings ; you desire to recommence your life , and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being .