midnight
-LSB- 56 -RSB- It was six months after this miserable conclusion to his long nursed hopes that I first saw him . He had retired to a part of the country where he was not known that he might peacefully indulge his grief . All the world , by the death of his beloved Elinor , was changed to him , and he could no longer remain in any spot where he had seen her or where her image mingled with the most rapturous hopes had brightened all around with a light of joy which would now be transformed to a darkness blacker than midnight since she , the sun of his life , was set for ever . He lived for some time never looking on the light of heaven but shrouding his eyes in a perpetual darkness far from all that could remind him of what he had been ; but as time softened his grief -LSB- 57 -RSB- like a true child of Nature he sought in the enjoyment of her beauties for a consolation in his unhappiness . He came to a part of the country where he was entirely unknown and where in the deepest solitude he could converse only with his own heart . He found a relief to his impatient grief in the breezes of heaven and in the sound of waters and woods .