The Count of Monte Cristo

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The abbe sank upon Edmond's bed, while Edmond himself remained standing.
Escape had never once occurred to him. There are, indeed, some things
which appear so impossible that the mind does not dwell on them for an
instant. To undermine the ground for fifty feet--to devote three years
to a labor which, if successful, would conduct you to a precipice
overhanging the sea--to plunge into the waves from the height of fifty,
sixty, perhaps a hundred feet, at the risk of being dashed to pieces
against the rocks, should you have been fortunate enough to have escaped
the fire of the sentinels; and even, supposing all these perils past,
then to have to swim for your life a distance of at least three miles
ere you could reach the shore--were difficulties so startling and
formidable that Dantes had never even dreamed of such a scheme,
resigning himself rather to death. But the sight of an old man clinging
to life with so desperate a courage, gave a fresh turn to his ideas, and
inspired him with new courage. Another, older and less strong than he,
had attempted what he had not had sufficient resolution to undertake,
and had failed only because of an error in calculation. This same