An imaginative child in the 1620s

I made it my aime to learne & lent my minde continually to read historyes: and to shew my spirit let me remember with greife that w[hi]ch I yet feele: when I was exceeding yong would I project the conquering of kingdoms & write historyes of such exploits. I was much delighted with Cosmography taking it from my ffather. I would project wayes of receiving vaste estates & then lay it out in stately building, castles, libraryes, colledges & such like.

Ralph Josselin (1616–1683), Diary [Camden Society edition]

Josselin grew up to become a very devout and rigid minister; hence his abiding guilt at the sin of having, when a child, exercised his imagination in making up imaginary histories and inventing non-existent places.