, possesses, nevertheless, great strength,
as well as violent passions. He caught up a sword, pierced the heart
of his friend's antagonist, was tried, and his life, with difficulty,
redeemed from justice at the expense of a year's close imprisonment, the
punishment of manslaughter. The incident affected him most deeply,
the more that the deceased was a man of excellent character, and had
sustained gross insult and injury ere he drew his sword. I think, from
that moment, I observed--I beg pardon--The fits of morbid sensibility
which had tormented this unfortunate gentleman, were rendered henceforth
more acute by remorse, which he, of all men, was least capable of having
incurred, or of sustaining when it became his unhappy lot. His paroxysms
of agony could not be concealed from the lady to whom he was betrothed;
and it must be confessed they were of an alarming and fearful nature.
He comforted himself, that, at the expiry of his imprisonment, he could
form with his wife and friend a society, encircled by which he might
dispense with more extensive communication with the world. He was
deceived; before that term elapsed, his friend and his betrothed bride
were man and wife. The effects of a shock so dreadful on an ardent
temperament, a disposition already soured by bitter remorse, and
loosened by the indulgence of a gloomy imagination from the rest of
mankind, I cannot describe to you; it was as if the last cable at which
the vessel rode had suddenly parted, and left her abandoned to all the
wild fury of the tempest. He was placed under medical restraint. As a
temporary measure this might have been justifiable; but his hard-hearted
friend, who, in consequence of his marriage, was now his nearest ally,
prolonged his confinement, in order to enjoy the management of his
immense estates. There was one who owed his all to the sufferer, an
humble friend, but grateful and faithful. By unceasing exertion, and
repeated invocation of justice, he at length succeeded in obtaining
his patron's freedom, and reinstatement in the management of his own
property, to which was soon added that of his intended bride, who having
died without male issue, her estates reverted to him, as heir of entail.
But freedom and wealth were unable to restore the equipoise of his mind;
to the former his grief made him indifferent--the latter only served him
as far as it afforded him the means of indulging his strange and wayward
fancy. He had renounced the Cat