women had found out my true character, and knew how to
value my tenderness. Alas! alas! that this, the only hope, joy, or
comfort I ever had, should turn to a mockery, and hang like an ugly film
over the remainder of my days!--I was at Roslin Castle yesterday. It
lies low in a rude, but sheltered valley, hid from the vulgar gaze, and
powerfully reminds one of the old song. The straggling fragments of the
russet ruins, suspended smiling and graceful in the air as if they would
linger out another century to please the curious beholder, the green
larch-trees trembling between with the blue sky and white silver clouds,
the wild mountain plants starting out here and there, the date of the
year on an old low door-way, but still more, the beds of flowers in
orderly decay, that seem to have no hand to tend them, but keep up a
sort of traditional remembrance of civilization in former ages, present
altogether a delightful and amiable subject for contemplation. The
exquisite beauty of the scene, with the thought of what I should feel,
should I ever be restored to her, and have to lead her through such
places as my adored, my angelwife, almost drove me beside myself. For
this picture, this ecstatic vision, what have I of late instead as the
image of the reality? Demoniacal possessions. I see the young witch
seated in another's lap, twining her serpent arms round him, her eye
glancing and her cheeks on fire--why does not the hideous thought choke
me? Or why do I not go and find out the truth at once? The moonlight
streams over the silver waters: the bark is in the bay that might waft
me to her, almost with a wish. The mountain-breeze sighs out her name:
old ocean with a world of tears murmurs back my woes! Does not my heart
yearn to be with her; and shall I not follow its bidding? No, I must
wait till I am free; and then I will take my Freedom (a glad prize) and
lay it at her feet and tell her my proud love of her that would not
brook a rival in her dishonour, and that would have her all or none, and
gain her or lose myself for ever!--

You see by this letter the way I am in, and I hope you will excuse it as
the picture of a half-disordered mind. The least respite from my
uneasiness (such as I had yesterday) only brings the contrary reflection
back upon me, like a flood; and by letting me see the happiness I have
lost, makes me feel, by contrast, more acutely what I am doomed to bear.

LETTER X

Dear Friend, H