dom itself. I lived for pleasure--I
lived the life of disappointment. Without one vicious disposition, I
have fallen into a hundred vices; I have never been actively selfish,
yet always selfish. I nursed high thoughts--for what end? A poet in
heart, a voluptuary in life. If mine own interest came into clear
collision with that of another, mine I would have sacrificed, but I
never asked if the whole course of my existence was not that of a war
with the universal interest. Too thoughtful to be without a leading
principle in life, the one principle I adopted has been one error. I
have tasted all that imagination can give to earthly possession: youth,
health, liberty, knowledge, love, luxury, pomp. Woman was my first
passion,--what woman have I wooed in vain? I imagined that my career
hung upon Constance's breath--Constance loved and refused me. I
attributed my errors to that refusal; Constance became mine--how have I
retrieved them? A vague, a dim, an unconfessed remorse has pursued me in
the memory of Lucilla; yet, why not have redeemed that fault to her by
good to others? What is penitence not put into action, but the
great fallacy in morals? A sin to one, if irremediable, can only be
compensated by a virtue to some one else. Yet was I to blame in my
conduct to Lucilla? Why should conscience so haunt me at that name? Did
I not fly her? Was it not herself who compelled our union? Did I not
cherish, respect, honour, forbear with her, more than I have since with
my wedded Constance? Did I not resolve to renounce Constance herself,
when most loved, for Lucilla's sake alone? Who prevented that
sacrifice--who deserted me--who carved out her own separate
life?--Lucilla herself. No, so far, my sin is light. But ought I not to
have left all things to follow her, to discover her, to force upon her
an independence from want, or possibly from crime? Ah, there was my
sin, and the sin of my nature; the sin, too, of the children of
the world--passive sin. I could sacrifice my happiness, but not my
indolence; I was not ungenerous, I was inert. But is it too late? Can
I not yet search, discover her, and remove from my mind the anxious
burthen which her remembrance imposes on it? For, oh, one thought of
remorse linked with the being who has loved us, is more intolerable to
the conscience than the gravest crime!"

Muttering such thoughts, Godolphin strayed on until the deepening night
suddenly recalled his attention to the lateness of the