it. The perverseness of my
nature led me on from one guilty thought to another. I took refuge in my
customary sophistries, and reconciled myself at length to a scheme
of--_forgery_!"

CHAPTER X.

"Having ascertained my purpose, it was requisite to search out the means
by which I might effect it. These were not clearly or readily suggested.
The more I contemplated my project, the more numerous and arduous its
difficulties appeared. I had no associates in my undertaking. A due
regard to my safety, and the unextinguished sense of honour, deterred me
from seeking auxiliaries and co-agents. The esteem of mankind was the
spring of all my activity, the parent of all my virtue and all my vice.
To preserve this, it was necessary that my guilty projects should have
neither witness nor partaker.

"I quickly discovered that to execute this scheme demanded time,
application, and money, none of which my present situation would permit
me to devote to it. At first it appeared that an attainable degree of
skill and circumspection would enable me to arrive, by means of
counterfeit bills, to the pinnacle of affluence and honour. My error was
detected by a closer scrutiny, and I finally saw nothing in this path
but enormous perils and insurmountable impediments.

"Yet what alternative was offered me? To maintain myself by the labour
of my hands, to perform any toilsome or prescribed task, was
incompatible with my nature. My habits debarred me from country
occupations. My pride regarded as vile and ignominious drudgery any
employment which the town could afford. Meanwhile, my wants were as
urgent as ever, and my funds were exhausted.

"There are few, perhaps, whose external situation resembled mine, who
would have found in it any thing but incitements to industry and
invention. A thousand methods of subsistence, honest but laborious,
were at my command, but to these I entertained an irreconcilable
aversion. Ease and the respect attendant upon opulence I was willing to
purchase at the price of ever-wakeful suspicion and eternal remorse;
but, even at this price, the purchase was impossible.

"The desperateness of my condition became hourly more apparent. The
further I extended my view, the darker grew the clouds which hung over
futurity. Anguish and infamy appeared to be the inseparable conditions
of my existence. There was one mode of evading the evils that impended.
To free myself from self-upbraiding and to shun the persecut