when again gathering strength from cessation, his despair was renewed, and vented forth in terms of the most frantic eloquence. Weary of life, weary of every pursuit which had hitherto engaged him, he cursed his miserable existence. At last, after a lapse of time, he began quietly to reason with and condemn himself alternately.
"Good God?" he exclaimed, after a long interval of thought; "it is now that I am punished for the irregularities of my past life,—now, when my whole soul is devoted to an object, whose expanding graces of mind and person I should have purified myself in contemplating,—now, when my heart burns with an unconquerable attachment;—now I am left desolate—alive only to the consciousness of being truly miserable! The retribution of Providence is just; I am stopped in my career by the chastisements, the sufferings it inflicts! It was not fit that the sanctity of that spotless maid should have received contamination from me; it was outrageous to suppose it—it was madness!"
The seeds of repentance thus gradually infused, continued to take still deeper root: it was a moment the most critical. From first seeing, then acknowledging his errors, Douglas might be led to correct them. Oh woman, behold thy power! Too often have thy bewitching charms enslaved
