“SHE hears the fate of her lover and becomes petrified—the idea of her sorrows—her own agitation and care for her person, are lost in the reflection of her lover’s death.—A while she raved—but this is now somewhat restored, and, as you see, the poor maniack strays about the fields harmless and inoffensive.”
THE old man proceeded to inform me of the death of his wife—the idea of one misfortune aroused in him that of another—or rather there was a gradual progression in them, and consequently a connexion—He told me she did not long survive the death of Henry. “O Charlotte!” he cried, “thou wast kind and cheerful—very pleasant hast thou been unto me. I will not cease to regret thy loss, till I meet thee in a better world.”
“OUR hearts,” continued the old man, addressing me, “are loosened from their attachment to this world by repeated strokes of misfortune. Wisely is it ordered thus. Every calamity severs a string from the heart—until one scene of sorrow on the back of another matures us for eternity—Thus are our affections estranged from this scene of misery. The cord that detains the bird is severed in two—and it flies away.
“FORMERLY as I sat in this place—in the mild shade of the evening—when I had returned from my labour and took Fidelia on my knee, how often have I rendered thanks to Heaven for the happiness I enjoyed, and implored His power to make my child such another as Charlotte—This sweet remembrance yet swells and agitates my heart, and in the midst of the distress which surrounds me, I feel a consolation in tracing to you a feeble sketch of the happy times that are passed.”
THE old man was sensibly affected—he delighted to dwell on what his child had been—he thought of those times—and he sighed when he contrasted them with the present.
“IN her disordered state,” continued he, “she knows me not as a father—I spread my morsel before her, and she flies from it—she forgets the sound of my voice—she is no longer unto me as a daughter. She who hath so often said, she would support me with her arm, and lead me about, when I should be old and decrepit—to her I call, but she returns me no answer. Is not the cause of my woes, a melancholy instance of the baleful art of the SEDUCER?—She is deprived of her reason, and knows not the weight of her misery; and I am doubly deadened with her affliction, and the accumulated misfortune of immature decrepitude.”
“SEDUCTION is a crime,” I observed, “that nothing can be said to palliate or excuse.”
“AND WOE to him,” added the old man, “who shall endeavour to extenuate it—They have taken away my staff”—continued he, raising a look of imploring mercy to Heaven, while a trembling tear rolled from his swollen eye, “They have taken away my staff in my old age.”
FREELY did my heart share in the sorrows of the good old man—when I left him, I prayed Heaven to compassionate his distress—and as I bent my pensive step towards Belleview, I had leisure to animadvert on the fatal tendency of SEDUCTION.
Adieu!