I like him, and will make
him my friend for her sake. God! God! why am I not loved! A word from
her, and all would change. I feel a something in me which could put all
right. I have the will, and she could give the power.
'Now see what a farce life is! I shall go on, Heaven knows how! I cannot
live long. Men like me soon bloom and fade. What I may come to, I dread
to think. There is a dangerous facility in my temper; I know it well,
for I know more of myself than people think; there is a dangerous
facility which, with May Dacre, might be the best guaranty of virtue;
but with all others, for all others are at the best weak things, will as
certainly render me despicable, perhaps degraded. I hear the busy devil
whispering even now. It is my demon. Now, I say, see what a farce life
is! I shall die like a dog, as I have lived like a fool; and then my
epitaph will be in everybody's mouth. Here are the consequences of
self-indulgence: here is a fellow, forsooth, who thought only of the
gratification of his vile appetites; and by the living Heaven, am I not
standing here among my hereditary rocks, and sighing to the ocean, to be
virtuous!
'She knew me well, she read me in a minute, and spoke more truth at that
last meeting than is in a thousand sermons.
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