freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my
heart which nothing could remove. Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered
like an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyond
description horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded myself) was yet
behind. Yet my heart overflowed with kindness and the love of virtue.
I had begun life with benevolent intentions and thirsted for the moment
when I should put them in practice and make myself useful to my fellow
beings. Now all was blasted; instead of that serenity of conscience
which allowed me to look back upon the past with self-satisfaction, and
from thence to gather promise of new hopes, I was seized by remorse and
the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures
such as no language can describe.
This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had perhaps never
entirely recovered from the first shock it had sustained. I shunned
the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me;
solitude was my only consolation deep, dark, deathlike solitude.
My father observed with pain the alteration perceptible in my disposition
and habits and endeavoured by arguments deduced from the feelings of his
serene conscience and guiltless life to inspire me with fortitude and
awaken in me the courage to dispel the dark cloud which brooded over me.
Do you think, Victor, said he, that I do not suffer
also? No one could love a child more than I loved your
brother tears came into his eyes as he spoke but
is it not a duty to the survivors that we should refrain from augmenting
their unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief? It is also a duty
owed to yourself, for excessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment,
or even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for
society.
This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case; I
should have been the first to hide my grief and console my friends if
remorse had not mingled its bitterness, and terror its alarm, with my
other sensations. Now I could only answer my father with a look of
despair and endeavour to hide myself from his view.
About this time we retired to our house at Belrive. This change was
particularly agreeable to me. The shutting of the gates regularly at
ten o clock and the impossibility of remaining on the lake after that
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