Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/129

 letters which, during his short but busy life, I received from him—the nature of this correspondence, and the opportunity which this employment would afford me of contemplating these ample and precious monuments of the intellectual existence and moral pre-eminence of my friend, occurred to my thoughts.

The resolution to prosecute the task was revived: the obligation of benevolence, with regard to Clithero, was not discharged; these neither duty nor curiosity would permit to be overlooked or delayed. But why should my whole attention and activity be devoted to this man? The hours which were spent at home and in my chamber could not be more usefully employed than in making my intended copy.

In a few hours after sunrise I purposed to resume my way to the mountain. Could this interval be appropriated to a better purpose than in counting over my friend's letters, setting them apart from my own, and preparing them for that transcription from which I expected so high and yet so mournful a gratification?

This purpose, by no violent union, was blended with the recollection of my dream: this recollection infused some degree of wavering and dejection into my mind. In transcribing these letters, I should violate pathetic and solemn injunctions frequently repeated by the writer. Was there some connection between this purpose and the incidents of my vision? Was the latter sent to enforce the interdictions which had been formerly imposed?

Thou art not fully acquainted with the intellectual history of thy brother: some information on that head will be necessary to explain the nature of that reluctance which I now feel to comply with thy request, and which had formerly so much excited thy surprise.

Waldegrave, like other men, early devoted to meditation and books, had adopted at different periods different systems of opinion on topics connected with religion and morals. His earliest creeds tended to efface the impressions of his education—to deify necessity and universalise matter—to destroy the popular distinctions between soul and body, and to dissolve the supposed connection between the moral condition of man anterior and subsequent to death.