Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/131

 elucidated the character and history of my friend; these were too precious to be consigned to oblivion; and to take them out of their present connection and arrangement, would be to mutilate and deform them.

His entreaties and remonstrances were earnest and frequent, but always ineffectual: he had too much purity of motives to be angry at my stubbornness; but his sense of the mischievous tendency of these letters was so great, that my intractability cost him many a pang.

He was now gone, and I had not only determined to preserve these monuments, but had consented to copy them for the use of another—for the use of one whose present and eternal welfare had been the chief object of his cares and efforts. Thou, like others of thy sex, art unaccustomed to metaphysical refinements; thy religion is the growth of sensibility, and not of argument; thou art not fortified and prepossessed against the subtilties with which the being and attributes of the Deity have been assailed. Would it be just to expose thee to pollution and depravity from this source?—to make thy brother the instrument of thy apostasy, the author of thy fall—that brother whose latter days were so ardently devoted to cherishing the spirit of devotion in thy heart?

These ideas now occurred with more force than formerly. I had promised, not without reluctance, to give thee the entire copy of his letters; but I now receded from this promise: I resolved merely to select for thy perusal such as were narrative or descriptive. This could not be done with too much expedition: it was still dark, but my sleep was at an end, and by a common apparatus that lay beside my bed, I could instantly produce a light.

The light was produced, and I proceeded to the cabinet where all my papers and books were deposited. This was my own contrivance and workmanship, undertaken by the advice of Sarsefield, who took infinite pains to foster that mechanical genius which displayed itself so early and so forcibly in thy friend. The key belonging to this was, like the cabinet itself, of singular structure; for greater safety, it was constantly placed in a closet, which was likewise locked.

The key was found as usual, and the cabinet opened.