Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/68

 "A cordial intimacy grew between me and the newly arrived: our interviews were frequent, and our communications without reserve. He detailed to me the result of his experience, and expatiated without end on the history of his actions and opinions: he related the adventures of his youth, and dwelt upon all the circumstances of his attachment to my patroness. On this subject I had heard only general details: I continually found cause, in the course of his narrative, to revere the illustrious qualities of my lady, and to weep at the calamities to which the infernal malice of her brother had subjected her.

"The tale of that man's misdeeds, amplified and dramatised by the indignant eloquence of this historian, oppressed me with astonishment: if a poet had drawn such a portrait, I should have been prone to suspect the soundness of his judgment. Till now, I had imagined that no character was uniform and unmixed; and my theory of the passions did not enable me to account for a propensity gratified merely by evil, and delighting in shrieks and agony for their own sake.

"It was natural to suggest to my friend, when expatiating on this theme, an enquiry as to how far subsequent events had obliterated the impressions that were then made, and as to the plausibility of reviving, at this most auspicious period, his claims on the heart of his friend. When he thought proper to notice these hints, he gave me to understand that time had made no essential alterations in his sentiments in this respect—that he still fostered a hope, to which every day added new vigour, that whatever was the ultimate event, be trusted in his fortitude to sustain it, if adverse, and in his wisdom to extract from it the most valuable consequences, if it should prove prosperous.

"The progress of things was not unfavourable to his hopes: she treated his insinuations and professions with levity; but her arguments seemed to be urged with no other view than to afford an opportunity of confutation; and, since there was no abatement of familiarity and kindness, there was room to hope that the affair would terminate agreeably to his wishes."