Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/94

 into imbecility and confusion: my mind was full of the images unavoidably suggested by this tale, but they existed in a kind of chaos; and not otherwise than gradually was I able to reduce them to distinct particulars, and subject them to a deliberate and methodical inspection.

How was I to consider this act of Clithero? What a deplorable infatuation! Yet it was the necessary result of a series of ideas mutually linked and connected; his conduct was dictated by a motive allied to virtue—it was the fruit of an ardent and grateful spirit.

The death of Wiatte could not be censured: the life of Clithero was unspeakably more valuable than that of his antagonist;——it was the instinct of self-preservation that swayed him; he knew not his adversary in time enough to govern himself by that knowledge: had the assailant been an unknown ruffian, his death would have been followed by no remorse,- the spectacle of his dying agonies would have dwelt upon the memory of his assassin like any other mournful sight in the production of which he bore no part.

It must at least be said that his will was not concerned in this transaction: he acted in obedience to an impulse which he could not control nor resist. Shall we impute guilt where there is no design? Shall a man extract food for self-reproach from an action, to which it is not enough to say that he was actuated by no culpable intention, but that he was swayed by no intention whatever? If consequences arise that cannot be foreseen, shall we find no refuge in the persuasion of our rectitude and of human frailty? Shall we deem ourselves criminal because we do not enjoy the attributes of Deity?—because our power and our knowledge are confined by impassable boundaries?

But whence arose the subsequent intention? It was the fruit of a dreadful mistake. His intents were noble and compassionate: but this is of no avail to free him from the imputation of guilt; no remembrance of past beneficence can compensate for this crime; the scale, loaded with the recriminations of his conscience, is immovable by any counterweight.

But what are the conclusions to be drawn by