Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 3).djvu/215

 continually fixed on the high station to which his birth seemed to entitle him; and, while plunged in gross licentiousness, was in secret looking back with bitter remorse to the period of his youth, during which he had nourished a virtuous, though unfortunate attachment.

"Alas! what are we," said Morton, "that our best and most praise worthy feelings can be thus debased and depraved—that honourable pride can sink into haughty and desperate indifference for general opinion, and the sorrow of blighted affection inhabit the same bosom which licence, revenge, and rapine have chosen for their citadel? But it is the same throughout; the liberal principles of one man sink into cold and unfeeling indifference, the religious zeal of another hurries him into frantic and savage enthusiasm. Our resolutions—our passions, are like the waves of the sea, and, without the aid of Him who formed the human breast, we cannot