Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 2).djvu/245

 good old steward, Mr. Duclos, that he had presented him with a pretty little estate, and made him independent for life. "I have still enough (said he) I trust, to satisfy the demands of gratitude and friendship, and sufficient in my own power to make the man I esteem superior to receiving the narrow bounty of selfish, contracted hearts, who are incapable of doing justice to virtues they know not how to estimate, because no such inhabits their own bosoms.

"The variety of occupations in which I have been engaged," continued he, "since my arrival here, has given a diversity to my thoughts, very favourable towards recovering that tranquillized state of mind I wish for. Happiness is fled like a vision of the brain; but when I remember what I have been, and what I am now, I should be ungrateful to Providence if I was not thankful for the good, and submit to bear the evil with patience and resignation."