f errors! cease to cherish thy delusion: not heaven or hell, but
thy senses have misled thee to commit these acts. Shake off thy phrenzy,
and ascend into rational and human. Be lunatic no longer."

My brother opened his lips to speak. His tone was terrific and faint. He
muttered an appeal to heaven. It was difficult to comprehend the theme
of his inquiries. They implied doubt as to the nature of the impulse
that hitherto had guided him, and questioned whether he had acted in
consequence of insane perceptions.

To these interrogatories the voice, which now seemed to hover at his
shoulder, loudly answered in the affirmative. Then uninterrupted silence
ensued.

Fallen from his lofty and heroic station; now finally restored to the
perception of truth; weighed to earth by the recollection of his own
deeds; consoled no longer by a consciousness of rectitude, for the
loss of offspring and wife--a loss for which he was indebted to his own
misguided hand; Wieland was transformed at once into the man OF SORROWS!

He reflected not that credit should be as reasonably denied to the last,
as to any former intimation; that one might as justly be ascribed to
erring or diseased senses as the other. He saw not that this discovery
in no degree affected the integrity of his conduct; that his motives had
lost none of their claims to the homage of mankind; that the preference
of supreme good, and the boundless energy of duty, were undiminished in
his bosom.

It is not for me to pursue him through the ghastly changes of his
countenance. Words he had none. Now he sat upon the floor, motionless in
all his limbs, with his eyes glazed and fixed; a monument of woe.

Anon a spirit of tempestuous but undesigning activity seized him.
He rose from his place and strode across the floor, tottering and at
random. His eyes were without moisture, and gleamed with the fire
that consumed his vitals. The muscles of his face were agitated by
convulsion. His lips moved, but no sound escaped him.

That nature should long sustain this conflict was not to be believed.
My state was little different from that of my brother. I entered, as it
were, into his thought. My heart was visited and rent by his pangs--Oh
that thy phrenzy had never been cured! that thy madness, with its
blissful visions, would return! or, if that must not be, that thy scene
would hasten to a close! that death would cover thee with his oblivion!

What can I wish for thee? Thou who hast v