ce shown himself capable of so wild a flight of the mind, must
appear dangerous: how must he appear to a man under Mr. Falkland's
circumstances? I had just had a pistol held to my head, by a man
resolved to put a period to my existence. That indeed was past; but what
was it that fate had yet in reserve for me! The insatiable vengeance of
a Falkland, of a man whose hands were, to my apprehension, red with
blood, and his thoughts familiar with cruelty and murder. How great were
the resources of his mind, resources henceforth to be confederated for
my destruction! This was the termination of an ungoverned curiosity, an
impulse that I had represented to myself as so innocent or so venial.

In the high tide of boiling passion I had overlooked all consequences.
It now appeared to me like a dream. Is it in man to leap from the
high-raised precipice, or rush unconcerned into the midst of flames? Was
it possible I could have forgotten for a moment the awe-creating manners
of Falkland, and the inexorable fury I should awake in his soul? No
thought of future security had reached my mind. I had acted upon no
plan. I had conceived no means of concealing my deed, after it had once
been effected. But it was over now. One short minute had effected a
reverse in my situation, the suddenness of which the history of man,
perhaps is unable to surpass.

I have always been at a loss to account for my having plunged thus
headlong into an act so monstrous. There is something in it of
unexplained and involuntary sympathy. One sentiment flows, by necessity
of nature, into another sentiment of the same general character. This
was the first instance in which I had witnessed a danger by fire. All
was confusion around me, and all changed into hurricane within. The
general situation, to my unpractised apprehension, appeared desperate,
and I by contagion became alike desperate. At first I had been in some
degree calm and collected, but that too was a desperate effort; and when
it gave way, a kind of instant insanity became its successor.

I had now every thing to fear. And yet what was my fault? It proceeded
from none of those errors which are justly held up to the aversion of
mankind; my object had been neither wealth, nor the means of indulgence,
nor the usurpation of power. No spark of malignity had harboured in my
soul. I had always reverenced the sublime mind of Mr. Falkland; I
reverenced it still. My offence had merely been a mistaken thirst of