k and rotten soil,
from which every finer shrub draws poison as it grows. All that, in a
happier field and a purer air, would expand into virtue and germinate
into usefulness, is thus concerted into henbane and deadly nightshade.

Falkland! thou enteredst upon thy career with the purest and most
laudable intentions. But thou imbibedst the poison of chivalry with thy
earliest youth; and the base and low-minded envy that met thee on thy
return to thy native seats, operated with this poison to hurry thee into
madness. Soon, too soon, by this fatal coincidence, were the blooming
hopes of thy youth blasted for ever. From that moment thou only
continuedst to live to the phantom of departed honour. From that moment
thy benevolence was, in a great part, turned into rankling jealousy and
inexorable precaution. Year after year didst thou spend in this
miserable project of imposture; and only at last continuedst to live,
long enough to see, by my misjudging and abhorred intervention, thy
closing hope disappointed, and thy death accompanied with the foulest
disgrace!

I began these memoirs with the idea of vindicating my character. I have
now no character that I wish to vindicate: but I will finish them that
thy story may be fully understood; and that, if those errors of thy life
be known which thou so ardently desiredst to conceal, the world may at
least not hear and repeat a half-told and mangled tale.

THE END.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Caleb Williams, by William Godwin

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