n can entangle
himself in his own sophisms--that moral is better, viewed aright, than
volumes of homilies. But here I must pause for one moment, to bid the
reader mark, that that event which confirmed Aram in the bewildering
doctrines of his fatalism, ought rather to inculcate the Divine
virtue--the foundation of all virtues, Heathen or Christian--that which
Epictetus made clear, and Christ sacred--FORTITUDE. The reader will
note, that the answer to the reasonings that probably convinced the mind
of Aram, and blinded him to his crime, may be found in the change of
feelings by which the crime was followed. I must apologize for this
interruption--it seemed to me advisable in this place;--though, in
general, the moment we begin to inculcate morality as a science, we
ought to discard moralizing as a method.] No, it was for this, for the
guilt and its penance, for the wasted life and the shameful death--with
all my thirst for good, my dreams of glory--that I was born, that I was
marked from my first sleep in the cradle!

"The disappearance of Clarke of course created great excitement;--those
whom he had over-reached had naturally an interest in discovering
him. Some vague surmises that he might have been made away with,
were rumoured abroad. Houseman and I, owing to some concurrence of
circumstance, were examined,--not that suspicion attached to me before
or after the examination. That ceremony ended in nothing. Houseman did
not betray himself; and I, who from a boy had mastered my passions,
could master also the nerves, which are the passions' puppets: but I
read in the face of the woman with whom I lodged, that I was suspected.
Houseman told me that she had openly expressed her suspicion to him;
nay, he entertained some design against her life, which he naturally
abandoned on quitting the town. This he did soon afterwards. I did not
linger long behind him. I dug up my jewels,--I concealed them about me,
and departed on foot to Scotland. There I converted my booty into money.
And now I was above want--was I at rest? Not yet. I felt urged on to
wander--Cain's curse descends to Cain's children. I travelled for some
considerable time,--I saw men and cities, and I opened a new volume in
my kind. It was strange; but before the deed, I was as a child in the
ways of the world, and a child, despite my knowledge, might have duped
me. The moment after it, a light broke upon me,--it seemed as if my eyes
were touched with a charm, and