sole charm of existence.
I grew enamoured of the doctrine of those old mystics, who have placed
happiness only in an even and balanced quietude. And where but in utter
loneliness was that quietude to be enjoyed? I no longer wondered that
men in former times, when consumed by the recollection of some haunting
guilt, fled to the desert and became hermits. Tranquillity and Solitude
are the only soothers of a memory deeply troubled--light griefs fly to
the crowd--fierce thoughts must battle themselves to rest. Many
years had flown, and I had made my home in many places. All that was
turbulent, if not all that was unquiet, in my recollections, had died
away. Time had lulled me into a sense of security. I breathed more
freely. I sometimes stole from the past. Since I had quitted Knaresbro'
chance had thrown it in my power frequently to serve my brethren--not by
wisdom, but by charity or courage--by individual acts that it soothed me
to remember. If the grand aim of enlightening a world was gone--if to so
enlarged a benevolence had succeeded apathy or despair, still the man,
the human man, clung to my heart--still was I as prone to pity--as
prompt to defend--as glad to cheer, whenever the vicissitudes of life
afforded me the occasion; and to poverty, most of all, my hand never
closed. For oh! what a terrible devil creeps into that man's soul, who
sees famine at his door! One tender act and how many black designs,
struggling into life within, you may crush for ever! He who deems the
world his foe, convince him that he has one friend, and it is like
snatching a dagger from his hand!

"I came to a beautiful and remote part of the country. Walter Lester, I
came to Grassdale!--the enchanting scenery around--the sequestered
and deep retirement of the place arrested me at once. 'And among these
valleys,' I said, 'will I linger out the rest of my life, and among
these quiet graves shall mine be dug, and my secret shall die with me!'

"I rented the lonely house in which I dwelt when you first knew
me--thither I transported my books and instruments of science. I formed
new projects in the vast empire of wisdom, and a deep quiet, almost
amounting to content, fell like a sweet sleep upon my soul!

"In this state of mind, the most free from memory and from the desire
to pierce the future that I had known for twelve years, I first saw
Madeline Lester. Even with that first time a sudden and heavenly light
seemed to dawn upon me. Her face--