ts were set on my acquittal, my struggle against truth
was less for myself than them. For them I girded up my soul, a villain
I was; and for them, a bold, a crafty, a dexterous, villain I became!
My defence fulfilled its end: Madeline died without distrusting the
innocence of him she loved. Lester, unless you betray me, will die
in the same belief. In truth, since the arts of hypocrisy have been
commenced, the pride of consistency would have made it sweet to me to
leave the world in a like error, or at least in doubt. For you I conquer
that desire, the proud man's last frailty. And now my tale is done.
From what passes at this instant within my heart, I lift not the veil!
Whether beneath, be despair, or hope, or fiery emotions, or one settled
and ominous calm, matters not. My last hours shall not belie my life: on
the verge of death I will not play the dastard, and tremble at the Dim
Unknown. The thirst, the dream, the passion of my youth, yet lives;
and burns to learn the sublime and shaded mysteries that are banned
Mortality. Perhaps I am not without a hope that the Great and Unseen
Spirit, whose emanation within me I have nursed and worshipped, though
erringly and in vain, may see in his fallen creature one bewildered by
his reason rather than yielding to his vices. The guide I received from
Heaven betrayed me, and I was lost; but I have not plunged wittingly
from crime to crime. Against one guilty deed, some good, and much
suffering may be set: and, dim and afar off from my allotted bourne, I
may behold in her glorious home the starred face of her who taught me to
love, and who, even there, could scarce be blessed without shedding
the light of her divine forgiveness upon me. Enough! ere you break this
seal, my doom rests not with man nor earth. The burning desires I have
known--the resplendent visions I have nursed--the sublime aspirings
that have lifted me so often from sense and clay--these tell me, that,
whether for good or ill--I am the thing of an Immortality, and the
creature of a God! As men of the old wisdom drew their garments around
their face, and sat down collectedly to die, I wrap myself in the
settled resignation of a soul firm to the last, and taking not from
man's vengeance even the method of its dismissal. The courses of my life
I swayed with my own hand: from my own hand shall come the manner and
moment of my death!

"Eugene Aram."

On the day after that evening in which Ara