my soul
sinks beneath this endurance of living anguish. Death is the goal that
I would attain, but, alas! I do not even see the end of the course. Do
you, my compassionate friend,[63] tell me how to die peacefully and
innocently and I will bless you: all that I, poor wretch, can desire
is a painless death."

But Woodville's words had magic in them, when beginning with the
sweetest pity, he would raise me by degrees out of myself and my
sorrows until I wondered at my own selfishness: but he left me and
despair returned; the work of consolation was ever to begin anew. I
often desired his entire absence; for I found that I was grown out of
the ways of life and that by long seclusion, although I could support
my accustomed grief, and drink the bitter daily draught with some
degree of patience, yet I had become unfit for the slightest novelty
of feeling. Expectation, and hopes, and affection were all too much
for me. I knew this, but at other times I was unreasonable and laid
the blame upon him, who was most blameless, and pevishly thought that
if his gentle soul were more gentle, if his intense sympathy were more
intense, he could drive the fiend from my soul and make me more human.
I am, I thought, a tragedy; a character that he comes to see act: now
and then he gives me my cue[64] that I may make a speech more to his
purpose: perhaps he is already planning a poem in which I am to
figure. I am a farce and play to him, but to me this is all dreary
reality: he takes all the profit and I bear all the burthen.

CHAPTER XI

It is a strange circumstance but it often occurs that blessings by
their use turn to curses; and that I who in solitude had desired
sympathy as the only relief I could enjoy should now find it an
additional torture to me. During my father's life time I had always
been of an affectionate and forbearing disposition, but since those
days of joy alas! I was much changed. I had become arrogant, peevish,
and above all suspicious. Although the real interest of my narration
is now ended and I ought quickly to wind up its melancholy
catastrophe, yet I will relate one instance of my sad suspicion and
despair and how Woodville with the goodness and almost the power of an
angel, softened my rugged feelings and led me back to gentleness.[65]

He had promised to spend some hours with me one afternoon but a
violent and continual rain[66] prevented him. I was alone the whole
evening. I had passed two whole yea