orning: my father was as dead to
me, and I felt for a moment as if he with white hairs were laid in his
coffin and I--youth vanished in approaching age, were weeping at his
timely dissolution. But it was not so, I was yet young, Oh! far too
young, nor was he dead to others; but I, most miserable, must never
see or speak to him again. I must fly from him with more earnestness
than from my greatest enemy: in solitude or in cities I must never
more behold him. That consideration made me breathless with anguish,
and impressing itself on my imagination I was unable for a time to
follow up any train of ideas. Ever after this, I thought, I would
live in the most dreary seclusion. I would retire to the Continent and
become a nun; not for religion's sake, for I was not a Catholic, but
that I might be for ever shut out from the world. I should there find
solitude where I might weep, and the voices of life might never reach
me.

But my father; my beloved and most wretched father? Would he die?
Would he never overcome the fierce passion that now held pityless
dominion over him? Might he not many, many years hence, when age had
quenched the burning sensations that he now experienced, might he not
then be again a father to me? This reflection unwrinkled my brow, and
I could feel (and I wept to feel it) a half melancholy smile draw from
my lips their expression of suffering: I dared indulge better hopes
for my future life; years must pass but they would speed lightly away
winged by hope, or if they passed heavily, still they would pass and I
had not lost my father for ever. Let him spend another sixteen years
of desolate wandering: let him once more utter his wild complaints to
the vast woods and the tremendous cataracts of another clime: let him
again undergo fearful danger and soul-quelling hardships: let the hot
sun of the south again burn his passion worn cheeks and the cold night
rains fall on him and chill his blood.

To this life, miserable father, I devote thee!--Go!--Be thy days
passed with savages, and thy nights under the cope of heaven! Be thy
limbs worn and thy heart chilled, and all youth be dead within thee!
Let thy hairs be as snow; thy walk trembling and thy voice have lost
its mellow tones! Let the liquid lustre of thine eyes be quenched; and
then return to me, return to thy Mathilda, thy child, who may then be
clasped in thy loved arms, while thy heart beats with sinless emotion.
Go, Devoted One, and return thus!-