Transcriber’s Notes:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfullyas possible, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and punctuation.
Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made.They are marked likethis in the text. The original text appears when hovering the cursorover the marked text. A list of amendments isat the end of the text.
The motto for Chapter VI is misquoted fromIliad XXIII 72; it has been left as printed.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “BERTRAM,” &c.
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY,
AND HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. CHEAPSIDE,
LONDON.
1820.
When, after some days interval, theSpaniard attempted to describe his feelingson the receipt of his brother’s letter, thesudden resuscitation of heart, and hope, andexistence, that followed its perusal, he trembled,—utteredsome inarticulate sounds;—wept;—andhis agitation appeared to Melmoth,with his uncontinental feelings, soviolent, that he entreated him to spare the description of his feelings, and proceedwith his narrative.
“You are right,” said the Spaniard, dryinghis tears, “joy is a convulsion, butgrief is a habit, and to describe what wenever can communicate, is as absurd as totalk of colours to the blind. I will hastenon, not to tell of my feelings, but of theresults which they produced. A new worldof hope was opened to me. I thought Isaw liberty on the face of heaven when Iwalked in the garden. I laughed at thejar of the doors as they opened, and saidto myself, “You shall soon expand to mefor ever.” I behaved with uncommoncomplacency to the community. But I didnot, amid all this, neglect the most scrupulousprecautions suggested by my brother.Am I confessing the strength orthe weakness of my heart? In the midstof all the systematic dissimulation that Iwas prepared and eager to carry on, theonly circumstance that gave me real compunction,was my being obliged to destroy the letters of that dear and generousyouth who had risked every thing for myemancipation. In the mean time, I pursuedmy preparations with industry inconceivableto you, who have never been in aconvent.
“Lent was now begun,—all the communitywere preparing themselves for thegreat confession. They shut themselvesup,—they prostrated themselves before theshrines of the saints,—they occupied themselveswhole hours in taking minutes oftheir consciences, and magnifying the trivialdefects of conventual discipline intooffences in the eye of God, in order togive consequence to their penitence inthe hearing of the confessor,—in fact,they would have been glad to accusethemselves of a crime, to escape fro