 what I am, preclude my return. God, we are told, judges of men by what they
are at the period of arraignment, and, whatever be their crimes, if they have
seen and abjured the folly of those crimes, receives them to favour. But the
institutions of countries that profess to worship this God, admit no such
distinctions. They leave no room for amendment, and seem to have a brutal
delight in confounding the demerits of offenders. It signifies not what is the
character of the individual at the hour of trial. How changed, how spotless and
how useful avails him nothing. If they discover at the distance of fourteen6 or
of forty years7 an action for which the law ordains that his life shall be the
forfeit, though the interval should have been spent with the purity of a saint
and the devotedness of a patriot, they disdain to enquire into it. What then can
I do? Am I not compelled to go on in folly, having once begun?
 

                                   Chapter IV

I was extremely affected by this plea. I could only answer that Mr. Raymond must
himself be the best judge of the course it became him to hold; I trusted the
case was not so desperate as he imagined. This subject was pursued no farther,
and was in some degree driven from my thoughts by an incident of a very
extraordinary nature. I have already mentioned the animosity that was
entertained against me by the infernal portress of this solitary mansion. Gines,
the expelled member of the gang, had been her particular favourite. She
submitted to his exile indeed, because her genius felt subdued by the energy and
inherent superiority of Mr. Raymond; but she submitted with murmuring and
discontent. Not daring to resent the conduct of the principal in this affair,
she collected all the bitterness of her spirit against me. To the unpardonable
offence I had thus committed in the first instance, were added the reasonings I
had lately offered against the profession of robbery. Robbery was a fundamental
article in the creed of this hoary veteran, and she listened to my objections
with the same unaffected astonishment and horror, that an old woman of other
habits would listen to one who objected to the agonies and dissolution of the
creator of the world, or to the garment of imputed righteousness prepared to
envelop the souls of the elect. Like the religious bigot, she was sufficiently
disposed to avenge a hostility against her opinions with the weapons of
sublunary warfare. Meanwhile I had smiled at the impotence of her malice, as an
object of contempt, rather than alarm. She perceived, as I imagine, the slight
estimation
