 suffered to be proud, vain,
ambitious, and disdainful: he was jealous of his equals, and despised all merit
but his own: he was implacable when offended, and cruel in his revenge. Still in
spite of the pains taken to pervert them, his natural good qualities would
occasionally break through the gloom cast over them so carefully. At such times
the contest for superiority between his real and acquired character was striking
and unaccountable to those unacquainted with his original disposition. He
pronounced the most severe sentences upon offenders, which the moment after
compassion induced him to mitigate: he undertook the most daring enterprizes,
which the fear of their consequences soon obliged him to abandon: his inborn
genius darted a brilliant light upon subjects the most obscure; and almost
instantaneously his superstition replunged them in darkness more profound than
that from which they had just been rescued. His brother monks, regarding him as
a superior being, remarked not this contradiction in their idol's conduct. They
were persuaded that what he did must be right, and supposed him to have good
reasons for changing his resolutions. The fact was, that the different
sentiments with which education and nature had inspired him, were combating in
his bosom: it remained for his passions, which as yet no opportunity had called
into play, to decide the victory. Unfortunately his passions were the very worst
judges to whom he could possibly have applied. His monastic seclusion had till
now been in his favour, since it gave him no room for discovering his bad
qualities. The superiority of his talents raised him too far above his
companions to permit his being jealous of them: his exemplary piety, persuasive
eloquence, and pleasing manners had secured him universal esteem, and
consequently he had no injuries to revenge: his ambition was justified by his
acknowledged merit, and his pride considered as no more than proper confidence.
He never saw, much less conversed with the other sex: he was ignorant of the
pleasures in woman's power to bestow; and if he read in the course of his
studies
 
               »That men were fond, he smiled, and wondered how.«
 
For a time spare diet, frequent watching, and severe penance cooled and
repressed the natural warmth of his constitution: but no sooner did opportunity
present itself, no sooner did he catch a glimpse of joys to which he was still a
stranger, than religion's barriers were too feeble to resist the overwhelming
torrent of his desires. All impediments yielded before the force of his
temperament, warm, sanguine, and voluptuous in the excess. As yet his other
passions lay dormant; but they
