shall be stated with the same
simplicity and accuracy that I would observe towards a court which was to decide
in the last resort upon every thing dear to me. The same scrupulous fidelity
restrains me from altering the manner of Mr. Collins's narrative to adapt it to
the precepts of my own taste; and it will soon be perceived how essential that
narrative is to the elucidation of my history.
    The intention of my friend in this communication was to give me ease; but he
in reality added to my embarrassment. Hitherto I had had no intercourse with the
world and its passions; and, though I was not totally unacquainted with them as
they appear in books, this proved to be of little service to me when I came to
witness them myself. The case seemed entirely altered, when the subject of those
passions was continually before my eyes, and the events had happened but the
other day as it were, in the very neighbourhood where I lived. There was a
connection and progress in this narrative, which made it altogether unlike the
little village incidents I had hitherto known. My feelings were successively
interested for the different persons that were brought upon the scene. My
veneration was excited for Mr. Clare, and my applause for the intrepidity of
Mrs. Hammond. I was astonished that any human creature should be so shockingly
perverted as Mr. Tyrrel. I paid the tribute of my tears to the memory of the
artless miss Melvile. I found a thousand fresh reasons to admire and love Mr.
Falkland.
    At first I was satisfied with thus considering every incident in its obvious
sense. But the story I had heard was for ever in my thoughts, and I was
peculiarly interested to comprehend its full import. I turned it a thousand
ways, and examined it in every point of view. In the original communication it
appeared sufficiently distinct and satisfactory; but, as I brooded over it, it
gradually became mysterious. There was something strange in the character of
Hawkins. So firm, so sturdily honest and just, as he appeared at first; all at
once to become a murderer! His first behaviour under the prosecution, how
accurately was it calculated to prepossess one in his favour! To be sure, if he
were guilty, it was unpardonable in him to suffer a man of so much dignity and
worth as Mr. Falkland to suffer under the imputation of his crime! And yet I
could not help bitterly compassionating the honest fellow, brought to the
gallows, as he was, strictly speaking, by the machinations of that devil
incarnate, Mr. Tyrrel. His son too,