passing alienation of mind; but what must Mr.
Falkland think of that alienation? To any man a person, who had once shown
himself capable of so wild a flight of the mind, must appear dangerous; how must
he appear to a man under Mr. Falkland's circumstances? I had just had a pistol
held to my head by a man resolved to put a period to my existence. That indeed
was past; but what was it that fate had yet in reserve for me! The insatiable
vengeance of a Falkland, of a man whose hands were to my apprehension red with
blood and his thoughts familiar with cruelty and murder. How great were the
resources of his mind, resources henceforth to be confederated for my
destruction! This was the termination of an ungoverned curiosity, an impulse
that I had represented to myself as so innocent and so venial!
    In the high tide of boiling passion I had overlooked all consequences. It
now appeared to me like a dream. Is it in man to leap from the high-raised
precipice, or rush unconcerned into the midst of flames? Was it possible I could
have forgotten for a moment the awe creating manners of Falkland, and the
inexorable fury I should awake in his soul? No thought of future security had
reached my mind. I had acted upon no plan. I had conceived no means of
concealing my deed, after it had once been effected. But it was over now. One
short minute had effected a reverse in my situation, the suddenness of which the
history of man perhaps is unable to surpass.
    I have always been at a loss to account for my having plunged thus headlong
into an act so monstrous. There is something in it of unexplained and
involuntary sympathy. One sentiment flows by necessity of nature into another
sentiment of the same general character. This was the first instance in which I
had witnessed a danger by fire. All was confusion around me, and all changed
into hurricane within. The general situation to my unpractised apprehension
appeared desperate, and I by contagion became alike desperate. At first I had
been in some degree calm and collected, but that too was a desperate effort, and
when it gave way, a kind of instant insanity became its successor.
    I had now every thing to fear. And yet what was my fault? It proceeded from
none of those errors which are justly held up to the aversion of mankind; my
object had been neither wealth, nor the means of indulgence, nor the usurpation
of power. No spark of malignity had harboured in my soul. I had always
reverenced the sublime