The consolation
which this idea imparted was ravished from me by a new thought.
This disaster might have happened, and his family not be apprised
of it. The first intelligence of his fate may be communicated by
the livid corpse which the tide may cast, many days hence, upon the
shore.
Thus was I distressed by opposite conjectures; thus was I tormented
by phantoms of my own creation. It was not always thus. I can
ascertain the date when my mind became the victim of this
imbecility; perhaps it was coeval with the inroad of a fatal
passion,--a passion that will never rank me in the number of its
eulogists; it was alone sufficient to the extermination of my
peace; it was itself a plenteous source of calamity, and needed not
the concurrence of other evils to take away the attractions of
existence and dig for me an untimely grave.
The state of my mind naturally introduced a train of reflections
upon the dangers and cares which inevitably beset a human being.
By no violent transition was I led to ponder on the turbulent life
and mysterious end of my father. I cherished with the utmost
veneration the memory of this man, and every relic connected with
his fate was preserved with the most scrupulous care.
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