up, and by scarcely any chance finding a moment's interval of security.
I turned over the pages of a tremendous compilation, entitled "God's
Revenge against Murder," where the beam of the eye of Omniscience was
represented as perpetually pursuing the guilty, and laying open his most
hidden retreats to the light of day. I was extremely conversant with the
"Newgate Calendar" and the "Lives of the Pirates." In the meantime no
works of fiction came amiss to me, provided they were written with
energy. The authors were still employed upon the same mine as myself,
however different was the vein they pursued: we were all of us engaged
in exploring the entrails of mind and motive, and in tracing the various
rencontres and clashes that may occur between man and man in the
diversified scene of human life.

I rather amused myself with tracing a certain similitude between the
story of Caleb Williams and the tale of Bluebeard, than derived any
hints from that admirable specimen of the terrific. Falkland was my
Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes, which, if discovered,
he might expect to have all the world roused to revenge against him.
Caleb Williams was the wife who, in spite of warning, persisted in his
attempts to discover the forbidden secret; and, when he had succeeded,
struggled as fruitlessly to escape the consequences, as the wife of
Bluebeard in washing the key of the ensanguined chamber, who, as often
as she cleared the stain of blood from the one side, found it showing
itself with frightful distinctness on the other.

When I had proceeded as far as the early pages of my third volume, I
found myself completely at a stand. I rested on my arms from the 2nd of
January, 1794, to the 1st of April following, without getting forward in
the smallest degree. It has ever been thus with me in works of any
continuance. The bow will not be for ever bent: