adored by the fair. His youth, distinguished in its outset by the most
unusual promise, is tarnished. His sensibility is shrunk up and withered
by events the most disgustful to his feelings. His mind was fraught with
all the rhapsodies of visionary honour; and, in his sense, nothing but
the grosser part, the mere shell of Falkland, was capable of surviving
the wound that his pride has sustained."

These reflections of my friend Collins strongly tended to inflame my
curiosity, and I requested him to enter into a more copious explanation.
With this request he readily complied; as conceiving that whatever
delicacy it became him to exercise in ordinary cases, it would be out of
place in my situation; and thinking it not improbable that Mr. Falkland,
but for the disturbance and inflammation of his mind, would be disposed
to a similar communication. I shall interweave with Mr. Collins's story
various information which I afterwards received from other quarters,
that I may give all possible perspicuity to the series of events. To
avoid confusion in my narrative, I shall drop the person of Collins, and
assume to be myself the historian of our patron. To the reader it may
appear at first sight as if this detail of the preceding life of Mr.
Falkland were foreign to my history. Alas! I know from bitter experience
that it is otherwise. My heart bleeds at the recollection of his
misfortunes, as if they were my own. How can it fail to do so? To his
story the whole fortune of my life was linked: because he was miserable,
my happiness, my name, and my existence have been irretrievably blasted.




CHAPTER II.