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From Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
page 88 of 306 (28%)

While this melancholy change had taken place in Ilbrahim, one of
an earlier origin and of different character had come to its
perfection in his adopted father. The incident with which this
tale commences found Pearson in a state of religious dulness, yet
mentally disquieted, and longing for a more fervid faith than he
possessed. The first effect of his kindness to Ilbrahim was to
produce a softened feeling, and incipient love for the child's
whole sect; but joined to this, and resulting perhaps from
self-suspicion, was a proud and ostentatious contempt of all
their tenets and practical extravagances. In the course of much
thought, however, for the subject struggled irresistibly into his
mind, the foolishness of the doctrine began to be less evident,
and the points which had particularly offended his reason assumed
another aspect, or vanished entirely away. The work within him
appeared to go on even while he slept, and that which had been a
doubt, when he lay down to rest, would often hold the place of a
truth, confirmed by some forgotten demonstration, when he
recalled his thoughts in the morning. But while he was thus
becoming assimilated to the enthusiasts, his contempt, in nowise
decreasing towards them, grew very fierce against himself; he
imagined, also, that every face of his acquaintance wore a sneer,
and that every word addressed to him was a gibe. Such was his
state of mind at the period of Ilbrahim's misfortune; and the
emotions consequent upon that event completed the change, of
which the child had been the original instrument.

In the mean time, neither the fierceness of the persecutors, nor
the infatuation of their victims, had decreased. The dungeons
were never empty; the streets of almost every village echoed
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