"These thoughts fell on me darkly and rapidly; but they led to no result.
I saw nothing beyond them. I suffered my indignation to gnaw my heart;
and preserved the same calm and serene demeanour which had grown with my
growth of mind. Nay, while I upbraided Fate, I did not cease to love
mankind. I envied--what? the power to serve them! I had been kind and
loving to all things from a boy; there was not a dumb animal that would
not single me from a crowd as its protector, [Note: All the authentic
anecdotes of Aram corroborate the fact of his natural gentleness to all
things. A clergyman (the Rev. Mr. Hinton) said that he used frequently to
observe Aram, when walking in the garden, stoop down to remove a snail or
worm from the path, to prevent its being destroyed. Mr. Hinton
ingeniously conjectured that Aram wished to atone for his crime by
shewing mercy to every animal and insect: but the fact is, that there are
several anecdotes to shew that he was equally humane before the crime was
committed. Such are the strange contradictions of the human heart!] and
yet I was doomed--but I must not premeditate my tale. In returning, at
night, to my own home, from my long and solitary walks, I often passed
the house in which Clarke lodged; and sometimes I met him reeling by the
door, insulting all who passed; and yet their resentment was absorbed in
their disgust. 'And this loathsome, and grovelling thing,' said I, inly,
'squanders on low excesses, wastes upon outrages to society, that with
which I could make my soul as a burning lamp, that should shed a light
over the world!"

"There was that in this man's vices which revolted me far more than the
villainy of Houseman. The latter had possessed no advantages of
education; he descended to no minutiae of sin, he was a plain, blunt,
coarse wretch, and his sense threw something respectable around his
vices. But in Clarke you saw the traces of happier opportunities of