and spotless reputation; of having doomed myself to infamy and
detestation, to hopeless exile, penury, and servile toil. These were the
evils which his malignant destiny had made the unalterable portion of
Clithero, and how should my imperfect eloquence annihilate these evils?
Every man, not himself the victim of irretrievable disasters, perceives
the folly of ruminating on the past, and of fostering a grief which
cannot reverse or recall the decrees of an immutable necessity; but
every man who suffers is unavoidably shackled by the errors which he
censures in his neighbour, and his efforts to relieve himself are as
fruitless as those with which he attempted the relief of others.

No topic, therefore, could be properly employed by me on the present
occasion. All that I could do was to offer him food, and, by pathetic
supplications, to prevail on him to eat. Famine, however obstinate,
would scarcely refrain when bread was placed within sight and reach.
When made to swerve from his resolution in one instance, it would be
less difficult to conquer it a second time. The magic of sympathy, the
perseverance of benevolence, though silent, might work a gradual and
secret revolution, and better thoughts might insensibly displace those
desperate suggestions which now governed him.

Having revolved these ideas, I placed the food which I had brought at
his right hand, and, seating myself at his feet, attentively surveyed
his countenance. The emotions which were visible during wakefulness had
vanished during this cessation of remembrance and remorse, or were
faintly discernible. They served to dignify and solemnize his features,
and to embellish those immutable lines which betokened the spirit of his
better days. Lineaments were now observed which could never coexist with
folly or associate with obdurate guilt.