The clouds are gathering; the storm approaches; I hear the distant
thunder rolling; this way it drives; it points at me; it must suddenly
burst! Be it so. Grant me but the spirit of a man, and I yet shall
brave its fury. If I am a poor braggart, a half believer in virtue, or
virtuous only in words, the feeble victim then must justly perish.

I cannot endure my torments! Cannot, because there is a way to end
them. It shall be done.

I blush to read, blush to recollect the rhapsodies of my own perturbed
mind! Madman! 'Tis continually thus. Day after day I proceed,
reasoning, reproving, doubting, wishing, believing and despairing,
alternately.

Once again, where is this strange impossibility?--In what does it
consist?--Are we not both human beings?--What law of Nature has placed
her beyond my hopes?--What is rank? Does it imply superiority of mind?
Or is there any other superiority?--Am I not a man?--And who is more?
Have the titled earned their dignities by any proofs of exalted virtue?
Were not these dignities things of accident, in which the owners had no
share, and of which they are generally unworthy? And shall hope be thus
cowed and killed, without my daring to exert the first and most
unalienable of the rights of man, freedom of thought? Shall I not
examine what these high distinctions truly are, of which the bearers
are so vain?

This Clifton--! Thou knowest not how he treats me. And can she approve,
can she second his injustice?--Surely not!--Yet does she not dedicate
her smiles to him, her conversation, her time? Does she not shun me,
discountenance me, and reprove me, by her silence and her averted eyes?