But,
instead of enjoying the means of patronising merit, raising the
oppressed, or succouring calamity, I beheld myself doomed to the anxious
routine of a life consumed in the care of procuring a sufficiency for
its own support, pondering how the claims of a creditor could be
discharged, and the disgrace of injustice averted by the sacrifice of
every generous gratification--I passed my days in a silent sacrifice of
my wishes and comforts, in concealing my own wants, and steeling my
heart to those of others, and it was during this mental torture of
restrained liberality that I nourished in my soul a deadly thirst for
revenge, an extreme desire of seeing the arm that smote me to the earth
withered and powerless as my own. Oh, my children! there is guilt and
danger in an excessive indulgence of even the most laudable feelings,
and my crime brought on its punishment.--The loss of reason; the death
of your adored mother, deserving infinitely more than the highest
earthly honours, and therefore early translated to an angelical throne;
these were my chastisements.
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