When I reflected on his crimes and malice, my
hatred and revenge burst all bounds of moderation. I would have made a
pilgrimage to the highest peak of the Andes, could I when there have
precipitated him to their base. I wished to see him again, that I
might wreak the utmost extent of abhorrence on his head and avenge the
deaths of William and Justine. Our house was the house of mourning. My
father's health was deeply shaken by the horror of the recent events.
Elizabeth was sad and desponding; she no longer took delight in her
ordinary occupations; all pleasure seemed to her sacrilege toward the
dead; eternal woe and tears she then thought was the just tribute she
should pay to innocence so blasted and destroyed. She was no longer
that happy creature who in earlier youth wandered with me on the banks
of the lake and talked with ecstasy of our future prospects. The first
of those sorrows which are sent to wean us from the earth had visited
her, and its dimming influence quenched her dearest smiles.
"When I reflect, my dear cousin," said she, "on the miserable death of
Justine Moritz, I no longer see the world and its works as they before
appeared to me. Before, I looked upon the accounts of vice and
injustice that I read in books or heard from others as tales of ancient
days or imaginary evils; at least they were remote and more familiar to
reason than to the imagination; but now misery has come home, and men
appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other's blood.
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