I felt as if I were placed
under a ban--as if I had no right to claim their sympathies--as if
never more might I enjoy companionship with them. Yet even thus I
loved them to adoration; and to save them, I resolved to dedicate
myself to my most abhorred task. The prospect of such an occupation
made every other circumstance of existence pass before me like a dream,
and that thought only had to me the reality of life.
Chapter 18
Day after day, week after week, passed away on my return to Geneva; and
I could not collect the courage to recommence my work. I feared the
vengeance of the disappointed fiend, yet I was unable to overcome my
repugnance to the task which was enjoined me. I found that I could not
compose a female without again devoting several months to profound
study and laborious disquisition. I had heard of some discoveries
having been made by an English philosopher, the knowledge of which was
material to my success, and I sometimes thought of obtaining my
father's consent to visit England for this purpose; but I clung to
every pretence of delay and shrank from taking the first step in an
undertaking whose immediate necessity began to appear less absolute to
me. A change indeed had taken place in me; my health, which had
hitherto declined, was now much restored; and my spirits, when
unchecked by the memory of my unhappy promise, rose proportionably. My
father saw this change with pleasure, and he turned his thoughts
towards the best method of eradicating the remains of my melancholy,
which every now and then would return by fits, and with a devouring
blackness overcast the approaching sunshine.
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