I threw down the oar, and leaning my
head upon my hands, gave way to every gloomy idea that arose. If I
looked up, I saw scenes which were familiar to me in my happier time
and which I had contemplated but the day before in the company of her
who was now but a shadow and a recollection. Tears streamed from my
eyes. The rain had ceased for a moment, and I saw the fish play in the
waters as they had done a few hours before; they had then been observed
by Elizabeth. Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and
sudden change. The sun might shine or the clouds might lower, but
nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before. A fiend had
snatched from me every hope of future happiness; no creature had ever
been so miserable as I was; so frightful an event is single in the
history of man. But why should I dwell upon the incidents that followed
this last overwhelming event? Mine has been a tale of horrors; I have
reached their acme, and what I must now relate can but be tedious to
you. Know that, one by one, my friends were snatched away; I was left
desolate. My own strength is exhausted, and I must tell, in a few
words, what remains of my hideous narration. I arrived at Geneva. My
father and Ernest yet lived, but the former sunk under the tidings that
I bore. I see him now, excellent and venerable old man! His eyes
wandered in vacancy, for they had lost their charm and their
delight--his Elizabeth, his more than daughter, whom he doted on with
all that affection which a man feels, who in the decline of life,
having few affections, clings more earnestly to those that remain.
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