On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    mitid was haunted by impressions which preyed upon his spirits . Often would the image of the little lonely automaton , sitting sadly at his frugal , too frugal , fireside , come across his thoughts , and then the lig ht in his fine eye would become troubled , and the flow of his language suddenly or partially fail . On the first access of

    these feelings , he would yield to their force and go home ; but no effort of this kind was ever sustained without it met sympathy and reward . Human nature least of any part of nature stands still ; deterioration is certain to take place where improvement does not proceed . Neither is association ever without its effects ; the weight which we cannot raise will drag us down . Caroline , in the self-weariness of utter ignorance , in the selfishness of physical

    weakness , with the purposeless repining of exertionless discontent , surrendered even such negative qualities as in her passed for virtues , and in little more than a year after her marriage , herself and a consumptive child were objects of hopeless compassion . And Cyril—he whom the noblest of the sex might have taken into her heart of hearts , and , great and gracious as he was , made him even a better and a brighter being—what did he become ? ( Oh , let everv sinner against societv beware of the recoiling- shaft , and . let every sinner against society beware of the recoiling shaftand

    , , if he have one generous emotion , mourn in ashes over the innocent breast that shaft may unmeritedly strike in its way !) Cyril , the bright , buoyant Cyril—he of the flowing heart and holy handfor it' was open as the day to melting charity , '—he yielded gradually to a mental paralysis , to arouse himself from which , and aided by the injudicious but well-intentioned efforts of his friends , he snatched the cup he had . hitherto shunned , and without aid from which he had once been ' the sun of the table' wherever he sat .

    There is no wreck over which thoughtful pity can forbear to mourn—the patriarch of the forest , when he lies , with those branqhes , which once seemed as though they kissed the skies , bowed to the dust—the noble bark which has braved a thousand storms and many wild voyages , when it lies a dismasted hull upon the > vaters waiting for wormy decay—the gallant steed , which

    almost outstripped the wind , when forfeited to the hounds he once outflew ; but what are these , could all the feelings they command be condensed into one convulsive emotion , compared to the pang with which we contemplate the wreck of Genius ? When we behold him , who was fitted to move among men like a descended god / sold to the demon of debasement !

    Let me draw a veil over the domestic wretchedness which , year by year , increased ; during which Cyril grew more mad , and Caroline more weak ; during which he sunk to a lower and a lower grade of convivial companions , and she formed a friendship ( if such a term , may be used ) with her nurse , a rude , illiterate , superstitious old woman , yet eminently endowed with one redeeming quality—good-nature—which gave her a sort of maternal feeling for

    Untitled Article

    152 Sketches of Domestic Life .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1835, page 152, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2643/page/8/