sensible of its utmost rigour—to drink, to its dregs, the bitter chalice of disappointment.
It was then, when totally removed from every scene of pleasure, and incapacitated to employ himself in any pursuit whatever,—it was then that he brooded over his errors, that he numbered his evils, and traced them to their real source; that he saw, with a deep contrition of mind, his vain-glorious pomp, his high-minded nothingness—in what consisting? In those exterior embellishments only, those temporary advantages, those attainments and accomplishments, superficial in themselves when leading to nought beyond them,—ornaments which Providence had bestowed for occasions and uses which his thoughtlessness had perverted; every unworthy desire, every trifling pursuit, every false reasoning, all were presented to his view in their degraded forms and destructive tendencies; whilst virtue, in the exercise of rationality, seemed alone of consequence.
Thus Douglas, while involuntarily adverting to every circumstance of his past life, and also to the cause of his then lamentable situation, became deeply moved; the fruits of his meditation enabling him clearly to discern that those misfortunes he bewailed wholly originated in his deficiency of moral courage,—from error, folly, irregularity,—
