Page:Eugene Aram vol 3 - Lytton (1832).djvu/271

upon them with other eyes. I knew that I carried within, that secret which, if bared to-day, would make them loath and hate me,—yea, though I coined my future life into one series of benefits on them and their posterity! Was not this thought enough to quell my ardour—to chill activity into rest? The more I might toil, the brighter honours I might win—the greater services I might bestow on the world, the more dread and fearful might be my fall at last! I might be but piling up the scaffold from which I was to be hurled! Possessed by these thoughts, a new view of human affairs succeeded to my old aspirings;—the moment a man feels that an object has ceased to charm, he reconciles himself by reasonings to his loss. 'Why,' said I; 'why flatter myself that I can serve—that I can enlighten mankind? Are we fully sure that individual wisdom has ever, in reality, done so? Are we really better because Newton lived, and happier because Bacon thought?' This dampening and frozen line of reflection pleased the present