could I be again what I was, when I began my mad career, the world would look like a paradise, and I would make it a paradise for you! Noble girl! you are sacrificing yourself for a wretch and a beggar—one who has lost all, but a heart torn with love and agony;—he cannot offer you a destiny worthy of your virtue.” He then smote his forehead, in a fit of passion, reproaching himself as a thoughtless, wilful being, whose repentance had come too late.
Despondency, however, was not the sole result of his reflections. The powers of his mind were put into action; he became ambitious of altering his present condition, and he was resolved to try what exertion and activity would effect. Among other plans that occurred to him, the most rational and promising appeared to be, to examine into his father’s accounts, in order to see what debts were still due to the house. With such remnants of a princely fortune, should he be lucky enough to recover them, he trusted he might be some time enabled to lay the ground-work of another, if not as large as that he had lost, yet enough for the happiness and support of life. He resolved to employ the money he recovered in some business, which he hoped would increase by degrees, until, as he flattered himself, his ships would visit all parts of the world. But he found that many of the debts were due from persons residing at a distance, and
