The clouds are gathering; the storm approaches; I hear the distant thunder rolling; this way it drives; it points at me; it must suddenly burst! Be it so. Grant me but the spirit of a man, and I yet shall brave its fury. If I am a poor braggart, a half believer in virtue, or virtuous only in words, the feeble victim then must justly perish. I cannot endure my torments! Cannot, because there is a way to end them. It shall be done. I blush to read, blush to recollect the rhapsodies of my own perturbed mind! Madman! 'Tis continually thus. Day after day I proceed, reasoning, reproving, doubting, wishing, believing and despairing, alternately. Once again, where is this strange impossibility?--In what does it consist?--Are we not both human beings?--What law of Nature has placed her beyond my hopes?--What is rank? Does it imply superiority of mind? Or is there any other superiority?--Am I not a man?--And who is more? Have the titled earned their dignities by any proofs of exalted virtue? Were not these dignities things of accident, in which the owners had no share, and of which they are generally unworthy? And shall hope be thus cowed and killed, without my daring to exert the first and most unalienable of the rights of man, freedom of thought? Shall I not examine what these high distinctions truly are, of which the bearers are so vain? This Clifton--! Thou knowest not how he treats me. And can she approve, can she second his injustice?--Surely not!--Yet does she not dedicate her smiles to him, her conversation, her time? Does she not shun me, discountenance me, and reprove me, by her silence and her averted eyes? Once again it must and shall have an end!--I have repeated this too often; but my next shall shew thee I am at length determined. F. HENLEY LETTER XL _Anna Wenbourne St. Ives to Louisa Clifton_ _Chateau de Villebrun_ An affair has just happened in this country which is the universal topic of conversation. The daughter of a noble and wealthy family has fallen in love with a man of uncommon learning, science, and genius, but a musician. In consequence of his great skill and reputation, he was employed to teach her music; and she it appears was too sensible, at least for the decorum of our present manners, of his worth. The ability to discover his merit implies merit in herself, and the musician and lady were equally enamoured of each other. A plan for elopement consequently was laid, and put in execution; but not effectually, for, before the lovers had passed the confines of the kingdom, they were pursued and overtaken. The musician knew his own personal danger, and by a stratagem fortunately escaped from his bonds, and attained a place of safety. The lady was brought back; and, from the severity of the French laws and the supposed atrocity of the crime, it is generally affirmed that the musician, notwithstanding his talents and fame, had he been secured, would have been executed.