How minute are the chances and events on which we depend! A few slight alterations of incident, and how different would have been the train of my thoughts! She might have been happy with me, for I loved her, Fairfax. I loved her. I feel it more and more; and were but circumstances a little more favourable, I believe I should turn about and take a contrary path. But it cannot be! The barrier is insurmountable! An adamantine wall, reaching to the skies! I remember what she said, at her proud uncle's table--'I have an abhorrence, Mr. Clifton, of the errors in which you are now indulging.'--Abhorrence was the word, Fairfax!--It has been at my tongue's end ever since--And when she talked of my errors she meant me.--'I ultimately and determinedly renounce all thought of him!'--This was her language! I knew before which way her heart went; and can I suppose, now she has got a fair excuse, that she will not profit by it? Oh no! I am not so ill read as that in the passions. But I have said the word--They shall never come together!--They never never shall! C. CLIFTON LETTER CVII _Coke Clifton to Guy Fairfax_ _London, Dover Street_ I have received your dissuasive epistle, Fairfax. It found me moody and did not contribute to make me merry. To own the truth, no ghost need rise to tell me the methods I use are inclined to the violent. Can you find me better? Nay can you find any other? I care not for consequences; I brave them all. Time was that I could have been happy with her! Ay and should, but for this fiend Henley. He sleeps securely! Let him sleep on! I will soon awaken him! I thought I should have been tortured but by one chief passion, and that the love of vengeance would have enveloped me wholly: but they are all devouring me by turns. I certainly hate her, and him I abhor. Yet pictures of imaginary happiness, that might have been, are continually rising, and vanishing in gloomy regret. He too, at the very moment that I could murder him, I am obliged to admire! Still he shall not have her! Though death overtake him, her and me, he shall not have her! But what is death? A thing to covet, not to dread. 'Tis existence only that is hateful!--Would that my bones were now mouldering!--Why have I brains and nerves and sensibilities?--Oh that I were in the poisonous desert, where I might gulp mephitic winds and drop dead; or in a moment be buried in tornados of burning sand! Would that my scull were grinning there, and blanching; rather than as it is consciously parching, scorched by fires itself has kindled! I spent all yesterday with that Irish scoundrel. Malignity is his element, and mischief his delight! I suspect by his assiduity that he is poor just at present; for a more industrious demon black Cocytus does not yield. He is already provided with associates, and has found another principal agent for the great work. It is a strange expedient! But these are strange fellows! And yet it is a lucky one; superior to any that I had projected.