I considered, and reconsidered, these reasonings, so specious, so flattering, to which passion lent its force. One moment, my mind seemed firmly made up on the part I had to act;--I persuaded myself, that I had gone too far to recede, and that there remained for me no alternative:--the next instant, I shrunk, gasping, from my own resolves, and shuddered at the important consequences which they involved. Amidst a variety of perturbations, of conflicting emotions, I, at length, once more, took up my pen. CHAPTER VII TO AUGUSTUS HARLEY. 'I blush, when I reflect what a weak, wavering, inconsistent being, I must lately have appeared to you. I write to you on important subjects--I forbid you to answer me on paper; and, when you seem inclined to put that period to the present, painful, high-wrought, and trying, state of my feelings, which is now become so necessary, I appear neither to hear, nor to comprehend you. I fly from the subject, and thicken the cloud of mystery, of which I have so often, and, I still think, so justly complained.--These are some of the effects of the contradictory systems, that have so long bewildered our principles and conduct. A combination of causes, added to the conflict between a thousand delicate and nameless emotions, have lately conspired to confuse, to weaken, my spirits. You can conceive, that these acute, mental, sensations, must have had a temporary effect on the state of my health. To say truth (and, had I not said it, my countenance would have betrayed me), I have not, for some time past, been so thoroughly disordered. 'Once more, I have determined to rally my strength; for I feel, that a much longer continuance in the situation, in which my mind has been lately involved, would be insupportable:--and I call upon you, _now_, with a resolution to summon all my fortitude to bear the result, for the _written_ state of your mind, on the topic become so important to my future welfare and usefulness.