His nights were invariably sleepless. There is nothing
more exhausting than the loss of sleep—more wearing on
both mind and body—more likely to impair health and happiness.
Yet he found he had in a great degree, at least
for the present, thrown away that blessing. From his first
slumber he would speedily awake with a start, and then
came those long, weary watches of the night, when the most
cheerful subjects of earthly meditation wear an aspect so
different from that which they present in the day. Here
he could not withdraw himself from the voice of reproach
and accusation. Then the idea that he had shed human
blood in merciless vengeance weighed on his mind and oppressed
his soul; and Middleton's dying face presented itself
to his imagination with a horrible distinctness. And
whom had he slain? A weak, pompous fool; a poor victim.
And how had he slain him? The world would consider
that his opponent had had an equal chance; but his
conscience taught him better. He had not had an equal
chance; his own perfect skill with the pistol, he was well
aware, far surpassed that of his victim; he felt, when he
fired, he was inflicting death. Whatever interpretation,
therefore, the world might put upon the matter, he knew he
was a murderer. Whatever excuse he might have had, he
had deliberately killed a man who could neither escape, nor
resist, nor resent; he had taken from the laws of society
and from God (if, indeed, there were one), the task of punishment;
he had cut off a despicable fool in the midst of
his folly; he had launched a new thunderbolt upon the
heart of his mother, which might destroy her also. Ah!
he repented of the bloody deed! Not that he had a definite
feeling of guilt, but he was overwhelmed with sympathy,
horror, disgust, alarm, doubt, pity for the mother who
watched his course with such interest, and regret that his
own thoughts and feelings should be thus shocked and
overshadowed.

After a week spent in this state of depression, he resolved
to arouse himself, to shake off the superstitious and
nervous terrors to which he had so weakly yielded, and to
drown, in a rapid and brilliant tour, all his youthful meditations.
He concluded to start immediately; but first to
write to his mother a simple account of the circumstance.
He tried to do so. He wrote and rewrote again and again,
and tore up letter after letter, unable to satisfy himself as to

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the best mode of making the communication. While engaged
in this task, his candour obliged him to confess that
the act, so difficult to relate, must be, at least, a doubtful
one. Its nobleness, its stern justice, its terrible retribution,
which, before the perpetration, had been so clear to
him, seemed but mockery when he attempted to set them
forth to his mother. Her pale face, her streaming eyes,
her look of despair, her hands uplifted for mercy on him,
seemed to fill the page he was writing on. It was, however,
a necessary duty, and he accomplished it; and a cool,
simple statement, announcing the discovery of Middleton's
guilt, proved by White and Glendenning, the instantaneous
meeting, and the fall of the man who had deprived them of
their beloved Frank, was at length completed. He appealed,
at the same time, to his mother's forgiveness, and, before
he was aware of what he had written, volunteered a
sacred promise never, under any circumstances, to engage
in another duel. He would take blows, insults, opprobrious
epithets—anything—everything rather than repeat an event
which, he candidly acknowledged, rendered him deeply unhappy.
He desired, at the same time, to know whether he
was to have the great pleasure of seeing the family in Europe,
and when; and stated his intention to take an extended
Eastern tour, from which due notice of their intended
embarcation would, however, speedily recall him.

On reading over the letter, he added the following postscript:

“I perceive, my dearest mother, that I have laid myself
under a vow. Do not fear I shall ever break it; I repeat it
here deliberately, and with regreat that I had not made it
before rather than after this last calamity, for such I consider
it. I acknowledge your superior wisdom and sense of
right. I wish I had complied with your desire so often expressed.
I am convinced no man ever fell in a duel without
acknowledging to himself, if he had time to do so, that
he had been a fool, and no one killed another without bitterly
and eternally repenting of it, unless deprived, by nature
or education, of a warm heart and a clear understanding.”

This duty performed, Harry set off upon his travels, whither
we shall not follow him. He extended his tour as far
and with the design of occupying as much time as possible.
The letters he received from home were heart-rending.

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Those from his mother affected him profoundly, more from
their subdued, deep melancholy, than from their allusions to
the new calamity which had fallen upon her. With a characteristic
gentleness, she spared him all reproaches, and she
even assured him that she had borne the blow with a patience
which could only have come from above. Their visit
to Europe was still deferred, and Harry still lingered in the
East, examining into the state of those interesting countries,
which to the European have almost the awful solemnity of
a previous world.

From Greece, Turkey, Syria, and Egypt, spending a winter
or a summer first in one town, then in another, according
to the caprice of the moment or the relief he found in
any particular place, or from any particular person or study,
he went over into Russia, and occupied himself with the
various peculiarities of that vast empire, sometimes plunging
into the splendid gayeties of the court circles, and sometimes
loitering in the retreats of the nobles, or watching with
interest the modes of life and mind among the serfs. He
devoted eighteen months to the northern countries of the
Continent, so little visited by travellers, where he found,
with surprise, materials of interest he had never dreamed
of. In their turn, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Italy
occupied his attention. He studied their forms of government,
their history, the character of the people, moral, political,
and religious, their various resources and peculiarities,
and their relations with his own country. Gradually,
as the months and years of this period rolled away, he had
conceived the plan of a systematic course of self-cultivation,
and carried it into effect with severe determination. He
had the custom to stop months, and sometimes a whole season,
in order to investigate some particular subject thoroughly.
By means of these habits of intense application, and
of the materials thus poured richly into his mind, and carefully
digested, his intellect became strengthened and matured.
His opinions, subjected to a new course of examination,
were rejected or remodelled, and became more definite
and just, the result of observation and reflection. His reasoning
powers were enlarged and sharpened, and, besides
a large stock of general information, he had attained a far
more accurate idea of history, of the present state of mankind,
of the literature and achievements of different nations,
and of the powers, characteristics, and limits of the human

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mind. He had not neglected either his own country or his
own profession, but, by a careful study of the Roman law,
added to that of the existing codes of various countries, and
particularly those of his own, he was far more competent
to take a high rank at the bar of his native city than he
would have been had he spent the whole of this time in the
routine of daily business.

But (let not the reader start, for he will one day find his
own life has passed even thus unheeded away) all this travelling
and studying, these winterings in one part of the globe
and summerings in another, took time, and when Harry, one
winter, settled himself in a comfortable lodging at Florence
to consider what he would do next, he happened to calculate
how long he had been abroad, and he found, with a very
considerable surprise, which recalled the amazement of his
father on reaching his fiftieth birthday, that he had been
absent from home ten years. He started to perceive so
much of his life had vanished, and his conscience smote
him for having remained so long away from his father and
mother, deprived as they were, too, of Frank, and by so
frightful an accident. But he had, from year to year, expected
them in Europe, and he had really been profoundly
occupied, and the recollection of Middleton's death clung to
him with a never-ceasing horror, and his own infidel opinions
had made him indifferent, if not selfish, and he dreaded
going home with his dark, stern, bloody brow, to meet Miss
Elton, and to throw a new shadow over his altered domestic
circle. He had improved his mind, but he had not acquired
any moral light. He had enjoyed pleasures, but they
had come and passed away like bright shadows, leaving no
trace behind. He had sought the alleviation of all kinds of
society, from that of the royal hall to that of the student's
closet and the peasant's lowly hut, but from the great and
the gay, like the wise and the gifted, he had gained nothing,
learned nothing to make him happy. Happiness had been
the object of his search, but he had not found it. Through all
his enjoyments, all his studies, and all his occupations there
was one dark, tremendous idea—death! He had seen it: he
had suffered; he had inflicted it. It was the shadow, the
crowning mystery of his life; he could neither reconcile himself
to it nor understand it. The two fatal events, the death
of Frank and the fall of Middleton, had deprived him of
youth's greatest charm and greatest danger, thoughtlessness.

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He had become a thinker, and all things were changed to
him and he was changed to all things. This idea of death
had gradually awakened in him a deep sense of the valuelessness,
the mockery, the mystery of life. His existence
was rolling away; his career would speedily come to an
end, and he was weighed down with astonishment and agony
at the fleetingness, the worthlessness of everything.
The skies, the air, and the objects of the world were but
visions. The ground seemed passing away from beneath
his feet, and his own insignificant, useless, perishable nature
to be on the brink of annihilation. All around him was
a cloud, a folly, an insult, a mockery, a lie. Pen may not
paint the indignant and bitter scorn, the sense of wrong and
oppression, the hatred and the despair which fair things
raised in his bosom, his curling lip when he gazed on a
flower, his gloomy scorn when the rising sun threw his glory
over the sky and earth, and, more than all, his infinite contempt
for the whole human race, with their idle credulity
and dreams of superstition, their inflated hopes of immortal
happiness, their ceremonies of worship paid to the merciless,
crushing, unlistening, blind chance which presides over
the universe.

In short, pleasure, society, study, and travel at length
fatigued him; science disappointed, knowledge oppressed
him. He wanted a refuge; he wanted repose. He continued
to receive frequent letters from all his family, as
well as from Emmerson. Those of his father had recently
grown shorter and more vague, and, at length, announced
that circumstances had obliged him to abandon entirely his
contemplated European tour, and that Harry might turn his
step homeward. The reader must imagine the tenour of
his mother's letters, although it was evident she did not allow
herself to give way to all her feelings. Emmerson, on
the contrary, wrote at full, and it was on the strength of his
representations that Harry had remained so long abroad.
He assured him that everybody was well, that he had hopes,
notwithstanding the proposed abandonment of the European
tour, that the next summer would see the whole family
in Paris, and that all was going on as usual.

These frequent epistles from Emmerson, written in an
affectionate and confidential manner, were very grateful to
Harry. They were the accounts of a cool, disinterested
observer on the spot, and effectually calmed the fears and

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anxieties so apt to assist the heart of an absentee from
home.

Harry had devoted a great part of his time in Germany to
philosophy, and philosophy led him to religion, or, rather, to
irreligion.

About this period the celebrated Life of Jesus Christ by
Strauss fell into his hands. This work is the most learned,
searching, powerful, and successful attack ever made on
Christianity, and has been justly considered an important
event in ecclesiastical history. The mighty intellectual
efforts of the German mind in philosophy had fully prepared
our student to read, and to yield to this astonishing production,
particularly as he saw that the great and learned people
received it with enthusiasm, and that, with exceptions,
the savans of the day did not conceal their opinion that it
would prove a death-blow to the greatest illusion that had
ever occupied the human mind.

Harry read it, and, for a time, the triumph of discovering
so able a champion of his own views threw around the
subject a sort of wonder and delight. It confirmed, apparently
forever, his entire infidelity. Why was delight among
his feelings on arriving at a certainty that the most cheering
hope ever conceived by mortals was an illusion? Because
it relieved him from a secret fear, of which, with all
his philosophy, he had not been able to divest himself, that
when he killed Middleton, he had offended a superior power,
which would hereafter call him to account. He went on
now studying with more zeal than ever all the arguments
against Christianity. He nearly confined his reading to infidel
authors and historians. His industry was great, and
he possessed himself of the entire ground on which the
skeptic stands, of all the probabilities of infidelity, and all
the improbabilities and impossibilities which can be urged
against religion. He read again with attention certain portions
of the Bible; but only to confirm his disbelief of it.

While thus employed, he was attacked with a strange
weakness, and heavy, painful headache, the consequence of
too much mental exertion, too little exercise, and too constant
brooding over his own dark thoughts and his one terrible
recollection.

One evening he had returned from a gloomy, solitary
ramble, much more unwell than usual, and was undressing
for bed, when, in a chair by the table, he observed the

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figure of a man seated. On fixing his eyes on him, he beheld,
with a thrill of horror, the face of Middleton, calm,
pale, sad, and noble, the lip and temple spotted with blood.

This same appearance had, at different times during the
previous years, presented itself to him, and, generally, before
a severe illness. He knew it was the vision of a heated
imagination, but it always overcame him with unutterable
terror.

He rushed forward, but the apparition disappeared. He
seized the chair and threw it across the room. No one
was there. He staggered back to the bed, literally overcome.

Before morning he was in a raging fever. In a week
his life was in danger. In a month it was despaired of,
and, as he retained at times the possession of his senses,
his physician told him frankly to regulate his affairs.

He did not suffer much. At intervals his power of reflection
appeared rather increased than diminished, and he
lay thus some days.

During this period he was visited by many strange, new,
large thoughts. The incidents of his vanished years passed
before him, and the images of his distant home and friends
were present with him. Sometimes he was delirious, and
again his faculties came clear and distinct to him. We
cannot trace, thought by thought, the process of change
which now went on with him. His feelings were often
thrilling and sublime beyond description. He saw now
what it was to want religion; what a helpless creature the
mortal is by himself. About to step off the precipice, he
looked around for some hand to guide, some voice to console
him; nor, infidel as he was, could he believe it possible
that a support so necessary should be denied to man
even by the blind chance which had given the ear to hear
and the eye to see. Was it credible that, all wants else
supplied, this, the greatest, should have been omitted? No,
it was not. A singular consciousness shot into his mind
that he had never given the subject the serious consideration
it merited. The recollection of the famous work of
Strauss occurred to him, and he thought this author had
fulfilled but a useless and a cruel task if he had really
caused any Christian to abandone his faith. As he lay thus
powerless, weak, and dying, never to see the green earth
again, never to hear the voices of those he loved, neither

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here nor hereafter, to all eternity, this want of some aid
above the world—in short, of supernatural aid, grew intense.
The thought that a wonderful and mysterious personage had
once lived who professed to give this light, struck him with
a very strange effect. This person had been predicted, had
come, and had been received by millions. The wisest and
greatest of men had believed in him. He saw nothing improbable
in it. He who made the sun, the moon, the stars,
the comets, could make a prophet, or could manifest himself
in person, or in any other way could conceal himself or
reveal himself, or do what he pleased; for he was obviously
beyond the conception of man.

Too much reflection heated his brain and brought on
another crisis. He felt his senses wavering. The universe
seemed to reel around him, and the earth to pass away from
beneath him. He felt like a wretch falling off a precipice,
impotent and lost in infinite horror and despair.

When he recovered his senses, his physician informed
him he was out of danger. The strength of his constitution
had mastered the disease. But he must not speak or move.