but who left him to penury, despair, and death. She—for whose sake he had abandoned all the pursuits that once made his hope and his happiness; who had turned his course of contented study into a delirious fever; who was the cause that he now stood on the threshold of the grave—why should she have freedom and wealth, while he was consumed by passion, and weighed down by poverty?
A carriage drove up to the door; well he knew the crimson window-blinds, which had so often shed their rich colour on her cheek. Charles rushed away; he could not have borne to see that fairy foot descend the steps, or have met, though only for a moment, those bewildering eyes. But the thread of his reverie was broken; the image of death no longer filled his mind. He thought of life, its enjoyments, its desires, all from which he was cut off in his youth: he thought of the poor, and he loathed them; of the rich, and he hated them.
"Accursed destiny!" he muttered; "so young, so capable of happiness, and yet without the means! Why have I talents to which I can never do justice? Why have I tastes I can never gratify? Why do I want for that luxury my penury denies? Why am I refined in my habits? Why have I thoughts and feelings entirely at variance with my condition? Why have not my birth, my education, and my estate gone together, instead of being so utterly opposed? Why at this moment am I friendless, penniless, and hopeless? Alas! with the delight
