DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5828#0169
140
THE ROYAL DEVOTEE,
he was tormented with this new visitation, until
his life was a positive burden. From constant vex-
ation he grew rickety, as if second childhood had
suddenly come upon him. His body became flaccid,
his limbs stiff, his appetite capricious, and his voice
hollow. His nights were sleepless, and his days
without a beam of joy to gladden them. His
■withered cheeks were stained with the tears of un-
uttered grief, and his breast laboured with perpetual
sighs. His legs tottered under him, so that thev
would scarcely bear his shrunken and enfeebled
frame. A terrible retribution had fallen upon him.
He was forced to take a review of the past, in spite
of his desire to expel its recurrence from his thoughts.
There was no evading the retrospect. Crimes com-
mitted, and never to be revoked, started up like so
many hideous spectres before his imagination, and
tortured him with perpetual visions of terror. He
saw everv thing as if through an unillumined atmo-
sphere, in which no objects were distinguishable save
those that especially referred to him, in some shape
or other, presenting an appalling phantasmagoria.
His melancholy was morbid and soul-subduina1. He
bowed in craven fear before the gods of his idolatry,
but they heard not his invocations, and the true God
allowed not such prayers as his to rise to the throne
of mercy as a propitiation for sins repented of only
under the awful visitation of terror, but from no
principle of piety or of devout affiance. He felt that
his supplications were disregarded, and, therefore,
resorted to the delusions of superstition to heal those
sores of a festered conscience not to be medicated by
THE ROYAL DEVOTEE,
he was tormented with this new visitation, until
his life was a positive burden. From constant vex-
ation he grew rickety, as if second childhood had
suddenly come upon him. His body became flaccid,
his limbs stiff, his appetite capricious, and his voice
hollow. His nights were sleepless, and his days
without a beam of joy to gladden them. His
■withered cheeks were stained with the tears of un-
uttered grief, and his breast laboured with perpetual
sighs. His legs tottered under him, so that thev
would scarcely bear his shrunken and enfeebled
frame. A terrible retribution had fallen upon him.
He was forced to take a review of the past, in spite
of his desire to expel its recurrence from his thoughts.
There was no evading the retrospect. Crimes com-
mitted, and never to be revoked, started up like so
many hideous spectres before his imagination, and
tortured him with perpetual visions of terror. He
saw everv thing as if through an unillumined atmo-
sphere, in which no objects were distinguishable save
those that especially referred to him, in some shape
or other, presenting an appalling phantasmagoria.
His melancholy was morbid and soul-subduina1. He
bowed in craven fear before the gods of his idolatry,
but they heard not his invocations, and the true God
allowed not such prayers as his to rise to the throne
of mercy as a propitiation for sins repented of only
under the awful visitation of terror, but from no
principle of piety or of devout affiance. He felt that
his supplications were disregarded, and, therefore,
resorted to the delusions of superstition to heal those
sores of a festered conscience not to be medicated by