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of occupying myself with anything but my own degradation. The
remembrance even of Manon added nothing to my grief; it only
occurred to me as a circumstance that had preceded my new sorrow;
and the sense of shame and confusion was at present the
all-absorbing passion.

"There are few persons who have experienced the force of these
special workings of the mind. The generality of men are only
sensible of five or six passions, in the limited round of which
they pass their lives, and within which all their agitations are
confined. Remove them from the influence of love and hate,
pleasure and pain, hope and fear, and they have no further
feeling. But persons of a finer cast can be affected in a
thousand different ways; it would almost seem that they had more
than five senses, and that they are accessible to ideas and
sensations which far exceed the ordinary faculties of human
nature; and, conscious that they possess a capacity which raises
them above the common herd, there is nothing of which they are
more jealous. Hence springs their impatience under contempt and
ridicule; and hence it is that a sense of debasement is perhaps
the most violent of all their emotions.

"I had this melancholy advantage at St. Lazare. My grief
appeared to the governor so excessive, that, dreading the
consequences, he thought he was bound to treat me with more
mildness and indulgence. He visited me two or three times a day;
he often made me take a turn with him in the garden, and showed
his interest for me in his exhortations and good advice. I
listened always attentively; and warmly expressed my sense of his
kindness, from which he derived hopes of my ultimate conversion.

"`You appear to me,' said he one day, `of a disposition so mild
and tractable, that I cannot comprehend the excesses into which
you have fallen. Two things astonish me: one is, how, with your
good qualities, you could have ever abandoned yourself to vice;
and the other, which amazes me still more, is, how you can
receive with such perfect temper my advice and instructions,
after having lived so long in a course of debauchery. If it be
sincere repentance, you present a singular example of the benign
mercy of Heaven; if it proceed from the natural goodness of your
disposition, then you certainly have that within you which
warrants the hope that a protracted residence in this place will
not be required to bring you back to a regular and respectable
life.'

"I was delighted to find that he had such an opinion of me. I
resolved to strengthen it by a continuance of good conduct,
convinced that it was the surest means of abridging the term of
my confinement. I begged of him to furnish me with books. He
was agreeably surprised to find that when he requested me to say
what I should prefer, I mentioned only some religious and
instructive works. I pretended to devote myself assiduously to
study, and I thus gave him convincing proof of the moral
reformation he was so anxious to bring about.

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