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He seemed half afraid of his own violence, and suddenly quitted the hall: a
look from Perdita shewed me her distress, and I followed him. He was pacing
the garden: his passions were in a state of inconceivable turbulence. "Am I
for ever," he cried, "to be the sport of fortune! Must man, the
heaven-climber, be for ever the victim of the crawling reptiles of his
species! Were I as you, Lionel, looking forward to many years of life, to a
succession of love-enlightened days, to refined enjoyments and
fresh-springing hopes, I might yield, and breaking my General's staff, seek
repose in the glades of Windsor. But I am about to die!--nay, interrupt
me not--soon I shall die. From the many-peopled earth, from the
sympathies of man, from the loved resorts of my youth, from the kindness of
my friends, from the affection of my only beloved Perdita, I am about to be
removed. Such is the will of fate! Such the decree of the High Ruler from
whom there is no appeal: to whom I submit. But to lose all--to lose with
life and love, glory also! It shall not be!
"
I, and in a few brief years, all you,--this panic-struck army, and all
the population of fair Greece, will no longer be. But other generations
will arise, and ever and for ever will continue, to be made happier by our
present acts, to be glorified by our valour. The prayer of my youth was to
be one among those who render the pages of earth's history splendid; who
exalt the race of man, and make this little globe a dwelling of the mighty.
Alas, for Raymond! the prayer of his youth is wasted--the hopes of his
manhood are null!
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