CHAPTER XII.
“Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearingTo what I shall unfold.”Hamlet.
“Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearingTo what I shall unfold.”Hamlet.
“Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearingTo what I shall unfold.”Hamlet.
“Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing
To what I shall unfold.”
Hamlet.
Appadocca was led to a narrow compartment in the gun-deck where he was locked up, and a sentinel was placed at the door.
The unexpected turn that his affairs had taken, seemed to have but little effect on his mind. The sad prospect of being tried like the meanest criminal, and condemned, perhaps, to an ignominious death appeared not to startle his settled cynicism.
When the door of the cabin was closed upon him, after having sat for a time in a deep meditation, he knocked from within and asked the man who kept guard without, for a piece of chalk, which, after some delay, was given to him. With it he began to draw algebraical figures on the boards that partitioned hiscabin prison, and seemed engrossed in some deep calculation. In this manner the afternoon passed. When the short tropical twilight came and went, and he was no longer capable of seeing his figures, he seated himself down again and remained so until late in the night, when he stretched himself on the deck for the purpose of going to sleep.
He had not lain down long before the door of the cabin was silently opened, and an individual closely wrapped in a boat-cloak entered. The cloak was immediately thrown off, and, by the light of a small lantern which the stranger carried, Appadocca saw before him Charles Hamilton, his friend.
“Welcome, Charles!” said Appadocca, affecting more than usual lightsomeness, “welcome to my narrow quarters,” at the same time, casting his eyes around the close cabin, which, for the time being, constituted his prison.
“Hush! Emmanuel,” said the commander’s son, “and, for G—d’s sake, do not speak in such a trivial manner, when you are in such a dangerous position. Tell me,” he continued, while the most impatient anxiety could be detected in his tone, “tell me how you could have brought yourself to this melancholy pass.”
“’Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,” replied Appadocca,“as your own most noble and illustrious countryman has it.... But you seem to be entirely cast down with anxiety—bah! banish that, and if you can accommodate yourself on this hard deck, sit down and we shall have a little conversation on ‘the happy days gone by.’”
“Happy, indeed, they were, Emmanuel, and little did I dream when we pursued our studies together, and when I, together with the others, almost worshipped the intellect with which heaven has blessed you, that I should ever have met you as a prisoner on board my father’s ship, accused, too, of such a grave offence as piracy.” This was spoken with such deep feeling, that Appadocca could scarcely continue his tone of assumed gaiety.
“But what is this Emmanuel?” asked Charles, as his eyes met the figures which Appadocca had traced. “Calculations? must I believe that your cynicism can have made you think so lightly of the sad doom which hangs over you as to permit you to work equations and solve problems at this moment?”
“Now, since you are bent upon being very serious,” answered Appadocca, “pray accommodate yourself and I shall speak to you, and as to those calculations, they concern you more than you imagine. Let your ship be in a safe harbour within these two weeks to come: acomet will be visible in seven days’ time, near the constellation of the Southern Cross; the hurricane that will follow at its tail, will be more than many ships will be able to bear. Now sit down.”
The young officer sat down.
“You ask me,” began Appadocca, with his characteristic gravity, which had now returned, “first, how it has happened that I originally found myself a pirate, cruising in the Caribean sea; and, secondly, a prisoner on board your father’s ship. I regret much that even friendship should have interposed to elicit from me a narrative, which I have always desired to carry with me to the—scaffold now, I suppose. Nevertheless, now that I am on the brink of destruction, it may be well to let the world know the cause of my conduct towards the individual whom an unhappy accident made my father;—which conduct, I admit, may now look strange and criminal.
“You remember, when you left the university of Paris, that I was then preparing to compete in theconcoursfor the professorship of astronomy.”
“Which I always believed you would have, undoubtedly won,” interrupted the officer.
“Do not interrupt me. Within a short time after your departure, I received a letter from the faithfulservant, who always attended her, acquainting me with my mother’s death. You, who have known the more than ordinary fondness that my mother and I so strongly entertained for each other, can easily understand the overwhelming effect which such an announcement had upon me.”
“I know, Emmanuel—pass over that quickly,” said the young officer.
“Even my philosophy was not strong enough to bear up against it, and I fell into a fever, from the effects of which I did not rally for a considerable period.
“Well, with my mother’s death, my means of support ceased; for she seems to have carefully concealed the fact from me, that all her little fortune had been devoted to my education, and had been expended for the purpose of keeping me, as much as possible, on a level with the station which her ancestors had occupied. I was, consequently rendered incapable of continuing my preparations for theconcours, and it became absolutely necessary for me to endeavour to gain my livelihood by my own exertions.
“When the whole of my lifetime, up to that period, had been passed in schools and colleges, you may easily imagine that I was not much adapted to friction against the world, and to fight in the scrambling battle, for bread.
“The only means I possessed was my pen,—precariousmeans! The only method of procuring food was by writing on those subjects, with which I had, more or less, filled my mind. Paris was over-crowded with individuals placed in a similar position to mine, who, however, possessed the superior advantage of being better able to thrust themselves forward; a thing which I sympathized too little with the world to be able to do. Besides, it was very problematical, whether success in Paris would bring me remuneration that would be sufficient to maintain me in the manner in which I had been brought up;—for you must know that literary men are badly paid in France. I felt, also, a certain disgust in remaining among those by whom I was known, when I fell into a condition which, at best, would be but precarious. For these reasons, I resolved to visit the British capital, where remuneration was reputed to be greater and more secure.
“I left Paris, after taking leave of but few of my friends, and went to London. When I arrived there, I found there were many subjects on which but little had been written; for the genius of the English people calls them a different way from the unprofitable consideration of abstruse subjects. I wrote about these things. I took my papers to the publications of the day. They did not refuse them:—‘They would publish them,’they said, ‘when there was room.’ That, I found out by experience, was but an excuse. They were not inclined absolutely to refuse the articles, so they had recourse to that shuffling subterfuge, for they had their own friends to serve. I waited long—there still was no room; sometimes, at great intervals, a paper was published, but so sadly mutilated that it became almost absurd.
“In the mean time, the small amount of money which I possessed became more and more diminished; still I hoped. Yes: I had that delusive, cheating, empty solace of the afflicted—hope. Hope, which mankind has complaisantly numbered among its cardinal virtues, because it holds out to each the lighted wisp that leads and leads him on until he finally stumbles into the grave that closes up his existence. All my valuables were disposed of, one after another, and I was at last left without a brass penny—without property, save my telescope. With that I would not—I could not part. I should have more easily yielded up my heart than dispossess myself of my old and only companion.
“Together with the letter which announced my mother’s death, I received a casket which she requested, at her last moments, should be delivered into my hands. I had always been led to believe, that my father had died when I was a child; but in the casket I found aletter, informing me, that he was not dead, and enjoining that I should ever to study to cherish and respect him who was pointed out to me as my sire. My feelings told me at once, that my good mother had been treated with injustice, and vengeance was my first impulse.
“I had always entertained peculiar opinions about women: I had been accustomed to consider her the superior of the two beings; nay, I had gone further: I had considered her one of those benignant spirits which the disciples of the theological system introduce in their allegories,—the ultimate link between this condition and a higher and more refined humanity. I had looked upon her as the embodiment of goodness, that sweetened existence with its smiles, and made sorrow shrink into insignificance by its sympathy; as a being in whom intellect and propensities were happily not made to preponderate over the loftiest attributes of human nature—the sentiments. Holding this belief, I had worshipped her in whatever condition I found her;—in gorgeous magnificence, or in sordid rags, as pure and spotless as the lily, or polluted or stained with foulest crimes. To me she ever was woman, and that was sufficient. On account of this peculiarity, I always looked with horror upon any man that could be base enough to take any advantage of her, or give her pain. Such an individualI considered unmanned and dishonored, and would shrink from him with disgust. Judge, then, of my state of mind, when I discovered that the crime which I abhorred so much was brought so personally under my reprobation.
“In a calmer mood, however, I thought that sorrow and restitution ought to suffice to obliterate crime; that, at least, I should give the offending party an opportunity of remedying the wrong he had done. Perhaps repentance might creep into his soul. I wrote, then, to the person who had been indicated as my father. He was a wealthy planter in Trinidad. I made it known to him that I was acquainted with the secret of my parentage. I described to him the utter distress in which I, his son, was then placed, and besought him to send me a pittance to sustain that life of which he was the cause.
“Months passed, and I received no answer. Certain feelings began to rankle in my bosom; I, however, took care not to be precipitate. Still hope sustained me. I was obliged to pass days together without food. On such occasion, I would stand by some thoroughfare and watch the over-fed passers, and meditate on that strange destiny which gave to some too much, and to others too little.
“One beautiful night, the stars were clearly visible,and I loitered towards one of the bridges that span the Thames, to enjoy the happiness of watching them. There, seating myself down on one of the stone benches, I forgot for a moment my distress, and felt as I was wont to feel in happier days. The night waned:—attracted by the lurid glimmer of Antares, I fell into a reverie on the theory of the starry scintillation. It may have been one o’clock in the morning,—like the labourer whose thews and sinews were relaxed with the day’s unremitting toil; the great metropolis was buried in that comparative repose which it enjoys only at that early hour of the morning. The rattling of numberless vehicles, the shuffling of thousands of bustling wayfarers had now ceased. Nothing was to be heard but the soon-ceasing rattle of some hurrying conveyance, the measured steps of the police officers, or, perhaps, the ringing laugh of some nightly merry-maker. My eyes were fixed on the stars, and I was dreaming on the orbs of space, when suddenly the low restrained sobs of intense agony fell on my ear. I suddenly turned my head, when I beheld a woman standing on the wall, apparently ready to throw herself headlong into the river. She had a child in her arms, and she pressed it to her bosom, while she loaded it with caresses, and bathed it with tears. Her sobs were those of despair. In an instantI comprehended her intention, and creeping silently along the parapet, I suddenly stood up and seized her in my arms. She gave one convulsive shriek and swooned away.
“I had taught myself to look on misery as the actings of certain general laws: I had accustomed myself to look upon the most appalling phenomena of organic and inorganic life simply as the consummation to which they must necessarily come. I had studied to bring down to nothing the revolting aspect of misery, the bloody scenes of warriors weltering in their blood, or the ghastly hue of emaciating disease; but never before that night had there been presented to my eyes such a combination of utter misery, of gentleness, of innocence, of suffering, of goodness, and of despair, as I beheld blended in the woman whom I had thus rescued from perdition.
“She was young, as yet scarcely of the age capable to bear even the ordinary troubles of the world. Her auburn hair floated loose over her shoulders and her pale emaciated face, while the whiteness of her forehead was here and there to be seen between her dishevelled tresses. Her lacklustre eyes were as sunken as if animation had already ceased; a tattered dress hung about her skeleton frame, and her fingerswere more like those of a dead than of a living creature. The babe was as pale as the moon that shone upon it. Its sweet little features were locked in a calm lethargic sleep: its spirit seemed to sympathise with that of its mother; whilst neither her alarm and swoon, nor the bleakness of the night, could rouse it from its happy slumber, or draw a murmuring cry from its lips.
“I stood for a long time, supporting the unhappy girl in my arms, anxiously watching the return of animation. Her circulation was slow, for want had fed upon her strength.
“‘Oh, oh!—where, where—am I?—no—no—I am not there’—she wanderingly muttered, as she gradually recovered.
“Her head drooped in silence, as she became conscious of her position and exposure. I questioned her delicately on the circumstances that led to her taking so fatal a resolution as the one which I had, but accidentally, prevented her from carrying into effect. After much hesitation, she told me the story of her misfortune.
“She had been left fatherless and motherless. She had devoted herself to the man whom she had been taught, by his ardent professions, to look upon as her only stay, and whom she still loved; he had perjured himself, and abandoned her.
“She had hid her head in shame and misery from her friends, and by incessant toil had sometimes procured herself food: but she became a mother, and could no longer work. She had pined away with her babe in a hovel: at last to see her child daily droop under her eyes, maddened her; she could bear it no longer. There might be a happier lot, she thought, in another world, where at least there were no deceivers, and so resolved to flee from this.
“‘And is the father of your child rich, and able to provide food for it?’ I inquired.
“‘He is,’ she replied.
“‘Recollect,’ I said, ‘that however desperate your condition may be, still you have no right to take away the life of your child. The little innocent has been brought into the world by you, it is, therefore, your duty to devote your life to its care and preservation.’
“She wept.
“I had no money—my coat was scarcely good enough to protect me from the cold—I still had two buckles on my shoes, with which I had not parted because I knew their value would scarcely procure me a meal. I took them off and laid them on the babe. ‘Those may serve to get your child some milk,’ I said. She refused them. I pressed her to accept them for the child, and afterhaving obtained a promise that she would never again attempt to destroy herself I conducted her off the bridge.
“The history of the poor girl had made a deep impression on me; I was agitated, so I retraced my steps, and seated myself down again; but I could no longer study the stars: the mother and child were ever present to my mind. That girl was once happy, I thought. She may have shone in virtue and accomplishments. Now she is loaded with misery. And what has changed her condition thus? was it the visitation of Providence? was it sudden illness? was it her own crime? She had fallen a victim to her own virtues, her own confidence, her own fondness, her own gentleness. The angelic nature of her sex, was worked upon for her destruction, and after having been deceived, she was discarded,—she! nay,—not she alone—but the innocent child—too young to offend, too helpless to be criminal—was also thrown on the wide, unfeeling world. Has one human creature any right thus to load another with misery, to drive another to desperation, to convert the life of another—aye, and by a most villainous method—into a period of enduring suffering and anguish? The man, too, who hast blasted her happiness, is rich, and perhaps, at this moment, when his victim and child are perishing of starvation, is surrounded by his merry minions andlemans, and is squandering away that wealth, of which the thousandth part would save his child from famine. I could no longer restrain myself. ‘Great Ruler of the Universe,’ I exclaimed, ‘canst Thou permit these things? How is it, that thou, who hast filled the space, that confounds human understanding, with such worlds of beautiful worlds; that hast so wisely adjusted their incomprehensible systems, that all revolve and move in perfect harmony, and submit implicitly to the great laws that Thou hast imposed upon them:—how is it that Thou hast given such license to one of thy humble creatures, that he, apparently uncontrolled, can stride in wickedness over this fair world, and blast the life and happiness which Thou, also bestowed?—This, at least, is not wisdom!...’
“Hush! blasphemer, hush,” a spirit seemed to whisper to me.
“Chide not Heaven foolishly! Thou sayest that He has ordained laws to which worlds that thou but faintly seest above, are subject:—that’s true: carry thy reflections still farther. Thou beholdest above thee, with the naked eye, orbs, in regard to which thy powers of calculation are scarcely comprehensive enough to keep pace with thy vision. To thy sight, when assisted, these already uncountable worlds multiplythemselves to numbers which thou canst attempt to speak of only in ratios; and, probably, when thy ingenuity shall have contrived to invent some instrument that will assist thy vision still more, thou shalt behold, open before thee, an immensity of orb-filled space, at the sight of which despair will well-nigh seize thee. Consider all these,—even the few that thou seest without unusual exertion,—they all exist, move, and revolve by the force of laws which are impressed upon them. Contemplate their mechanism and order. Take this one—it is the centre of a system, and stands the governor, amidst millions of other orbs that are subject and obedient to its guidance. It moves, and they move, too, with and around it; and it is itself subject to some other, from which it receives its motion and its law. Those others, too, that so humbly seem to follow it, are, each of them in its place, the rulers of others again, that are less powerful than themselves, and give their law to them. Each of these, apparently, disjointed parts, and these numerous groups of world-contained worlds, are united and cemented, under the all-powerful force of law, and form a whole that is more incomprehensible at the ratio of the unit of each, than its component parts. Still, notwithstanding this unrealizable immensity, behold the harmony and regularity with whichthey perform their revolutions. In these gyrations, that are as innumerable as themselves, not one clashes against the other; and when they diverge the distance of even a cubic inch, such divergence is ever exacted by the necessity of the self-same law, which so marvellously controls them. In the movements of these vast bodies time can be calculated to the utmost second; and in their inclination to a given point, towards which they have been verging for millions of your computed years, not a difference, except that which the known law seemed to require, can be traced, either in ratio, or in, what appears to your short-lived eyes, their remarkable slowness. Here mark law, and obedience to that law.
“From the sublime regions come now to earth. Thou mayest behold design and intelligence in the very inorganic matter that composes it, from the consolidated and hardened granite that resists and beats back the rushing ocean, to the minute particle that blinds thee by the roadside. Law is stamped upon them, and adherence to that law, composes their very existence. Again, the trees which shelter this beautiful globe tell, in their germination, their bloom, their blossom, and decay, of law and obedience.
“Proceed to organized things;—contemplate all living creatures, from the low and torpid lizard thatcreeps upon the tombstone, and turns its cold and clammy sides to the sunbeams, to the gigantic elephant—thou wilt find that every animal carries in itself a law and undergoes the pains of retribution whenever it violates that law. Thus the browsing sheep that forgets its instinct, and feeds on poisonous herbs, dies. The scorpion, that turns his sting upon itself, also dies. The antelope, if it throws itself down a rock must necessarily be dashed to pieces. In all these things you see law, and its safeguard—retribution. Man, as well as all other beings, is subject to it, and the penalty which its violation entails. If you establish false systems among yourselves, and consent to postpone to an imaginary period, this penalty, which ought to be made to follow closely upon every violation of the law, surely Heaven is not to be blamed. Duty is poised between the reward of virtue and retribution:—man has the license to choose, between either meriting the former, or bringing down the latter, upon himself. The great error of your social physics is, that you remit this penalty to a period of time, which if it were even unimagined, would fail to afford the principal and best effect of retribution,—the deterring from crimes.
“Like those who dwelt on the banks of the Nile of old, who built cities for dead men, and gave them kings,and made laws for them, and established vast prisons and instituted judges, and sketched out places which the most fevered imagination cannot realize, and surrounded them with pleasures, or filled them with horrors, either as happy regions where virtues were to be rewarded, or frightful holes in which crimes were to be punished, you permit the evil-doer to live his wicked years, and sink amidst the weeping sorrow of friends or bribed strangers into the quiet grave, then read the lesson to mystified listeners—that evil deeds are punished. If the wretch, who poisoned the life of that miserable creature whom thou but now didst rescue, were made to suffer the one-hundredth part of that misery which he has caused; his mates in vile wickedness, appalled by the example, would shrink in trembling fear from the perpetration of like crimes. You forget, in your social system, the wisdom of the race which you affect to despise, while you cherish the theological philosophy which you were eager to borrow from them, and tie the hand of the avenger, and blunt the double-edged sword of retribution. You punish the man who takes away the life of another; who consigns another to the oblivion on which neither misery nor pleasure intrudes, and him who makes the life of the living worse than death, you permit to roam, in his foulness, this beautiful earth, and only hope thatthe retribution which you yourselves ought to bring about, will be wrought by the very hand of the Being who operates here but by his created agents. And then, thou short-sighted, impulse-ridden, and reason-limited mortal, complainest in loud and senseless terms against Heaven, while at thy own door lies the wrong. Know that man himself, by law, is the avenger, the retributionist on himself or others.
“‘Ah! is it so?’ I said. I reflected, and found that it must be so.—The scales fell from my eyes.—‘True, true,’ I cried.—Heaven forgive the impulse of a short-sighted mortal.
“Then this man, who may now be rolling in profusion while his child is dying of hunger, ought to be made to bear the stings of famine, too, and suffer the same misery which he has inflicted on others.—And—oh! a fearful light broke in upon me—and the man from whose hands I demanded not existence, but who has given me life, and abandoned me in my misery, ought likewise to feel some part of the sufferings which I undergo. Yes: the only prevention of crime is to make its punishment follow immediately in its course.
“‘Then, hear ye powers above,’ I exclaimed, ‘this miserable life I devote to vindicate the law of nature which has been violated in me, and in your child; andI swear, by the Great Being who gave me reason, that I shall not rest until I have taught my father, that the creature to whom he has given life possesses feelings and sensibility, and is capable of taking vengeance.’
“I resolved, at once, to start for the West Indies, and to go to the docks, as soon as it was light, to procure a ship. So, on the impulse of the thought, I proceeded to the place where I had my lowly lodging to fetch my telescope. But, although I knocked loud enough to awake the soundest sleepers, the door was not opened; I, therefore, sat on the steps until daylight came. When morning had dawned I again knocked, but was refused admittance. ‘Then give me my telescope,’ I prayed. The telescope had been sold the night before for my rent, I was told. I was overwhelmed. It was natural enough the master of the house should require his money, but I never could have contemplated that my telescope would have been taken from me. Rallying from the shock that I had received, I begged to see the master. After some time he came to the door. He was a fat heavy little man, whose voice came whizzingly from his encumbered chest. I implored him to restore me my telescope, telling him that it was my only companion and solace in life, and I offered to work for him in whatever capacity, how mean soever it might be, forthe few shillings that were due to him, provided he would give me back my telescope. ‘Go along with you,’ he answered, ‘do you take me for a fool?’ and shut the door violently in my face. I turned away, and was so dejected in mind and wasted in body, that I could not walk. The morning advanced, and the street began to present the busy scene by which it was every day animated. My musings imperceptibly turned on the motly crowd before me. I contemplated the scene in which there might be observed the shrewd cabman driving to death his jaded horse, the affluent man of business, hurrying with inclining head to the pursuit of greater wealth, the afflicted widow, moving along in modest grief; the age-stricken and poor cripple crawling in his sordid rags, and the man of fortune with his air of self-satisfaction, his dangling jewels and his gaudy equipage. I remarked that these different persons passed each other as if no kindly word or salutation had ever rested on their heavy tongues—like gruff animals that hurry in silence to their separate lairs. Each seemed intent on his own pursuit. The driver did not withdraw his attention from his horse’s head, nor did the lordling stop to succour the decaying wretch; the man of business did not raise his eyes from the ground, on which he seemed to count his gains, tonotice the sorrowful widow: yet these men possess wealth enough to render thousands happy without injuring themselves.
“They have wealth enough to have my telescope restored to me, and cause my happiness; still, yon wretched being may—nay, will probably sink into his grave for the want of a brass penny from any of these, and I—I should probably be handed over to the police officer, were I to make one more effort for my telescope. ‘Mankind, farewell!’ I exclaimed, from the force of my disgust, ‘I may pity you, but never can love you.’
“I then walked down to the London Docks where, after some inquiry, I found a ship prepared for a voyage to Jamaica. I offered myself to the commander as a seaman. He began to depreciate my capabilities, and said that I should, probably, encumber others rather than be of any service.
“I told him that I could steer a ship, and take observations; I did not mention my competency to do the other parts of navigation, for I was afraid to prejudice him against me; for individuals of that class pride themselves on the idea that the great secret of managing a ship, is in their hands alone, and that other men are, or ought to be—entirely ignorant of it.
“Finally, I asked him to examine me, on the mariner’s compass, and on navigation.
“He readily did so, and the ignorant creature put me some miserable questions, about the sun’s altitude at noon, and some such matter which he had been mechanically taught. I answered them, and encouraged all the while the important and patronizing air which he had assumed. When we have no money, and desire the accomplishment of any purpose, we must learn to use towards men, a passport that is equivalent—a sympathy with their vanity. The result was, that I was immediately granted a passage to Jamaica, on condition that I should work it.
“As I sailed down the Thames and gazed on the banks of the river, I became a prey to the saddest reflections. Fancy had often whispered to me thoughts of a brilliant and happy career. The lightness of heart with which I began and prosecuted my studies; the happiness which I derived from them, and my total unacquaintance with the world, had never permitted me to speculate a moment on the possibility of misfortune or of distress. I had fondly cherished the hope, that in Europe, the centre of the highest human civilization, I should have been able one day to bring down some truth from the stars to mankind, and should have crowned thelabours of a lifetime, with banishing away some of the ignorance in which the human species was enveloped. But when I experienced the prostration of want—the prostration that arises not from an enfeebling of the body, or from a decay of mind, but simply from not possessing the conventional medium of exchange; when I saw that our most glorious enterprises are subject, on account of a necessary evil of civilisation, and the iniquitous habits of mankind, to be blasted; I became persuaded that, without money, no man can hope to propagate truth; and the difficulty of carrying my projects into execution was forced upon me. This, however, could partly be overcome. But as I left Europe, I felt that all hopes of realizing my designs were gone.
“The ardour which had, however, inflamed me in one pursuit, fired me also in another, and to it was added the force of unswerving necessity;—that of visiting on the individual who was the primary source of my sufferings, the same amount of them as I was enduring.
“But I find I am becoming prolix. It is now late—you and I require rest; come again to-morrow night and I shall let you hear the other part of the adventures, which have ended in leaving me a prisoner onboard your father’s ship, and a narrator to you of my history.”
The young officer rose up, and, shaking hands with Appadocca, bade him good night with that melancholy sympathy which only true and disinterested friendship can inspire.