Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
concealments, I must risk incurring his suspicion and his anger. These reections
were productive of considerable embarrassment.
There was, indeed, an avenue by which to escape these diculties, if it did not,
at the same time, plunge me into greater. My confessions might, in other respects,
be unbounded, but my reserves, in this particular, might be continued. Yet should
I not expose myself to formidable perils? Would my secret be for ever unsuspected
and undiscovered?
When I considered the nature of this faculty, the impossibility of going farther
than suspicion, since the agent could be known only by his own confession, and
even this confession would not be believed by the greater part of mankind, I was
tempted to conceal it.
In most cases, if I had asserted the possession of this power, I should be treated
as a liar; it would be considered as an absurd and audacious expedient to free
myself from the suspicion of having entered into compact with a daemon, or of
being myself an emissary of the grand foe. Here, however, there was no reason to
dread a similar imputation, since Ludloe had denied the preternatural pretensions
of these airy sounds.
My conduct on this occasion was nowise inuenced by the belief of any inherent
sanctity in truth. Ludloe had taught me to model myself in this respect entirely
with a view to immediate consequences. If my genuine interest, on the whole,
was promoted by veracity, it was proper to adhere to it; but, if the result of my
investigation were opposite, truth was to be sacriced without scruple.
Chapter VII
Meanwhile, in a point of so much moment, I was not hasty to determine. My
delay seemed to be, by no means, unacceptable to Ludloe, who applauded my
discretion, and warned me to be circumspect. My attention was chiey absorbed
by considerations connected with this subject, and little regard was paid to any
foreign occupation or amusement.
One evening, after a day spent in my closet, I sought recreation by walking
forth. My mind was chiey occupied by the review of incidents which happened
in Spain. I turned my face towards the elds, and recovered not from my reverie,
till I had proceeded some miles on the road to Meath. The night had considerably
advanced, and the darkness was rendered intense, by the setting of the moon.
Being somewhat weary, as well as undetermined in what manner next to proceed,
I seated myself on a grassy bank beside the road. The spot which I had chosen was
aloof from passengers, and shrowded in the deepest obscurity.
Some time elapsed, when my attention was excited by the slow approach of an
equipage. I presently discovered a coach and six horses, but unattended, except by
coachman and postillion, and with no light to guide them on their way. Scarcely
had they passed the spot where I rested, when some one leaped from beneath the
hedge, and seized the head of the fore-horses. Another called upon the coachman
to stop, and threatened him with instant death if he disobeyed. A third drew open
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