ABSTRACT
The new pursuit in which Waldorf was engaged, occasioned him to forget Zenna, or when he remembered, to avoid him. One day, however, he unavoidably met him in one of the public walks – ‘You wish to shun me,’ said / he mildly, ‘but I have something important to tell you.’ ‘Pray then be quick,’ answered Waldorf hastily. ‘Be not impatient my son – it is not advice I am going to offer, that, I see, is in vain. Lok, like the rattle-snake, has fascinated you; and though your danger is obvious, you cannot withdraw yourself from the magical vortex. The knowledge I possess in natural magic, and the sciences, was used to facilitate your reformation – where the modest voice of truth and reason failed, I would have frightened you into virtue, but here I was also unsuccessful – and I saw, and still see you, verge to the climax of guilt and destruction; for / sure the gradations to it are imperceptible, now every impediment to it is removed, and the very gates to vice unbarred and thrown open.’
