ABSTRACT
The most extraordinary part of this whole transaction was the complete success of the operator, which reflected immortal glory upon his sagacity and foresight. From this moment Audley Mandeville seemed to have conceived the most singular affection for the person of Holloway. To any other individual this incident of the fishery would have been a momentary vexation only; and, as soon as the evil was removed, the benefit would have been forgotten. Not so with the representative of the house of Mandeville. From the hour that he had become lord of the domain, nothing had happened / to contradict his will; and, though his pleasures were few, the pains inflicted on him by others might almost be said to be none. His recollection therefore of this agony of twenty-eight hours, never in the slightest degree decayed in his mind. Add to which, Audley Mandeville, like all other sentient beings, wanted something to love, and felt a vacuity and uneasiness from that want, without being able to account for his pain. The whole affectionate capabilities of his nature had once been centred in Amelia Montfort. She had been suddenly and violently removed from him; and his heart had died in their separation; and been buried in her grave. Since that time, his love can scarcely ever have been said to be excited, except towards myself and my sister. Her he hardly knew by sight; and, as to me, my tender years had disqualified me to be his companion, and there was a savage unsociableness in my nature, that incapacitated me from paying him 192those insensible / attentions, which might in time have conciliated him. Such a gentle being as he was, might seem formed to love and be loved; but his heart was dead in his bosom, and he could never get through the preliminaries of a friendly intercourse. One peculiarity of his history was, that he had never known a benefactor; and, therefore though his obligation to Holloway was slight, or none at all, it did not appear so to him. He could not chaffer with his duties. a If the affair had related to another man than himself, he might have been able to calculate the lawyer’s motives, and so to reduce his generosity to its proper dimensions; but, upon the present occasion, he took it whole, and did not apply the analysis of distinctions and subtilties to separate its elements. Holloway therefore never came into his presence, but the poor deluded solitary looked up to him like a God. He considered him as a being, who had secured to him the inestimable privilege / of sinking quietly and insensibly into his grave. Whenever the name of the scoundrel was announced, it appeared to communicate new life to Audley Mandeville; his countenance assumed a faint radiance of cheerfulness and good-nature; and he said to himself, ‘Here comes a man, to whom I have contracted a “debt immense; still paying, still to owe.’” b
