The novels of Charles Brockden Brown, consisting of Wieland;or, The transformation. Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the year 1793. Edgar Huntly; or, Memoirs of a sleep-walker. Jane Talbot. Ormond; or, The secret witness. Clara Howard; or, The enthusiasm of love. With a memoir of the author.

THE SECRET WITNESS.

199

The filial passion is perhaps instinctive to man; but
its energy is modified by various circumstances. Every
event in the life of Constantia contributed to heighten
this passion beyond customary bounds. In the habit of
perpetual attendance on her father, of deriving from him
her knowledge, and sharing with him the hourly fruits
of observation and reflection, his existence seemed
blended with her own. There was no other whose
concurrence and council she could claim, with whom
a domestic and uninterrupted alliance could be maintained. The only bond of consanguinity was loosened,
the only prop of friendship was taken away.
Others, perhaps, would have observed that her father's
existence had been merely a source of obstruction and
perplexity; that she had hitherto acted by her own wisdom, and would find, hereafter, less difficulty in her choice
of schemes, and fewer impediments to the execution.
These reflections occurred not to her. This disaster had
increased, to an insupportable degree, the vacancy and
dreariness of her existence. The face she was habituated
to behold had disappeared forever; the voice whose mild
and affecting tones had so long been familiar to her ears
was hushed into eternal silence. The felicity to which
she clung was ravished away; nothing remained to hinder
her from sinking into utter despair.
The first transports of grief having subsided, a source
of consolation seemed to be opened in the belief that her
father had only changed one form of being for another;
that he still lived to be the guardian of her peace and
honour, to enter the recesses of her thought, to forewarn
her of evil and invite her to good. She grasped at these
images with eagerness, and fostered them as the only
solaces of her calamity. They were not adapted to inspire her with cheerfulness, but they sublimed her sensations, and added an inexplicable fascination to sorrow.
It was unavoidable sometimes to reflect upon the nature
of that death which had occurred. Tokens were sufficiently apparent that outward violence had been the
cause. Who could be the performer of so black a deed,
by what motives he was guided, were topics of fruitless
conjecture. She mused upon this subject, not from the