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It tore from the self-convicted woman all the sentimental disguises with which the world then hid, and still hides, its corruptions. Her sin arose and stared her blackly in the face AS SIN. She cowered before it. "Am I THAT? And William will know it. Poor William!" She looked up at Ursula for the first time with the guilty look; hitherto, it had been only one of pain or despair.
I wished to say something in my own justification; but in attempting to speak, I felt my voice falter; and rather than testify any emotion, or suffer the tears to overflow that were already gathering in my eyes, I chose to keep silence, and bear all like a self-convicted culprit. Thus was I dismissed, and thus I sought my home.
One of the latest acts of his life was to appeal to the Court of Directors to make some provision for his wife, by extending to her the annuity that had been accorded to him. They gave, says his most devoted biographer, no more heed to his dying entreaties than they would have given to the whine of a self-convicted beggar. Yet surely Hastings had deserved well of the East India Company.
In her he beheld only a penitent, who was self-accused and self-convicted. He heard the voice of the old man screaming vindictively, "She plotted to get my money!" Winthrop turned upon him savagely. "How did she plot to get it?" he retorted fiercely. "You know, and I know. I know how your lawyer, your doctor, your servant plotted to get it!" His voice rose and rang with indignation.
"If you can guess, Helen, pray tell me." "But I am not fond of war and warriors." "Then I must appeal at once to you, self-convicted Bellona that you are. Is it from the cruelty natural to the female disposition?" "From two propensities still more natural to it." HARLEY. "YOU puzzle me: what can they be?" VIOLANTE. "Pity and admiration; we pity the weak and admire the brave."
Rousseau may prove himself a maudlin degenerate. Cellini may stand self-convicted as an amorous ruffian. If they are not respectable they are thoroughly human and interesting all the same. The wonderful thing about Mr. Pepys is that a man should succeed in making himself seem so insignificant when really he must have been a man of considerable character and attainments.
Still, as the noise increased, I was really frightened. Just at this critical moment, when we were both self-convicted of an arrant cowardice, which would have shamed a Canadian child of six years old, Mrs. O tapped at the door, and although generally a most unwelcome visitor, from her gossiping, mischievous propensities, I gladly let her in.
She had, indeed attended to the religious training of her girl with constant care; but the yearnings of her maternal heart had softened even her religion, so that the laws, and dogmas, and texts, and exercises by which her husband was oppressed, and her servants afflicted, had been made lighter for Hester, sometimes not without pangs of conscience on the part of the self-convicted parent.
He paused for a moment, as if to note the effect of his words; then turning round abruptly upon the spot, where Catiline sat, writhing with rage and impatience, and gnawing his nether lip, until the blood trickled down his chin, he flung forth his arm with an indignant gesture, and instantly addressed him by his name, in tones that rang beneath the vaulted roof, over the heads of the self-convicted traitors, like heaven’s own thunder, and found a fearful echo in their dismayed and guilty souls.
Now all was changed, and the irreproachable reputations of days gone by were shattered. Debased and self-convicted, they stood before the bar of justice, to answer for their crimes. Instead of being the objects of admiration, they were now receiving the well-merited scorn of those who had been their friends and neighbors.
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