----her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she ate,
could not have beaten more convulsively than mine, as I opened the forbidden book. Vague fears and doubts haunted my conscience for many days. But my friend, besides being a sound Catholic, was a devout man. He had lately taken priest’s orders, and was now not only my literary but my spiritual director. His abilities and his affection to me had obtained a most perfect command over my mind, and it was not long before I could match him in mental boldness, on points unconnected with articles of faith.
“This was, indeed, the happiest period of my life. The greatest part of my time, with the exception of that required for my daily attendance at the dull lectures of the divinity professors, was devoted to the French critics, André, Le Bossu, Batteux, Rollin, La Harpe, and many others of less note. The habit of analyzing language and ideas, which I acquired in the perusal of such works, soon led me to some of the French metaphysicians, especially Condillac.
“It was the favourite amusement of myself and those constant associates of my youth that formed the knot of friends, of whom the often mentioned _Colegial Mayor_ was the centre and guide; to examine all our feelings, in order to resolve them into some general law, and trace them to their simple elements. This habit of analysis and generalization extended itself to the customs and habits of the country, and the daily incidents of life, till in the course of time it produced in me the deceitful, though not uncommon notion, that all knowledge is the result of developed principles, and gave me a distaste for every book that was not cast into a regular theory.
“While I was thus amused and deceived by the activity of my mind, without endeavouring to give it the weight and steadiness which depends upon the knowledge of facts; Catholicism, with its ten thousand rules and practices, was mechanically keeping up the ill-contrived structure of devotion, which it had raised more in my fancy than my heart. It had now to contend, however, with an enemy whom nothing but fixed hope can keep within bounds--but religion had left me no hope. Instead of engaging love on her side, she had forced him into an inseparable league with immorality. I will not describe the misery that embittered my youth, and destroyed the peace of my maturer years--the struggles, perhaps the crimes, certainly the remorse, that were in me the consequence of the barbarous laws of my country. They are too intimately blended with _self_, too intricately entwined with the feelings of others, to be left exposed for ever to the cold indifference of the multitude. Whatever on this point is connected with the general state of Spain, has already been touched upon. Mine, indeed, is the lot of thousands. Often did I recoil at the approach of the moment when I was to bind myself for ever to the clerical profession, and as often my heart failed me at the sight of a mother in tears! It was no worldly interest--it was the eternal welfare of my soul, which she believed to depend on my following the call of Heaven, that made the best of mothers a snare to her dearest child. The persuasions of my confessor, and, above all, the happiness I experienced in restoring cheerfulness to my family, deluded me into the hope of preserving the same feeling through life. A very short time, however, was sufficient to open my eyes. The inexorable law that bound me, was the bitterest foe to my virtue. Yet devotion had not lost her power over my fancy, and I broke loose, more than once, from her thraldom, and was as often reclaimed, before the awful period which was to raise me to the priesthood.
