They
had all of them (their immediate leaders excepted) been hurried on, as
is perfectly natural and not unfrequently the case, by the rapid
succession of incidents (which in their progress of excitement gave them
no time for reflection), from one act to another; without perceiving, in
a single pause, the several gradations by which they insensibly passed
on from crime to crime;--and it was only now, and in a survey of the
several foot-prints in their progress, that they were enabled to
perceive the vast and perilous leaps which they had taken. As in the
ascent of the elevation, step by step, we can judge imperfectly of its
height, until from the very summit we look down upon our place of
starting, so with the wretched outcasts of society of whom we speak.
Flushed with varying excitements, they had deputed the task of
reflection to another and a calmer time; and with the reins of sober
reason relaxed, whirled on by their passions, they lost all control over
their own impetuous progress, until brought up and checked, as we have
seen, by a catastrophe the most ruinous--the return of reason being the
signal for the rousing up of those lurking furies--terror, remorse, and
many and maddening regrets.
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