The latter , in order to produce a sense of reality in the reader 's mind , must be conceived with such proportionate strength by the author as to seem in the glow of fancy more like truth , past , present or to come , than purely fiction . The prospective sinner , on the other hand , weaves his plot of crime , but seldom or never feels a perfect certainty that it will be executed . There is a dreaminess diffused about his thoughts ; in a dream , as it were , he strikes the death-blow into his victim 's heart and starts to find an indelible blood-stain on his hand . Thus a novel-writer or a dramatist , in creating a villain of romance and fitting him with evil deeds , and the villain of actual life in projecting crimes that will be perpetrated , may almost meet each other halfway between reality and fancy . It is not until the crime is accomplished that Guilt clenches its gripe upon the guilty heart and claims it for his own . Then , and not before , sin is actually felt and acknowledged , and , if unaccompanied by repentance , grows a thousandfold more virulent by its self-consciousness . Be it considered , also , that men often overestimate their capacity for evil . At a distance , while its attendant circumstances do not press upon their notice and its results are dimly seen , they can bear to contemplate it . They may take the steps which lead to crime , impelled by the same sort of mental action as in working out a mathematical problem , yet be powerless with compunction at the final moment . They knew not what deed it was that they deemed themselves resolved to do . In truth , there is no such thing in man 's nature as a settled and full resolve , either for good or evil , except at the very moment of execution . Let us hope , therefore , that all the dreadful consequences of sin will not be incurred unless the act have set its seal upon the thought . Yet , with the slight fancy-work which we have framed , some sad and awful truths are interwoven . Man must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest , since , though his hand be clean , his heart has surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity . He must feel that when he shall knock at the gate of heaven no semblance of an unspotted life can entitle him to entrance there . Penitence must kneel and Mercy come from the footstool of the throne , or that golden gate will never open . DR. HEIDEGGER 'S EXPERIMENT . That very singular man old Dr. Heidegger once invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study . There were three white-bearded gentlemen -- Mr. Medbourne , Colonel Killigrew and Mr. Gascoigne -- and a withered gentlewoman whose name was the widow Wycherly . They were all melancholy old creatures who had been unfortunate in life , and whose greatest misfortune it was that they were not long ago in their graves .
Mr. Medbourne , in the vigor XXXXX his age , had been a prosperous merchant , but had lost his all by a frantic speculation , and was now little better than a mendicant .
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