Still recurring scenes of misery and pain, the fruits of this distemper, made no more a part of our lives—­the word plague no longer rung in our ears—­the aspect of plague incarnate in the human countenance no longer appeared before our eyes.  From this moment I saw plague no more.  She abdicated her throne, and despoiled herself of her imperial sceptre among the ice rocks that surrounded us.  She left solitude and silence co-heirs of her kingdom.

My present feelings are so mingled with the past, that I cannot say whether the knowledge of this change visited us, as we stood on this sterile spot.  It seems to me that it did; that a cloud seemed to pass from over us, that a weight was taken from the air; that henceforth we breathed more freely, and raised our heads with some portion of former liberty.  Yet we did not hope.  We were impressed by the sentiment, that our race was run, but that plague would not be our destroyer.  The coming time was as a mighty river, down which a charmed boat is driven, whose mortal steersman knows, that the obvious peril is not the one he needs fear, yet that danger is nigh; and who floats awe-struck under beetling precipices, through the dark and turbid waters—­seeing in the distance yet stranger and ruder shapes, towards which he is irresistibly impelled.  What would become of us?  O for some Delphic oracle, or Pythian maid, to utter the secrets of futurity!  O for some Oedipus to solve the riddle of the cruel Sphynx!  Such Oedipus was I to be—­not divining a word’s juggle, but whose agonizing pangs, and sorrow-tainted life were to be the engines, wherewith to lay bare the secrets of destiny, and reveal the meaning of the enigma, whose explanation closed the history of the human race.

Dim fancies, akin to these, haunted our minds, and instilled feelings not unallied to pleasure, as we stood beside this silent tomb of nature, reared by these lifeless mountains, above her living veins, choking her vital principle.  “Thus are we left,” said Adrian, “two melancholy blasted trees, where once a forest waved.  We are left to mourn, and pine, and die.  Yet even now we have our duties, which we must string ourselves to fulfil:  the duty of bestowing pleasure where we can, and by force of love, irradiating with rainbow hues the tempest of grief.  Nor will I repine if in this extremity we preserve what we now possess.  Something tells me, Verney, that we need no longer dread our cruel enemy, and I cling with delight to the oracular voice.  Though strange, it will be sweet to mark the growth of your little boy, and the development of Clara’s young heart.  In the midst of a desert world, we are everything to them; and, if we live, it must be our task to make this new mode of life happy to them.  At present this is easy, for their childish ideas do not wander into futurity, and the stinging craving for sympathy, and all of love of which our nature is susceptible, is not yet awake within them:  we cannot guess what will happen then, when nature