“My lot has not been fortunate.  I have consorted long with grief, entered the gloomy labyrinth of madness, and emerged, but half alive.  Yet I thank God that I have lived!  I thank God, that I have beheld his throne, the heavens, and earth, his footstool.  I am glad that I have seen the changes of his day; to behold the sun, fountain of light, and the gentle pilgrim moon; to have seen the fire bearing flowers of the sky, and the flowery stars of earth; to have witnessed the sowing and the harvest.  I am glad that I have loved, and have experienced sympathetic joy and sorrow with my fellow-creatures.  I am glad now to feel the current of thought flow through my mind, as the blood through the articulations of my frame; mere existence is pleasure; and I thank God that I live!

“And all ye happy nurslings of mother-earth, do ye not echo my words?  Ye who are linked by the affectionate ties of nature, companions, friends, lovers! fathers, who toil with joy for their offspring; women, who while gazing on the living forms of their children, forget the pains of maternity; children, who neither toil nor spin, but love and are loved!

“Oh, that death and sickness were banished from our earthly home! that hatred, tyranny, and fear could no longer make their lair in the human heart! that each man might find a brother in his fellow, and a nest of repose amid the wide plains of his inheritance! that the source of tears were dry, and that lips might no longer form expressions of sorrow.  Sleeping thus under the beneficent eye of heaven, can evil visit thee, O Earth, or grief cradle to their graves thy luckless children?  Whisper it not, let the demons hear and rejoice!  The choice is with us; let us will it, and our habitation becomes a paradise.  For the will of man is omnipotent, blunting the arrows of death, soothing the bed of disease, and wiping away the tears of agony.  And what is each human being worth, if he do not put forth his strength to aid his fellow-creatures?  My soul is a fading spark, my nature frail as a spent wave; but I dedicate all of intellect and strength that remains to me, to that one work, and take upon me the task, as far as I am able, of bestowing blessings on my fellow-men!”

His voice trembled, his eyes were cast up, his hands clasped, and his fragile person was bent, as it were, with excess of emotion.  The spirit of life seemed to linger in his form, as a dying flame on an altar flickers on the embers of an accepted sacrifice.

CHAPTER V.

When we arrived at Windsor, I found that Raymond and Perdita had departed for the continent.  I took possession of my sister’s cottage, and blessed myself that I lived within view of Windsor Castle.  It was a curious fact, that at this period, when by the marriage of Perdita I was allied to one of the richest individuals in England, and was bound by the most intimate friendship to its chiefest noble, I