With thoughts of this nature, I assumed my steadiest demeanour—­ordered my breakfast in the most orthodox fashion—­eat it like a man in his senses; and when I threw myself back in the wicker conveniency they call a caleche, and bid adieu to Kehl, the whole fraternity of the inn would have given me a certificate of sanity before any court in Europe.

“Now for Munich,” said I, as we rattled along down the steep street of the little town.  “Now for Munich, with all the speed that first of postmasters and slowest of men, the Prince of Tour and Taxis, will afford us.”

The future engrossed all my thoughts; and puzzling as my late adventures had been to account for, I never for a moment reverted to the past.  “Is she to be mine?” was the ever-rising question in my mind.  The thousand difficulties that had crossed my path might long since have terminated a pursuit where there was so little of promise, did I not cherish the idea in my heart, that I was fated to succeed.  Sheridan answered the ribald sneers of his first auditory, by saying, “Laugh on; but I have it in me, and by ____ it shall come out.”  So I whispered to myself:--Go on Harry.  Luck has been hitherto against you, it is true; but you have yet one throw of the dice, and something seems to say, a fortunate one in store; and, if so——­, but I cannot trust myself with such anticipations.  I am well aware how little the world sympathises with the man whose fortunes are the sport of his temperament—­that April-day frame of mind is ever the jest and scoff of those hardier and sterner natures, who, if never overjoyed by success, are never much depressed by failure.  That I have been cast in the former mould, these Confessions have, alas! plainly proved; but that I regret it, I fear also, for my character for sound judgment, I must answer “No.”

               Better far to be
                In utter darkness lying,
               Than be blest with light, and see
                That light for ever flying

is, doubtless, very pretty poetry, but very poor philosophy.  For myself —­and some glimpses of sunshine this fair world has afforded me, fleeting and passing enough, in all conscience—­and yet I am not so ungrateful as to repine at my happiness, because it was not permanent, as I am thankful for those bright hours of “Love’s young dream,” which, if nothing more, are at least delightful souvenirs.  They form the golden thread in the tangled web of our existence, ever appearing amid the darker surface around, and throwing a fair halo of brilliancy on what, without it, were cold, bleak, and barren.  No, no—­

                    The light that lies
                    In woman’s eyes,