We have not space to tell how Ellesmere planned to get Mr. Midhurst to write an essay on the Miseries of Human Life; nor how at Treves, upon a lowering day, the party, seated in the ancient amphitheatre, heard it read; nor how fully, eloquently, and not unfairly, the gloomy man, not without a certain solemn enjoyment, summed up his sad catalogue of the ills that flesh is heir to; nor how Milverton agreed in the evening to speak an answer to the essay, and show that life was not so miserable after all; nor how Ellesmere, eager to have it answered effectively, determined that Milverton should have the little accessories in his favor, the red curtains drawn, a blazing wood-fire, and plenty of light; nor how before the answer began, he brought Milverton a glass of wine to cheer him; nor how Milverton endeavored to show that in the present system misery was not quite predominant, and that much good in many ways came out of ill.  Then we have some talk about Pleasantness; and Dunsford is persuaded to write and read an essay on that subject, which he read one morning, ’while we were sitting in the balcony of an hotel, in one of the small towns that overlook the Moselle, which was flowing beneath in a reddish turbid stream.’  In the conversation which follows Milverton says,

It is a fault certainly to which writers are liable, that of exaggerating the claims of their subject.

And how truly is that said!  Indeed we can quite imagine a very earnest man feeling afraid to think too much and long about any existing evil, for fear it should greaten on his view into a thing so large and pernicious, that he should be constrained to give all his life to the wrestling with that one thing; and attach to it an importance which would make his neighbors think him a monomaniac.  If you think long and deeply upon any subject, it grows in magnitude and weight:  if you think of it too long, it may grow big enough to exclude the thought of all things beside.  If it be an existing and prevalent evil you are thinking of, you may come to fancy that if that one thing could be done away, it would be well with the human race,—­all evil would go with it.  We can sympathize deeply with that man who died a short while since, who wrote volume after volume to prove that if men would only leave off stooping, and learn to hold themselves upright, it would be the grandest blessing that ever came to humanity.  We can quite conceive the process by which a man might come to think so, without admitting mania as a cause.  We confess, for ourselves, that so deeply do we feel the force of the law Milverton mentions, there are certain evils of which we are afraid to think much, for fear we should come to be able to think of nothing else, and of nothing more.