nly that this current is but an eddy, wheeling
round upon the same maelstrom,) I have since remembered a striking
incident in a modern novel. A lady abbess of a convent, herself suspected
of Protestant leanings, and in that way already disarmed of all effectual
power, finds one of her own nuns (whom she knows to be innocent) accused
of an offence leading to the most terrific of punishments. The nun will be
immured alive if she is found guilty; and there is no chance that she will
not--for the evidence against her is strong--unless something were made
known that cannot be made known; and the judges are hostile. All follows
in the order of the reader's fears. The witnesses depose; the evidence is
without effectual contradiction; the conviction is declared; the judgment
is delivered; nothing remains but to see execution done. At this crisis
the abbess, alarmed too late for effectual interposition, considers with
herself that, according to the regular forms, there will be one single
night open during which the prisoner cannot be withdrawn from her own
separate jurisdiction. This one night, therefore, she will use, at any
hazard to herself, for the salvation of her friend. At midnight, when all
is hushed in the convent, the lady traverses the passages which lead to
the cells of prisoners. She bears a master-key under her professional
habit. As this will open every door in every corridor,--already, by
anticipation, she feels the luxury of holding her emancipated friend
within her arms. Suddenly she has reached the door; she descries a dusky
object; she raises her lamp; and, ranged within the recess of the
entrance, she beholds the funeral banner of the Holy Office, and the black
robes of its inexorable officials.

I apprehend that, in a situation such as this, supposing it a real one,
the lady abbess would not start, would not show any marks externally of
consternation or horror. The case was beyond _that_. The sentiment which
attends the sudden revelation that _all is lost_! silently is gathered up
into the heart; it is too deep for gestures or for words; and no part of
it passes to the outside. Were the ruin conditional, or were it in any
point doubtful, it would be natural to utter ejaculations, and to seek
sympathy. But where the ruin is understood to be absolute, where sympathy
cannot be consolation, and counsel cannot be hope, this is otherwise. The
voice perishes; the gestures are frozen; and the spirit of man flies back