rtune, the thwarting of
ambition, the failure in enterprise, great though they be, are endurable
evils. The never-dying hope that youth is blessed with will find its
resting-place still within the breast, and the baffled and beaten will
struggle on unconquered; but for the death of friends, for the loss of
those in whom our dearest affections were centred, there is no solace,--the
terrible "never" of the grave knows no remorse, and even memory, that in
our saddest hours can bring bright images and smiling faces before us,
calls up here only the departed shade of happiness, a passing look at that
Eden of our joys from which we are separated forever. And the desolation of
the heart is never perfect till it has felt the echoes of a last farewell
on earth reverberating within it.

Oh, with what tortures of self-reproach we think of all former intercourse
with him that is gone! How would we wish to live our lives once more,
correcting each passage of unkindness or neglect! How deeply do we blame
ourselves for occasions of benefit lost, and opportunities unprofited by;
and how unceasingly, through after-life, the memory of the departed recurs
to us! In all the ties which affection and kindred weave around us, one
vacant spot is there, unseen and unknown by others, which no blandishments
of love, no caresses of friendship can fill up; although the rank grass
and the tall weeds of the churchyard may close around the humble tomb,
the cemetery of the heart is holy and sacred, pure from all the troubled
thoughts and daily cares of the busy world. To that hallowed spot do we
retire as into our chamber, and when unrewarded efforts bring discomfiture
and misery to our minds, when friends are false, and cherished hopes are
blasted, we think on those who never ceased to love till they had ceased to
live; and in the lonely solitude of our affliction we call upon those who
hear not, and may never return.

Mine was a desolate hearth. I sat moodily down in the old oak parlor, my
heart bowed down with grief. The noiseless steps, the mourning garments of
the old servants; the unnatural silence of those walls within which from
my infancy the sounds of merriment and mirth had been familiar; the large
old-fashioned chair where he was wont to sit, now placed against the
wall,--all spoke of the sad past. Yet, when some footsteps would draw near,
and the door would open, I could not repress a thrill of hope that he was
coming; more than once I r