The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118,
August, 1867, by Various

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Title: Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867

Author: Various

Release Date: November 13, 2006 [EBook #19779]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XX.--AUGUST, 1867.--NO. CXVIII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867 by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

Transcriber's note: Minor typos have been corrected.

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.

CHAPTER XXI.

MADNESS?

Mr. Clement Lindsay returned to the city and his usual labors in a state
of strange mental agitation. He had received an impression for which he
was unprepared. He had seen for the second time a young girl whom, for
the peace of his own mind, and for the happiness of others, he should
never again have looked upon until Time had taught their young hearts
the lesson which all hearts must learn, sooner or later.

What shall the unfortunate person do who has met with one of those
disappointments, or been betrayed into one of those positions, which do
violence to all the tenderest feelings, blighting the happiness of
youth, and the prospects of after years?

If the person is a young man, he has various resources. He can take to
the philosophic meerschaum, and nicotize himself at brief intervals into
a kind of buzzing and blurry insensibility, until he begins to "color"
at last like the bowl of his own pipe, and even his mind gets the
tobacco flavor. Or he can have recourse to the more suggestive
stimulants, which will dress his future up for him in shining
possibilities that glitter like Masonic regalia, until the morning light
and the waking headache reveal his illusion. Some kind of spiritual