shadow of death! How often have I been interrupted when about to nail down
a coffin, by the agonized entreaties of some wretch to whom the
discoloured clay bore yet the trace of beauty, and the darkened lid seemed
only closed in slumber! How often have I said, 'Surely _that_ heart will
break with its woe!' and yet, in a little while, the bowed spirit rose
again, the eye sparkled, and the lip smiled, _because the dead were
covered from their sight_; and that which is present to man's senses is
destined to affect him far more powerfully than the dreams of his
imagination or memory. How often, too, have I seen the reverse of the
picture I have just drawn; when the pale unconscious corse has lain
abandoned in its loveliness, and grudging hands have scantily dealt out a
portion of their superfluity, to obtain the last rites for one who so
lately moved, spoke, smiled, and walked amongst them! And I have felt,
even then, that there were those to whom that neglected being had been far
more precious than heaps of gold, and I have mourned for them who perished
among strangers. One horrible scene has chased another from my mind
through a succession of years; and some of those which, perhaps, deeply
affected me at the time, are, by the mercy of Heaven, forgotten. But
enough remains to enable me to give a faint outline of the causes which
have changed me from what I was, to the gloomy joyless being I am at
length become. There is one scene indelibly impressed upon my memory."

A scene of domestic tragedy follows, which is wrought up with great effect:

"I was summoned late at night to the house of a respectable merchant, who
had been reduced, in a great measure, by the wilful extravagance of his
only son, from comparative wealth to ruin and distress. I was met by the
widow, on whose worn and weary face the calm of despair had settled. She
spoke to me for a few moments, and begged me to use dispatch and caution
in the exercise of my calling:--'for indeed,' said she, 'I have watched my
living son with a sorrow that has almost made me forget grief for the
departed. For five days and five nights I have watched, and his bloodshot
eye has not closed, no, not for a moment, from its horrible task of gazing
on the dead face of the father that cursed him. He sleeps now, if sleep it
can be called, that is rather the torpor of exhaustion; but his rest is
taken on that father's death-bed. Oh! young man, feel for me! Do your task
in such a manner,