really reached the goal, can I say that I should be happy? can I say,
that all the success within my reach could have stilled within me the
tone of peaceful solitude I have ever cherished as the greatest of
blessings? But why speculate on this? I never could have been highly
successful. I have not the temper, had I the talent, that climbs high. I
must always have done my best _at once_; put forth my whole strength on
each occasion--husbanded nothing, and consequently gained nothing.

Here I am at Dallas, in the Tyrol, a wild and lonely glen, with a deep
and rushing river foaming through it. The mountain in front of me is
speckled with wooden _chalets_, some of them perched on lofty cliffs,
not distinct from realms of never-melting snow.

All is poverty on every side; even in the little church, where Piety
would deck its shrine at any sacrifice, the altar is bare of ornament.
The Cure's house, too, is humble enough for him who is working yonder in
his garden, an old and white-haired man, too feeble and frail for such
labour; and already the sun has set, and now he ceases from his toil:
for the "Angelus" is ringing, and soon the village will be kneeling in
prayer. Already the bell has ceased, and through the stilly air rises
the murmur of many voices.

There was somewhat of compassionate pity in the look of the old man who
has just passed the window; he stopped a moment to gaze at me--at the
only one whose unbended knee and closed lips had no brotherhood in the
devotion. He seemed very poor, and old, and feeble, and yet he could
look with a sense of pity upon me, as an outcast from the faith. So did
I feel his steady stare at least; for, at that instant, the wish was
nearest to my heart that I, too, could have knelt and prayed with the
rest. And why could |I not? was it that my spirit was too stubborn, too
proud, to mingle with the humble throng? did I feel myself better, or
nobler, or greater than the meanest there, when uttering the same words
of thankfulness or hope? No, far from it; a very different, but not less
powerful barrier interposed. Education, habits of thought, prejudices,
convictions, even party spirit, had all combined to represent Romanism
to my mind, in all the glaring colours of its superstitions, its
cruelties, and its deceptions. Then arose before me a kind of vision of
its tyranny over mankind,--its inquisitions, its persecutions, its mock
miracles, and its real bloodshed; and I could not turn from