Can the mere breath of the
seasons, the weight or lightness of the atmosphere, the outward gloom or
smile of the brute mass called Nature, affect us thus? Out on this empty
science, this vain knowledge, this little lore, if we are so fooled by
the vile clay and the common air from our one great empire, self! Great
God! hast thou made us in mercy, or in disdain? Placed in this narrow
world, darkness and cloud around us; no fixed rule for men; creeds,
morals, changing in every clime, and growing like herbs upon the mere
soil,--we struggle to dispel the shadows; we grope around; from our own
heart and our sharp and hard endurance we strike our only light. For
what? To show us what dupes we are,--creatures of accident, tools of
circumstance, blind instruments of the scorner Fate; the very mind, the
very reason, a bound slave to the desires, the weakness of the clay;
affected by a cloud, dulled by the damps of the foul marsh; stricken
from power to weakness, from sense to madness, to gaping idiocy, or
delirious raving, by a putrid exhalation! A rheum, a chill, and Caesar
trembles! The world's gods, that slay or enlighten millions, poor
puppets to the same rank imp which calls up the fungus or breeds the
worm,--pah! How little worth is it in this life to be wise! Strange,
strange, how my heart sinks. Well, the better sign, the better sign! In
danger it never sank."

Absorbed in these reflections, Aram had not for some minutes noticed
the sudden ceasing of the bell; but now, as he again paused from his
irregular and abrupt pacings along the chamber, the silence struck him,
and looking forth, and striving again to catch the note, he saw a little
group of men, among whom he marked the erect and comely form of Rowland
Lester, approaching towards the house.

"What!" he thought, "do they come for me? Is it so late? Have I played
the laggard? Nay, it yet wants near an hour to the time they expected
me. Well, some kindness, some attention from my good father-in-law; I
must thank him for it. What! my hand trembles. How weak are these poor
nerves; I must rest and recall my mind to itself!"

And indeed, whether or not from the novelty and importance of the event
he was about to celebrate, or from some presentiment, occasioned, as he
would fain believe, by the mournful and sudden change in the atmosphere,
an embarrassment, a wavering, a fear, very unwonted to the calm and
stately self-possession of Eugene Aram, made itself painfully fe