onism to the
fiercer passions of the human heart; an eye of solemn reprehension looks
out from the still places of Nature, as if the Great Soul of the
Universe had chosen the mute creations of his power to be the witnesses
of the deeds done in the body, the researchers of the bosoms of men.

"And then, even at that awful moment, I could feel the bland and gentle
ministrations of Nature; I could feel the fever of my heart cooling, and
a softer haze of melancholy stealing over the blackness of my despair;
and the fierce passions which had distracted me giving place to the calm
of a settled anguish, a profound sorrow, the quiet gloom of an
overshadowing woe, in which love and hatred and wrong were swallowed up
and lost. I no longer hated the world; but I felt that it had nothing
for me; that I was no longer a part and portion of its harmonious
elements; affliction had shut me out forever from the pale of human
happiness and sympathy, and hope pointed only to the resting-place of
the grave!

"I stood steadily gazing at the setting sun. It touched and sat upon
the hill-top like a great circle of fire. I had never before fully
comprehended the feeling of the amiable but misguided Rousseau, who at
his death-hour desired to be brought into the open air, that the last
glance of his failing eye might drink in the glory of the sunset
heavens, and the light of his great intellect and that of Nature go out
together. For surely never did the Mexican idolater mark with deeper
emotion the God of his worship, for the last time veiling his awful
countenance, than did I, untainted by superstition, yet full of perfect
love for the works of Infinite Wisdom, watch over the departure of the
most glorious of them all. I felt, even to agony, the truth of these
exquisite lines of the Milesian poet:

'Blest power of sunshine, genial day!
What joy, what life is in thy ray!
To feel thee is such real bliss,
That, had the world no joy but this,
To sit in sunshine, calm and sweet,
It were a world too exquisite
For man to leave it for the gloom,
The dull, cold shadow of the tomb!'

"Never shall I forget my sensations when the sun went down utterly from
my sight. It was like receiving the last look of a dying friend. To
others he might bring life and health and joy, on the morrow; but