his mask;" yet, it is often the case.

Life is hysterical and spasmodic.

Many of us, believed by surface-studying people to be the gayest of the
gay, have in reality a dull, rending pain gnawing us inwardly the
while--like as the fox was gnawing the Spartan boy's entrails; and, like
him again, we are too proud--for what is courage but pride?--to speak of
our suffering. We do not "wear our hearts" on our sleeve "for daws to
peck at!"

The "consolation of religion," you suggest?

Bah! How can I be consoled, when I have been bereft of all that made
existence dear, receiving nothing in return--nothing but doubt and
uncertainty, and a despair unspeakable?

Could comfort accrue to me, when I wandered back along the pathway of
memory, catching sunny glimpses of the rosy future which my imagination
had marked out, and then comparing these with the dreary outlook that
now was mine?

When I think of what might have been and now can never happen, I rave!

I should count my loss a "gain," you say?

I cannot, I cannot!

Saint Paul might have so truly exemplified the position of earthly
misery as opposed to heavenly reward; but, _I_ am powerless to give the
deduction a personal application.

You tell me to look above, and have faith in the hope of rejoining her?

She is there, I know--that is, if there be a just God, a heaven, and
angels in paradise; but, how can I, sinner as I am and as I have been,
dream of climbing up to such a height?

It is an impossibility. I dare not hope for mercy and forgiveness.
Why, the very angels would scout me; and she, who was always glad of my
approach, would now draw aside the hem of her raiment lest I should
touch it and defile her!

Do you know, that, the acutest pang that thrills through my heart,
arises from the consciousness, that, while she was here, I was unworthy
of her--as I would be doubly so were I now able to take the wings of the
morning and reach the uttermost parts of heaven where she dwells.

Learn, O brothers! loving, like myself, hopelessly, unsuccessfully:--
learn by me, by my blighted life, my lost present, my vanished hopes of
heaven, that, the worst possible use to which you can put the divine
image in which you are clothed, is "to go to the devil" for a woman's
sake! Should she be deserving of your affection, as in most cases she
will probably be--ten times more than you are of hers--this is one of
the most inferior proofs that you can give of it; while, s