the first to
whom he had uttered a syllable since the day on which she had been carried
out of the house which she had so long filled with the spirit of
cheerfulness and comfort. His only daughter, Martha, a fine young woman,
had contributed but little to his relief--if she had not, indeed, increased
his depression by her own emotions, which she had no power to conceal; and
his only son had gone off to Edinburgh, to attend his classes in the
college, where he intended to graduate as a physician. He was thus, in a
manner, left in a great degree alone; for his daughter sought her apartment
at every opportunity, to weep over her sorrows unobserved; and she had
naturally thought that her father's grief, attended by no exacerbations of
groaning or weeping like her own, presented less appearance of intensity
than that which convulsed her own heart, and got relief by nature's
appointed modes of alleviation. When the heart is stricken with a certain
force, all forms of presenting less gloomy views of the condition of the
individual, will generally be found to be totally unavailing in affording
relief. Nay, I am satisfied that there was genuine philosophy in the custom
of the Greeks and the ancient Germans, in _forcing_ victims of great
sorrows to _weep_ out the rankling barbed shaft. These had a species of
licensed mourners, whose duty it was to soften the heart by melting strains
of mournful melody, whereby, as by the application of a bland liniment, the
rigid issues of the feelings were softened and opened, and the oppressed
organ, the heart, was relieved of the load which defies the force of
argument, and even the condolence of friendship. The curing of cold-nips by
the appliance of snow, and of burns by the application of heat, could not
have appeared more fraught with ridicule to the old women of former days,
than would the custom I have here cited to the comforters of modern times.
If I cannot say that, amongst some bold remedies, I have recommended it, I
have, at least, avoided, on all occasions, officious endeavours to
counteract the oppressing burden, by wrenching the mind from the engrossing
thought--a process generally attended with no other result than making it
adhere with increased force.

The greatest triumph that can be effected with the truly heart-stricken
victim, to whom is denied the usual bursts that indicate a bearable
misfortune, or, at least, one whose intensity is partly abated, is the
bringing about of