th its redemption,--a pride even in
debasement, a pleasure even in woe,--and it is therefore that, while I
have abridged, I have not shunned it. There are some whom the lightning
of fortune blasts, only to render holy. Amidst all that humbles and
scathes; amidst all that shatters from their life its verdure, smites
to the dust the pomp and summit of their pride, and in the very heart
of existence writeth a sudden and "strange defeature,"--they stand
erect,--riven, not uprooted,--a monument less of pity than of awe! There
are some who pass through the Lazar-House of Misery with a step more
august than a Caesar's in his hall. The very things which, seen alone,
are despicable and vile, associated with them become almost venerable
and divine; and one ray, however dim and feeble, of that intense
holiness which, in the INFANT GOD, shed majesty over the manger and the
straw, not denied to those who in the depth of affliction cherish His
patient image, flings over the meanest localities of earth an emanation
from the glory of Heaven!

CHAPTER L.

Letters from divers hands, which will absolve
Ourselves from long narration.--Tanner of Tyburn.

One morning about a fortnight after Talbot's death, Clarence was sitting
alone, thoughtful and melancholy, when the three following letters were
put into his hand:

LETTER I. FROM THE DUKE OF HAVERFIELD.

Let me, my dear Linden, be the first to congratulate you upon your
accession of fortune: five thousand a year, Scarsdale, and 80,000 in the
Funds, are very pretty foes to starvation! Ah, my dear fellow, if you
had but shot that frosty Caucasus of humanity, that pillar of the state,
made not to bend, that--but you know already whom I mean, and so I will
spare you more of my lamentable metaphors: had you shot Lord Borodaile,
your happiness would now be complete! Everybody talks of your luck. La
Meronville tending on you with her white hands, the prettiest hands in
the world: who would not be wounded even by Lord Borodaile, for such
a nurse? And then Talbot's--yet, I will not speak of that, for you are
very unlike the present generation; and who knows but you may have some
gratitude, some affection, some natural feeling in you? I had once;
but that was before I went to France: those Parisians, with their
fine sentiments, and witty philosophy, play the devil with one's good
old-fashioned feelings. So Lord Aspeden is to have an Italian ministry.
By the by, shall you go with