ry again; but after a while they do. And you will even
find men, beyond middle age, who made a tremendous work at their first
wife's death, and wore very conspicuous mourning, who in a very few
months may be seen dangling after some new fancy, and who in the
prospect of their second marriage evince an exhilaration that approaches
to crackiness. It is usual to speak of such things in a ludicrous
manner; but I confess the matter seems to me anything but one to laugh
at. I think that the rapid dying out of warm feelings, the rapid
change of fixed resolutions, is one of the most sorrowful subjects of
reflection which it is possible to suggest. Ah, my friends, after we
die, it would not be expedient, even if it were possible, to come back.
Many of us would not like to find how very little they miss us. But
still, it is the manifest intention of the Creator that strong feelings
should be transitory. The sorrowful thing is when they pass and leave
absolutely no trace behind them. There should always he some corner kept
in the heart for a feeling which once possessed it all. Let us look at
the case temperately. Let us face and admit the facts. The healthy body
and mind can get over a great deal; but there are some things which it
is not to the credit of our nature should ever be entirely got over.
Here are sober truth, and sound philosophy, and sincere feeling
together, in the words of Philip van Artevelde:--

"Well, well, she's gone,
And I have tamed my sorrow. Pain and grief
Are transitory things, no less than joy;
And though they leave us not the men we were,
Yet they do leave us. You behold me here,
A man bereaved, with something of a blight
Upon the early blossoms of his life,
And its first verdure,--having not the less
A living root, and drawing from the earth
Its vital juices, from the air its powers:
And surely as man's heart and strength are whole,
His appetites regerminate, his heart
Reopens, and his objects and desires
Spring up renewed."

But though Artevelde speaks truly and well, you remember how Mr.
Taylor, in that noble play, works out to our view the sad sight of the
deterioration of character, the growing coarseness and harshness,
the lessening tenderness and kindliness, which are apt to come with
advancing years. Great trials, we know, passing over us, may influence
us either for the worse or the better; and unless our nature is a very
obdurate and poor one, though they may l