came to its close here in the rocky vale of Chamounix.

Still recurring scenes of misery and pain, the fruits of this distemper,
made no more a part of our lives--the word plague no longer rung in our
ears--the aspect of plague incarnate in the human countenance no longer
appeared before our eyes. From this moment I saw plague no more. She
abdicated her throne, and despoiled herself of her imperial sceptre among
the ice rocks that surrounded us. She left solitude and silence co-heirs of
her kingdom.

My present feelings are so mingled with the past, that I cannot say whether
the knowledge of this change visited us, as we stood on this sterile spot.
It seems to me that it did; that a cloud seemed to pass from over us, that
a weight was taken from the air; that henceforth we breathed more freely,
and raised our heads with some portion of former liberty. Yet we did not
hope. We were impressed by the sentiment, that our race was run, but that
plague would not be our destroyer. The coming time was as a mighty river,
down which a charmed boat is driven, whose mortal steersman knows, that the
obvious peril is not the one he needs fear, yet that danger is nigh; and
who floats awe-struck under beetling precipices, through the dark
and turbid waters--seeing in the distance yet stranger and ruder
shapes, towards which he is irresistibly impelled. What would
become of us? O for some Delphic oracle, or Pythian maid, to utter
the secrets of futurity! O for some Oedipus to solve the riddle of
the cruel Sphynx! Such Oedipus was I to be--not divining a word's juggle,
but whose agonizing pangs, and sorrow-tainted life were to be the engines,
wherewith to lay bare the secrets of destiny, and reveal the meaning of the
enigma, whose explanation closed the history of the human race.

Dim fancies, akin to these, haunted our minds, and instilled feelings not
unallied to pleasure, as we stood beside this silent tomb of nature, reared
by these lifeless mountains, above her living veins, choking her vital
principle. "Thus are we left," said Adrian, "two melancholy blasted trees,
where once a forest waved. We are left to mourn, and pine, and die. Yet
even now we have our duties, which we must string ourselves to fulfil: the
duty of bestowing pleasure where we can, and by force of love, irradiating
with rainbow hues the tempest of grief. Nor will I repine if in this
extremity we preserve what we now possess. Something tells me, Verney, that
we nee