owhere.

There are sufferings during which it is foolish to make even the
attempt at offering consolation. Such sufferings must be lived
through, they are peculiar to human nature, and he who is not
overwhelmed by them but survives them, will afterwards see that to pass
such a severe reprobation was essential to his happiness.

"I am convinced," said my friend a few days afterwards when I took
leave of him, "that these execrations and the prophesies of the old
fury will visit me. My life will be consumed in illness, misery,
delirium, and poverty. The spirit of the departed will tread in my
footsteps and sow poison, where, perhaps, some joy might otherwise have
sprung."

I began to comfort him, calling to my aid, hope and consolation from
every source, because such apprehensions are generally imaginary, and
may be combated. Hope is at least more infinite than the
all-engrossing sensation of such visionary fear. We separated, and for
a long time I heard nothing of my friend Francis. I lived in foreign
countries and returned some years after the period in question.

We had not kept up any correspondence. I was therefore surprised and
delighted by his first letter which I received in my own comfortable
home. There was no allusion to his former sufferings; all was
forgotten. Time and fortune had transformed my friend into a truly new
being. He wrote to me of his approaching marriage. The most beautiful
girl of the country, young, cheerful, and innocent, had bestowed her
affections upon him; and on the very day on which their vows were
exchanged, he had, after years of fruitless search, discovered the
important document which would complete their nuptial happiness. The
melancholy time, he informed me, had vanished from his mind, his youth
seemed renewed, and now only he began to live. In a week his marriage
was to be celebrated, and he urged me to come and be a witness of his
happiness.

It would have delighted me to have complied with his invitation, had
not my uncle, who lived forty miles distant, and was then lying on his
death-bed, called me from home. The prince, who bitterly hated and
persecuted my friend, had died in the meanwhile, so that, in all human
probability, there was the prospect that every thing ominous, menacing,
and fatal, would fade away and be forgotten, and that spirits of
fortune and delight would henceforth draw my friend's car of life.

My stay with my uncle, who was dying, was pr