s which are displayed on all
sides. True it is, however, that amid the bustle of traffic, or
whatever else may seem to be going on around me, the raindrops will
occasionally be heard to patter against my window-panes, which look
forth upon one of the quietest streets in a New England town. After a
time, too, the visions vanish, and will not appear again at my
bidding. Then, it being nightfall, a gloomy sense of unreality
depresses my spirits, and impels me to venture out before the clock
shall strike bedtime to satisfy myself that the world is not entirely
made up of such shadowy materials as have busied me throughout the
day. A dreamer may dwell so long among fantasies that the things
without him will seem as unreal as those within.

When eve has fairly set in, therefore, I sally forth, tightly
buttoning my shaggy overcoat and hoisting my umbrella, the silken dome
of which immediately resounds with the heavy drumming of the invisible
raindrops. Pausing on the lowest doorstep, I contrast the warmth and
cheerfulness of my deserted fireside with the drear obscurity and
chill discomfort into which I am about to plunge. Now come fearful
auguries innumerable as the drops of rain. Did not my manhood cry
shame upon me, I should turn back within-doors, resume my elbow-chair,
my slippers and my book, pass such an evening of sluggish enjoyment as
the day has been, and go to bed inglorious. The same shivering
reluctance, no doubt, has quelled for a moment the adventurous spirit
of many a traveller when his feet, which were destined to measure the
earth around, were leaving their last tracks in the home-paths.

In my own case poor human nature may be allowed a few misgivings. I
look upward and discern no sky, not even an unfathomable void, but
only a black, impenetrable nothingness, as though heaven and all its
lights were blotted from the system of the universe. It is as if
Nature were dead and the world had put on black and the clouds were
weeping for her. With their tears upon my cheek I turn my eyes
earthward, but find little consolation here below. A lamp is burning
dimly at the distant corner, and throws just enough of light along the
street to show, and exaggerate by so faintly showing, the perils and
difficulties which beset my path. Yonder dingily-white remnant of a
huge snowbank, which will yet cumber the sidewalk till the latter days
of March, over or through that wintry waste must I stride onward.
Beyond lies a certai