ugh the clear portion of the glass, where the silvery mountain
peaks of the frost scenery do not ascend, the most conspicuous object
is the steeple, the white spire of which directs you to the wintry
luster of the firmament. You may almost distinguish the figures on the
clock that has just tolled the hour. Such a frosty sky, and the
snow-covered roofs, and the long vista of the frozen street, all white,
and the distant water hardened into rock, might make you shiver, even
under four blankets and a woolen comforter. Yet look at that one
glorious star! Its beams are distinguishable from all the rest, and
actually cast the shadow of the casement on the bed with a radiance of
deeper hue than moonlight, though not so accurate an outline.

You sink down and muffle your head in the clothes, shivering all the
while, but less from bodily chill than the bare idea of a polar
atmosphere. It is too cold even for the thoughts to venture abroad.
You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed,
like an oyster in its shell, content with the sluggish ecstasy of
inaction, and drowsily conscious of nothing but delicious warmth, such
as you now feel again. Ah! that idea has brought a hideous one in its
train. You think how the dead are lying in their cold shrouds and
narrow coffins through the drear winter of the grave, and cannot
persuade your fancy that they neither shrink nor shiver when the snow
is drifting over their little hillocks and the bitter blast howls
against the door of the tomb. That gloomy thought will collect a
gloomy multitude and throw its complexion over your wakeful hour.

In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the
lights, the music, and revelry above may cause us to forget their
existence, and the buried ones or prisoners whom they hide. But
sometimes, and oftenest at midnight, these dark receptacles are flung
wide open. In an hour like this, when the mind has a passive
sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror,
imparting vividness to all ideas without the power of selecting or
controlling them, then pray that your griefs may slumber and the
brotherhood of remorse not break their chain. It is too late! A
funeral train comes gliding by your bed, in which Passion and Feeling
assume bodily shape and things of the mind become dim specters to the
eye. There is your earliest Sorrow, a pale young mourner, wearing a
sister's likeness to f