there in active life, in those exercises which make us feel the energy
of existence? Death itself then appears but an event, perhaps glorious,
at least sudden, and not preceded by decline. But that death which comes
without having been sought by courage, that death of darkness which
steals from you in the night all that you hold most dear, which despises
your lamentations, repulses your embrace, and pitilessly, opposes to you
the eternal laws of nature and of time! such a death inspires a sort of
contempt for human destiny, for the impotence of grief, for all those
vain efforts that dash and break themselves upon the rock of necessity."

Such were the sentiments that tormented Oswald; and what particularly
characterised his unhappy situation, was the vivacity of youth united to
thoughts of another age. He entered into those ideas which he conceived
must have occupied his father's mind in the last moments of his life;
and he carried the ardour of twenty-five into the melancholy
reflections of old age. He was weary of every thing, and yet still
regretted happiness, as if her illusions were still within his grasp.
This contrast, quite in hostility with the ordinance of nature, which
gives uniformity and graduation to the natural course of things, threw
the soul of Oswald into disorder; but his manners always possessed
considerable sweetness and harmony, and his sadness, far from souring
his temper, only inspired him with more condescension and goodness
towards others.

Two or three times during the passage from Harwich to Empden the sea put
on the appearance of approaching storm; Lord Nelville counselled the
sailors, restored confidence to the passengers, and when he himself
assisted in working the ship, when he took for a moment the place of the
steersman, there was in all he did, a skill and a power which could not
be considered as merely the effect of the agility of the body,--there
was soul in all that he did.

On his quitting the vessel all the crew crowded around Oswald to take
leave of him; they all thanked him for a thousand little services which
he had rendered them during the voyage, and which he no longer
remembered. Upon one occasion, perhaps, it was a child which had
occupied a large share of his attention; more often an old man, whose
tottering steps he had supported when the wind agitated the ship. Such a
general attention, without any regard to rank or quality, was perhaps
never met with. During the whole