who are in some sense new to the
world, to see the way in which time can scar those wounds
which we should have imagined that nothing could have healed;
wounds which we should have expected to see bleed afresh at
the sight of the inflictor, as it was said of old, that those
of the murdered did at the approach of the murderer. Sometimes
we almost feel as if nothing was real in that singular
existence called _the world_. Like the performers, who laugh
and talk behind the scenes after the close of some dreadful
tragedy; we see around us men who have ruined the fortunes and
destroyed the happiness of others, women who have betrayed and
been betrayed, whose existence has been perhaps devoted to
misery and to infamy by the first step they have taken in the
path of guilt, and whose hearts, if they did not break, grew
hard; we see the victims and the destroyers, those who have
loved and those who have hated, those who have injured and
those who have been injured, mix together in the common
thoroughfares of life, meet even in social intimacy, with
offered hands and ready smiles; not because "Blessed are the
merciful, for they shall obtain mercy;" not because "To those
who forgive, shall much be forgiven;" but because what is
genuine and true, what is deep and what is strong, takes no
root in that worn-out soil on which we tread, thrives not in
that withering air which we breathe, in that fictitious region
which we live in, and which we so emphatically and so
presumptuously call _the world_.

I started when Edward turned to me and said, "How very grave
you look, Ellen! One would imagine by your face that a tragedy
and not a farce was going on."

I smiled and shook my head.

"Mrs. Middleton looks like the Muse of Tragedy herself,"
observed Mr. Escourt. "Have you ever acted, Mrs. Middleton?"

"Never."

"Indeed, I should think you would excel in it. Such a
countenance! Such a play of features! Your thoughts speak in
your face! Mr. Lovell, would not Mrs. Middleton make an
admirable actress?"

"Where the part suited her."

"_That_ would be no test of talent. I would pledge my
existence that she could act to the life the most contrary
characters, and enchant us in each. Which of the passions, of
love or of hatred, would seem to you most difficult to
represent, Mrs. Middleton?"

"Scorn would be easier than either."

"To my mind a sudden transition is finer than anything: an
instantaneous change of expression, for insta