s leading to
which are not often visible, or observed when they are so. Each act
is the precipitation of a number of mixed influences, more or less
unconsciously felt; the qualities of good and evil are so blended
therein that they defy the keenest moral analysis; and how shall we,
then, pretend to judge of any one? Perhaps the surest indication of evil
(I further reflected) is that it always tries to conceal itself, and
the strongest incitement to good is that evil cannot be concealed. The
crime, or the vice, or even the self-acknowledged weakness, becomes
a part of the individual consciousness; it cannot be forgotten or
outgrown. It follows a life through all experiences and to the uttermost
ends of the earth, pressing towards the light with a terrible, demoniac
power. There are noteless lives, of course--lives that accept obscurity,
mechanically run their narrow round of circumstance, and are lost; but
when a life endeavors to lose itself,--to hide some conscious guilt or
failure,--can it succeed? Is it not thereby lifted above the level of
common experience, compelling attention to itself by the very endeavor
to escape it?

I turned these questions over in my mind, without approaching, or indeed
expecting, any solution,--since I knew, from habit, the labyrinths into
which they would certainly lead me,--when a visitor was announced. It
was one of the directors of our county almshouse, who came on an errand
to which he attached no great importance. I owed the visit, apparently,
to the circumstance that my home lay in his way, and he could at once
relieve his conscience of a very trifling pressure and his pocket of a
small package, by calling upon me. His story was told in a few words;
the package was placed upon my table, and I was again left to my
meditations.

Two or three days before, a man who had the appearance of a "tramp" had
been observed by the people of a small village in the neighborhood. He
stopped and looked at the houses in a vacant way, walked back and forth
once or twice as if uncertain which of the cross-roads to take, and
presently went on without begging or even speaking to any one. Towards
sunset a farmer, on his way to the village store, found him sitting at
the roadside, his head resting against a fence-post. The man's face was
so worn and exhausted that the farmer kindly stopped and addressed him;
but he gave no other reply than a shake of the head.

The farmer thereupon lifted him into his l