n that state that the
most remarkable feature of human physiology frequently exhibits itself.
Oh, how dare I mention the dark feeling of mysterious dread which comes
over the mind, and which the lamp of reason, though burning bright the
while, is unable to dispel! Art thou, as leeches say, the concomitant of
disease--the result of shattered nerves? Nay, rather the principle of
woe itself, the fountain-head of all sorrow co-existent with man, whose
influence he feels when yet unborn, and whose workings he testifies with
his earliest cries, when, 'drowned in tears,' he first beholds the light;
for, as the sparks fly upward, so is man born to trouble, and woe doth he
bring with him into the world, even thyself, dark one, terrible one,
causeless, unbegotten, without a father. Oh, how unfrequently dost thou
break down the barriers which divide thee from the poor soul of man, and
overcast its sunshine with thy gloomy shadow. In the brightest days of
prosperity--in the midst of health and wealth--how sentient is the poor
human creature of thy neighbourhood! how instinctively aware that the
flood-gates of horror may be cast open, and the dark stream engulf him
for ever and ever! Then is it not lawful for man to exclaim, 'Better
that I had never been born!' Fool, for thyself thou wast not born, but
to fulfil the inscrutable decrees of thy Creator; and how dost thou know
that this dark principle is not, after all, thy best friend; that it is
not that which tempers the whole mass of thy corruption? It may be, for
what thou knowest, the mother of wisdom, and of great works: it is the
dread of the horror of the night that makes the pilgrim hasten on his
way. When thou feelest it nigh, let thy safety word be 'Onward'; if thou
tarry, thou art overwhelmed. Courage! build great works--'tis urging
thee--it is ever nearest the favourites of God--the fool knows little of
it. Thou wouldst be joyous, wouldst thou? then be a fool. What great
work was ever the result of joy, the puny one? Who have been the wise
ones, the mighty ones, the conquering ones of this earth? the joyous? I
believe not. The fool is happy, or comparatively so--certainly the least
sorrowful, but he is still a fool: and whose notes are sweetest, those of
the nightingale, or of the silly lark?

'What ails you, my child?' said a mother to her son, as he lay on a couch
under the influence of the dreadful one; 'what ails you? you seem
afraid!'

_Boy_. And so I