gh we can
readily imagine the waking face to be not devoid of a certain
intensity and comeliness of aspect, marred, however, by an air of
guarded anxiety which is apparent even now.

We prattle of the dead past, and use to fancy that peace must dwell
there, if nothing else. Only in the past, say we, is security from
jostle, danger, and disturbance; who would live at his ease must
number his days backwards; no charm so potent as the years, if read
from right to left. Living in the past, prophecy and memory are at
one; care for the future can harass no man. Throw overboard that
Jonah, Time, and the winds of fortune shall cease to buffet us. And
more to the same effect.

And yet it is not so. The past, if more real than the future, is no
less so than the present; the pain of a broken heart or head is never
annihilated, but becomes part and parcel of eternity. This uneasy
snorer here, for instance: his earthly troubles have been over years
ago, yet, as our fancy sees him, he is none the calmer or the happier
for that. Observe him, how he mumbles inarticulately, and makes
strengthless clutchings at the blanket with his long, slender fingers.

But we delay too long over the external man, seeing that our avowed
business is with the internal. A sleeping man is truly a helpless
creature. They say that, if you take his hand in yours and ask him
questions, he has no other choice than to answer--or to awake. The
Doctor--as we know by virtue of the prophetic advantages just remarked
upon--will stay asleep for some hours yet. Or, if you are clairvoyant,
you have but to fall in a trance, and lay a hand on his forehead, and
you may read off his thoughts,--provided he does his thinking in his
head. But the world is growing too wise, nowadays, to put faith in old
woman's nonsense like this. Again, there is--or used to be--an odd
theory that all matter is a sort of photographic plate, whereon is
registered, had we but eyes to read it, the complete history of
itself. What an invaluable pair of eyes were that! In vain, arraigned
before them, would the criminal deny his guilt, the lover the soft
impeachment. The whole scene would stand forth, photographed in fatal
minuteness and indelibility upon face, hands, coat-sleeve,
shirt-bosom. Mankind would be its own book of life, written in the
primal hieroglyphic character,--the language understood by all. Vocal
conversation would become obsolete, unless among a few superior
persons able to di