spers to himself that terrific and tremendous
word--WHITHERWARD!

Late one afternoon in April, I was sitting on the grassy slope of
Telegraph Hill, watching the waves of sunset as they rolled in from the
west, and broke in crimson spray upon the peaks of the Contra Costa
hills. I was alone; and, as my custom is, was ruminating upon the grand
problem of futurity. The broad and beautiful bay spread out like a sea
of silver at my feet, and the distant mountains, reflecting the rays of
the setting sun, seemed to hem it in with barriers of gold. The city lay
like a tired infant at evening in its mother's arms, and only at
intervals disturbed my reflections by its expiring sobs. The hours of
business I well knew had passed, and the heavy iron door had long since
grated on its hinges, and the fire-proof shutter been bolted for the
night. But I felt that my labors had just commenced. The duties of my
profession had swallowed up thought throughout the long hours devoted to
the cares of life, and it was not until I was released from their
thraldom that I found myself in truth a slave. The one master-thought
came back into my brain, until it burned its hideous image there in
letters of fire--WHITHERWARD! WHITHERWARD!

The past came up before me with its long memories of Egyptian grandeur,
with its triumphs of Grecian art, with its burden of Roman glory. Italy
came with her republics, her "starry" Galileo, and her immortal
Buonarotti. France flashed by, with her garments dyed in blood, and her
Napoleons in chains. England rose up with her arts and her arms, her
commerce and her civilization, her splendor and her shame. I beheld
Newton gazing at the stars, heard Milton singing of Paradise, and saw
Russell expiring on the scaffold. But ever and anon a pale,
thorn-crowned monarch, arrayed in mock-purple, and bending beneath a
cross, would start forth at my side, and with uplifted eye, but
speechless lip, point with one hand to the pages of a volume I had open
on my knee, and with the other to the blue heaven above. Judea would
then pass with solemn tread before me. Her patriarchs, her prophets and
her apostles, her judges, her kings, and her people, one by one came and
went like the phantasmagoria of a dream. The present then rose up in
glittering robes, its feet resting upon the mounds of Nimrod, its brow
encircled with a coronet of stars, pillaging, with one hand, the cloud
above of its lightnings, and sending them forth with the o