or steeled, or
ossified--perverted utterly from its original make--can exhibit no
rainbows--no arches of a sweet promise, linking the gloomy earth with
the bright and the beautiful and the eternal heavens.

The mind of Guy Rivers had been one of the strongest make--one of large
and leading tendencies. He could not have been one of the mere ciphers
of society. He must be something, or he must perish. His spirit would
have fed upon his heart otherwise, and, wanting a field and due
employment, his frame must have worn away in the morbid repinings of its
governing principles. Unhappily, he had not been permitted a choice. The
education of his youth had given a fatal direction to his manhood; and
we find him, accordingly, not satisfied with his pursuit, yet resolutely
inflexible and undeviating in the pursuit of error. Such are the
contradictions of the strong mind, to which, wondering as we gaze, with
unreasonable and unthinking astonishment, we daily see it subject. Our
philosophers are content with declaiming upon effects--they will not
permit themselves or others to trace them up to their causes. To heal
the wound, the physician may probe and find out its depth and extent;
the same privilege is not often conceded to the physician of the mind or
of the morals, else numberless diseases, now seemingly incurable, had
been long since brought within the healing scope of philosophical
analysis. The popular cant would have us forbear even to look at the
history of the criminal. Hang the wretch, say they, but say nothing
about him. Why trace his progress?--what good can come out of the
knowledge of those influences and tendencies, which have made him a
criminal? Let them answer the question for themselves!

The outlaw beheld the departing cavalcade of the Colletons from the
grated window. He saw the last of all those in whose fortunes he might
be supposed to have an interest. He turned from the sight with a bitter
pang at his heart, and, to his surprise, discovered that he was not
alone in the solitude of his prison. One ministering spirit sat beside
him upon the long bench, the only article of furniture afforded to his
dungeon.

The reader has not forgotten the young woman to whose relief, from fire,
Ralph Colleton so opportunely came while making his escape from his
pursuers. We remember the resignation--the yielding weakness of her
broken spirit to the will of her destroyer. We have seen her left
desolate by the death of h