comfort, something of alleviation or of fortitude."

The Hermit drew near to me; he laid his thin hand upon my arm, and
looked long and wistfully in my face. It was then that a suspicion
crept through me which after observation proved to be true, that the
wanderings of those dark eyes and the meaning of that blanched brow were
tinctured with insanity.

"Brother and fellow man," said he, mournfully, "hast thou in truth
suffered? and dost thou still smart at the remembrance? We are friends
then. If thou hast suffered as much as I have, I will fall down and do
homage to thee as a superior; for pain has its ranks, and I think at
times that none ever climbed the height that I have done. Yet you look
not like one who has had nights of delirium, and days in which the heart
lay in the breast, as a corpse endowed with consciousness might lie
in the grave, feeling the worm gnaw it, and the decay corrupt, and yet
incapable of resistance or of motion. Your cheek is thin, but firm; your
eye is haughty and bright; you have the air of one who has lived with
men, and struggled and not been vanquished in the struggle. Suffered!
No, man, no,--_you_ have not suffered!"

"My Father, it is not in the countenance that Fate graves her records. I
have, it is true, contended with my fellows; and if wealth and honour be
the premium, not in vain: but I have not contended against Sorrow with
a like success; and I stand before you, a being who, if passion be a
tormentor and the death of the loved a loss, has borne that which the
most wretched will not envy."

Again a fearful change came over the face of the recluse: he grasped my
arm more vehemently, "You speak my own sorrows; you utter my own curse;
I will see you again; you may do my last will better than yon monks. Can
I trust you? If you have in truth known misfortune, I will! I will! yea,
even to the outpouring--merciful, merciful God, what would I say,--what
would I reveal!"

Suddenly changing his voice, he released me, and said, touching his
forehead with a meaning gesture and a quiet smile, "You say you are my
rival in pain. Have you ever known the rage and despair of the heart
mount _here_? It is a wonderful thing to be calm as I am now, when that
rising makes itself felt in fire and torture!"

"If there be aught, Father, which a man who cares not what country he
visit, or what deed--so it be not of guilt or shame--he commit, can do
towards the quiet of your soul, say it, and I will