which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds,
wringing the hands of ghostly confessors and looking them piteously in the
eyes -- die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of
the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be
revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burthen so
heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave. And thus
the essence of all crime is undivulged.

Not long ago, about the closing in of an evening in autumn, I sat at
the large bow window of the D---- Coffee-House in London. For some months
I had been ill in health, but was now convalescent, and, with returning
strength, found myself in one of those happy moods which are so precisely
the converse of ennui - moods of the keenest appetency, when the film from
the mental vision departs - the "PL> 0 BDT ,B­,L - and the intellect,
electrified, surpasses as greatly its every-day condition, as does the
vivid yet candid reason of Leibnitz, the mad and flimsy rhetoric of
Gorgias. Merely to breathe was enjoyment; and I derived positive pleasure
even from many of the legitimate sources of pain. I felt a calm but
inquisitive interest in every thing. With a cigar in my mouth and a
newspaper in my lap, I had been amusing myself for the greater part of the
afternoon, now in poring over advertisements, now in observing the
promiscuous company in the room, and now in peering through the smoky
panes into the street.

This latter is one of the principal thoroughfares of the city, and had
been very much crowded during the whole day. But, as the darkness came on,
the throng momently increased; and, by the time the lamps were well
lighted, two dense and continuous tides of population were rushing past
the door. At this particular period of the evening I had never before been
in a similar situation, and the tumultuous sea of human heads filled me,