once illustrated by the image of a stain spreading backwards from the
leaf of life open before as through all those which we have already
turned.

Blessed are those who can sleep quietly in times like these! Yet, not
wholly blessed, either; for what is more painful than the awaking from
peaceful unconsciousness to a sense that there is something wrong, we
cannot at first think what,--and then groping our way about through the
twilight of our thoughts until we come full upon the misery, which, like
some evil bird, seemed to have flown away, but which sits waiting for us
on its perch by our pillow in the gray of the morning?

The converse of this is perhaps still more painful. Many have the
feeling in their waking hours that the trouble they are aching with is,
after all, only a dream,--if they will rub their eyes briskly enough and
shake themselves, they will awake out of it, and find all their supposed
grief is unreal. This attempt to cajole ourselves out of an ugly fact
always reminds us of those unhappy flies who have been indulging in the
dangerous sweets of the paper prepared for their especial use.

Watch one of them. He does not feel quite well,--at least, he suspects
himself of indisposition. Nothing serious,--let us just rub our
fore-feet together, as the enormous creature who provides for us rubs his
hands, and all will be right. He rubs them with that peculiar twisting
movement of his, and pauses for the effect. No! all is not quite right
yet. Ah! it is our head that is not set on just as it ought to be. Let
us settle that where it should be, and then we shall certainly be in good
trim again. So he pulls his head about as an old lady adjusts her cap,
and passes his fore-paw over it like a kitten washing herself. Poor
fellow! It is not a fancy, but a fact, that he has to deal with. If he