of the unhappy inmates. A century ago, I reflected, and this was a
monastery; little then thought the pious, penitent recluses that
their cells would now re-echo only to the sounds of blasphemy and
licentious song, instead of holy hymn and lamentation from woman's
lips; that it would become a dwelling for the wicked of every class-
-the most part destined to perpetual labour or to the gallows. And
in one century to come, what living being will be found in these
cells? Oh, mighty Time! unceasing mutability of things! Can he who
rightly views your power have reason for regret or despair when
Fortune withdraws her smile, when he is made captive, or the
scaffold presents itself to his eye? yesterday I thought myself one
of the happiest of men; to-day every pleasure, the least flower that
strewed my path, has disappeared. Liberty, social converse, the
face of my fellow-man, nay, hope itself hath fled. I feel it would
be folly to flatter myself; I shall not go hence, except to be
thrown into still more horrible receptacles of sorrow; perhaps,
bound, into the hands of the executioner. Well, well, the day after
my death it will be all one as if I had yielded my spirit in a
palace, and been conveyed to the tomb, accompanied with all the
pageantry of empty honours.

It was thus, by reflecting on the sweeping speed of time, that I
bore up against passing misfortune. Alas, this did not prevent the
forms of my father, my mother, two brothers, two sisters, and one
other family I had learned to love as if it were my own, from all
whom I was, doubtless, for ever cut off, from crossing my mind, and
rendering all my philosophical reasoning of no avail. I was unable
to resist the thought, and I wept even as a child.