issued from his mouth and nostrils, while a twinkle of lurid
flame darted out of either eye, proving indubitably that his
heart was all of a red blaze. The impudent fiend! To deny the
existence of Tophet, when he felt its fiery tortures raging
within his breast. I rushed to the side of the boat, intending to
fling myself on shore; but the wheels, as they began their
revolutions, threw a dash of spray over me so cold--so deadly
cold, with the chill that will never leave those waters until
Death be drowned in his own river--that with a shiver and a
heartquake I awoke. Thank Heaven it was a Dream!



THE PROCESSION OF LIFE

Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. All
of us have our places, and are to move onward under the direction
of the Chief Marshal. The grand difficulty results from the
invariably mistaken principles on which the deputy marshals seek
to arrange this immense concourse of people, so much more
numerous than those that train their interminable length through
streets and highways in times of political excitement. Their
scheme is ancient, far beyond the memory of man or even the
record of history, and has hitherto been very little modified by
the innate sense of something wrong, and the dim perception of
better methods, that have disquieted all the ages through which
the procession has taken its march. Its members are classified by
the merest external circumstances, and thus are more certain to
be thrown out of their true positions than if no principle of
arrangement were attempted. In one part of the procession we see