eternity beyond the grave. Where hope ends despair steps in; and Philip,
with reckless vehemence, flung himself, as it were, into its arms. His
was an excitable nature; he had never thought of any one but himself, but
labored with egotistical zeal to cultivate his own mind and outdo his
fellows in the competition for learning. The sullen words in which he
called himself the most wretched man on earth, and the victim of the
blackest ill-fortune, fell from his lips like stones. He rudely repelled
his sister's encouraging words, like a sick child whose pain is the
greater for being pitied, till at last she appealed to his sense of duty,
reminding him that something must be done to rescue her father and
Alexander.

"They also! They also!" he cried. "It falls on us all. Blind Fate
drives us all, innocent as we are, to death and despair, like the
Tantalides. What sin have you committed, gentle, patient child; or our
father, or our happy-hearted and gifted brother; or I--I myself? Have
those whom we call the rulers of the universe the right to punish me
because I make use of the inquiring spirit they have bestowed on me? Ah,
and how well they know how to torture us! They hate me for my learning,
and so they turn my little errors to account to allow me to be cheated
like a fool! They are said to be just, and they behave like a father who
disinherits his son because, as a man, he notes his parent's weakness.
With tears and anguish have I striven for truth and knowledge. There is
not a province of thought whose deepest depths I have not tried to
fathom; and when I recognized that it is not given to mortals to
apprehend the essence of the divinity because the organs bestowed on us
are too small and feeble; when I refused to pronounce whether that which
I can not apprehend exists or not, was that my fault, or theirs? There
may be divine forces which created and govern the universe; but never
talk to me of their goodness, and reasonableness, and care for human