which, in a small modern theatre, are rare and memorable; and exactly
as these prodigious accidents multiplied, _pari passu_, they were
disregarded and easily concealed: for curiosity was no longer excited;
the sensation attached to them was little or none.

From these terrific tragedies, which, like monsoons or tornadoes,
accomplish the work of years in an hour, not merely an impressive
lesson is derived, sometimes, perhaps, a warning, but also (and this is
of universal application) some consolation. Whatever may have been the
misfortunes or the sorrows of a man's life, he is still privileged to
regard himself and his friends as amongst the fortunate by comparison,
in so far as he has escaped these wholesale storms, either as an actor
in producing them, or a contributor to their violence--or even more
innocently, (though oftentimes not less miserably)--as a participator
in the instant ruin, or in the long arrears of suffering which they
entail.

The following story falls within the class of hasty tragedies, and
sudden desolations here described. The reader is assured that every
incident is strictly true: nothing, in that respect, has been altered;
nor, indeed, anywhere except in the conversations, of which, though the
results and general outline are known, the separate details have
necessarily been lost under the agitating circumstances which produced
them. It has been judged right and delicate to conceal the name of the
great city, and therefore of the nation in which these events occurred,
chiefly out of consideration for the descendants of one person
concerned in the narrative: otherwise, it might not have been
requisite: for it is proper to mention, that every person directly a
party to the case has been long laid in the grave: all of them, with
one solitary exception, upwards of fifty years.