reading a sentence here and there in different sections, it occurred to
me that this might prove a most useful work for me to study, whenever I
could bring my mind into the right frame for such a task; for it
contained minute instructions upon all points relating to individual
conduct in the house--as the entertainment of pilgrims, the dress to be
worn, and the conduct to be observed at the various annual festivals,
with other matters of the kind. Glancing through it in this rapid way, I
soon finished with the first volume, then went through the second in
even less time, for many of the concluding sections related to
lugubrious subjects which I did not care to linger over; the titles
alone were enough to trouble me--Decay through Age, Ailments of Mind and
of Body; then Death, and, finally, the Disposal of the Dead. This done I
took up the third volume, the last of the series, the first portion of
which was headed, _Renewal of the Family_. This part I began to
examine with some attention, and pretty soon discovered that I had now
at last accidentally stumbled upon a perfect mine of information of the
precise kind I had so long and so vainly been seeking. Struggling to
overcome my agitation I read on, hurrying through page after page with
the greatest rapidity; for there was here much matter that had no
special interest for me, but incidentally the things which concerned me
most to know were touched on, and in some cases minutely explained. As I
proceeded, the prophetic gloom which had oppressed me all that day, and
for so many days before, darkened to the blackness of despair, and
suddenly throwing up my arms, the book slipped from my knees and fell
with a crash upon the floor. There, face downwards, with its beautiful
leaves doubled and broken under its weight, it rested unheeded at my
feet. For now the desired knowledge was mine, and that dream of
happiness which had illumined my life was over. Now I possessed the
secret of that passionless, everlasting calm of beings who had for ever
outlived, and left as immeasurably far behind as the instincts of the