A thought comes over us, sometimes, in our career of pleasure, or the
troublous exultation of our ambitious pursuits; a thought come over us,
like a cloud, that around us and about us Death--Shame--Crime--Despair,
are busy at their work. I have read somewhere of an enchanted land, where
the inmates walked along voluptuous gardens, and built palaces, and heard
music, and made merry; while around, and within, the land, were deep
caverns, where the gnomes and the fiends dwelt: and ever and anon their
groans and laughter, and the sounds of their unutterable toils, or
ghastly revels, travelled to the upper air, mixing in an awful
strangeness with the summer festivity and buoyant occupation of those
above. And this is the picture of human life! These reflections of the
maddening disparities of the world are dark, but salutary:--

"They wrap our thoughts at banquets in the shroud;" [Young.]

but we are seldom sadder without being also wiser men!

The third of August 1759 rose bright, calm, and clear: it was the morning
of the trial; and when Ellinor stole into her sister's room, she found
Madeline sitting before the glass, and braiding her rich locks with an
evident attention and care.

"I wish," said she, "that you had pleased me by dressing as for a
holiday. See, I am going to wear the dress I was to have been married
in."

Ellinor shuddered; for what is more appalling than to find the signs of
gaiety accompanying the reality of anguish!

"Yes," continued Madeline, with a smile of inexpressible sweetness, "a