visions vanish, and will not appear again at my bidding. Then, it
being nightfall, a gloomy sense of unreality depresses my spirits, and
impels me to venture out, before the clock shall strike bedtime, to
satisfy myself that the world is not entirely made up of such shadowy
materials, as have busied me throughout the day. A dreamer may dwell
so long among fantasies, that the things without him will seem as
unreal as those within.

When eve has fairly set in, therefore, I sally forth, tightly
buttoning my shaggy overcoat, and hoisting my umbrella, the silken
dome of which immediately resounds with the heavy drumming of the
invisible rain-drops. Pausing on the lowest doorstep, I contrast the
warmth and cheerfulness of my deserted fireside with the drear
obscurity and chill discomfort into which I am about to plunge. Now
come fearful auguries, innumerable as the drops of rain. Did not my
manhood cry shame upon me, I should turn back within doors, resume my
elbow-chair, my slippers, and my book, pass such an evening of
sluggish enjoyment as the day has been, and go to bed inglorious. The
same shivering reluctance, no doubt, has quelled, for a moment, the
adventurous spirit of many a traveller, when his feet, which were
destined to measure the earth around, were leaving their last tracks
in the home-paths.

In my own case, poor human nature may be allowed a few misgivings. I
look upward, and discern no sky, not even an unfathomable void, but
only a black, impenetrable nothingness, as though heaven and all its
lights were blotted from the system of the universe. It is as if
nature were dead, and the world had put on black, and the clouds were
weeping for her. With their tears upon my cheek, I turn my eyes
earthward, but find little consolation here below. A lamp is burning