execute the mandate of an inexorable Being,--are described with an
intensity which almost stops the heart of the reader. When the deed is
done a frightful conflict of passions takes place, which can only be told
in the words of the author:--

"I lifted the corpse in my arms and laid it on the bed. I gazed upon it
with delight. Such was my elation that I even broke out into laughter.
I clapped my hands, and exclaimed, 'It is done! My sacred duty is
fulfilled! To that I have sacrificed, O God, Thy last and best gift, my
wife!'

"For a while I thus soared above frailty. I imagined I had set myself
forever beyond the reach of selfishness. But my imaginations were false.
This rapture quickly subsided. I looked again at my wife. My joyous
ebullitions vanished. I asked myself who it was whom I saw. Methought
it could not be my Catharine; it could not be the woman who had lodged
for years in my heart; who had slept nightly in my bosom; who had borne
in her womb and fostered at her breast the beings who called me father;
whom I had watched over with delight and cherished with a fondness ever
new and perpetually growing. It could not be the same!

"The breath of heaven that sustained me was withdrawn, and I sunk into
mere man. I leaped from the floor; I dashed my head against the wall; I
uttered screams of horror; I panted after torment and pain. Eternal fire
and the bickerings of hell, compared with what I felt, were music and a
bed of roses.

"I thank my God that this was transient; that He designed once more to
raise me aloft. I thought upon what I had done as a sacrifice to duty,
and was calm. My wife was dead; but I reflected that, although this