[292] and surrounded only by man and the works of man. But there is something in the harmony and quiet of the natural world which presents a reproving antagonism to the fiercer passions of the human heart; an eye of solemn reprehension looks out from the still places of Nature, as if the Great Soul of the Universe had chosen the mute creations of his power to be the witnesses of the deeds done in the body, the researchers of the bosoms of men.And then, even at that awful moment, I could feel the bland and gentle ministrations of Nature; I could feel the fever of my heart cooling, and a softer haze of melancholy stealing over the blackness of my despair; and the fierce passions which had distracted me giving place to the calm of a settled anguish, a profound sorrow, the quiet gloom of an overshadowing woe, in which love and hatred and wrong were swallowed up and lost. I no longer hated the world; but I felt that it had nothing for me; that I was no longer a part and portion of its harmonious elements; affliction had shut me out forever from the pale of human happiness and sympathy, and hope pointed only to the resting-place of the grave!
I stood steadily gazing at the setting sun. It touched and sat upon the hill-top like a great circle of fire. I had never before fully comprehended the feeling of the amiable but misguided Rousseau, who at his death-hour desired to be brought into the open air, that the last glance of his failing eye might drink in the glory of the sunset heavens, and the light of his great intellect and that of Nature go out together. For surely never did the
