"Pym's mind was shocked; but behind the shock he felt the awful anguish of such a separation. Was this the end? Could it be the end? For him, truly that day his last hope for this life died. But hereafter? Surely this was not to be the end of all! A few more years of grovelling on the clay bosom of the cold, selfish earth, and then--only oblivion? No, no: he would not, he could not believe it. "As Pym stood there, where many, many other men have stood, and millions yet will stand, did his soul rise into the heavenly atmosphere, or did it question God's decrees and sink to rise no more? This I cannot answer. "After such a loss, oh, the weary weight of unutterable woe; the awful sense that hope is dead, whilst the mourner can only stand with streaming eyes and bleeding heart, forever chained to the ghastly corpse of every dear ambition, of every joy, and all that our universe of feeling builds on hope. But we should learn from such a loss a lesson, for the lesson if learned insures our own advancement: such losses are but the purposes of God unfolding for those we love and for ourselves an eternity of blissful harmony." Thus Doctor Bainbridge closed; and, though his words were of death, and the thoughts which he expressed were as old as the human race, I was much affected by them. Young as was the speaker, his utterances conveyed to me the impression that he himself had in some way learned the lesson of which he spoke. For several moments we sat in silence; and then, though I knew that he would have a few more words to say, I thought it an appropriate time to thank him for his long, painstaking elaboration of the old sailor's disclosures, which, as I knew partly from my own personal knowledge, had been gained only by untiring perseverance and inexhaustible patience. I thanked him, and complimented him as I thought he deserved; and he was pleased, I plainly saw, with the few words of commendation which he knew came from my heart. We sat, smoking our cigars and chatting on various topics, until it was almost the hour at which he usually said to me goodnight. Then he returned to the Peters' story, saying: "It only remains for me properly to dispose of Pym and Peters. Peters knows no more--in fact, not as much--of Pym after he returned home, as do we. Poe, we know, in the note to his 'Narrative,' alludes to 'the late sudden and distressing death of Mr. Pym.' This is all we know, and even this fact, when I told it to Peters, was new to him; for Pym and Peters parted in the month of February, 1830, at the City of Montevideo, Uruguay; Peters, with an old sailor chum, whom he happened to meet in South America, shipping to Australia; and Pym, a few days later, starting for the United States.