The objects and events that we remember best are, in fact, those for which we have learned the countersign by heart, and the moment that any accidental circumstance furnishes us with the pass-word, apparently forgotten, the door is thrown open, and we behold them again, somewhat dusty perhaps, but plain and distinct. Acts never die. They at least are immortal; and I do not think they ever die to memory either. They sleep within, and it only requires to have the key to waken them. The time will come when all shall be awakened: when every door of the heart shall be thrown open, and when the spirits of man’s deeds and thoughts will stand revealed to his own eyes at least—perhaps to be his bright companions in everlasting joy—perhaps his tormentors in the hell which he has dug for himself. Often, often, as I look back in life, I see a cloud hanging over a particular spot in the prospect, which for days, sometimes for years, will hide all beyond. Then suddenly the lightest trifle—a casual word—a peculiar odor—the carol of a bird—the notes of some old melody, will, as with a charm, dispel that cloud—sometimes dissolving it in rain-drops—sometimes absorbing it in sunshine—and all that it concealed will burst upon the sight in horror or in loveliness. Even while I have been writing these few pages many things have thus been brought back to remembrance by the connection of one event with another, which seemed to have altogether passed away from memory when first I sat down to write. Now what is the next thing I remember; for the rest of our journey, after we left Juliers, has passed away from me? I find myself on looking back, in a small, neat house, with a garden, and a little fountain in the garden, upon a sandy soil, and with a forest of long needle-leaved fir-trees stretching out to the westward. To the east there is a city of no very great extent, but still a capital, with a range of high hills running in a wavy line behind, and here and there an old ruined castle upon the lower points. Before the city lies a wide plain, rich and smiling, full of corn-fields and vineyards, with here and there a curious-looking spire or a couple of dome-topped towers marking the place of a village or small town, and beyond the plain, glistening in a long, long wavy line of silver, glides a broad river—the mighty Rhine.