Towards the end of supper, we fell into a strange discussion as to the nature of existence. A vain and fruitless talk, after all; for life shall be happy or sad, not, indeed, according to its events, but according to the nature of the individuals to whom these events befall. Colonel ---- maintained that life was in itself desirable; abounding in blessings, replete with comforts, a fertile land, where still, as one joy decays, another springs up to flourish in its place. He said that he felt thankful every day, and every hour of the day, for his existence; that he feared death, only because life was an absolute enjoyment, and that he would willingly, to-morrow, accept the power of beginning his again, even though he should be placed on the world's threshold, a lonely friendless beggar: so sure was he that his prospects would brighten, and friends spring up to him, and plenty reward labour, and life become pleasant, ere it had grown many years old. How widely human beings differ! It was but an hour before, that I, in counting how many stars I had already seen go down below the horizon of existence,--Weber, Lawrence, Scott, all of whom I have known,--was saying to D----, "How sad a thing, and strange, life is!" adding, what I repent me for, "I wish that I were dead!" Oh, how can any human being, who looks abroad into the world, and within upon himself, who sees the wondrous mystery of all things, the unabidingness which waits on all matter, the imperfection which clogs all spirit; who notes the sovereignty of change over the inanimate creation, of disease, decay, and death over man's body, of blindness and delusion over his mind, of sin over his soul; who beholds the frailty of good men; who feels the miserable inconsistency of his own nature; the dust and ashes of which our love, and what we love, is made; the evil that, like an unwholesome corpse, still clings to our good; the sorrow that, like its shadow, still walks behind our joy;--oh, who that sees all this can say that this life is other than sad--most sad? Yet, while I write this, God forbid that I should therefore want eyes to see, or sense to feel, the blessings wherewith he has blessed it; the rewards with which he sweetens our task, the flowers wherewith he cheers our journey's road, the many props wherewith he supports our feet in it. Yet of all these, the sweetest, the brightest, the strongest, are those which our soul draws from him, the end of its desire, not those it finds here. And how should not that spirit yearn for its accomplishment? If we seek knowledge here, a thousand mists arise between our incapable senses and the truth, how, then, should we not wish to cast away this darkness, and soar to the fountains of all light? If we strive to employ those faculties which, being of our soul, have the strength and enduring of immortality, the objects whereon we expend them here are vague, evanescent, disappointing; how then should