also cases when we feel that our sleep is a “sleep for ever,”--when we resign the hope of immortality for the hope of a profound repose,--when we demand from the harassings of fate, “Rest, rest,” and no more,--when the soul and body faint together, and all we ask of God or man is to let us sleep. “In such a state I fell to the ground; and, at that moment, would have bartered all my hopes of liberation for twelve hours profound repose, as Esau sold his birth-right for a small but indispensible refreshment. I was not to enjoy even this repose long. My companion was sleeping too. Sleeping! great God! what was his sleep?--that in whose neighbourhood no one could close an eye, or, worse, an ear. He talked as loudly and incessantly as if he had been employed in all the active offices of life. I heard involuntarily the secret of his dreams. I knew he had murdered his father, but I did not know that the vision of parricide haunted him in his broken visions. My sleep was first broken by sounds as horrible as any I ever had heard at my bed-side in the convent. I heard sounds that disturbed me, but I was not yet fully awake. They increased, they redoubled,--the terrors of my habitual associations awoke me. I imagined the Superior and the whole community pursuing us with lighted torches. I felt the blaze of the lights in contact with my very eye-balls. I shrieked. I said, “Spare my sight, do not blind me, do not drive me mad, and I will confess all.” A deep voice near me muttered, “Confess.” I started up fully awake,--it was only the voice of my sleeping companion. I stood on my feet, I viewed him as he lay. He heaved and wallowed on his bed of stone, as if it had been down. He seemed to have a frame of adamant. The jagged points of stone, the hardness of the floor, the ruts and rudenesses of his inhospitable bed, produced no effect on him. He could have slept, but his dreams were from within. I have heard, I have read, of the horrors attending the dying beds of the guilty. They often told us of such in the convent. One monk in particular, who was a priest, was fond of dwelling on a death-bed scene he had witnessed, and of describing its horrors. He related that he had urged a person, who was sitting calmly in his chair, though evidently dying, to intrust him with his confession. The dying person answered, “I will, when those leave the room.” The monk, conceiving that this referred to the relatives and friends, motioned them to retire. They did so, and again the monk renewed his demands on the conscience of the penitent. The room was now empty. The monk renewed his adjuration to the dying man to disclose the secrets of his conscience. The answer was the same,--“I will, when those are gone.”--“_Those!_”--“Yes, those whom you cannot see, and cannot banish,--send them away, and I will tell you the truth.”--“Tell it now, then; there are none here but you and me.”--“There are,” answered the dying man. “There are none that I can