“That evening the family sat in profound and stupified silence together for some hours, till the aged mother of Walberg, who had not for some months uttered any thing but indistinct monosyllables, or appeared conscious of any thing that was going on, suddenly, with that ominous energy that announces its effort to be the last,--that bright flash of parting life that precedes its total extinction, exclaimed aloud, apparently addressing her husband, “There is something wrong here,--why did they bring us from Germany? They might have suffered us to die there,--they have brought us here to mock us, I think. Yesterday,--(her memory evidently confounding the dates of her son’s prosperous and adverse fortune), yesterday they clothed me in silk, and I drank wine, and to-day they give me this sorry crust,--(flinging away the piece of bread which had been her share of the miserable meal),--there is something wrong here. I will go back to Germany,--I will!” and she rose from her seat in the sight of the astonished family, who, horror-struck, as they would have been at the sudden resuscitation of a corse, ventured not to oppose her by word or movement. “I will go back to Germany,” she repeated; and, rising, she actually took three or four firm and equal steps on the floor, while no one attempted to approach her. Then her force, both physical and mental, seemed to fail,--she tottered,--her voice sunk into hollow mutterings, as she repeated, “I know the way,--I know the way,--if it was not so dark.--I have not far to go,--I am very near--_home_!” As she spoke, she fell across the feet of Walberg. The family collected round her, and raised--a corse. “Thank God!” exclaimed her son, as he gazed on his mother’s corse.--And this reversion of the strongest feeling of nature,--this wish for the death of those for whom, in other circumstances, we would ourselves have died, makes those who have experienced it feel as if there was no evil in life but want, and no object of rational pursuit but the means of avoiding it. Alas! if it be so, for what purpose were hearts that beat, and minds that burn, bestowed on us? Is all the energy of intellect, and all the enthusiasm of feeling, to be expended in contrivances how to meet or shift off the petty but torturing pangs of hourly necessity? Is the fire caught from heaven to be employed in lighting a faggot to keep the cold from the numbed and wasted fingers of poverty. Pardon this digression, Senhor,” said the stranger, “but _I had a painful feeling, that forced me to make it_.” He then proceeded.