"And then, even at that awful moment, I could feel the bland and gentle ministrations of Nature; I could feel the fever of my heart cooling, and a softer haze of melancholy stealing over the blackness of my despair; and the fierce passions which had distracted me giving place to the calm of a settled anguish, a profound sorrow, the quiet gloom of an overshadowing woe, in which love and hatred and wrong were swallowed up and lost. I no longer hated the world; but I felt that it had nothing for me; that I was no longer a part and portion of its harmonious elements; affliction had shut me out forever from the pale of human happiness and sympathy, and hope pointed only to the resting-place of the grave! "I stood steadily gazing at the setting sun. It touched and sat upon the hill-top like a great circle of fire. I had never before fully comprehended the feeling of the amiable but misguided Rousseau, who at his death-hour desired to be brought into the open air, that the last glance of his failing eye might drink in the glory of the sunset heavens, and the light of his great intellect and that of Nature go out together. For surely never did the Mexican idolater mark with deeper emotion the God of his worship, for the last time veiling his awful countenance, than did I, untainted by superstition, yet full of perfect love for the works of Infinite Wisdom, watch over the departure of the most glorious of them all. I felt, even to agony, the truth of these exquisite lines of the Milesian poet: 'Blest power of sunshine, genial day! What joy, what life is in thy ray! To feel thee is such real bliss, That, had the world no joy but this, To sit in sunshine, calm and sweet, It were a world too exquisite For man to leave it for the gloom, The dull, cold shadow of the tomb!' "Never shall I forget my sensations when the sun went down utterly from my sight. It was like receiving the last look of a dying friend. To others he might bring life and health and joy, on the morrow; but tome he would never rise. As this thought came over me, I felt a stifling sensation in my throat, tears started in my eyes, and my heart almost wavered from its purpose. But the bent bow had only relaxed for a single instant; it returned again to its strong and abiding tension.