The following is described by Alciphron, the hero of the tale, at the termination of a festival, in a tone which strongly reminds us of Rasselas:-- "The sounds of the song and dance had ceased, and I was now left in those luxurious gardens alone. Though so ardent and active a votary of pleasure, I had, by nature, a disposition full of melancholy;--an imagination that presented sad thoughts even in the midst of mirth and happiness, and threw the shadow of the future over the gayest illusions of the present. Melancholy was, indeed, twin-born in my soul with passion; and, not even in the fullest fervour of the latter were they separated. From the first moment that I was conscious of thought and feeling, the same dark thread had run across the web; and images of death and annihilation mingled themselves with the most smiling scenes through which my career of enjoyment led me. My very passion for pleasure but deepened these gloomy fancies. For, shut out, as I was by my creed, from a future life, and having no hope beyond the narrow horizon of this, every minute of delight assumed a mournful preciousness in my eyes, and pleasure, like the flower of the cemetery, grew but more luxuriant from the neighbourhood of death. This very night my triumph, my happiness, had seemed complete. I had been the presiding genius of that voluptuous scene. Both my ambition and my love of pleasure had drunk deep of the cup for which they thirsted. Looked up to by the learned, and loved by the beautiful and the young, I had seen, in every eye that met mine, either the acknowledgment of triumphs already won, or the promise of others, still brighter, that awaited me. Yet, even in the midst of all this, the same dark thoughts had presented themselves; the perishableness of myself and all around me every instant recurred to my mind. Those hands I had prest--those eyes, in which I had seen sparkling a spirit of light and life that should never die--those voices that had talked of eternal love--all, all, I felt, were but a mockery of the moment, and would leave nothing eternal but the silence of their dust! "Oh, were it not for this sad voice, Stealing amid our mirth to say, That all in which we most rejoice, Ere night may be the earth-worm's prey: _But_ for this bitter--only this-- Full as the world is brimm'd with bliss, And capable as feels my soul Of draining to its depth the whole, I should turn earth to heaven, and be, If bliss made gods, a deity!" * * * * * THE FALLS OF NIAGARA.