But prosperity cannot always last. No! let the prosperous man ever tremble at any long succession of blessings; for it is then that sorrows are nearest, and those sorrows the worst and heaviest. If it is not so in reality--if the reverses which we witness here and there coming upon the rich and the fortunate--if they are not worse than those which overtake other men, they are so at least to all intents and purposes, for the hackneyed adage is a true one despise it who may, ‘prosperity unfits us for adversity.’ The noble scorn with which this or that man learns to look upon a run of ill luck, or the heroism and devotedness of woman, may take a charm when hallowed by the pen of Irving, but they are after all but as the creations of the poet, mere creations having no parallel in real life. That there is philosophy enough in the human soul even this side of stoicism, to enable a man to look unmoved on the changes about him, we do not doubt; but that the philosopher has yet risen who has discovered the treasure, of this we do as unhesitatingly declare a disbelief. If it is so, Mr. Charles Selden had never learned it, and it was at the demise of his wife that he began to date the commencement of his ill fortunes, which like rising waves seemed heavier and heavier as the shattered bark was less and less able to endure their fury. This was the first blow, the death of his wife--and he bent beneath it. Yet his character seemed to have that elasticity, that springiness in it which recovers itself again; and he once more mingled with men, pursued his profession, and smiled with the same cheerfulness. Yet there were times when his language seemed too light, too rapid, too artificial, so to speak, for a perfectly happy man; and his friends sometimes whispered to their own hearts that all was not as it should be, that there was something wrong within, that that fine and delicate organization, his mind, did not act as formerly; and they sometimes marked a kind of perverse vehemence, which did not tally well with that uniform sound sense and remarkable discrimination which had characterized the efforts of his earlier years. Ah! they guessed well--there _was_ something wrong. There was a fountain in his heart which had been chilled, and which kept bubbling up its cool waters to remind him continually of his wretchedness; and there were moments, when withdrawn from business and the world shut out, he gave himself up to that deadly yet sweet sorrow which sooner or later saps the springs of existence.