Such thoughts come to many, not that they show a morbid or unhealthy fancy, but because life, though apparently full of glowing happiness, is, to the majority of those who are strictly honest, but a weary time of toil and trouble, a time of endless struggle and pain; all battle and strife and strenuous effort to exist, till actually to ‘live’ would seem paradise: life to such is a period of giving up with a smile all that it holds dear, though the throat chokes and the eyes blind with scalding tears at every recollection; a period in which the close friend may prove to be the devil; a period in which those in whom trust is placed, and from whom advice is sought, betray their trust, and add to treachery counsel that will enable them to plunder their confiding victim, sinking every spark of honour, along with all people with whom they come in contact, if by so doing they can benefit themselves or rise higher. When friends prove false and age creeps on, and both soul and body are less able to bear the strain, it becomes harder and ever harder to keep both together, and torn and tired hearts cry, “O Lord, how long!” and the soul is overwhelmed till it “longs for rest, yet rest can never find”; longs for love and sympathy, and instead, “The purposes of life misunderstood Baffle and wound us”— and the honest are ever the tiny flowers, whilst the callous and wicked are the spreading bay-tree, and the unsolvable problem—Why? makes the injustice of it the more keenly felt. For are not all precepts, from childhood onwards, to the effect that honesty is the best policy? Yet in real life, the honest, straight man always comes off worst in his dealings with unscrupulous people, and he is invariably the loser, for he will not stoop to their actions, so the conditions are not equal, and as Longfellow so aptly says,— “Force rules the world still. Has ruled it, shall rule it; Meekness is weakness, Strength is triumphant; Over the whole earth Still is it Thor’s Day!” To such contemplations did the appearance of the awful sun-sea give rise, for it was like the friend, the counsellor, and any or all of those who mean to grow rich anyhow, even at the price of another’s blood; it waged a terrible and one-sided fight, itself always the victor—it would relentlessly crush and batter and overwhelm all in its path; rise it must; progress it must; and woe to that which stood in its way, for without feeling, without an atom of sentiment or veneration, that obstacle would be swept away, or if that were not possible, because too firmly rooted (by honesty, say, to carry forward the simile), it would be absorbed and covered, and though it might to a slight extent retard the onward rush, it would be unceasingly beaten and torn, and if not forced aside, worn away and, throughout, be virtually non-existent.