That man has a happy, an enviable existence, to whom nature and surrounding circumstances have made it easy or possible to walk constantly in a beaten track; to be, from youth upwards, kind and loving, moderate in his desires and pure in his actions. The first fault is pregnant with sorrow and evil; for, as our philosophical poet so truly says, "Das eben ist der Fluch des Bösen Dass es fortwuchernd immer Böses muss gebahren!" And regeneration in this life is not always to be attained. May it not, then, be the last and highest act of mercy of Eternal Love, to have appointed death as a means of wiping out the confused and blotted scrawl, and restoring the troubled, misguided, soul to the condition of a pure white sheet, ready for happier trials? For that upon which the Holy has already been written here, must far higher bliss be in store. All-loving Justice punishes not as weak man punishes; but it can reward only where reward is due,--where it follows as an inevitable consequence of the past. _January 21st._ It is become very cold again, and the fire-place, '_wo Tag und Nacht die Kohle brennt_,' is unhappily quite insufficient to produce a warm room, such as our stoves--which, spite of their ugliness, I now think of as admirably efficient--procure us. To set my blood in motion I ride the more, and to-day, on my way home, saw one of the many Cosmorames exhibited here, which certainly affords a very agreeable _chamber journey_, as they call it in B----. The picture of the Coronation of Charles the Tenth in the Cathedral at Rheims, doubtless gave me a far more commodious view of it than I should have had in the crowded church. But what tasteless costume, from the King to the lowest courtier! New and old mixed in the most ludicrous and offensive manner! If people will perform such farces, the least they can do is to make them as pretty as those at Franconi's. The ruins of Palmyra lay outstretched in solemn majesty in the boundless Desert, which a caravan in the distant horizon is slowly traversing under a torrid sun. The most perfect illusion was the great fire at Edinburg:--it actually burned. You saw the flames stream upwards; then clouds of black smoke ascend; while the view of the whole landscape incessantly changed with the changes of this fearful light, just as in a real fire. Probably the proprietor's kitchen was behind the picture, and the fire which heated the fancy of credulous spectators like myself, roasted the leg of mutton which our shillings paid for. _January 28th._