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228 clings to the immediate; but when we do think of the future, uninfluenced by any present hope—by any strong tide of anticipation carrying us along its darkening depths—how terrible does that future ever appear!—what may it not have in store for us! Sickness, sorrow, poverty, age, and even crime—all that we should now indignantly disclaim, but that to which we may yield under some strong and subtle temptation. The guiltiest have had their guileless and innocent hour. Who knows what may await them of degradation and despair? Death, too!—that awful spectre, which stalks over the morrow as his own domain, opens before us his many graves—our own the last!—no rest till we are worn with weeping for the loved and lost! At such times, how we marvel at our usual recklessness, and pause, as it were, shrinking from the busy and inevitable current which is hurrying us on to eternity!

Each, however, felt that their silence was unkind to Arden: both urged him to stay, by every motive that could persuade, and every reason that could induce. But entreaty and argument were alike in vain. Arden had arrived at the last consolation of misfortune—fatality. Strange the unconscious comfort which it is to exaggerate our self-importance, and that crime and sorrow are