Page:Romance & Reality 2.pdf/326

324 Alas! I do not—I cannot think with the writer. My own experience—my whole observation forbid it. The worst sufferings of human nature are those which no law can reach—no form of government control. What code can soothe the burning pain of disease, or rouse its languor? What code can alleviate the bitterness of death, dry the tears of the mourner, and force the grave to give up the loved and the lost? What form of laws can control the affections, those busy ministers of sorrows? Can they console them when unrequited—alter them when misplaced—or recall them when departed for ever? Alas! they are of no avail. Can the law blunt the cutting edge of ridicule, or soften the bitter words of unkindness? Can the law give us grace, wit, beauty, or prevent our feeling their want, or envying their more fortunate possessors? All the law can do, is to give us hard bread, which we must earn with our toil, and then steep with our tears. Yet more, the law can guard our life—life! that possession which, of all others, man values the least; but it can give nothing that endears, or exalts it—nothing that confers on it either a value or a charm. The first records of our young world were those of tears and blood; its