Page:Tales of humour and romance translated by Holcroft.djvu/208

 live your afflictions, and how do you submit to the weary length of life, when the circle of your youthful companions is broken, and at last lies in ruins around you; when the graves of your friends rise behind you, like steps conducting to your own, and when old age is silent and vapid, like the evening which follows a deadly conflict. O ye poor mortals! how can your hearts bear it?"

The body of the ascended hero placed the mild angel amid human hardships—amid human injustice. He was surrounded by the thorny girdle of allied governments,—that girdle which holds in its stinging grasp whole quarters of the globe, and which the mighty and the powerful never cease to tighten. He saw the claws of crowned vultures tearing at their now featherless prey, which he heard struggling with wearied wing beneath their cruel grasp. He beheld the whole earth surrounded by the entertwining folds of the gigantic serpents of vicious passions, which thrust and hid their poisonous heads deep in the human breast. Through his tender heart which heretofore had ever been placed amongst affectionate and loving angels, the burning sting of hatred shot; and his soul the very sanctuary of love was terrified at its inward dissolution: "alas" said he, "human death is indeed painful."—But it was not death, for no angel appeared.

In a few days he became weary of that life, which