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 tive perceptions, grants us no means for comparison, for judgment, or even for thought, but by analogy: ask yourself, then, Elinor,—What is there, even in immortality, more difficult of comprehension, than that indescribable daily occurrence, which all mankind equally, though unreflecting experience, of a total suspension of every species of living knowledge, of every faculty, of every sense,—called sleep? A suspension as big with matter for speculation and wonder, though its cessation is visible to us, as that last sleep, of which we view not the period."

"Albert!—should you shake my creed,—shall I be better contented? or but yet more wretched?"

"Can Elinor think,—yet ask such a question? Can a prospect of a future state fail to offer a possibility of future happiness? Why wilfully reject a consolation that you have no means to disprove? What know you of this soul which you settle to be so easily annihilated? By what criterion do you judge