The stony street, the bitter north-east wind and darkness--and in the
midst of them a tender woman thrust out from her husband's home in her
thin night-dress, the harsh wind cutting her naked feet, and driving her
long hair away from her half-clad bosom, where the poor heart is crushed
with anguish and despair.
The drowning man, urged by the supreme agony, lives in an instant through
all his happy and unhappy past: when the dark flood has fallen like a
curtain, memory, in a single moment, sees the drama acted over again. And
even in those earlier crises, which are but types of death--when we are
cut off abruptly from the life we have known, when we can no longer
expect tomorrow to resemble yesterday, and find ourselves by some sudden
shock on the confines of the unknown--there i
