Let no presuming railer tax
Creative wisdom, as if aught was form'd
In vain, or not for admirable ends.
Thomson.
So long as we possess the power to struggle, hope is the last feeling to
desert the human mind. Men are endowed with every gradation of courage,
from the calm energy of reflection, which is rendered still more effective
by physical firmness, to the headlong precipitation of reckless spirit:
from the resolution that grows more imposing and more respectable as there
is greater occasion for its exercise, to the fearful and ill-directed
energies of despair. But no description with the pen can give the reader a
just idea of the chill that comes over the heart when accidental causes
rob us, suddenly and without notice, of those resources on which we have
been habitually a
