THE COFFIN MAKER. 83 



the idols of departed love, whose presence forbade oblivion of 

 their loveliness; and a thin and scattered population v^^ould 

 wander through the world as through the valley of the shadow of 

 death ! How often have I been interrupted when about to nail 

 down a coffin, by the agonizing entreaties of some wretch to 

 whom the discoloured clay bore yet the trace of beauty, and the 

 darkened lid seemed only closed in slumber; How often have I 

 said, * Surely that heart will break with its woe ! ' and yet, in a 

 little while, the bowed spirit rose again, the eye sparkled, and the 

 lip smiled, because the dead were covered from their sight ; and 

 that which is present to man's senses is destined to affect him far 

 more powerfully than the dreams of his imagination or memory. 

 How often, too, have I seen the reverse of the picture I have 

 just drawn ; when the pale unconscious corse has lain abandoned 

 in its loveliness, and grudging hands have scantily dealt out a 

 portion of their superfluity, to obtain the last rites for one who so 

 lately moved, spoke, smiled, and walked amongst them ! And 

 I have felt, even then, that there were those to whom that neglect- 

 ed being had been far more precious than heaps of gold, and I 

 have mourned for them who perished among strangers. One 

 horrible scene has chased another from my mind through a suc- 

 cession of years; and some of those which, perhaps, deeply 

 affected me at the time, are, by the mercy of Heaven, forgotten. 

 But enough remains to enable me to give a faint outline of the 

 causes which have changed me from what I was, to the gloomy, 

 joyless being I am at length become. There is one scene indel- 

 libly impressed upon my memory. 



"I was summoned late at night to the house of a respectable 

 merchant, who had been reduced, in a great measure, by the 

 wilful extravagance of his only son, from comparative wealth to 

 ruin and distress. I was met by the widow, on whose worn and 

 weary face the calm of despair had settled. She spoke to me for 

 a few moments, and begged me to use dispatch and caution in 

 the exercise of my calling : — ' for indeed,' said she, * I have 

 watched my living son with a sorrow that has almost made me 

 forget grief for the departed. For five days and five nights I have 

 watched, and his bloodshot eye has not closed, no, not for a mo- 

 ment, from its horrible task of gazing on the dead face of the 

 father that cursed him. He sleeps now, if sleep it can be called, 

 that is rather the torpor of exhaustion ; but his re;it is taken on 

 that father's death-bed. Oh ! young man, feel for me ! Do 

 your task in such a manner, that my wretched boy may not 



