a sand upon the sea-shore of creation; a humiliating consciousness, heavy, but salutary.
Two millions of human beings! Here they have their habitations, in every diversity of shelter, from the palace to the hovel, in every variety of array, from the inmate of the royal equipage to the poor street-sweeper. Some glittering on the height of wealth and power, others sinking in the depths of poverty and misery. Yet to every heart is dealt its modicum of hope, every lip hath a taste of the bitter bread of disappointment. Death, ever taking aim among them, replenishes his receptacles night and day, while in thousands of curtained chambers, how many arms and bosoms earnestly foster the new-born life, that he may have fresh trophies. For earth and the things of earth, for fancies and forms of happiness, all are scheming, and striving, and struggling, from the little rill, working its way under ground in darkness and silence, to the great crested wave, that with a thundering echo breaks on the shore of eternity.
