Doubt and Distrust only heralded the coming of Fear, Anxiety,
Solicitude, Suspicion, Despondency, Foreboding. Markland had only to
open his eyes and look around him, to see, on every hand, the
unsightly wrecks of palaces once as fair to the eye as that which he
had raised with such labor and forethought, and as he contemplated
these, Doubt, Distrust, and their companions, filled his mind with
alarming thoughts, and so oppressed him with a sense of insecurity
that, at times, he saw the advancing shadows of misfortune on his
path.

Thus it was with Markland at fifty. He had all good as to the
externals of life, yet was he a miserable man, and, worse than all,
he felt himself growing more and more unhappy as the years
increased. Was there no remedy for this? None, while his heart was
so filled with evil affections, which are always tormentors. He did
not see this. Though his guests disturbed and afflicted him, he
called them friends, and gave them entertainments of the best his
house afforded.

Sometimes Pity came to the door of his heart and asked for
admission, but he sent Unkindness to double bar it against her.
Generosity knocked, but Avarice stood sentinel. Envy was forever
refusing to let Good-will, Appreciation, Approval, Delight, come in.
Detraction would give no countenance to Virtue and Excellence. Doubt
made deadly assault upon Faith, and Trust, and Hope, whenever they
drew near, while Ill-will stood ever on the alert to drive off
Charity, Loving-kindness and Neighborly regard. Unhappy man! Fiends
possessed him, and he knew it not.

It so happened on a time, that Markland, while standing in one of