secret stir from its gloomy depth! The seal is on the tomb; henceforth
be the spectre laid. Yes, I must smooth my brow, and teach my lip
restraint, and smile and talk like other men. I have taken to my hearth a
watch, tender, faithful, anxious,--but a watch. Farewell the unguarded
hour! The soul's relief in speech, the dark and broken, yet how
grateful, confidence with self, farewell! And come, thou veil! subtle,
close, unvarying, the everlasting curse of entire hypocrisy, that under
thee, as night, the vexed world within may sleep, and stir not! and all,
in truth concealment, may seem repose!"

As he uttered these thoughts, the student paused and looked on the
extended landscape that lay below. A heavy, chill, and comfortless mist
sat saddening over the earth. Not a leaf stirred on the autumnal trees,
but the moist damps fell slowly and with a mournful murmur upon the
unwaving grass. The outline of the morning sun was visible, but it gave
forth no lustre: a ring of watery and dark vapor girded the melancholy
orb. Far at the entrance of the valley the wild fern showed red and
faded, and the first march of the deadly winter was already heralded by
that drear and silent desolation which cradles the winds and storms. But
amidst this cheerless scene the distant note of the merry marriage-bell
floated by, like the good spirit of the wilderness, and the student
rather paused to hearken to the note than to survey the scene. "My
marriage-bell!" said he. "Could I, two short years back, have dreamed of
this? My marriage-bell! How fondly my poor mother, when first she
learned pride for her young scholar, would predict this day, and blend
its festivities with the honor and the wealth her son was to acquire!
Alas! can we have no science to count the stars and forebode the black
eclipse of the future? But peace! peace! peace! I am, I will, I shall
be happy now! Memory, I defy thee!"