We look about us with dimmed eyes, and our breath grows short and thick, and pains and coughs, and shooting aches come upon us at night; it is a bitter life--a bitter life--a joyless life.

I would I had never commenced it.

And yet the harsh world scowls upon us: our nerves are broken, and they wonder we are querulous; our blood curdles, and they ask why we are not gay; our brain grows dizzy and indistinct, (as with me just now,) and, shrugging their shoulders, they whisper their neighbours that we are mad.

I wish I had worked at the plough, and known sleep, and loved mirth--and--and not been what I am." As the Student uttered the last sentence, he bowed down his head, and a few tears stole silently down his cheek.

Walter was greatly affected--it took him by surprise; nothing in Aram's ordinary demeanour betrayed any facility to emotion; and he conveyed to all the idea of a man, if not proud, at least cold.
"You do not suffer bodily pain, I trust ?" asked Walter, soothingly.
"Pain does not conquer me," said Aram, slowly recovering himself.