"My own sorrows and your's, Agnes. We both need comfort, and neither of us can find any, except in religion. 'God gives what bankrupt nature never can.' The effect of time would be only to benumb our hearts; but faith could restore them to cheerfulness."
"You might as well plant flowers on a tomb-stone, as attempt to enliven me, Marion! It is a hopeless endeavor! No! the wing of hope is broken within me for ever and ever. It is the misfortune of having too much feeling! Life seems to me a cold and bitter blast, with all its events, like snow-flakes, driving in my face. I have been brought into it without my consent, and shall be torn from it against my will, while
Dream after dream ensues;
And still I dream that I shall still succeed,
And still am disappointed."
"Yet, Agnes, there is not probably a single living being with whom you would change places!"
"Yes! hundreds! thousands!"
"Indeed! Would you take the looks, habits, tastes, age, health, and conversation, of any other person who could be named, instead of your own?"
"No! not exactly! Probably no person living would agree to such an exchange, and least of all one who has in some respects such ample reason to be satisfied," replied Agnes, with a complacent glance at the mirror, which was not, however, so satisfactory as in former days; for her eye had lost much of its lustre, the bloom had faded from her cheek, and her very features looked crushed and contracted by the gnawing effect of mortification. "I should like to have the fortune of Caroline Howard, the rank of Charlotte Malcolm——"
"But Agnes! you are not entitled to expect such a pic-nic of happiness, 'made of ev'ry creature's best.' No; the more we look into life, the more we shall see how equally distributed are its enjoyments—satiety to the rich, contentment to the poor, and compensation of one kind or other to all, for their various privations; but one only gift of God makes life a blessing or a curse, according as it is given or withheld; and it is only in proportion as we have the gifts of Divine grace showered upon us, that we can measure our own happiness, or that of any other mortal being."