Excerpt from A Whim, and Its Consequences, Vol. 1 of 3 But is it the watcher who comes back again through that slowly opening door? No, that is a man; and we give all the more sad and solemn tasks of life to women. A young man, too, with the broad, free brow gathered into a sad, stern frown. He comes near the bed; he draws slowly back the cur tain, and, with the faint ray of the single candle streaming in, gazes down upon the sight beneath. There it lies, the clay animate, breathing, thoughtful. Full of feel ings, considerations, passions, pangs, not six and-thirty hours before. But now so silent, so calm, so powerfully grave: it seems to seize in its very inertness upon the busy thoughts of others, and chain them down to its own deadly tranquillity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.