Bones and I by G.J. Whyte-Melville — Read

"Coming events cast their shadows before," says a favourite adage of that proverbial philosophy which is often so quaint and truthful, sometimes so contradictory and far-fetched. In the present instance the maxim, I think, is contradicted by our individual convictions and general experience. For my own part I protest I am no believer in presentiments. That is a beautiful fiction of poetry, completely unsubstantiated by the prosaic events of life, which represents the predestined sufferer as one who

"Still treads the shadow of his foe," while the arm of the avenger, uplifted though unseen, intercepts the light of heaven ere yet its blow descends. Poets, no doubt, lay their foundations on a basis of truth, but, as befits their profession, do not scruple to raise a superstructure in magnificent disproportion to the limits of their ground-plan. I will appeal to nine people out of every ten whose lot it has been to sustain severe affliction-and I think it is nearly nine-tenths of the human race-whether they have not found themselves staggered or prostrated by blows as sudden as they were overwhelming; whether the dagger has not always been a more deadly weapon than the sword, the marksman behind the hedge a more fatal enemy than the battery on its eminence, the hidden reef a worse disaster than the adverse gale, and whether their hopes, their happiness, or their fortunes, have not failed them at the very moment when the false waves smiled serenely at the calm skies overhead-