Night and Morning, Book I

"The storm above, and frozen world below. The olive bough Faded and cast upon the common wind, And earth a doveless ark. " -- LAMAN BLANCHARD.

Mr. Robert Beaufort was generally considered by the world a very worthy man. He had never committed any excess -- never gambled nor incurred debt -- nor fallen into the warm errors most common with his sex. He was a good husband -- a careful father -- an agreeable neighbour -- rather charitable than otherwise, to the poor. He was honest and methodical in his dealings, and had been known to behave handsomely in different relations of life. Mr. Robert Beaufort, indeed, always meant to do what was right -- in the eyes of the world! He had no other rule of action but that which the world supplied; his religion was decorum -- his sense of honour was regard to opinion. His heart was a dial to which the world was the sun: when the great eye of the public fell on it, it answered every purpose that a heart could answer; but when that eye was invisible, the dial was mute -- a piece of brass and nothing more.