236 STRANGE THOUGHTS.

being. Then, again, I saw before me the forms
and figures of many I had left—some a few hours,
some a few weeks before. Was I to see them again
or not? The question again and again repeated
itself, and the oftener, perhaps, from a feeling of
presumption I experienced, in even whispering to
myself that I decidedly should. ‘Sz on glasse, on
est perdu!’ How horribly forcible and true did
these words now appear,—on what a slender thread
was life held! A trifling deviation in the position
of a foot, and it was over. I had but to make one
single step in advance, and I was in another state
of existence. Such were a few of the mental feel-
ings which suggested themselves, but others of a
physical nature occurred. I had eaten nothing
since leaving the old convent in which I had spent
the preceding night, and the keen air on the moun-
tains had so sharpened my appetite, that by the
time I had reached the summit we had just quitted
I felt not only a good deal exhausted but extremely
hungry. But hunger, thirst, and fatigue, followed
me not on the ledge. <A feast would have had no
charm, and miles upon a level road would have
been as nothing. Every sense seemed absorbed in
getting to the end; and yet, in the midst of this
unenviable position, a trifling incident occurred,
which actually for the time gave rise to something
of a pleasurable sensation. About midway I espicd,