south-west wind brought up rain--the sun came out, and mocking the usual

laws of nature, seemed even at this early season to burn with solsticial

force. It was no consolation, that with the first winds of March the lanes

were filled with violets, the fruit trees covered with blossoms, that the

corn sprung up, and the leaves came out, forced by the unseasonable heat.

We feared the balmy air--we feared the cloudless sky, the flower-covered

earth, and delightful woods, for we looked on the fabric of the universe no

longer as our dwelling, but our tomb, and the fragrant land smelled to the

apprehension of fear like a wide church-yard.

Pisando la tierra dura

de continuo el hombre esta

y cada passo que da

es sobre su sepultura.[1]

Yet notwithstanding these disadvantages winter was breathing time; and we

exerted ourselves to make the best of it. Plague might not revive with the

summer; but if it did, it should find us prepared. It is a part of man's

nature to adapt itself through habit even to pain and sorrow. Pestilence

had become a part of our future, our existence; it was to be guarded

against, like the flooding of rivers, the encroachments of ocean, or the

inclemency of the sky. After long suffering and bitter experience, some

panacea might be discovered; as it was, all that received infection died--

all however were not infected; and it became our part to fix deep the

foundations, and raise high the barrier between contagion and the sane; to

introduce such order as would conduce to the well-being of the survivors,

355

The Last Man