There will be time enough to trace out the analogy while waiting the summons to breakfast . Seen through the clear portion of the glass where the silvery mountain-peaks of the frost-scenery do not ascend , the most conspicuous object is the steeple , the white spire of which directs you to the wintry lustre of the firmament . You may almost distinguish the figures on the clock that has just told the hour . Such a frosty sky and the snow-covered roofs and the long vista of the frozen street , all white , and the distant water hardened into rock , might make you shiver even under four blankets and a woollen comforter . Yet look at that one glorious star ! Its beams are distinguishable from all the rest , and actually cast the shadow of the casement on the bed with a radiance of deeper hue than moonlight , though not so accurate an outline . You sink down and muffle your head in the clothes , shivering all the while , but less from bodily chill than the bare idea of a polar atmosphere . It is too cold even for the thoughts to venture abroad . You speculate on the luxury of wearing out a whole existence in bed like an oyster in its shell , content with the sluggish ecstasy of inaction , and drowsily conscious of nothing but delicious warmth such as you now feel again . Ah ! that idea has brought a hideous one in its train . You think how the dead are lying in their cold shrouds and narrow coffins through the drear winter of the grave , and can not persuade your fancy that they neither shrink nor shiver when the snow is drifting over their little hillocks and the bitter blast howls against the door of the tomb . That gloomy thought will collect a gloomy multitude and throw its complexion over your wakeful hour . In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon , though the lights , the music and revelry , above may cause us to forget their existence and the buried ones or prisoners whom they hide . But sometimes , and oftenest at midnight , those dark receptacles are flung wide open . In an hour like this , when the mind has a passive sensibility , but no active strength -- when the imagination is a mirror imparting vividness to all ideas without the power of selecting or controlling them -- then pray that your griefs may slumber and the brotherhood of remorse not break their chain . It is too late . A funeral train comes gliding by your bed in which passion and feeling assume bodily shape and things of the mind become dim spectres to the eye . There is your earliest sorrow , a pale young mourner wearing a sister 's likeness to first love , sadly beautiful , with a hallowed sweetness in her melancholy features and grace in the flow of her sable robe . Next appears a shade of ruined loveliness with dust among her golden hair and her bright garments all faded and defaced , stealing from your glance with drooping head , as fearful of reproach : she was your fondest hope , but a delusive one ; so call her Disappointment now .
A sterner form succeeds , with a brow of wrinkles , a look and gesture of iron authority ; there is no name for him unless it be Fatality -- an emblem of the evil influence that rules your fortunes , a demon to whom you subjected yourself by some error at the outset XXXXX life , and were bound his slave for ever by once obeying him .
above into of than that though through to while with