The slide ! '' The simplest words must intimate , but not portray , the unutterable horror of the catastrophe . The victims rushed from their cottage and sought refuge in what they deemed a safer spot , where , in contemplation of such an emergency , a sort of barrier had been reared . Alas ! they had quitted their security and fled right into the pathway of destruction . Down came the whole side of the mountain in a cataract of ruin . Just before it reached the house the stream broke into two branches , shivered not a window there , but overwhelmed the whole vicinity , blocked up the road and annihilated everything in its dreadful course . Long ere the thunder of that great slide had ceased to roar among the mountains the mortal agony had been endured and the victims were at peace . Their bodies were never found . The next morning the light smoke was seen stealing from the cottage chimney up the mountain-side . Within , the fire was yet smouldering on the hearth , and the chairs in a circle round it , as if the inhabitants had but gone forth to view the devastation of the slide and would shortly return to thank Heaven for their miraculous escape . All had left separate tokens by which those who had known the family were made to shed a tear for each . Who has not heard their name ? The story has been told far and wide , and will for ever be a legend of these mountains . Poets have sung their fate . There were circumstances which led some to suppose that a stranger had been received into the cottage on this awful night , and had shared the catastrophe of all its inmates ; others denied that there were sufficient grounds for such a conjecture . Woe for the high-souled youth with his dream of earthly immortality ! His name and person utterly unknown , his history , his way of life , his plans , a mystery never to be solved , his death and his existence equally a doubt , -- whose was the agony of that death-moment ? THE SISTER-YEARS . Last night , between eleven and twelve o'clock , when the Old Year was leaving her final footprints on the borders of Time 's empire , she found herself in possession of a few spare moments , and sat down -- of all places in the world -- on the steps of our new city-hall .
The wintry moonlight showed that she looked weary of body and sad of heart , like many another wayfarer XXXXX earth .
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