The Count of Monte Cristo

until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,—' Wait and hope.'—Your friend, "Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo."

I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper, than of a sword or pistol."

"And how did this misfortune occur?" inquired the latter, resuming the interrupted conversation.

Well, unfurl your wings, and fly into superhuman regions; fear nothing, there is a watch over you; and if your wings, like those of Icarus, melt before the sun, we are here to ease your fall."

, thus it is that our material origin is revealed," cried Sinbad; "we frequently pass so near to happiness without seeing, without regarding it, or if we do see and regard it, yet without recognizing it.

"By all means, be as wise as Nestor and as prudent as Ulysses; I do more than permit, I exhort you."

"And now," said the unknown, "farewell kindness, humanity, and gratitude! Farewell to all the feelings that expand the heart! I have been heaven's substitute to recompense the good—now the god of vengeance yields to me his power to punish the wicked!"

I live I am only a man who his broken his word, failed in his engagements—in fact, only a bankrupt. If, on the contrary, I die, remember, Maximilian, my corpse is that of an honest but unfortunate man. Living, my best friends would avoid my house; dead, all Marseilles will follow me in tears to my last home. Living, you would feel shame at my name; dead, you may raise your head and say, 'I am the son of him you killed, because, for the first time, he has been compelled to break his word.'"

"This was, indeed, a horrid event." said he in a hoarse voice.

"The more so, sir, as it was men's and not God's doing."

Never did funeral knell, never did alarm-bell, produce a greater effect on the hearer.