text:  There was almost a sneer upon his lip as though he would have said that perhaps none knew it better; but that expression flickered only like a passing flash of faint summer lightning and he quickly resumed-- "But about this point of death are centred many confused and jarring lines in an inextricable web; and bright as they look to vulgar eyes yon stars in the heavens shine with a lurid light to those who know to look upon them with the eyes of science; and upon their path is a dim trail of blood--troubled and harassed shall be _the last hours of this reign_