The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1860-02-02

cnance, Wnlther would fal 1t Is too late,
then, to say 1t was ordained SO. Too late
then, to murmur, i repent. Save
that, all favors it. Even if better ends are in
store, even if in the midst of this drear Novem-
Der we should be able to realize the wild un-
certain glories of ST. Martins summer, still, it
were best to finish here, since we have lost-so
much-all, in fact, and what comes after, if it
may come, must be with the pang of new
birth-therefore, it is best to end here-only,
the corridors are dark, and it is possible to- lose
our way. If / could now have
guide and passport-if could go out with the
oil of JUNCTION on my feet the Eucharist of pu-
ri6cation on my tongue-if | could, just in that
point of time, when should be forgiven, guilt
less, put myself out Of the way then, perfectly
pure and perfectly good, ere / had time to do
another sin or think another thought-like an
infant of the Manichees, for it's own souls
health baptized and murdered in the same
breath-if could reap that harvest, how soon
would / put in my sickle, bare my arm, and
bow me to the. work But, x
no every mans coward All of us have a
sort of shuddering suspicion that It's true what
the poet says:
There may he Heaven; there must be HE'LL
Meantime, there is our Earth here-weil.o
And I-can / not rise above this ? Can not
choose between this fardel-burdened Here, and
the Rest which is yonder, attainable by this
Key, through that dark Corridor, where there is
some slight danger of neutrality-suspicious. of
an actual fall-with bruises-with hurts more
or less painful, more or less durable? Strange
Even grant the hurt and pain. Am not hurt
now, suffer / not pain now ? And then, an
clou pousse rautre !" this pain, anyhow, will
go, if that comes on, and so the reaction NAV
cure. Ahl* or kill \ n
Why not? Heaven were not, but for He'll
Why should we ever and always per-
NIT His Mercy to shrink away and be hidden
from our sight by His Justice Judgment
rather p Mo- am one of these
towards also; \ is there danger in thy
fragrance, oh, subtle drug not too close, then
l feel the dread, whenever | touch
the key that admits me to that black corridor.
What echoes shall nv steps wake therein? What
dragons guard its stations? What treacherous
pitfalls there for him who stumbles, leading
into / know not what Shiny vaults of horror :?
And whittier leads it, even if l treal it safe
Stayl All, dread it how all those
little lessons of my infancy start up before my
steps, and menace till L shiverl How my child
hoods reading in the Book, my Sunday an
swers, when a puerile catechumen, the moth
er's voice, the old parsons text, his argu-
ment, his exhortation, all combine to disarm me
of my purpose STRANGE Yet how my whole
life has given it all the lie. How's
that? Is't truth, or morbid pride, that puts that
thought ahoat? / know not. Yet, not all my
cloud of woe, not all this detection, this shat
tered brain, this horror of dream, this mortal
weakness this gnawing, chsfng bitterness
not all this stormy gloom, this speckled, poi
soned, purulent, bloated, gangrened pride--not
all this shame that would shrek itself into mad
ness from very loathing of contact with itself
not all this wrong I've sown broadcast, heap
ing it like mourning ashes upon my own barred
head-not all this INSTRUCTED viper's blood that
Kisses through my veins, scorches my BRAIN
parches my tongue, makes ache my eyes. makes
black my thoughts, marches grim spectres and
bloody shapes in rude procession or uncouth
dance of Death through my brain--not all
these have sufliced to arm me desperately
against the sole thing that encourages, permits,
suffers them to be-tolerates their existence
the one thing that | chiefly hate-Life X
And whence this respect which still prevents
the Senate of my thoughts from opening the
temple of Janus, though these myriad Catos
every day fling into their midst these freshest
figs, and warn them: "Delenda est Carthagol"
Whence the respect that makes calamity of
so long life" prevents from sleep, even
vous arm when / would lie down in the way
side snow, benumbed, happy, and glide off into
the Inconsistencies that has such pleasant
dreams, they say? Aha there's it But in
that sleep. what DREAMS may come y" puzzles
the WILL" 1t is that, that only, for | am all
enamored of this death itself, but-what comes
after - that undiscovered country" Why,
many have gone thither, though it hath remain
ed undiscovered TO us-are then its shores so
fair, its bays pleasant, its breezy groves so
high-delghtful, that none have ever dared to
venture back and tell us Of it, lest, not being
able to return again. they should abide forlorn,
forever pining upon the memory of the blisses
they once enjoyed? All, but for
that dread, that deadly dread, now were the
time, / think, and this the place, and these the
circumstances, which would make, in the one
case, the pleasant contrast greatest-in the other
emergency, the transition least intense in pain.
Aye, things are ripe for it now; this is the aus
picious moment. 1T comes to every
man-to me, now. Comes it more
than once? The dainty delicacy of thy touch,
oh drugl light as the toying Zephyr's kiss
who would guess the steel bound might and OBJ
duracy of thy clutch? All things
concur-every good sign is present. /,
only, fear to receive that kiss /
can do good so /; / am only in their way, now,
an obstacle to their happiness; the world will
think much more kindly of the Beale Lloyd
who. should sacrifice himself upon the altar of
his shame, as if unable to endure the scorpion
lashings of his sense of disgrace. Then,
why not in the name of Heaven? Why should
he not do it? 'Twould take but bare mo-
ment, an atom of time, an in6nitesimal segment
of the great arc of his selftorture, and then
all would be over, here. All, but, and in the
name of Heaven, | say--all over, here-but-
but-but- And so / put the vial up again.
damned shame, and woe, and pain, shrinking
away like parchment scroll in the lurid flames
of damned Dread X That Beyond |
Is not that The Place, where the lashiDgs for
instance shall be more terrible, less tolerable,
more poignantly acute, in proportion as the
consciousness is clearer and the sensibility
more delicate? Persephone, as daughter of
Ceres, gathers flowers, a child as wife of Dis,
what high mysteries is she not the elected
Queen of? X What IT, in that other
world, to which thrust or draught can dis
miss us ere the breast could heave thrice with
ones breathing, the soul, purified ofits corporal
connections, exalted, sublimated, clarified like
rock crystal, becomes refined a million proofs,
strung up with the nervous tension of the deli
catest harp, impossible as the rarest ether;
while the memory, purged of all its defects, all
its shortcomings, rushes, sounding, through it
like tidal wave up Gauges, agonizing every
atom with its jarring, crashing contact2 Oh,
God and no Rest there, neither
Thus, in the dismal gloom of his dank On
bliette, this man, this Prince of all Heauton-
timorumenoi, this First Gravedigger for the
corpse ofSelf Content, this emphatically Wretch
ed, pursued his train of thought, gloomy, repi-
ming, desiring death, but ever Withholding his
hand, and half resolving to drag on his dreary
life to the end, sooner than to face the Revela-
ton which Conscience gave him such dismal