The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1886-09-10

v That Happens when Persons sink in
the Water.

In oil flights Of the Imagination. lu.
water, whether OF classical myth or pop
uiar folk lore, is regularly reeurrent. In
Une form or another, as the obstructing
barrier, or as the gracious medium, the
magic fluid that makes or mars epChant-
msnt, the flood from which surprising
treasures are retrieved, or in which life
is finally lost, we fnd this element con-
spicuous; and it would, indeed, be a
curiOusly interesting compilation that
should bring together all the streams
and channels of myth and story, the
| rivers, fountains, meres, lakes, and
tarns that have been eventful in legend
and fable. 1t would be found that in
nearly all of them, where the closing
tragedy of life has its scene laid N the
sub-aqueous abode OF the water folk.
there is tendency on the part Of the
narrator TO make death by drowning an
easy and painless mode of escape from
existence. Enamored water fairies come
and claim the strong swimmer, OF carry
of the bathing girl as playmate. The
dark blue water from the glacier runs
icy cold and very deep. The doomed
| yonth, however, plunges in, and all of
sudden the drops of water around his
| head glitter as if lit with blue flames,
| and tinkle by, like the Ginning of fairy
/ bells, and the Ice Maiden Uses from the
| ground and Kisses the swimmer's feet.
| whereupon cold, deathly chill strikes
| through him as be sinks and then all
IS still. Happy was he thus to pass
from life to life says Hans Andersen.
! Nor do those who have been rescued
from death by drowning, even when life
had seemed extinct, speak of their last
moment of earthly consciousness with
horror. They remember the struggle,
| followed by more brief bewilderment
of sounds, and still more brief flash of
| thoughts: but after this a gracious for
| getfulness overcame them, and they
| seemed to sink into sleep. Men and
women have thus descended into the
! abyss of death, and have looked into It's
| secrets las far perhaps as human eyes
can have looked and been permitted TO
| return" AT certain stage of the de-
| scent the vision is struck as by some
phosphoric radiance, and the water is
broken up into glittering points, and
! simultaneously, SO some have left upon
| solemn record. "a mighty theater engen-
| ders within the brain. I'm a moment, In
the twinkling of an eye, every act, every
| design of the past, lives again, and a
light falls upon the whole path of life
| backward into the shades of infancy
| The very instantaneity of the process,
| however, presenting everything, not in
succession, but as cO-existent, depTives
the sudden retrospect of its terrors, and
unconsciousness, they pretend. comes ss
| a sense of relief and even of physical
| pleasure. The unfortunatos, the weak
ones, or the most sorely tried, whose
names stand on the death roll of our
many diffe rent waters, have probably
no definite preference before them when
they seek from the cold, dark water the
solace which earth will not offer. They
see in the rolling tide merely form of
suicide which is free from many of the
shocking incidents of other modes of
self destruction, and one that Leeds DO
money to compass it, nor preparation
beforehand to insure its certainty, and
! then, too, all is over so soon. No won
der, then, that when the fascination for
suicide takes hold of the wretched, they
should turn to the dark river as to
friend; and little wonder that in the
great cities the tale of the dead should
be annually so great