The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1889-09-26
and l would forget names, dates and
faces. l apprehended softening of the

anu ! WOulu lOTSeb udul0Sj udleS ana
faces. l apprehended softening of the
brain.
It'was at this period that night became
a gloomy and dreaded inferno with in
finite tortures. Sleep was in brief
snatches, disturbed by atrocious visions.
/ swung over the brows of heaven high
precipices; l was chased through caverns
of hideous night by monsters, and con-
stantly awoke shivering and sometimes
screaming with alright and bathed in
perspiration.
The waking period between the mo-
ments of sleep were more intolerable
after a time than the nightmare Of slum-
Der. They were the arenas of RETROSPECT
ton in which memory and conscience
fought unceasing battles. A blow that
1 had given a baby brother; a flying
cripple in the playground whom I had
kicked in a moment of rage; the re-
proachful, gentle blue eyes of a dying
dove, that / had wantonly shot in a
grove one glorious June afternoon; mean
nesses that / had been guilty of, even to
the most minute details; neglected oppor-
tunities; misdirected action-all these on
such occasions gathered about me and
broke the solemn stiffness of the night
with clamorous upbraidings.
After a time the most terrible phan-
tom, the most pertinacious monster of
them all, made its appearance, and how
cred leering at me in the somber night.
1t was the suggestion of death. "You
must der it said and flew away.
"WelI, what of it? Tens of billions
have died, and everybody living must
also die. There's young Blank, with all
his youth and wealth, he is ure to die
some day, and SC has the beautiful Miss
Feurette and the newly married couple,
the Jeunesses-all of them; not n of
them will be spared! Suppose I must?
They'll all follow along sooner or later"
And yet these reflections that every
son and daughter of man must undergo
the same fate gave me no consolation. l
was not willing to share the common lot;
I wanted to live-just to live, only to
liveI 1t may be that l was not more of
q coward than the majority of human
beings when they first begin to contem-
plate the approach of the great butcher.
For months and months | fought his APP
pearance; l felt for myself a great COM
miseration, an acute sorrow that ] was
obliged to die. 1t was only when | found
him close enough to feel the breath of
his nostrils that / ceased to fear him.
Early, orthodox, religious training
made itself felt potentially, and there
were moments when the child taught
idea of an "angry God frothing with
rage" and an ocean of fame rolling on
forever it's sulphurous pillows, with its
shrieking and damned souls, filled me
with indescribable terror and apprehen-
sion. Again, the suggestion of annihila-
ton would possess me with its awful
menace. To be o~bliterated, to be separ-
ated forever from friends whom I loved,
was even more terrifying than the an
ticipation of eternal torture.
In time the inspection of these various
horrors dulled their hideous intensity,
as the victim on the wheel is said to be-
come insensible to pain after the first
few blows. A species of numbness, a
lethargy permeated me. The subject
grew wearisome. l said:
81 am but an indescribably minute
speck in the universal collection of hui
man atoms. I am of no possible conse-
quence compared with the ~stupendous
mass. If there be a future in which
there is a Judgment of human actions it
is no more than just that | pay the PEN
atty of my offenses. All the trillions of
specks that have lived and died, aud who
will live and die, will have to meet the
same fate. Why should l distress myself
in regard to q future life any more than
one of the animaloulse which inhabit a
drop of water in the mid-Pacific? | am of
no more consequence in the mighty ag-
gregate of the illimitable universe than
this tiny and invisible creation. l will
worry no longer"
In time all these phantasms, visions,
doubts and apprehensions disappeared.
Then a profound peace took possession
of my soul. Ii was not the pacific re-
pose of hope, but the relief which came
from the disappearance of the black
broods that necessarily threatened dire
results. 1t was a subsistence of the thun-
dering waves and the castigating winds.
The turbulent sea melted into gentle
swells which bore me on with a sooth-
ing, cradle like motion. The ingoing
tide. drifted me along o shore from which
a delicious perfume, baisamic and lethal,
filed the atmosphere. Twilight came,
as, tranquillized by the heavy odors, l
floated languidly and painlessly on and
on, till the twilight deepened into eternal
darkness