This eBook was produced by Andrew Heathand David Widger widgercecometnetCHAPTER LXXIVMy Work my Philosophical Workthe ambitious hope of my intellectuallifehow eagerly I returned to it again  Far away from my householdgrief far away from my haggard perplexitiesneither a Lilian nor aMargrave thereAs I went over what I had before written each link in its chain ofreasoning seemed so serried that to alter one were to derange all andthe whole reasoning was so opposed to the possibility of the wonders Imyself had experienced so hostile to the subtle hypotheses of a Faber orthe childlike belief of an Amy that I must have destroyed the entire workif I had admitted such contradictions to its designBut the work was I myselfI in my solid sober healthful mind beforethe brain had been perplexed by a phantom  Were phantoms to be allowed astestimonies against science  No in returning to my Book I returned tomy former MeHow strange is that contradiction between our being as man and our beingas Author  Take any writer enamoured of a system a thousand things mayhappen to him every day which might shake his faith in that system andwhile he moves about as mere man his faith is shaken  But when hesettles himself back into the phase of his being as author the mere actof taking pen in hand and smoothing the paper before him restores hisspeculations to their ancient mechanical train  The system the belovedsystem reasserts its tyrannic sway and he either ignores or moulds intofresh proofs of his theory as author all which an hour before had givenhis theory the lie in his living perceptions as manI adhered to my systemI continued my work  Here in the barbarousdesert was a link between me and the Cities of Europe  All else mightbreak down under me  The love I had dreamed of was blotted out from theworld and might never be restored my heart might be lonely my life bean exiles  My reason might at last give way before the spectres whichawed my senses or the sorrow which stormed my heart  But here at leastwas a monument of my rational thoughtful Meof my individualizedidentity in multiform creation  And my mind in the noon of its forcewould shed its light on the earth when my form was resolved to itselements  Alas in this very yearning for the Hereafter though but theHereafter of a Name could I see only the craving of Mind and hear notthe whisper of SoulThe avocation of a colonist usually so active had little interest forme  This vast territorial lordship in which could I have endeared itspossession by the hopes that animate a Founder I should have felt all thezest and the pride of ownership was but the run of a common to thepassing emigrant who would leave no son to inherit the tardy products ofhis labour  I was not goaded to industry by the stimulus of need  Icould only be ruined if I risked all my capital in the attempt to improveI lived therefore amongst my fertile pastures as careless of culture asthe English occupant of the Highland moor which he rents for the range ofits solitudesI knew indeed that if ever I became avaricious I might swell my modestaffluence into absolute wealth  I had revisited the spot in which I haddiscovered the nugget of gold and had found the precious metal in richabundance just under the first coverings of the alluvial soil  Iconcealed my discovery from all  I knew that did I proclaim it thecharm of my bushlife would be gone  My fields would be infested by allthe wild adventurers who gather to gold as the vultures of prey round acarcass my servants would desert me my very flocks would beshepherdlessMonths again rolled on months  I had just approached the close of mybeloved Work when it was again suspended and by an anguish keener thanall which I had previously knownLilian became alarmingly ill  Her state of health long graduallydeclining had hitherto admitted checkered intervals of improvement andexhibited no symptoms of actual danger  But now she was seized with akind of chronic fever attended with absolute privation of sleep anaversion to even the lightest nourishment and an acute nervoussusceptibility to all the outward impressions of which she had long seemedso unconscious morbidly alive to the faintest sound shrinking from thelight as from a torture  Her previous impatience at my entrance into herroom became aggravated into vehement emotions convulsive paroxysms ofdistress so that Faber banished me from her chamber and with a heartbleeding at every fibre I submitted to the cruel sentenceFaber had taken up his abode in my house and brought Amy with him one orthe other never left Lilian night or day  The great physician spokedoubtfully of the case but not despairinglyRemember he said that in spite of the want of sleep the abstinencefrom food the form has not wasted as it would do were this feverinevitably mortal  It is upon that phenomenon I build a hope that I havenot been mistaken in the opinion I hazarded from the first  We are now inthe midst of the critical struggle between life and reason if shepreserve the one my conviction is that she will regain the other  Thatseeming antipathy to yourself is a good omen  You are inseparablyassociated with her intellectual world in proportion as she revives toit must become vivid and powerful the reminiscences of the shock thatannulled for a time that world to her  So I welcome rather than fearthe oversusceptibility of the awakening senses to external sights andsounds  A few days will decide if I am right  In this climate theprogress of acute maladies is swift but the recovery from them is yetmore startlingly rapid  Wait endure be prepared to submit to the willof Heaven but do not despond of its mercyI rushed away from the consoleraway into the thick of the