278 A HUMAN HEART. 



home ; my emotions seem to have changed their channel, and from 

 the haggardness of fear, my countenance returns to the placidity of 

 its settled woe. I barricade the windows and the several apertures 

 through which light may escape ; I, then, produce fire from flints, 

 and illume my dwelling with the fitful lustre of an ill-tended lamp of 

 oil. If the season be winter, or the weather raw and inclement, I 

 prevail on myself, at intervals, to kindle a fire on the hearth. I have 

 an oaken table, small, round, and apparently very ancient, which, 

 after overlaying redundantly with books, I draw to the vicinity of 

 the embers. I then allow myself to sink in a huge elbowed chair, 

 occupying the left corner of the fire-side, and directly in front both 

 of the window and the door. I muse more, much more than I read, 

 but still there are passages of my favourite authors that serve wonder- 

 fully to charm away time. I can read Homer ; and Tully and 

 Tacitus are familiar to me. To whom do I owe this felicity ? Alas, 

 let me not darken the faint gleam of happiness that remains to me ; 

 let me not sink into utter despair ! The silence which dwells around 

 me in these hours is intense, unutterable. Imagination can form no 

 semblance of it. Sometimes, my thoughts are troubled by it ; its 

 effect is appalling ; I should go mad did I give myself to its in- 

 fluence. But I fly from it. It is then I rush outward, and take 

 my station on the cliffs looking down upon the open sea. 



The roar of the waters, the bellowing of the winds, the crashing 

 of the branches of trees any thing, any thing is preferable to this 

 silence, this silence so emblematic of death, so horrible unen- 

 durable ! The question very naturally presents itself In the midst 

 of what is thus so terrible, and contrary to the capabilities of nature 

 to endure, why cut not at once the thread of life ; why not escape at 

 a single bound ? I have dwelt on this thought ; it has haunted me ; 

 I have risen from my sleep, sprang, leaped frantically from my 

 resting-place, the thought vivid to my imagination the resolution 

 strong in my heart. I have clenched the horrid form of a rusty 

 knife a knife huge enough to strike terror to a butcher, I have 

 drawn it wildly across my throat, pointed it against my breast; but 

 it has fallen as though my arm were sinewless, as if suddenly it were 

 deprived of life or the power of action. The situation must be 

 frightful that can plunge one in such a purpose ! think, if it be not 

 blasting like the agonies of the damned ? I cannot die ; no, I cannot. 

 Even in madness, of my life I am tenacious. I would not tamely 

 yield it ; no, to the last I will struggle for it. Its charm I do not 

 know, yet still it has a charm. I am besieged by horrors, aye, such 

 as it has never been the lot of mortal to experience ; yet my life has 

 a charm ; a charm I have no power over, a charm that is a mystery, 

 a mystery I can neither dive into, nor dispel. Let me not repeat the 

 question. I cannot reply to it question it must remain : I am a 

 pitiable being. My brain reels with distraction. I am in the midst 

 of misery my soul is barren of hope. It is on my memory my 

 spirit feeds ! Oh, God ! when the grave has been permitted to steal 

 the objects of one's affections oh, righteous God! when the heart 

 is without the springs which gave it pulse, and to the frame vitality ; 

 what a hell into which one is immersed! to what a destiny of tears, 



