THE LIGHT IN A DARK CELL 



being his own jailer and locking himself up in 

 the wilderness, as I did. At least so I thought 

 when I executed the feat of banishing myself 

 from the mode of existence to which I had be 

 come habituated. For a month I went through 

 very much the same experience that attends the 

 waking up in a strange dark room. I had left 

 my environment behind me, not because I had 

 lost the desire for it, but because it had betrayed 

 the intention of killing me ruthlessly and sud 

 denly. One of two changes was offered me. I 

 was to abandon my existence or my habits. If 

 one should, with the magic power of Aladdin s 

 lamp, transport a man from the seething Board 

 of Brokers and set him down in the still waste 

 of the Syrian desert, the change would not be 

 more absolute than was mine. The Doctor s pre 

 scription was, &quot; Come back to Hecuba.&quot; I 

 thought at the time that I had the choice of leav 

 ing this world or staying in its most endurable 

 dark cell, and I chose to stay. Doubtless it was 

 the pusillanimity of a man of the world. The 

 only result that is worth telling is this that, 

 if a man manages it properly, he can rob the 

 dark cell of all its horrors, and get comfortably 

 out of the world without bothering the under 

 taker. But why pursue that figure any further ? 

 The dark cell belongs exclusively to the punitive 

 side of man s hallucination. My experiment at 

 first was very much like the dearth of midnight, 

 for the glare and shock of the world had been 

 shut off. But no sooner had I accepted the loss 



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