I could see no prospect of a rift in the curtain of pitchy cloud
which hung over me. I was myself an ever-shifting, restless, uneasy
tempest. My unrest and nervous dread of some swift approaching doom too
awful to be conceived became so intense and real that I fled from place to
place. Not unfrequently I came to myself during these epochs of madness
and found that I was a hundred or more miles from home, without friends,
respectable or even sufficient clothing, or money--a bloated and beastly
wreck. I know not how I ever found my way back, or why I prolonged
my life under such circumstances; but it seems the instinct called
self-preservation was yet stronger than the ills which assailed me. Days
were like weeks to me, and weeks as months, and mouths as years, and in all
and through all I managed to crawl forward toward the grave which is still
out yonder in the future, finding no pleasure in myself and no delight in
anything beautiful and holy. As I lift the dread curtain and glance
tremblingly along the path which stretches through the funereal shadows of
the past, I feel that it was a thousand years ago when I was a child in my
mother's dear protecting arms.
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