ster--a dread which haunted
me day and night. As I grew older the same terror pursued me. Sometimes,
after long hours spent in reasoning with myself, I thought that I had
conquered my fear. I reflected, "After all, what does it matter? One
dies and all is over. It is the common fate; nothing could be better or
easier."

I then prided myself on being able to look death boldly in the face, but
suddenly a shiver froze my blood, and my dizzy anguish returned, as if
a giant hand had swung me over a dark abyss. It was some vision of the
earth returning and setting reason at naught. How often at night did I
start up in bed, not knowing what cold breath had swept over my slumbers
but clasping my despairing hands and moaning, "Must I die?" In those
moments an icy horror would stop my pulses while an appalling vision of
dissolution rose before me. It was with difficulty that I could get to
sleep again. Indeed, sleep alarmed me; it so closely resembled death.
If I closed my eyes they might never open again--I might slumber on
forever.

I cannot tell if others have endured the same torture; I only know that
my own life was made a torment by it. Death ever rose between me and
all I loved; I can remember how the thought of it poisoned the happiest
moments I spent with Marguerite. During the first months of our married
life, when she lay sleeping by my side and I dreamed of a fair future
for her and with her, the foreboding of some fatal separation dashed my
hopes aside and embittered my delights. Perhaps we should be parted on
the morrow--nay, perhaps in an hour's time. Then utter discouragement
assailed me; I wondered what the bliss of being united availed me if it
were to end in so cruel a disruption.

My morbid imagination reveled in scenes of mourning. I speculated as to
who would be the first to depart, Marguerite or I. Either alternative
caused me harrowing grief, and tears rose to my eyes at the thought of
our shattered lives. At the happiest periods of my existence I often
became a prey to grim dejection such as nobody could understand but
which was caused by the thought of impending nihility. When I was most
successful I was to general wonder most depressed. The fatal question,
"What avails it?" rang like a knell in my ears. But the sharpest sting
of this torment was that it came with a secret sense of shame, which
rendered me unable to confide my thoughts to another. Husband and wife
lying side by side in the darkened ro