sible to me. You do not
know what I endured even for the last year. Believe me that man is
not so constituted as to be able to make such efforts."

"He would get used to it. Mankind would get used to it."

"The first man will never get used to it. That college will become
a madhouse. You must think of some other mode of letting them pass
their last year. Make them drunk, so that they shall not know what
they are doing. Drug them and make them senseless; or, better still,
come down upon them with absolute power, and carry them away to
instant death. Let the veil of annihilation fall upon them before
they know where they are. The Fixed Period, with all its damnable
certainty, is a mistake. I have tried it and I know it. When I look
back at the last year, which was to be the last, not of my absolute
life but of my true existence, I shudder as I think what I went
through. I am astonished at the strength of my own mind in that I did
not go mad. No one would have made such an effort for you as I made.
Those other men had determined to rebel since the feeling of the
Fixed Period came near to them. It is impossible that human nature
should endure such a struggle and not rebel. I have been saved now by
these Englishmen, who have come here in their horror, and have used
their strength to prevent the barbarity of your benevolence. But I
can hardly keep myself quiet as I think of the sufferings which I
have endured during the last month."

"But, Crasweller, you had assented."

"True; I did assent. But it was before the feeling of my fate had
come near to me. You may be strong enough to bear it. There is
nothing so hard but that enthusiasm will make it tolerable. But you
will hardly find another who will not succumb. Who would do more
for you than I have done? Who would make a greater struggle? What
honester man is there whom you know in this community of ours? And
yet even me you drove to be a liar. Think how strong must have
been the facts against you when they have had this effect. To have
died at your behest at the instant would have been as nothing. Any
danger,--any immediate certainty,--would have been child's-play;
but to have gone up into that frightful college, and there to have
remained through that year, which would have wasted itself so slowly,
and yet so fast,--that would have required a heroism which, as I
think, no Greek, no Roman, no Englishman ever possessed."

Then he paused, and I was aware that I had overst