FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150  
151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   >>   >|  
e,--but my life has been an uneventful one. I never met with an adventure, never even had a hair-breadth escape,--yes, I did, too, have one hair-breadth escape. I once just grazed matrimony. The truth is, I fell in love, and was sinking with Falstaff's 'alacrity,' when I was fished out; but somehow I slipt off the hook--fortunately, however, was left on shore. By the way, the best way to get out of love is to be drawn out by the matrimonial hook. One of Holmes' characters wished to change a vowel of the verb _to love_, and conjugate it--I have forgotten how far. Where two set out to conjugate together the verb to love in the first person plural, it is well if they do not, before the honey-moon is over, get to the present-perfect, indicative. Alas! I have thus far, in the first person singular, conjugated too many verbs, among them _to enjoy_. As for _to be_, I have come to the balancing in my mind of the question that so perplexed Hamlet--'To be, or not to be.' For, with all the natural cheerfulness of my disposition, I can not help sometimes looking on the dark side of life. But there is no use in setting down my gloomy reflections,--all have them. We are all surrounded by an atmosphere of misery, pressing on us fifteen pounds to the square inch, so evenly and constantly that we know not its fearful weight. To change the figure. Have you ever thought how much misery one life _can_ hold in solution? Each year, as it flows into it, adds to it a heaviness, a weight of woe, as the rivers add salts to the ocean. I do not refer to the most unhappy, but to all. Some one says,-- 'If singing breath, if echoing chord To every hidden pang were given, What endless melodies were poured, As sad as earth, as sweet as heaven.' If breath to every hidden prayer were given, could it be _singing_ breath? Would it not be a wail monotonous as the dirge of the November wind over the dead summer, a wail for lost hopes, lost joys, lost loves? Or the monotony would be varied--as is the wind by fitful gusts--by shrieks of despair, cries of agony. No, no, there is no use in trying to modulate our woes,--'we're all wrong,--the _time_ in us is lost.' 'Henceforth I'll bear Affliction, till it do cry out itself, "Enough, enough," and die.' But why talk thus? why mourn over dead hopes, dead joys, dead loves? 'Tis best to bury the dead out of our sight, and from them will spring many humbler hopes, quieter joys,
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150  
151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
breath
 

person

 

conjugate

 
weight
 

hidden

 

singing

 

change

 

misery

 

escape

 

breadth


echoing

 
unhappy
 

humbler

 
solution
 
quieter
 

thought

 

spring

 

rivers

 

heaviness

 

modulate


summer

 

monotonous

 

November

 

monotony

 

fitful

 
shrieks
 

despair

 

melodies

 

Affliction

 

poured


endless

 

Enough

 
varied
 

prayer

 

Henceforth

 

heaven

 

matrimonial

 

fortunately

 

Holmes

 

characters


plural
 
wished
 

forgotten

 

fished

 

adventure

 
uneventful
 

Falstaff

 
alacrity
 
sinking
 

grazed