Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist--it was
Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of his dissolution.
His mask and cloak lay, where he had thrown them, upon the floor. Not
a thread in all his raiment--not a line in all the marked and singular
lineaments of his face which was not, even in the most absolute
identity, _mine own_!
It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have
fancied that I myself was speaking while he said:--
_"You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also
dead--dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst thou
exist--and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how
utterly thou hast murdered thyself."_
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTR?–M
The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as _our_ ways;
nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the
vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, _which have
a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus_.
JOSEPH GLANVILLE
We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes
the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.
"Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided you on
this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about three years
past, there happened to me an event such as never happened before to
mortal man--or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of--and
the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up
body and soul.
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