I vary from the kindly ways of
man. A curse is on me.
Surely no man has fought harder than I have done to convince himself of
the deadly seriousness of existence; and surely before the feet of
no man has Destiny cast such stumbling-blocks to faith. I might be an
ancient dweller in the Thebaid struggling towards dreams of celestial
habitations, and confronted only by grotesque visions of hell. No
matter what I do, I'm baffled. I look upon sorrow and say, "Lo, this is
tragedy!" and hey, presto! a trick of lightning turns it into farce. I
cry aloud, in perfervid zeal, "Life is real, life is earnest, and the
apotheosis of the fantastic is not its goal," and immediately a grinning
irony comes to give the lie to my credo.
Or is it that, by inscrutable decree of the Almighty Powers, I am
undergoing punishment for an old unregenerate point of view, being
doomed to wear my detested motley for all eternity, to stretch out my
hand for ever to grasp realities and find I can do nought but beat the
air with my bladder; to listen with strained ear perpetually expectant
of the music of the spheres, and catch nothing but the mocking jingle of
the bells on my fool's cap?
I don't know.
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