Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers | Page 4

could not much value myself upon what was so much an accident of
my situation. Something, however, I might pretend to beyond this
negative merit; for I had originally a benign nature; and, as I advanced
in years and thoughtfulness, the gratitude which possessed me for my
own exceeding happiness led me to do that by principle and system
which I had already done upon blind impulse; and thus upon a double
argument I was incapable of turning away from the prayer of the
afflicted, whatever had been the sacrifice to myself. Hardly, perhaps,
could it have been said in a sufficient sense at that time that I was a
religious man: yet, undoubtedly, I had all the foundations within me

upon which religion might hereafter have grown. My heart overflowed
with thankfulness to Providence: I had a natural tone of unaffected
piety; and thus far, at least, I might have been called a religious man,
that in the simplicity of truth I could have exclaimed,
'O, Abner, I fear God, and I fear none beside.'
But wherefore seek to delay ascending by a natural climax to that final
consummation and perfect crown of my felicity--that almighty blessing
which ratified their value to all the rest? Wherefore, oh! wherefore do I
shrink in miserable weakness from--what? Is it from reviving, from
calling up again into fierce and insufferable light the images and
features of a long-buried happiness? That would be a natural shrinking
and a reasonable weakness. But how escape from reviving, whether I
give it utterance or not, that which is for ever vividly before me? What
need to call into artificial light that which, whether sleeping or waking,
by night or by day, for eight-and-thirty years has seemed by its
miserable splendor to scorch my brain? Wherefore shrink from giving
language, simple vocal utterance, to that burden of anguish which by so
long an endurance has lost no atom of its weight, nor can gain any most
surely by the loudest publication? Need there can be none, after this, to
say that the priceless blessing, which I have left to the final place in this
ascending review, was the companion of my life--my darling and
youthful wife. Oh! dovelike woman! fated in an hour the most
defenceless to meet with the ravening vulture,--lamb fallen amongst
wolves,--trembling--fluttering fawn, whose path was inevitably to be
crossed by the bloody tiger;--angel, whose most innocent heart fitted
thee for too early a flight from this impure planet; if indeed it were a
necessity that thou shouldst find no rest for thy footing except amidst
thy native heavens, if indeed to leave what was not worthy of thee were
a destiny not to be evaded--a summons not to be put by,--yet why, why,
again and again I demand--why was it also necessary that this, thy
departure, so full of wo to me, should also to thyself be heralded by the
pangs of martyrdom? Sainted love, if, like the ancient children of the
Hebrews, like Meshech and Abednego, thou wert called by divine
command, whilst yet almost a child, to walk, and to walk alone,
through the fiery furnace,--wherefore then couldst not thou, like that
Meshech and that Abednego, walk unsinged by the dreadful torment,
and come forth unharmed? Why, if the sacrifice were to be total, was it

necessary to reach it by so dire a struggle? and if the cup, the bitter cup,
of final separation from those that were the light of thy eyes and the
pulse of thy heart might not be put aside,-- yet wherefore was it that
thou mightest not drink it up in the natural peace which belongs to a
sinless heart?
But these are murmurings, you will say, rebellious murmurings against
the proclamations of God. Not so: I have long since submitted myself,
resigned myself, nay, even reconciled myself, perhaps, to the great
wreck of my life, in so far as it was the will of God, and according to
the weakness of my imperfect nature. But my wrath still rises, like a
towering flame, against all the earthly instruments of this ruin; I am
still at times as unresigned as ever to this tragedy, in so far as it was the
work of human malice. Vengeance, as a mission for me, as a task for
my hands in particular, is no longer possible; the thunderbolts of
retribution have been long since launched by other hands; and yet still
it happens that at times I do--I must--I shall perhaps to the hour of
death, rise in maniac fury, and seek, in the very impotence of vindictive
madness, groping as it were in blindness of heart, for that tiger from
hell-gates that tore away my darling from my heart. Let me pause, and
interrupt this painful strain, to say