I find myself a cumberer of the ground, where I fancied that
I was going forth like a very Michael--fool that I was!--leader of
the armies of heaven. And now, in the one remaining point on which
I thought myself strong, I find myself weakest of all. Useless and
helpless! I have one chance left, one chance to show these poor souls
that I really love them, really wish their good--Selfish that I am!
What matter whether I do show it or not? What need to justify myself
to them? Self, self, creeping in everywhere! I shall begin next, I
suppose, longing for the cholera to come, that I may show off myself
in it, and make spiritual capital out of their dying agonies! Ah me!
that it were all over!--That this cholera, if it is to come, would
wipe out of this head what I verily believe nothing but death will
do!" And therewith Frank laid his head on the table, and cried till he
could cry no more.
It was not over manly: but he was weakened with overwork and sorrow:
and, on the whole, it was perhaps the best thing he could do; for he
fell asleep there, with his head on the table, and did not wake till
the dawn blazed through his open window.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE DOCTOR AT BAY.
Did you ever, in a feverish dream, climb a mountain which grew higher
and higher as you climbed; and scramble through passages which changed
perpetually before you, and up and down break-neck stairs which broke
off perpetually behind you? Did you ever spend the whole night, foot
in stirrup, mounting that phantom hunter which never gets mounted, or,
if he does, turns into a pen between your knees; or in going to fish
that phantom stream which never gets fished? Did you ever, late
for that mysterious dinner-party in some enchanted castle, wander
disconsolately, in unaccountable rags and dirt, in search of that
phantom carpet-bag which never gets found? Did you ever "realise" to
yourself the sieve of the Danaides, the stone of Sisyphus, the wheel
of Ixion; the pleasure of shearing that domestic animal who (according
to the experience of a very ancient observer of nature) produces more
cry than wool; the perambulation of that Irishman's model bog, where
you slip two steps backward for one forward, and must, therefore, in
order to progress at all, turn your face homeward, and progress as
a pig does into a steamer, by going the opposite way? Were you ever
condemned to spin ropes of sand to all eternity, like Tregeagle the
wrecker; or to extract the cube roots of a million or two of hopeless
surds, like the mad mathematician; or last, and worst of all, to work
the Nuisances Removal Act? Then you can enter, as a man and a brother,
into the sorrows of Tom Thurnall, in the months of June and July,
1854.
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