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I have been led into this train of thought by the circumstances of the case I am now about to relate. It is one of a calm, reasoning, determined self-destroyer, in whom, with the single exception of wishing to die by violent and bloody means, I could discover no mental derangement.
He was dressed in clothes far too large for him, clothes of the doctor's bigness; the cords of his face still moved with a semblance of life, but life was quite gone: and by the crushed phial in the hand and the strong smell of kernels that hung upon the air, Utterson knew that he was looking on the body of a self-destroyer. "We have come too late," he said sternly, "whether to save or punish.
There, then, do but turn thy head and hold thy tongue!" And with a snarl of contempt he ran from him, and flung himself into the water. "Margaret!" At the heavy plunge of his body in the stream the bravo seemed to recover from a stupor. He ran to the bank, and with a strange cry the assassin plunged in after the self-destroyer. What followed will be related by the assassin.
And if this unfortunate being happens to have been born with an impetuous disposition, ungovernable and eager passions, these will be only nourished and increased by bodily exercise unaccompanied by the softening influence of music, so that at last a child, who possibly came into the world with good qualities, will, merely through the defects in his education, degenerate into a destructive animal, a sensual self-destroyer, and a mad and furious tyrant."
The torments that grow out of it can terminate only with the thread of my existence, but that, I know full well, will never end. Death is but a shifting of the scene; and the endless progress of eternity, which to the good is merely the perfection of felicity, is to the wicked an accumulation of woe. The self-destroyer is his own enemy: this has ever been my opinion.
A thousand times has she repeated it, laying her hand on my heart to quiet it simple girl! She told it to rest in peace, and she went from me! Insatiable love! ever self-torturer, never self-destroyer! the world, with all its weight of miseries, cannot crush thee, cannot keep thee down.
Sometimes one does hear of the evil-doer being overtaken in his dark course by the voice of conscience; a warning whisper, from some spirit-like voice, has occasionally stayed the hand of the murderer, the self-destroyer, the robber, or the drunkard; but I fear, it is a more familiar thing, to every one of us, to know, that when a man has once determinedly begun his downward course, it is rarely, he stops at the precipice; if he has risked great things on one occasion, he will hazard greater dangers on many occasions, never waiting, never halting, to think or to regret until he reach the final hazard which is life itself, consequently death itself, and then the awful sequel which is hushed, or whispered in a trembling breath, like a horrible ghost story, the consequences of eternal darkness, and agony, and despair.
In fact Carl had nearly fallen over the master of the house, that enterprising self-destroyer having contrived, pinioned as he was, to roll over to the very brink of the stair well, with the plain intent to break his neck by plunging headlong.
And if this unfortunate being happens to have been born with an impetuous disposition, ungovernable and eager passions, these will be only nourished and increased by bodily exercise unaccompanied by the softening influence of music, so that at last a child, who possibly came into the world with good qualities, will, merely through the defects in his education, degenerate into a destructive animal, a sensual self-destroyer, and a mad and furious tyrant."
The platters, the block-tin knives, so rounded that the most determined self-destroyer could never job himself with them into Hades, and the metal mugs had been removed, and their places on the narrow deal table were occupied by a few periodicals of a somewhat depressing character, though "devoted to the cultivation of quiet cheerfulness," and by a leaden inkstand much too large to be swallowed.
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