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CHAPTER VI.
I HAVE lingered thus long on the extreme bank, the wasting shoal that
stretched into the stream of life, dallying with the shadow of death. Thus
long, I have cradled my heart in retrospection of past happiness, when hope
was. Why not for ever thus? I am not immortal; and the thread of my history
might be spun out to the limits of my existence. But the same sentiment
that first led me to pourtray scenes replete with tender recollections, now
bids me hurry on. The same yearning of this warm, panting heart, that has
made me in written words record my vagabond youth, my serene manhood, and
the passions of my soul, makes me now recoil from further delay. I must
complete my work.
Here then I stand, as I said, beside the fleet waters of the flowing years,
and now away! Spread the sail, and strain with oar, hurrying by dark
impending crags, adown steep rapids, even to the sea of desolation I have
reached. Yet one moment, one brief interval before I put from shore--
once, once again let me fancy myself as I was in 2094 in my abode at
Windsor, let me close my eyes, and imagine that the immeasurable boughs of
its oaks still shadow me, its castle walls anear. Let fancy pourtray the
joyous scene of the twentieth of June, such as even now my aching heart
recalls it.
Circumstances had called me to London; here I heard talk that symptoms
of the plague had occurred in hospitals of that city. I returned to
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