| 208 | 209 | 210 | 211 | 212 |
| 1 | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 |
|
which chills the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the
delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our
sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a
height. And this fall--this rushing annihilation--for the very reason
that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most
ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever
presented themselves to our imagination--for this very cause do we now
the most vividly desire it. And because our reason violently deters us
from the brink, therefore do we the most impetuously approach it. There
is no passion in nature so demoniacally impatient, as that of him who,
shuddering upon the edge of a precipice, thus meditates a Plunge. To
indulge, for a moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably
lost; for reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I
say, that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we
fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss,
we plunge, and are destroyed.
Examine these similar actions as we will, we shall find them resulting
solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We perpetrate them because we
feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no intelligible
principle; and we might, indeed, deem this perverseness a direct
instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not occasionally known to operate
in furtherance of good.
210
Page
Quick Jump
|