Letters of Peregrine PickleUpton, George P. (George Putnam)
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Letters of Peregrine Pickle
Upton, George P. (George Putnam)
Chicago (Ill.) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
But among us there will be one who can never again go companionless.
There is a ghost forever chained to him, which he cannot shake off.
It will sit by him and follow him into the land of dreams. It will
walk by his side. It will echo his faintest whisper and his loudest
laugh. He may wander like Ahasuerus, but he cannot escape from it.
He may plunge into excess, but he will see its face at the bottom of
every cup. There is no place so remote, under the blessed heavens,
where he can escape from it. There is no darkness so intense that
he will not see its sad, reproachful eyes looking at him. It will
follow him here, to meet him There. He carries his punishment with
him forever. In Faustus, there is an account of a memorable banquet
given by Satan, at which the viands were composed of souls cooked in
divers ways, and the wines were the tears of those who had suffered
on earth--a glowing story it is, told in excellent fashion, which
I would commend to him. I need not urge this handsomely-named man
to think sometimes of his victim. He will have no difficulty in
remembering, but very much in forgetting. A man who commits murder
is not very apt to forget. Society conveniently glosses over these
crimes with mild names, but the crime is just the same. Society
individually knows, and he knows, that he has committed murder, just
as surely as if he had plunged a knife into his victim, whose only
crime was love.
I think it would be an excellent practice, in these cases, to place
upon the tombstone some such epitaph as this:
Sacred to the Memory
OF
AUGUSTA,
_Murdered in her 18th year by Percy_.
She was Beautiful, Intelligent and Amiable, but was guilty of
LOVE.
_IN MEMORIAM._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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