I stood still, staring vaguely at the dial as in a trance. And as the
next hour creeps stealthily up, it starts all at once, and cries aloud,
Gone!--Gone! The sun sinks lower, the hour-hand creeps downward with it,
until I hear the thrice-repeated monosyllable, Gone!--Gone!--Gone! Soon
through the darkening hours, until at the dead of night the long roll is
called, and with the last Gone! the latest of the long procession that
filled the day follows its ghostly companions into the stillness and
darkness of the past.
I silenced the striking part of the works. Still, the escapement kept
repeating, Quick! Quick! Quick! Still the long minute-hand, like the
dart in the grasp of Death, as we see it in Roubiliac's monument to Mrs.
Nightingale, among the tombs of Westminster Abbey, stretched itself out,
ready to transfix each hour as it passed, and make it my last. I sat by
the clock to watch the leap from one day of the week to the next. Then
would come, in natural order, the long stride from one month to the
following one.
I could endure it no longer. “Take that clock away!” I said. They took
it away. They took me away, too,--they thought I needed country air. The
sounds and motions still pursued me in imagination. I was very nervous
when I came here. The walks are pleasant, but the walls seem to me
unnecessarily high. The boarders are numerous; a little miscellaneous,
I think. But we have the Queen, and the President of the United States,
and several other distinguished persons, if we may trust what they tell
about themselves.
After we had listened to Number Five's story, I was requested to read a
couple of verses written by me when the guest of my friends, whose name
is hinted by the title prefixed to my lines.
LA MAISON D'OR.
BAR HARBOR.
From this fair home behold on either side
The restful mountains or the restless sea:
So the warm sheltering walls of life divide
Time and its tides from still eternity.
Look on the waves: their stormy voices teach
That not on earth may toil and struggle cease.
Look on the mountains: better far than speech
Their silent promise of eternal peace.
VIII.
I had intended to devote this particular report to an account of my
replies to certain questions which have been addressed to me,--questions
which I have a right to suppose interest the public, and which,
therefore, I was justified in bringing before The Teacups, and
presenting to the readers of these articles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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