The physical penalty of self-destruction was the most important obstacle to be overcome if I would escape from my mental slavery. So great was my dread of it, that--well, I lived, and, more’s the pity, am still living, a miserable misanthrope, in whom the misery of the present is exceeded only by his dread of the unknown country, and his physical fears of the means necessary to take him hence. * * * * * I wonder if there are many who are entrusted with the care of youth, who ever think of their influence in moulding its future destinies. I have long since forgiven my father for his harshness--but the memory of my youthful sorrows can never be effaced. Does science recognize such a thing as a mental scar? It should. And mental scars, though unseen, are not only permanent, but ever painful. Death finally claimed my father through his one infirmity. He died of apoplexy, superinduced by one of his attacks of blind, unreasoning passion. I know not where he is, but I trust he is unconscious of the results of his mismanagement of his unfortunate son. I say I know not where he is, advisedly. My views of the hereafter--if I may call the chaotic ideas I have hitherto entertained, views--have undergone considerable modification of late. I am losing my egotism, and gradually coming to believe that death is but another name for oblivion. How prosaic it is, to be sure. By no means so satisfying to the ignorant, and those of the faith--which is sometimes another way of putting the same proposition--as that halo of glory for the good, or that blaze of everlasting fire for the wicked, which theology from time immemorial has prescribed for the dying. And if oblivion be the finality, what more could the All Father do for his tired children? * * * * * What would my life have been had I possessed a different temperament? Possibly if I had been born of other blood, and under more propitious skies, I would have seen the world through different eyes. There might have been more _coleur de rose_ and less of sombre tints and neutrals. To be born in the shadows--ah, me! The sun of morning has never gilded my mountain tops, nor even at mid-day penetrated the fog and gloom of the valleys of my soul. Golden sunsets and glorious afterglows are not for me. Twilight alone is, and ever has been mine. Perhaps if I could have loved--’Tis said that love illumines one’s soul. But I have never loved. There was once a woman, whom men called beautiful, but I do not remember much of her. She had a skin of blood and milk, golden hair, and pale blue eyes that never looked straight at you. Her voice, as I recall it, was sweet enough, but it did not ring true, and when she laughed--but why do I speak of her? She did not understand, and she is but a dream figure now.