Page:Adams - Essays in Modernity.djvu/264

252 indignatio, against human stupidity and injustice which slowly maddened men of talent so diverse as Swift and Flaubert, as Ruskin and Maupassant. I ought to form a fit disciple for your creed of the beauty and beneficence of Death. But I do not. I remain at heart cold and indifferent. I agree with you entirely as to the facts. I, too, feel the certainty, the need, the consolation; but death still remains to me a puzzling and disagreeable process, like the unknown manipulations of an unreliable dentist. I hate pain, and I have no confidence in the dexterity of the tooth-extractor. In a word, I am a coward; and though I have survived all those whom I loved (love in any intensive sense is more impossible to me now than ever it was, so to say)—indeed, though I have survived myself, I still live on, and have no desire to die. I have had that desire; but it passed, as most things pass, without becoming chronic. But why do I trouble you with my vain and egoist visions? Once more, forgive an old and worn-out huntsman of the foolish hunt for happiness. I will admit that I wish at times I had been accidentally shot—by some one else or by myself. It would have been better for me. Ah, the women I have loved! the men I have loved! Ah, beautiful and beneficent Death!'

Looking at his face for a moment, Wilson saw that the eyes were full of tears.