Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-39.djvu/62

62 like everything else in the universe, comes in waves: it has crises and intermissions. During the intermissions it is probably not more trying than some pleasures are; and, except for the inactivity it enforces, I believe I should rather like it.

Another phenomenon worth noting is that I have never felt in such extraordinarily good spirits as I do now. I remember, several weeks ago, lamenting my depressed and torpid state and pining for some torch to kindle me into a blaze. The torch seems to have been applied: this very night is my apogee. It was no delusion: I can be great,—as the future will show. All is well with me. And, standing where I do now, I can understand all the obscurities and mistakes and disappointments of the past. I can see the path I should have taken, and the points where I strayed from it. How strange and laughable is the human race, voluntarily blinding, gagging, and fettering itself in the name of liberty and civilization! The air I breathe is not the sluggish vapor of the earth, but the free and mighty atmosphere of space.

We call men fools and liars; but it is their cowardice that has most harmed them. Who has been free from cowardice of one kind or another? To be fearless at all points, yet without rashness, is the beginning of wisdom and of power. Dare to know what you are, and to be it,—to know what you want, and to do it: surely this is not much; and yet what more is there?

Women have been at the bottom of most of the mischief. In that way they have taken a full revenge for the outward tyranny of men. They have stolen courage and fortitude from the hearts of their masters. Without them we could not exist; yet by them we lose the noblest spirit of life. But if woman be placed where she belongs, she will strengthen us where now she makes us weak. And Sinfire shall be placed where she belongs! The security I shall find in her will be the keystone in my arch of strength.

I have lighted my lamp, and closed the shutters. It is a dark night, but fair and dry, and, for a summer night, unusually still. The crickets and tree-toads are almost silent; ever and anon I hear the cry of a whippoorwill. It is nine o'clock: the burglar-hunters are probably back by this time, and perhaps the game is not far off. Deuce take this foot of mine! I would give more than I can tell to be under the trees at this moment, or at least for a few hours' clairvoyance, to see through distance and darkness and know all that is going on. Well, unless all signs fail, the storm will have come and gone before long. Word is to be brought to me as soon as anything happens.