. . . . Besides the bleak, unkindly
air, I have been plagued by two sets of coal-shovellers at the same time,
and have been obliged to keep two separate tallies simultaneously. But I
was conscious that all this was merely a vision and a fantasy, and that,
in reality, I was not half frozen by the bitter blast, nor tormented by
those grimy coal-beavers, but that I was basking quietly in the sunshine
of eternity. . . . . Any sort of bodily and earthly torment may serve to
make us sensible that we have a soul that is not within the jurisdiction
of such shadowy demons,--it separates the immortal within us from the
mortal. But the wind has blown my brains into such confusion that I
cannot philosophize now.
April 19th.--. . . . What a beautiful day was yesterday! My spirit
rebelled against being confined in my darksome dungeon at the
Custom-House. It seemed a sin,--a murder of the joyful young day,--a
quenching of the sunshine. Nevertheless, there I was kept a prisoner
till it was too late to fling myself on a gentle wind, and be blown away
into the country.
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