This claims to be called a haunted
chamber, for thousands upon thousands of visions have appeared to me in
it; and some few of them have become visible to the world. If ever I
should have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this chamber
in my memoirs, because so much of my lonely youth was wasted here, and
here my mind and character were formed; and here I have been glad and
hopeful, and here I have been despondent. And here I sat a long, long
time, waiting patiently for the world to know me, and sometimes wondering
why it did not know me sooner, or whether it would ever know me at all,--
at least, till I were in my grave. And sometimes it seemed as if I were
already in the grave, with only life enough to be chilled and benumbed.
But oftener I was happy,--at least, as happy as I then knew how to be, or
was aware of the possibility of being. By and by, the world found me out
in my lonely chamber, and called me forth,--not, indeed, with a loud roar
of acclamation, but rather with a still, small voice,--and forth I went,
but found nothing in the world that I thought preferable to my old
solitude till now.
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