I
need not remind the reader that, from the long and weird catalogue
of human miseries, I might have selected many individual instances
more replete with essential suffering than any of these vast
generalities of disaster. The true wretchedness, indeed- the
ultimate woe- is particular, not diffuse. That the ghastly extremes of
agony are endured by man the unit, and never by man the mass- for this
let us thank a merciful God!
To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of
these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.
That it has frequently, very frequently, so fallen will scarcely be
denied by those who think. The boundaries which divide Life from Death
are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and
where the other begins? We know that there are diseases in which occur
total cessations of all the apparent functions of vitality, and yet in
which these cessations are merely suspensions, properly so called.
They are only temporary pauses in the incomprehensible mechanism. A
certain period elapses, and some unseen mysterious principle again
sets in motion the magic pinions and the wizard wheels.
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