out, shall I not cast it out?"

"Say," said the Spectre, "is it done?"

"A moment longer!" he answered hurriedly. "I WOULD FORGET IT IF I
COULD! Have _I_ thought that, alone, or has it been the thought of
thousands upon thousands, generation after generation? All human
memory is fraught with sorrow and trouble. My memory is as the
memory of other men, but other men have not this choice. Yes, I
close the bargain. Yes! I WILL forget my sorrow, wrong, and
trouble!"

"Say," said the Spectre, "is it done?"

"It is!"

"IT IS. And take this with you, man whom I here renounce! The
gift that I have given, you shall give again, go where you will.
Without recovering yourself the power that you have yielded up, you
shall henceforth destroy its like in all whom you approach. Your
wisdom has discovered that the memory of sorrow, wrong, and trouble
is the lot of all mankind, and that mankind would be the happier,
in its other memories, without it. Go! Be its benefactor! Freed
from such remembrance, from this hour, carry involuntarily the
blessing of such freedom with you. Its diffusion is inseparable
and inalienable from you. Go! Be happy in the good you have won,
and in the good you do!"

The Phantom, which had held its bloodless hand above him while it
spoke, as if in some unholy invocation, or some ban; and which had