muddy graveyard, and after that, not air, nor green fields, nor
curious roses.

Can you see how foggy the day is? As I stand here, idly tapping
the windowpane, and looking out through the rain at the dirty
back-yard and the coalboats below, fragments of an old story
float up before me,--a story of this house into which I happened
to come to-day. You may think it a tiresome story enough, as
foggy as the day, sharpened by no sudden flashes of pain or
pleasure.--I know: only the outline of a dull life, that long
since, with thousands of dull lives like its own, was vainly
lived and lost: thousands of them, massed, vile, slimy lives,
like those of the torpid lizards in yonder stagnant water-
butt.--Lost? There is a curious point for you to settle, my
friend, who study psychology in a lazy, dilettante way. Stop a
moment. I am going to be honest. This is what I want you to
do. I want you to hide your disgust, take no heed to your clean
clothes, and come right down with me,--here, into the thickest
of the fog and mud and foul effluvia. I want you to hear this
story. There is a secret down here, in this nightmare fog, that
has lain dumb for centuries: I want to make it a real thing to
you. You, Egoist, or Pantheist, or Arminian, busy in making
straight paths for your feet on the hills, do not see it
clearly,--this terrible question which men here have gone mad
and died trying to answer. I dare not put this secret into
words. I told you it was dumb. These men, going by with
drunken faces and brains full of unawakened power, do not ask it
of Society or of God. Their lives ask it; their deaths ask it.
There is no reply. I will tell you plainly that I have a great
hope; and I bring it to you to be tested. It is this: that