'
'Ah,' said I, 'I do not think they even _wanted_ to see on the other
side. There were some few tolerably good and clear-sighted ones among
them, you know: and these all agreed in pointing out how, by changing
one or two of their old man-in-the-moon Bedlam arrangements, they could
greatly better themselves: but they heard with listless ears: I don't
know that they ever made any considerable effort. For they had become
more or less unconscious of their misery, so miserable were they: like
the man in Byron's "Prisoner of Chillon," who, when his deliverers came,
was quiet indifferent, for he says:
"It was at length the same to me
Fettered or fetterless to be:
I had learned to love Despair."'
'Oh my God,' she went, covering her face a moment, 'how dleadful! And
it is tlue, it seems tlue:--they had learned to love Despair, to be even
ploud of Despair. Yet all the time, I feel _sure_ flom what I have lead,
flom what I scent, that the individual man was stluggling to see, to
live light, but without power, like one's leg when it is asleep: that is
so pletty of them all! that they meant well--everly one.
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