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<h2> CHAPTER XI. EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF THE REV. JAMES NORTH. </h2>
<p>December 7th.—I have made up my mind to leave this place, to bury
myself again in the bush, I suppose, and await extinction. I try to think
that the reason for this determination is the frightful condition of
misery existing among the prisoners; that because I am daily horrified and
sickened by scenes of torture and infamy, I decide to go away; that,
feeling myself powerless to save others, I wish to spare myself. But in
this journal, in which I bind myself to write nothing but truth, I am
forced to confess that these are not the reasons. I will write the reason
plainly: "I covet my neighbour's wife." It does not look well thus
written. It looks hideous. In my own breast I find numberless excuses for
my passion. I said to myself, "My neighbour does not love his wife, and
her unloved life is misery. She is forced to live in the frightful
seclusion of this accursed island, and she is dying for want of
companionship. She feels that I understand and appreciate her, that I
could love her as she deserves, that I could render her happy. I feel that
I have met the only woman who has power to touch my heart, to hold me back
from the ruin into which I am about to plunge, to make me useful to my
fellows—a man, and not a drunkard." Whispering these conclusions to
myself, I am urged to brave public opinion, and make two lives happy. I
say to myself, or rather my desires say to me—"What sin is there in
this? Adultery? No; for a marriage without love is the coarsest of all
adulteries. What tie binds a man and woman together—that formula of
license pronounced by the priest, which the law has recognized as a 'legal
bond'? Surely not this only, for marriage is but a partnership—a
contract of mutual fidelity—and in all contracts the violation of
the terms of the agreement by one of the contracting persons absolves the
other. Mrs. Frere is then absolved, by her husband's act. I cannot but
think so. But is she willing to risk the shame of divorce or legal
offence? Perhaps. Is she fitted by temperament to bear such a burden of
contumely as must needs fall upon her? Will she not feel disgust at the
man who entrapped her into shame? Do not the comforts which surround her
compensate for the lack of affections?" And so the torturing catechism
continues, until I am driven mad with doubt, love, and despair.</p>
<p>Of course I am wrong; of course I outrage my character as a priest; of
course I endanger—according to the creed I teach—my soul and
hers. But priests, unluckily, have hearts and passions as well as other
men. Thank God, as yet, I have never expressed my madness in words. What a
fate is mine! When I am in her presence I am in torment; when I am absent
from her my imagination pictures her surrounded by a thousand graces that
are not hers, but belong to all the women of my dreams—to Helen, to
Juliet, to Rosalind. Fools that we are of our own senses! When I think of
her I blush; when I hear her name my heart leaps, and I grow pale. Love!
What is the love of two pure souls, scarce conscious of the Paradise into
which they have fallen, to this maddening delirium? I can understand the
poison of Circe's cup; it is the sweet-torment of a forbidden love like
mine! Away gross materialism, in which I have so long schooled myself! I,
who laughed at passion as the outcome of temperament and easy living—I,
who thought in my intellect, to sound all the depths and shoals of human
feeling—I, who analysed my own soul—scoffed at my own
yearnings for an immortality—am forced to deify the senseless power
of my creed, and believe in God, that I may pray to Him. I know now why
men reject the cold impersonality that reason tells us rules the world—it
is because they love. To die, and be no more; to die, and rendered into
dust, be blown about the earth; to die and leave our love defenceless and
forlorn, till the bright soul that smiled to ours is smothered in the
earth that made it! No! To love is life eternal. God, I believe in Thee!
Aid me! Pity me! Sinful wretch that I am, to have denied Thee! See me on
my knees before Thee! Pity me, or let me die!</p>
<p>December 9th.—I have been visiting the two condemned prisoners,
Dawes and Bland, and praying with them. O Lord, let me save one soul that
may plead with Thee for mine! Let me draw one being alive out of this pit!
I weep—I weary Thee with my prayers, O Lord! Look down upon me.
Grant me a sign. Thou didst it in old times to men who were not more
fervent in their supplications than am I. So says Thy Book. Thy Book which
I believe—which I believe. Grant me a sign—one little sign, O
Lord!—I will not see her. I have sworn it. Thou knowest my grief—my
agony—my despair. Thou knowest why I love her. Thou knowest how I
strive to make her hate me. Is that not a sacrifice? I am so lonely—a
lonely man, with but one creature that he loves—yet, what is mortal
love to Thee? Cruel and implacable, Thou sittest in the heavens men have
built for Thee, and scornest them! Will not all the burnings and
slaughters of the saints appease Thee? Art Thou not sated with blood and
tears, O God of vengeance, of wrath, and of despair! Kind Christ, pity me.
Thou wilt—for Thou wast human! Blessed Saviour, at whose feet knelt
the Magdalen! Divinity, who, most divine in Thy despair, called on Thy
cruel God to save Thee—by the memory of that moment when Thou didst
deem Thyself forsaken—forsake not me! Sweet Christ, have mercy on
Thy sinful servant.</p>
<p>I can write no more. I will pray to Thee with my lips. I will shriek my
supplications to Thee. I will call upon Thee so loud that all the world
shall hear me, and wonder at Thy silence—unjust and unmerciful God!</p>
<p>December 14th.—What blasphemies are these which I have uttered in my
despair? Horrible madness that has left me prostrate, to what heights of
frenzy didst thou not drive my soul! Like him of old time, who wandered
among the tombs, shrieking and tearing himself, I have been possessed by a
devil. For a week I have been unconscious of aught save torture. I have
gone about my daily duties as one who in his dreams repeats the accustomed
action of the day, and knows it not. Men have looked at me strangely. They
look at me strangely now. Can it be that my disease of drunkenness has
become the disease of insanity? Am I mad, or do I but verge on madness? O
Lord, whom in my agonies I have confessed, leave me my intellect—let
me not become a drivelling spectacle for the curious to point at or to
pity! At least, in mercy, spare me a little. Let not my punishment
overtake me here. Let her memories of me be clouded with a sense of my
rudeness or my brutality; let me for ever seem to her the ungrateful
ruffian I strive to show myself—but let her not behold me—that!</p>
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