I Was Never Kinder To The Old

One Half Of The Pleasure Experienced At A Theatre Arises From The Spectator's Sympathy With The Rest Of The Audience, And, Especially From His Belief In Their Sympathy With Him.

The Depth Lies In The Valleys Where We Seek Her, And Not Upon The Mountain-tops Where She Is Found.

And Because Our Reason Violently Deters Us From The Brink, Therefore, Do We The More Impetuously Approach It. There Is No Passion In Nature So Demoniacally Impatient, As That Of Him, Who Shuddering Upon The Edge Of A Precipice, Thus Meditates A Plunge. To Indulge For A Moment, In Any Attempt At Thought, Is To Be Inevitably Lost; For Reflection But Urges Us To Forbear, And Therefore It Is, I Say, That We Cannot. If There Be No Friendly Arm To Check Us, Or If We Fail In A Sudden Effort To Prostrate Ourselves Backward From The Abyss, We Plunge, And Are Destroyed.

And Have I Not Told You That What You Mistake For Madness Is But Over-acuteness Of The Sense? --now, I Say, There Came To My Ears A Low, Dull, Quick Sound, Such As A Watch Makes When Enveloped In Cotton. I Knew That Sound Well, Too. It Was The Beating Of The Old Man's Heart. It Increased My Fury, As The Beating Of A Drum Stimulates The Soldier Into Courage.

When A Madman Appears Thoroughly Sane, Indeed, It Is High Time To Put Him In A Straight Jacket.