The Argosy — page 324: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

303 A DREAM FROM HEAVEN, By THE AUTHOR OF **‘ EAST LYNNE.” I. EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF ADAM GRAINGER. April the 20th.—Another day gone, and no relief! How is this to end? My brain becomes bewildered with excess of thought, and a strange whirling of it sometimes comes on which turns my thoughts involuntarily towards madness. A whirling of the brain! Gabblers, who feel not what they say; poets, in their whispered measures ; lovers, in their doubts and fears, prate of this: it is a common expres- sion: the brain whirls, they say. But how little do they experience that of which they speak ! the few who have indeed gone through this agony of the brain tell it not. When the paroxysm has left me, my frame trembles, my hands burn, and my heart is sick. Insanity is deemed a thing to shudder at, and I have shuddered with the rest. I remember a party of us were once dining together ; little more than boys we were ; joyous fellows, rioting in the full sense of youth and life ; and the conversation turned upon misfortune—an odd theme for ws. Each gave his opinion as to what was the most distressing fate that could overtake man. I said madness. Aut there are moments, now, when L envy those who are shut up in that secured building, the dome of which towers aloft in this great metropolitan city. Bedlam! Bedlam! were I an inmate of your walls After a weary day of toil, how sweet is the homely bed on which the labourer sinks down to rest! and soa vision comes over me of sinking into insanity. I dare not say a longing vision: but as the one gives rest to the body, so the other would bring rest to the spirit—my troubled Spirit ! friday.—\ have been reading again the public advertisements. A gentleman is wanted to superintend an office. Qualifications requisite : liberal education, gentlemanly appearance and manners, age about thirty-five, a good general knowledge of business, and to give security. Should I be able to obtain the latter? Why speculate on it? ™ My application to the advertisers will but share the old fate, and elicit no reply. I have deserved my lot: people tell me so, and they speak but the truth. What did I want with speculation? Was not my honourable appointment sufficient for me? I am not the first who has thrown away the substance to grasp the shadow. I richly merited the ruin that overtook me: but unfortunately into the same ruin I dragged my wife and children. CoOnniclooolkks (SO) am