Are you mad? There--God forgive
me!--don't think harshly of me for my temper!'
After that, he turned away, and walked to and fro upon the deck full two
hours. Nor did he speak again, except to say 'Good night,' until next
day; nor even then upon this subject, but on other topics quite foreign
to the purpose.
As they proceeded further on their track, and came more and more towards
their journey's end, the monotonous desolation of the scene increased to
that degree, that for any redeeming feature it presented to their eyes,
they might have entered, in the body, on the grim domains of Giant
Despair. A flat morass, bestrewn with fallen timber; a marsh on which
the good growth of the earth seemed to have been wrecked and cast away,
that from its decomposing ashes vile and ugly things might rise; where
the very trees took the aspect of huge weeds, begotten of the slime
from which they sprung, by the hot sun that burnt them up; where fatal
maladies, seeking whom they might infect, came forth at night in misty
shapes, and creeping out upon the water, hunted them like spectres until
day; where even the blessed sun, shining down on festering elements
of corruption and disease, became a horror; this was the realm of Hope
through which they moved.
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