“The die is, I believe, now finally cast, and if it be,
the result is insignificance, nonentity, death to the hopes my ambition has
oftentimes formed, and on which my mind has continually brooded with
enthusiasm. The little portion of mind I (perhaps) have hitherto retained has
now yielded. It receives its fetters, not indeed without murmuring, but the
curses it pours forth and the tortures it endures are equally unavailing. The
love of fame, which you consider a bad motive for praiseworthy conduct, has
been with me the only spur to intellectual exertion. Perhaps it is for want of
the better motive for action that my mind has now given up the contest, and
that I consent to become totally an everyday man. Your last words to me on
Sunday night were, ‘And thou become a mere vegetable.’ The
damned idea has harassed me ever since. . . . . But why do I complain? Have I
not given my consent to become a slave? Have I not even sought for the means of
becoming so? What right then have I to assume the phraseology or to pretend to
the feelings of a man? They are the last faint struggles of an expiring mind,
and to you therefore I address them, as being the first cause of producing
| COOPER AS A CLERK. | 153 |
