When I Run Over The Frightful Catalogue

I Collected The Instruments Of Life Around Me, That I Might Infuse A Spark Of Being Into The Lifeless Thing That Lay At My Feet. It Was Already One In The Morning; The Rain Pattered Dismally Against The Panes, And My Candle Was Nearly Burnt Out, When, By The Glimmer Of The Half-extinguished Light, I Saw The Dull Yellow Eye Of The Creature Open; It Breathed Hard, And A Convulsive Motion Agitated Its Limbs.

How Dreadful It Is, To Emerge From The Oblivion Of Slumber, And To Receive As A Good Morrow The Mute Wailing Of One's Own Hapless Heart - To Return From The Land Of Deceptive Dreams To The Heavy Knowledge Of Unchanged Disaster!

I Saw No Cause For Their Unhappiness, But I Was Deeply Affected By It. If Such Lovely Creatures Were Miserable, It Was Less Strange That I, An Imperfect And Solitary Being, Should Be Wretched.

The Careful Rearer Of The Ductile Human Plant Can Instil His Own Religion, And Surround The Soul By Such A Moral Atmosphere, As Shall Become To Its Latest Day The Air It Breathes.

...if I See But One Smile On Your Lips When We Meet, Occasioned By This Or Any Other Exertion Of Mine, I Shall Need No Other Happiness.