There is no terror in past
suffering--it is the purest joy."
"Yes, I used to say so and think so," I said, closing my eyes. "But this
was different--it was horrible! And the time it lasted, and the despair
of it! It seems to have soaked into my whole life and poisoned it."
Amroth said nothing for a minute, but watched me closely.
Presently I went on. "And tell me one thing. There was a ghastly thing I
saw, some mouldering bones on a ledge. Can people indeed fall and die
there?"
"Perhaps it was only a phantom," said Amroth, "put there like the
sights in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, the fire that was fed secretly with
oil, and the robin with his mouth full of spiders, as an encouragement
for wayfarers!"
"But that," I said, "would be too horrible for anything--to turn the
terrors of death into a sort of conjuring trick--a dramatic
entertainment, to make one's flesh creep! Why, that was the misery of
some of the religion taught us in old days, that it seemed often only
dramatic--a scene without cause or motive, just displayed to show us the
anger or the mercy of God, so that one had the miserable sense that much
of it was a spectacular affair, that He Himself did not really suffer or
feel indignation, but thought it well to feign emotions, like a
schoolmaster to impress his pupils.
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