ther world there may be worse for us to
bear than even here--sorrow more hopeless, more lonely. For the strange
thing was, the moaning seemed to come from so far far away; not only
from somewhere millions and millions of miles away, but--this is the
strangest of all--as if it came to me from time long since past, ages
and ages ago. I know this sounds like nonsense, but indeed I am trying
to put into words the weary long distance that seemed to stretch between
us, like one I never should be able to cross. At last it spoke to me in
a whisper which I could only just hear; at least it was more like a
whisper than anything else I can think of, and it seemed to come like
the moaning from far far away. It thanked me so meekly for looking at it
and speaking to it. It told me that by sins committed against others
when it was on earth it had broken the bond between itself and all other
creatures. While it was what we call alive, it did not feel this, for
the senses confuse us and hide many things from the good, and so still
more from the wicked; but when it died and lost the body by which it
seemed to be kept near to other beings, it found itself imprisoned in
the most dreadful loneliness--loneliness which no one in this world can
even imagine. Even the pain of solitary confinement, so it told me,
which drives men mad, is only like a shadow or type of this loneliness
of spirits. Others there might be, but it knew nothing of them--nothing
besides this great empty darkness everywhere, except the place it had
once lived in, and the people who were moving about it; and even those
it could only perceive dimly as if looking through a mist, and always so
unutterably away from them all. I am not giving its own words, you know,
George, because I cannot remember them. I am not certain it did speak
to me; the thoughts seemed to pass in some strange way into my mind; I
cannot explain how, for the still far-away voice did not really speak.
Sometimes, it told me, the loneliness became agony, and it longed for a
word or a sign from some other being, just as Dives longed for the drop
of cold water; and at such times it was able to make the living people
see it. But that, alas! was useless, for it only alarmed them so much
that the bravest and most benevolent rushed away in terror or would not
let it come near them. But still it went on showing itself to one after
another, always hoping that some one would take pity on it and speak to
it, for it fe