Loser

“ Of course, I had prepared myself for this after a fashion, but now I see that somehow I never really did think I would be in here, and all my friends outside, and everything going on just the same as though I wasn't alive somewhere. It's like telling yourself that your horse can't possibly pull off a race, so that you won't mind so much if he doesn't, but you always feel just as bad when he comes in a loser. ”

“ I have stood over the game of life very patiently for many a year, and though I may have grieved over the narrow fortune which has prevented me from “cutting in,” I have consoled myself by the thought of all the anxieties defeat might have cost me, all the chagrin I had suffered were I to have risen a loser. Besides this, I have learned to know and estimate what are the qualities which win success in life, and what the gifts by which men dominate above their fellows. ”

“ Thou hast not yet the height of woe attain'd,
Nor every cup of human sorrow drain'd.
⎧ Thy path of suffering has been trod alone;
⎨ No following friend, no consort, hast thou known,
⎩ To double all thy sorrows with their own:
No artful foe has doom'd thy humble name
To public enmity, or public shame;
[Pg 180] And last, and worst of all, the pangs of woe
Hell can inflict, or vengeful Heaven bestow,
Relentless Conscience has not shed on thee
Her poison'd darts,—her stings of misery!
Thy virtue shone thro' the dim vale of earth,
And toils and dangers proved thy blameless worth. ”

“ After years of toil and sorrow,
After losing youth and grace,
In the weary, foolish chase.
After weeks of bitter tears,
After months, and after years,
After waiting day on day,
Throwing love, and peace away,
I shall find the phantom nearing--
I shall find the shadows clearing.
I shall reach the thing I sought,
I shall reach, and find it--what?
Will it recompense, and pay
For the joys I cast away?
In the weary, weary race,
When I lost my youth, and grace?
Is it worth the wear, and strife--
Worth the best part of a life? ”

“ When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries.
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope. ”

“ When the place and you are strangers and you struggle all alone, And you have a mighty longing for the town where you are known; When your clothes are very shabby and the future's very black, There is nothing that can hurt you like the shame of going back. When we've fought the battle bravely and are beaten to the wall, 'Tis the sneers of men, not conscience, that make cowards of us all; And the while you are returning, oh! your brain is on the rack, And your heart is in the shadow of the shame of going back. ”

“ The changing scenes of his life display the beauty and constancy of friendship, the pangs of ingratitude, the grandeur of piety, the simplicity of its manifestation, the loss of virtue, the agony of remorse, and the fervor of that contrition which, amidst the plaintive melodies of the psaltery, poured itself forth in those deep, thrilling accents of sorrow which, to the end of our wayward history, must form the sad language of penance. ”

“ Love, wealth, fame, comfort, rest, joy, happiness, success, all elude them, and if apparent triumphs come, defeat invariably ends the game. Other people do or say with impunity things that are sure to bring down storms of obloquy and pain upon their devoted heads, and sorrow and agony is their lot forever on the earth. ”

“ But, poor soul! even as he insists, the agony within rises, breaks up, overwhelms the picture. He lives again through the jars and frets of those few burning days, the growing mistrust of them, the sense of jealous terror and insecurity—and then through the anguish of desertion and loss. ”

“ O thou, whose life was crowned with wretchedness!
Far worse than what appeared to thee so sad
And infamous, have all our lives become.
Dear friend, who now would pity thee,
When none save for himself hath thought or care?
Who would not thy keen anguish folly call,
When all things great and rare the name of folly bear?
When envy, no, but worse than envy, far,
Indifference pervades our rulers all? ”

“ His life had been spent in the wastes, with rough deeds and rugged habits, and a youth of hardship, danger, and almost savage endurance, had given him a half-barbarian temperament, which could strike an angry blow at one moment and fondle to death at the next. ”

“ Would I could foresee a term to our misery!—Who but yourself shall find a remedy for our misfortunes? Shall we delay, until time brings to light that which is now a secret, and the affront we have received entail on us a shame more intolerable than death itself? ”

“ Hearts may grow sick with hope deferred, Be crushed with black despair, But lips, too proud to own defeat, Will whisper, "I don't care!" A thoughtless friend flings out in jest— As jesters always do— A deadly shaft you wince beneath, You know the story's true ”

“ After four years of gallant resistance, heroic endurance and incredible suffering, we find ourselves broken in fortunes, crushed, ruined; yet, amid our misery and wretchedness, though sad and sick at heart, we have no blush of shame. We feel deep, unutterable regret at our failure, but no humiliation. ”

“ Which like as footboys on her actions wait,
That fortune's scale should to my sorrow turn,
And I one day the rash neglect should mourn;
That good to bad should change, and I should be
Lost to this world and all eternity ”

“ I suffer it to range beyond myself. All men and women have their sorrows, - most of them their wrongs; ingratitude, and sordid jealousy, and interest, besetting all degrees of life. Who would not forget their sorrows and their wrongs?”
“Who would not, truly, and be happier and better for it?” said the Phantom.
“These revolutions of years, which we commemorate,” proceeded Redlaw, “what do they recall! Are there any minds in which they do not re-awaken some sorrow, or some trouble? ”

“ How much of all that "past" was now to become a source of painful recollection, and to how little of the future could I look forward with even hope!
Our weaknesses are much more constantly the spring of all our annoyances and troubles than even our vices. The one we have in some sort of subjection: we are perfectly slaves to the others. This thought came home most forcibly to my bosom, as I reflected upon the step which led me on imperceptibly to my present embarrassment. ”

“ Thou hast drawn together from the most infamous of wretches, wretches abandoned not only by all fortune, but all hope, a bodyguard of desperadoes! Among these what pleasure wilt thou not experience, in what bliss not exult, in what raptures not madly revel, when thou shalt neither see nor hear one virtuous man in such a concourse of thy comrades? To this, this mode of life tended all those strenuous toils of thine, which are so widely talked of—to lie on the bare ground, not lying in wait merely for some occasion of adultery, but for some opportunity of daring crime! ”

“ When Fortune's favors are withdrawn, And friends like shadows fled, When all your fondest dreams are gone, Your dearest hopes are dead, You curse the fickle goddess, then, Who wrought you such despair, Yet hide chagrin beneath a frown, And mutter, "I don't care!" The veteran, battle-scarred, who fills A nation's honored place, Feels keener than his saber's point, Unmerited disgrace. ”

“ Poor youth, thou hadst prepared thyself only for wounds, only for death,--and thou art made a prisoner! Thus always do the gods, in their severity, send only unforeseen evils to stultify our self-complacency. I weep--I must weep, although I fear to be despised for it by you. But despise me not! You turn away?
STRATO. I am vexed: you should not move me thus. I become a child with you.
PHILOTAS. No; hear why I weep! It is no childish weeping which you deign to accompany with your manly tears. ”

“ We care not if he live, or lose such life As men are greedy for,—filled full with hate, Sins beneath scorn, and only lit by dreams, Or one sane moment, or a useless hope,— Lasting how long?—the space between the green And fading yellow of the grass they tread. ”

“ Yes, I am ruined; and no one will ever appreciate my sufferings. Every one is indifferent. I am a lost man. Never any chance for me to rise, because I have fallen morally ... into the mire—I have fallen. ”

“ His person was now almost as changed as his fate: it was worn away by suffering, by fatigue, by internal conflicts, and faded by its exposure to the varying clime; the experience of human frailty in himself, and of human turpitude in others, marked his brow with traces of distrust and disappointment;—his enthusiasm was fled! his zeal subdued by the fatal consequences of its unsuccessful efforts! and love, and affliction, and shame, and indignation, the opprobrium he endured, and the innocence he could not establish ”

“ I must be pardoned for giving these distressing details; but how otherwise can I depict the misery, moral and physical, which we are enduring? And with it all, I dare not venture to hope that we have reached the climax of our sufferings. ”

“ You may think it a tiresome story enough, as foggy as the day, sharpened by no sudden flashes of pain or pleasure.—I know: only the outline of a dull life, that long since, with thousands of dull lives like its own, was vainly lived and lost: thousands of them, massed, vile, slimy lives, like those of the torpid lizards in yonder stagnant water-butt.—Lost? There is a curious point for you to settle, my friend, who study psychology in a lazy, dilettante way. ”

“ Bear then with resignation your bad fortune and the humour of your master: your pains, attentions, time, health, wealth all lost, you are at length obliged to return into your humble retreat, there to expect death; which, to your grief, comes not soon enough to free you from regret and the remembrance of your follies. A casual sally, an instant of good humor, a lucky word, a sudden caprice, a nothing, makes a favourite. ”

“ Then what cries of joy or disappointment broke forth at every instant! There seemed at once to come over that hardened, time-worn group of men all the changing fickleness of childhood,—the wayward vacillations of hope and despair, bright visions of sudden wealth, with gloomy thoughts of disappointment,—when, suddenly, one brought up from the bed of the stream something which he showed to his neighbor, then to another and another, till a knot had gathered close around him, among which I found myself. ”

“ He was thinking, as he stood above the grave of fifteen years, how high Disgrace and Misery had heaped the mound. So bitterly he was thinking of the past, it was without desire that he at last arose and faced the future. ”

“ Why am I called upon to do this, oh cruel, most cruel destiny? Cannot I fly from the horrid scene? Cannot I rather run a dagger into my heart? But no, 'tis plain my fate is ordained, sealed, fixed! and in vain I struggle,—I must fulfil the task appointed for me! ”

“ Charnel-houses of sin and lust—sloughs of despond and regret—excess of passion offset by lack of power—dread, despair, hopelessness, shame and desperation, making a picture of misery scarcely to be conceived by any but those unfortunate beings who in the thoughtless, careless heyday of youth, or the reckless reliance on more mature vigor, have weakened, emasculated and enslaved themselves by indulgences and excesses that have borne fruit of misery, disease and desperation in after years. ”

“ When I say ‘lost,’ I mean ‘lost in respect of morality.’ For some may ‘take up the cross’ like the priests of Cybele, finding a pleasure in gashing themselves—such is human nature. But it is not so exciting a thing to ‘take up the yoke’ if it implies making oneself a drudge for life to commonplace people. ”

“ When the present which makes you shudder shall have become the past, an old story, a confused memory, may it not happen some night of debauchery that you will overturn your chair and recount, with a smile on your lips, what you witnessed with tears in your eyes? It is thus that one drinks away shame. You have begun by being good, you will become weak, and you will become a monster. ”

“ Dust's your wages, son of sorrow, But men may come to worse than dust. Souls undone, undoing others,- Long time since the tale began. You would not live to wrong your brothers: Oh lad, you died as fits a man. ”

“ Not gaiety, not sweetness, but the sign
Of feelings moulded at their master's will.
A weary world was hidden at that heart;
Sorrow and strife were there, and it had learnt
The weary lessons time and sorrow teach ”

“ We know that gaiety is [138] often the reckless ripple over depths of despair; and that men will bear up with a smile while untold agony is gnawing at their heart-strings, and will die laughing, in an agony of defiance, under the sword-strokes of fortune. ”

“ And then came the question, when he reached the brink of the clear and limpid waters, of what was to be his bait? The sorrow which approaches despair is often bitterly imaginative; and as he sat with his head resting on his hand, and pondered, he thought of all the baits with which man is angled for and caught by his great enemy in the world; and oftentimes a rueful smile came upon his fine but worn countenance, in which he himself, and passages in his past existence, shared the sarcasm with his fellow men. ”

“ We find him imploring his friends not to neglect him, complaining of wrong, overwork, depression, and poverty; longing for life to be over; suffering bitterly, in short, but never for a moment falling below his duty, failing to assert his cause, or losing his characteristic modesty and candour in dealing with opponents. ”

“ You have now added the last negative to your character, and meanly confessed that you are destitute of the common spirit of a man. Retire, then, my Lord, and hide your blushes from the world; for, with such a load of shame, even black may change its colour. A mind, such as yours, in the solitary hours of domestic enjoyment, may still find topics of consolation. ”

“ I have returned with the living, singing, greedy of life,—a bed of hay paradise and a can of Pinard the ecstasy of forgetfulness. I have rebelled, hesitated, been caught with the cold nausea of fear, thrilled at a word from a peasant boy kneeling and crossing himself, and awakened121 to the call of leadership which was mine by noblesse oblige, become suddenly and disdainfully impersonal when responsibility had fallen to me and I could do no less than the least. ”