Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887 edition. Excerpt: ... I AM beginning a diary for no schoolgirlish or sentimental reason, but as the result of certain ghastly ideas that have come to me lately about death-- death in the abstract, my own death in particular. I dreamt last night that I was dead. It was an uncomfortable dream, and it has left an uncomfortable impression upon me, as such dreams must. It was very vivid. I saw myself lying dead. I saw plainly, and, as a disembodied spirit, I lingered near my life mask for a time. I saw people come into the room: Mrs. Carruthers first. I heard her speak. "Poor Miss Gordon," she said. " But I knew it must end so, and I warned her!" Then Margaret came in and she looked at the dead body--my dead body--and she said nothing. She only shuddered and went hastily out. And others came in afterwards, and some of them said, "We knew, she would kill herself!" And I was dead and I could not tell them-- could not tell them that God in heaven knew that I had struggled, and that my devil was too strong for me! In self-pity I kissed my own dead face. "Poor Isabel," I said, " unhappy Isabel." No one heard me. I was a disembodied spirit. I was dead, and the dead cannot speak for themselves. Their time is passed. They have had their say, and if they have not said everything they wanted to say, it must be left unsaid--unsaid! If in their lives they have sinned, and have had some small statement which they meant to make and which would justify them a little--very little--but still justify them in some way, and if they have put off making this statement and then have died-- heaven help them, it remains unmade! I was deeply sorry for myself. To be dead and not to have explained! Poor Isabel. My time was passed. My chance was gone, and I was going to face eternity. Poor...
