The Mountain of Fears. Henry C. Rowland
lust and anger and revenge, are much admired by many modern devotees, the bestial primitive—to my mind all of these things sweep together through the same sluice.”
There are no words which will convey the bitterness of Leyden’s tone; mockery soared high in comparison.
“B’r’r’rrgh! how I loathe all such unicellular impulses in a man—a finished animal product! And that night on that mountain I yelped and howled in fear with those other two hairy animals—and I think that we fought and bit and struggled, for the next morning we were masses of minor wounds. Yet so far had we harked back on the trail of our savage forbears, driven screaming before that primitive and degraded passion of fear, that none of us was badly hurt!—which was even more shameful. I suppose, Doctor, that our terror was too elemental and reasonless to lead us to use weapons, whereas our limbs lacked the strength to enable us to kill each other with our naked hands; so that, instead of digging out each other’s hearts with our finger-nails, we suffered most from skin-scratches, upon which the flies settled. Ach!—I should like to say an obscene word, Doctor! Let’s smoke!—let’s have a drink!
“Oh, yes—we all came away the next day. Nothing happened to us—just as there was nothing to be afraid of. Please tell me that it was all due to a toxic action on the center of Fear—that is what I tell myself—and what a savant of Leipsic was good enough to tell me. Nevertheless, when I met MacFarlane in Sydney four years ago I crossed to the other side of the street—and he looked once and then away. There are some things in a man’s past difficult to face; most difficult in mine is that last night on the broad hip of the Mountain of Fears.”
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