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One day all extinct, save myself, should I walk the earth alone?
HALF England was desolate, when October came, and the equinoctial winds swept over the earth, chilling the ardours of the unhealthy season.
Pestilence then made a pause in her death-dealing career.
all announcing the last days of man?
Plague is the companion of spring, of sunshine, and plenty. We no longer struggle with her. We have forgotten what we did when she was not.
London did not contain above a thousand inhabitants; and this number was continually diminishing.
Now each life was a gem, each human breathing form of far, O! far more worth than subtlest imagery of sculptured stone; and the daily, nay, hourly decrease visible in our numbers, visited the heart with sickening misery. This summer extinguished our hopes, the vessel of society was wrecked, and the shattered raft, which carried the few survivors over the sea of misery, was riven and tempest tost. Man existed by twos and threes; man, the individual who might sleep, and wake, and perform the animal functions; but man, in himself weak, yet more powerful in congregated numbers than wind or ocean;
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Farewell to the giant powers of man,—to
IN the autumn of this year 2096, the spirit of emigration crept in among the few survivors, who, congregating from various parts of England, met in London.
The fear of immediate death vanished with the heats of September. Another winter was before us, and we might elect our mode of passing it to the best advantage.
Nature was the same, as when she was the kind mother of the human race; now, childless and forlorn, her fertility was a mockery; her loveliness a mask for deformity.
I lowered my lamp, and saw a negro half clad, writhing under the agony of disease, while he held me with a convulsive grasp. With mixed horror and impatience I strove to disengage myself, and fell on the sufferer; he wound his naked festering arms round me, his face was close to mine, and his breath, death-laden, entered my vitals.
the seeds of mortal disease had taken root in my bosom;
It was strange that life could exist in what was wasted and worn into a very type of death.
