Everlasting storms
howl up and down, tossing the unwary crafts into the Hell-gate. I
speak of what I have seen with my own eyes. I have looked off into the
abyss and have seen the foaming, and the hissing, and the whirling
of the horrid deep in which the mangled victims writhed, one
upon another, and struggled, strangled, blasphemed, and died--the
death-stare of eternal despair upon their countenances as the waters
gurgled over them.
To a gambler's death-bed there comes no hope. He will probably die
alone. His former associates come not nigh his dwelling. When the
hour comes, his miserable soul will go out of a miserable life into
a miserable eternity. As his poor remains pass the house where he was
ruined, old companions may look out a moment and say--"There goes the
old carcass--dead at last," but they will not get up from the table.
Let him down now into his grave. Plant no tree to cast its shade
there, for the long, deep, eternal gloom that settles there is shadow
enough. Plant no "forget-me-nots" or eglantines around the spot, for
flowers were not made to grow on such a blasted heath.
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