Chapter XXII: Among the Mangrove Seas

Threshold the Third: The Bastard's Trail


I engage with the Snark, every night after dark, in a dreamy delirious fight; I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes, and I use it for striking a light. This task is so exacting, and its fulfillment so advantageous, that I forget myself in the process, losing sight of my instinctual nature and putting my own conception of myself in place of my real being. In this way I slip imperceptibly into a purely conceptual world where the products of my conscious activity progressively replace reality. ("That's exactly the method," the Bastard bold in a hasty parenthesis cried, "That's exactly the way I have always been told that the capture of Snarks should be tried!")Separation from my instinctual nature inevitably plunges me into the conflict between conscious and unconscious, spirit and nature, knowledge and faith, a split that becomes pathological the moment my consciousness is no longer able to neglect or suppress my instinctual side. The thing is- Fear can't hurt you anymore than a dream. There aren't any Beasts to be afraid of on this island. Serve you right if something did get you, you useless lot of crybabies! But there is no animal-

Fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew didn't you? Close, close close! It is this, it is this that I dread!

-Jack Merridew

insanity: noun. mental illness or derangement in most criminal jurisdictions; something extremely foolish to relieve the accused of unsoundness of mind in the judgment of civil court; unfit to maintain a contractual or legal relationship with a mental heath facility, or to warrant commitment to folly. not of scientific use. 

Sentence: Courage is Hope without ignorance.

Satori: 

We all get to be gum in graves anyway!

Mantra:

Let-the-Seasons-begin!

Fossick:

Con an honest John.