When eve has fairly set in , therefore , I sally forth , tightly buttoning my shaggy overcoat and hoisting my umbrella , the silken dome of which immediately resounds with the heavy drumming of the invisible raindrops . Pausing on the lowest doorstep , I contrast the warmth and cheerfulness of my deserted fireside with the drear obscurity and chill discomfort into which I am about to plunge . Now come fearful auguries innumerable as the drops of rain . Did not my manhood cry shame upon me , I should turn back within-doors , resume my elbow-chair , my slippers and my book , pass such an evening of sluggish enjoyment as the day has been , and go to bed inglorious . The same shivering reluctance , no doubt , has quelled for a moment the adventurous spirit of many a traveller when his feet , which were destined to measure the earth around , were leaving their last tracks in the home-paths . In my own case poor human nature may be allowed a few misgivings . I look upward and discern no sky , not even an unfathomable void , but only a black , impenetrable nothingness , as though heaven and all its lights were blotted from the system of the universe . It is as if Nature were dead and the world had put on black and the clouds were weeping for her . With their tears upon my cheek I turn my eyes earthward , but find little consolation here below . A lamp is burning dimly at the distant corner , and throws just enough of light along the street to show , and exaggerate by so faintly showing , the perils and difficulties which beset my path . Yonder dingily-white remnant of a huge snowbank , which will yet cumber the sidewalk till the latter days of March , over or through that wintry waste must I stride onward . Beyond lies a certain Slough of Despond , a concoction of mud and liquid filth , ankle-deep , leg-deep , neck-deep -- in a word , of unknown bottom -- on which the lamplight does not even glimmer , but which I have occasionally watched in the gradual growth of its horrors from morn till nightfall . Should I flounder into its depths , farewell to upper earth ! And hark ! how roughly resounds the roaring of a stream the turbulent career of which is partially reddened by the gleam of the lamp , but elsewhere brawls noisily through the densest gloom ! Oh , should I be swept away in fording that impetuous and unclean torrent , the coroner will have a job with an unfortunate gentleman who would fain end his troubles anywhere but in a mud-puddle . Pshaw ! I will linger not another instant at arm 's - length from these dim terrors , which grow more obscurely formidable the longer I delay to grapple with them . Now for the onset , and , lo ! with little damage save a dash of rain in the face and breast , a splash of mud high up the pantaloons and the left boot full of ice-cold water , behold me at the corner of the street .
The lamp throws down a circle of red light around me , and twinkling onward from corner to corner I XXXXX other beacons , marshalling my way to a brighter scene .
Did discern exaggerate grow look put quelled set showing turn