Explore "The Paliser Case" by Edgar Saltus on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Hell was supposed to be very hot, very red, full of pugnacious demons. Educated people do not believe in it any more. It is curious how ignorant educated people have become. Hell is an actual plane, less vivid than was formerly imagined, not hot but cold, grey rather than red, but amply provided with demons, with the devils of self-accusation, with the fiends of insoluble queries. Very real and very actual, it is surprising how many educated people are there. The oddity of that is increased by the fact that they regard it as a private establishment. They regard their hell as unique. Perhaps the idea flatters them. Yet sooner or later everybody enters it. Hell may seem private. It is universal.
Headlong into it, Margaret's letter precipitated Lennox. Being a man, he struggled up. But not out. In hell there are no signposts. It takes time to find one's way. It takes more, it takes resignation. When both have been acquired, the walls part of themselves. The aspect of life has altered, but you are free.