“Are all our dreams, then, vain?” sighed Yoomy. “Is this no dawn of day that streaks the crimson East! Naught but the false and flickering lights which sometimes mock Aurora in the north! ..." -- Mardi; and a Voyage Thither
Friend. — A false and self-consuming fire! that sometimes burns to ashes the hearts and hopes of proud men, and leaves but wrecks, mournfully floating upon the dull currents of life. Scenes and Adventures in the Army, pages 333-4
https://archive.org/details/scenesadventures00cook/page/332
Revised from the July 1852 installment of
Scenes Beyond the Western Border. Revisions include deletion of the interjection "Ay!" spoken by the narrating captain's
Imaginary Friend:
I. F. Ay! it is a fire that consumes; and sometimes burns to ashes the hearts and hopes of proud men.... -- Scenes Beyond the Western Border, July 1852.
Both versions recall the fire-and-ashes imagery used by Ahab in
Moby-Dick, chapter 119:
"Thou canst consume; but I can then be ashes."
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