maddened at the sound, I turned in despera tion to the figure that, separated us, exclaiming, "Thou hast conquered, thou hast conquered! give me but my boy, and devil as thou art, I will do what thou commandest.' ifrow "Thou must swear by the four elements to be mine for ever,' said the figure, while a mixture of contempt and triumph lurked upon his features. Thus saying, he pointed with his C sceptre to the clouds, which rapidly rolled themselves together into the form of a tremendous mouth, the lips of which began to move, and I heard them pronounce in a deep and dread voice, Swear by the Air!' F 66.6. "I swear!' said I, with the vehemence of desperation. """Tis well!' resumed the fiend, and pointing his sceptre to the ground, it rocked and writhed beneath my feet as if shaken by an earthquake, and a yawning chasm opened before me, whence issued a sulphureous breath, while a sepulchral voice, echoing up from the unfathomable depth, ejaculated, Swear by the Earth.' דיור . bTis well,' cried the demon as before, when he directed his sceptre towards the ocean, over which it cast a dim glare, and from the remote wastes and solitudes of the deep, a sound as of rushing water was heard, which came sweeping towards me from the vast unseen, and presently bursting around me, my ears were filled with the stunning sound of, Swear by the Sea Pe "I swear of ou “Tis well,' once more ejaculated the fallen angel, pointing his sceptre towards a dark mass of clouds, whence suddenly a clap of thunder was heard, that almost deafened me with its splitting uproar, and the forked lightning flashing fiercely around me, made the hot air hiss with the sounds of, Swear by the Fire!" "I was about to answer to this summons, as I had done to the preceding, when lo! the sky opened, and the apparition of my deceased wife floating down upon a drapery of light, smiled benignantly upon me, placed a book in my hands, and as swiftly re-ascended the firma ment.om At sight of this volume, the spirit of and curses the blasted heath was no longer visible, Nature resumed her customary appearance, and I found myself sitting in front of the Hermitage, bathed in a profuse perspiration, trembling with terror and desperation, and grasping the Bible in my right hand. 5 A How horrible are these devilish temptations! they shake my soul to its very centre. Wretched man! does this inauspicious and haunted island furnish no hypericum, no fuga demonum to chase away the spectres that assail thee, and preserve thy tottering reason? It has been a fearful trial. Perhaps, I have had a providential escape; and yet I should have once more embraced my boy. Brunette, Brunette, Brunette!-Alas! I have not seen her for a long time. She has, doubtless, been lost in some of the almost impenetrable forests through which I myself have only found a way by sheer force; or, perhaps, she has perished in some precipitous ravine, or smothering swamp. I should have missed her a little while ago, but latterly my soul has been so absorbed in the sense of its inward misery, that it has ceased to notice external objects. The Spirit of Solitude has been upon 408 YEJSTA MEHUHA me; I have had Visit era but one foeling, a condensed, crushing, withering , sense of wretchedness, beyond my power to bear. An outcast, an alien, a solitary condemned for ever to this dreary 169 700011 0919710 950 2 stillness, horrible 267, this JOAT (H 2 le monotony such has been 10 my, sole perception; every thing else has ap peared a chaos. Bas anoring hehet to pored od drwg tushion red bre Couderar quina eti lls bue gra g with a sullen ho moon, and yearning with a bright hopelessness for a return to the world, I heard a soft melodious voice whisper in mine ear, Mortal! why should'st thou wish to revisit the earth? The measure of its iniquities is full; its last hour is come: behold!" I looked, and I beheld rolling 21977 beneath me a vast J to patrze to wast opaque sphere, which I knew to be the earth; and a dim shadowy hand was outstretched from from the depths of heaven, and e with its finger, when a smoke touched the globe 90 blue or and gavid way as the solid rocky ribs of the earth with on every side wi a hideous crash, it of pieces, and split and shivered into myriads rod and bus on a falling into the abysses of space, was finally shattered into dust. I myself felt as if sink majd of 1970 you broy ing, but after a time my progress was arrested, and the same voice uttered in J ear, in my e "The space in which thou art standing was Just now the centre of the solid earth. It is gone, with the bones of its dead nations, and all its living inhabitants, and their records and monuments, their cities and empires, and all the laborious evidences of their pigmy pride; and, in a short time, even the powers of heaven will have forgotten that such a turbulent bubble ever existed.' 100 of "If the world be destroyed, where then am I Am I indeed the last of the sons of Adam,— destined, perhaps, to survive even the powers of heaven, to see the sun and moon expire of old age, and to finish, in my own person, and in the midst of universal silence and darkness, the whole scheme of creation? This would be indeed the solitude of solitude,' the desolation of desolation! And lo! the end of all things is a R 5 2018 horses |