while visions of horror swept over the ruins. His health, which now
declined more rapidly than ever, was soon irrecoverably destroyed; his
frame wasted visibly away; and as his body grew weaker, his visions
increased in horror, until at length the intellect tottered upon its
basis, and almost gave way beneath their intolerable pressure. In
a few weeks he was shrunk to a skeleton, while his eyes shone with
preternatural brilliancy; so that the people of the house where he
lodged, were terrified at his appearance and avoided his looks. For his
own part, he was scarcely conscious, of the existence of the external
world, every thing around him appearing like the creations of a
dream--mere shadows with whom he could have no sympathy. There seemed,
in fact, to be but two beings in the universe--himself and Lucifer; and
he felt that he was engaged in a struggle which must terminate the
existence of the one or the other. When he succeeded in freeing himself
for a moment from the fangs of this vision, and could repel it to some
little distance from his mental eye, he perceived, as distinctly as
possible, its illusory nature, and wondered at the power it exerted over
his imagination. If, however, he obtained a momentary respite of this
kind, it was not, as in the case of Prometheus (whose vulture was of the
same brood as his demon), by night, but at sunrise, when the god of the
Magi stepped, as it were, upon his throne to receive the homage of the
earth. The hour of repose, as night is to the fortunate and the happy,
was to him the hour of torture; and he daily lingered about the
sea-shore, anxiously watching the setting sun, and trembling more and
more as the glorious luminary approached the termination of his career
and disappeared behind the purple waves. As soon as darkness descended
upon the earth, Lucifer, if absent before, invariably alighted with
it, and stood beside his victim, who clapping his hands upon his eyes,
would fly with a howl or a shriek towards the habitations of men.