alone of mortal men have rightly understood. Why is it this link is broken
off in my mind, and the cipher I myself wrote darker than before? Would
the creature but have given it up quietly! It was in self-defence I struck
at last. What was it to repent of? Some have held that such as he are not
human--only animals a little more sagacious than the brutes about us.

"_Dec._ 22. Useless, useless! My memory fails me entirely. I have tried to
go on in vain. What is this that is with me now these last two days?

"_Dec._ 25. Once I kept Christmas in another fashion than this. I had no
guest but one I dare not name--

'Tumulum circumvolat umbra.'

"_Dec._ 27. To day it put out its hand: the soft wet fingers touched me. I
will go out into the world, I will go out into the world. I will help
those who are sick and in misery. Will it not be at peace then?"

Then the journal paused: there was no further entry till April 29, 1786:

"The girl, Hepsey Ball, died to-day. Her eyes were opened to see what I
see all the hours in the day. I must go. I have not dared to leave, lest
the awful Thing should be found in its hiding-place. They begin to press
me for money. The house will go on the mortgage. Heard Phelps say if it
was his he would drain the place in the cellar. To-day received fifty
dollars from the sale of apparatus. Could not part with it before,
thinking I should recover my lost knowledge, and should use it. Perhaps it
will come back to me if I go away: it may be This will not follow me. I
will drop the gold into the same place: if it is that it wants, it will
rest. I cannot tell what I have done, my life is too precious. I only, of