thousand images, indeed, were but one; and yet the one was a thousand,
a sort of uni-multiplex phantasma, which will be very intelligible to
some understandings.

He arose with the first peep of day, and sallied forth to enjoy the
balmy breeze of morning, which any but a lover might have thought too
cool; for it was an intense frost, the sun had not risen, and the wind
was rather fresh from north-east and by north. But a lover, who, like
Ladurlad in the Curse of Kehama, always has, or at least is supposed
to have, "a fire in his heart and a fire in his brain," feels a wintry
breeze from N.E. and by N. steal over his cheek like the south over a
bank of violets; therefore, on walked the philosopher, with his coat
unbuttoned and his hat in his hand, careless of whither he went, till
he found himself near the enclosure of a little mountain chapel.
Passing through the wicket, and stepping over two or three graves, he
stood on a rustic tombstone, and peeped through the chapel window,
examining the interior with as much curiosity as if he had "forgotten
what the inside of a church was made of," which, it is rather to be
feared, was the case. Before him and beneath him were the font, the
altar, and the grave; which gave rise to a train of moral reflections
on the three great epochs in the course of the _featherless
biped_,--birth, marriage, and death. The middle stage of the process
arrested his attention; and his imagination placed before him several
figures, which he thought, with the addition of his own, would make a
very picturesque group; the beautiful Cephalis, "arrayed in her bridal
apparel of white;" her friend Caprioletta officiating as bridemaid; Mr
Cranium giving her away; and, last, not least, the Reverend Doctor
Gaster, intoning the marriage ceremony with the regular orthodox
allowance of nasal recitative. Whilst he was feasting his eyes on this
imaginary picture, the demon of mistrust insinuated himself into the