on dark nights, without seeing him appear, He to whom the
imaginations of the transient masters of the world lent all the
monstrous or graceful forms of gnomes, spirits, genii, fairies,
and familiar spirits. After the coarse conceptions of primitive
fear, men more enlightened gave him a truer form. Mesmer divined
him, and ten years ago physicians accurately discovered the
nature of his power, even before He exercised it himself. They
played with that weapon of their new Lord, the sway of a
mysterious will over the human soul, which had become enslaved.
They called it mesmerism, hypnotism, suggestion, I know not what?
I have seen them diverting themselves like rash children with
this horrible power! Woe to us! Woe to man! He has come,
the--the--what does He call himself--the--I fancy that he is
shouting out his name to me and I do not hear him--the--yes--He
is shouting it out--I am listening--I
cannot--repeat--it--Horla--I have heard--the Horla--it is He--the
Horla--He has come!--

Ah! the vulture has eaten the pigeon, the wolf has eaten the
lamb; the lion has devoured the sharp-horned buffalo; man has
killed the lion with an arrow, with a spear, with gunpowder; but
the Horla will make of man what man has made of the horse and of
the ox: his chattel, his slave, and his food, by the mere power
of his will. Woe to us!

But, nevertheless, sometimes the animal rebels and kills the man
who has subjugated it. I should also like--I shall be able
to--but I must know Him, touch Him, see Him! Learned men say that
eyes of animals, as they differ from ours, do not distinguish as
ours do. And my eye cannot distinguish this newcomer who is