ghastly wrecks of power placed at its sovereign command it was
responsible, and, appalled by its own sublime fate of duration, was about
to carry into eternity the account of its mission in time. Yet it seemed
that while the soul was still there, though so forlorn and so guilty, even
the wrecks around it were majestic. And the soul, whatever sentence it
might merit, was not among the hopelessly lost; for in its remorse and its
shame, it might still have retained what could serve for redemption. And
I saw that the mind was storming the soul, in some terrible rebellious
war,--all of thought, of passion, of desire, through which the azure light
poured its restless flow, were surging up round the starry spark, as in
siege. And I could not comprehend the war, nor guess what it was that the
mind demanded the soul to yield. Only the distinction between the two was
made intelligible by their antagonism. And I saw that the soul, sorely
tempted, looked afar for escape from the subjects it had ever so ill
controlled, and who sought to reduce to their vassal the power which had
lost authority as their king. I could feel its terror in the sympathy of
my own terror, the keenness of my own supplicating pity. I knew that it
was imploring release from the perils it confessed its want of strength
to encounter. And suddenly the starry spark rose from the ruins and the
tumult around it,--rose into space and vanished; and where my soul had
recognized the presence of soul, there was a void. But the red light
burned still, becoming more and more vivid; and as it thus repaired and
recruited its lustre, the whole animal form, which had been so decrepit,
grew restored from decay, grew into vigour and youth: and I saw Alargrave
as I had seen him in the waking world, the radiant image of animal life in
the beauty of its fairest bloom.

And over this rich vitality and this symmetric mechanism now reigned only,
with the animal life, the mind. The starry light fled and the soul
vanished, still was left visible the mind,--mind, by which sensations