it had been an immortal child.

At first, though I labored conscientiously toward that end, I could
discover nothing in the sounds he made which reminded me in the least
degree of a Norwegian light-house. But suddenly I forgot that useful
monument. Against my will, I seemed to be wafted aloft, even to where
the seats were cheaper; and anon, I felt as though I disported among the
shameless figures on the ceiling of the house. I now forgot all things
earthly, even that suspicious bill which friend HOPKINS paid in to my
cashier on Second-day. Yea, my whole being became, as it were, strung
upon the entrails of a cat and tickled with the tail of horse. I felt as
if I were wafted aloft on a blanket of shivering scrapes while quivering
angels gently swung me among the stickery stars! And there I heard a
melody as though the edges of glass skies were softly rubbed together.
Then all was stiller, stiller, until methought I heard nothing but one
consumptive angel breathing in his sleep. But even that sound dribbled
away, until the last drop seemed to me about to be sucked down into a
hole at the bottom of the airy void, when suddenly there came a rush as
though a vast light-house of brass had fallen into a sea of tinkling
cymbals, and I jumped so violently that my spectacles slipped from off
my nose and fell among the vain ones below.

A second time now came the fiddler forth, and soon methought I stood
within a surgeon's operating hall. The player drew his bow as though it
were a knife, gliding over the limb of a subject in a sleep.

So keen the blade, so soft the touch, the sleeper did not wake! I
clutched my knees--my breath did cease!

The skin divides!