M. Y. Halidom

“ But have you never met with a patient who lived two separate existences, whose spirit during sleep wandered into those realms allotted to it; returning upon waking to the body, there to drag out a wretched existence in the world, among the hum of men, and pass his melancholy hours longing for the night, when his spirit would be again set free from its prison, to wander unrestrained through those realms of space untrodden by mortal foot? ”

“ A loud cheer is raised by the crowd, and young Leo having thrown away his sword and pushed aside the assistant executioner, has seized the head of the criminal and torn off the bandage from his eyes. He holds it high in the air by its purple locks and gloats with fiendish satisfaction on its writhing features. The muscles of the face are fearfully convulsed, as if the spirit had not as yet quite departed, but still lingered about the corpse, being loth to leave its tenement. The eyes roll hideously and appear to gaze reproachfully upon the face of the young executioner. ”

“ A universal gloom pervaded the precincts of the Wonder Club since the departure of the happy pair, which none felt more than Mr. Oldstone. Not but that he was delighted at the union of his protégé with the landlord's pretty daughter, whom he begrudged to anyone short of a gentleman. That his dear Helen, whom he loved as his own child, should have had the good fortune to marry, not only a gentleman, but the very one that he himself would have singled out for her, was the realization of his happiest dreams. He knew they were happy, and revelled in the thought of their happiness. ”

“ De Chevron cowered beneath her gaze; he felt himself distrusted, and was probably little flattered at the opinion of himself he saw written in her eyes. Nevertheless, he would not have shown for the world that he was disconcerted; he was a practised dissembler, and instead of being abashed, grew more witty and talkative than ever, more and more friendly to his rival, only I noticed that he avoided the eyes of Claribel as much as possible.
The fact was, he feared her; he, the artful, experienced man of the world, crouched like an abject slave before a simple village maiden. ”

“ Fool! know it was I who made you buy that opium; not to make you sleep, but to awaken your dull senses to such a pitch that the gross material clay that clogs your vision might be, as it were, doffed for a moment, and that your keener eyesight might be able to grasp my form a degree nearer resembling that which I bore in the flesh, thereby in a measure removing the barrier between our beings; and each, as it were, meeting on neutral ground, to the end that you should know my pleasure and obey my commands. It was I who caused you to catch that toothache, by inspiring you to go to the theatre. ”

“ A shade of sadness passed momentarily over the girl's features as she asked, "Must it all end with that?"
"Death ends everything," replied the young man: "that is to say, everything earthly."
"Then is there no love beyond the grave?" asked Helen.
"Oh! let us hope so," responded our artist. "I, for one, have the very strongest persuasion that there is. Love such as ours is not merely of earth." ”

“ It was a scene to awaken the soul of a poet, to inspire a landscape painter with increased love of his art; and as our two friends McGuilp and Parnassus strolled arm-in-arm together through this region of enchantment, leaving their footprints in the crisp frost, which they traversed with the buoyant footsteps of youth, leaving the elder members considerably in the rear, each felt himself drawn towards the other by a bond of common sympathy. ”

“ There was something so inviting in the old man's manner, something so charming in the calm and dignified look that superior intellect invariably gives, that I could not but comply, and following my guide, I was conducted through long labyrinths of arches in silence, until I reached the centre of the cavern, when I found myself in a vast hall formed by nature, or roughly hewn out of the natural rock, and illuminated by torches. ”

“ Jack Hearty's hands are thrust deeply into his pockets, his legs extended, his brows knit, and his eyes fixed upon the ground; while his spouse, usually so active and so busy, to whom nothing was greater pain than being forced to be idle, was now lolling in a listless attitude, her arms dangling idly at her sides with an expression on her face of the most intense boredom. ”

“ The argument of my venerable guide made a deep impression on me, and I reflected a moment.
"Is it possible," thought I, "that all my life has been a mistake. Have I mistaken mere vain and selfish ambition for that pure love of science that dignifies and elevates the human mind? No," I answered to myself, "not exactly; and yet I have been mistaken in studying alchemy; for surely we ought to consider the end of whatever study we pursue, which end ought to be in some way or other useful to mankind at large. ”

“ A painter must be content with the work his patrons set him to do and not indulge his own caprices. Well, well, admitting the range of the painter's art to have been cramped and limited, has any age or country the power to cramp the genius of an artist? Is high art only to be found in imaginative pictures? Does not a portrait become high art under a master hand? ”

“ They embrace. Exit Alfonso. Pascual remains behind and waves his handkerchief from the terrace.
D. Pas. Adios! He is gone. His ambling mule
Has borne its gallant freight far out of sight.
Farewell, Alfonso. Fortune be thy guide,
Truest of comrades, best of counsellors,
Ride thou, my friend, towards fame, whilst I, Pascual,
Like Cain, must roam the earth, a vagabond,
Flying the face of man, by man pursued;
A price set on my head. Not merely bastard,
But vagabond! What was't he said of fame? ”

“ I was no more dead than I am at the present moment. It is true that I could not budge an inch, and I have no doubt that I looked thoroughly dead, but my mind was as clear and as sharp as possible.
"Poor young man," I heard the doctor say. "So hale and strong, too. Who'd have thought it?"
"Oh, my poor son! my poor son!" wept my father. "You whom I thought to rear to be the prop of my old age, now you are torn from me for ever."
"Calm yourself, sir," said the doctor, "else you will make yourself ill."
"How can I calm myself?" cried my father, in agony. ”

“ Let us now return to the Princess Bertha. The fright that she experienced at finding herself in the grasp of this horrid monkey caused her to swoon away but on recovering her senses she found herself on the top of a tree in the midst of a forest, still in the monkey's grasp. It was out of her power to escape, so she thought she would try and ingratiate herself with her captor, so she said, "Good monkey, do me no harm, for I am a king's daughter and the rightful heiress to the crown. When I am queen I will grant you any boon you ask." ”

“ The town of Muddleton-upon-Slush, once little more than a village, has swelled to the proportions of a prosperous factory town, with its smoky chimneys, its gasometers, its rows upon rows of jerry-built houses, its new town hall, its salvation army barracks, its police station, its chapels of every conceivable denomination, to say nothing of its numerous public-houses, young men's Christian association, its baths and wash-houses, its low theatre, where questionable pieces are represented by indifferent actors to pander to the modern taste. ”

“ But who was the assistant executioner? Nobody could find out. He had disappeared as mysteriously as he had made his appearance. Some said it was one, and some another, while the most settled belief was that it could be none other than the arch-fiend himself who had come to carry off the Henker's soul. In the confusion that followed the swoon of young Leo he had vanished, and no one had seen whither. No human being could have passed through a crowd without being seen by someone, therefore it must have been the arch-enemy of mankind. ”

“ Yes, doctor, you are my jailor; it is you who have closed my spirit up in its prison-house of flesh, so that it can no longer soar together in the company of the higher intelligences. It is you who have driven me back again to earth and made me an equal of such minds as your own. ”