he did,
but, as more to my purpose, of what was then spoken of as having been
done by him), who preserved a piece of vermicelli in a glass case, till
by some extraordinary means it began to move with voluntary motion. Not
thus, after all, would life be given. Perhaps a corpse would be
re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the
component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together,
and endued with vital warmth. Night waned upon this talk; and even the
witching hour had gone by, before we retired to rest. When I placed my
head upon my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My
imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive
images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual
bounds of reverie. I saw--with shut eyes, but acute mental vision--I saw
the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put
together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then on
the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with
an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely
frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the
stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world. His success would
terrify the artist; he would rush away from his odious handywork,
horror-stricken. He would hope that, left to itself, the slight spark of
life which he had communicated would fade; that this thing, which had
received such imperfect animation, would subside into dead matter; and
he might sleep in the belief that the silence of the grave would quench
for ever the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he had
looked upon as the cradle of life. He sleeps; but he is awakened; he
opens his eyes; behold the horrid thing stands at his bedside, opening
his curtains, and looking on him with yellow, watery, but speculative
eyes.

"I opened mine in terror. The idea so possessed my mind, that a thrill
of fear ran through me, and I wished to exchange the ghastly image of my
fancy for the realities around. I see them still; the very room, the
dark _parquet_, the closed shutters, with the moonlight struggling
through, and the sense I had that the glassy lake and white high Alps
were beyond. I could not so easily get rid of my hideous phantom; still
it haunted me. I must try to think of something else. I recurred to my
ghost story,--my tiresome unlucky ghost story! O! if I could only
co