mind, wantonly experiments upon it, deepening and intensifying it by a
fearful series of illusions of sight and sound. Tricks of jugglery and
ventriloquism seem to his feverish fancies miracles and omens--the eye
and the voice of the Almighty piercing the atmosphere of supernatural
mystery in which he has long dwelt. He believes that he is called upon
to sacrifice the beloved wife of his bosom as a testimony of the entire
subjugation of his carnal reason and earthly affections to the Divine
will. In the entire range of English literature there is no more
thrilling passage than that which describes the execution of this baleful
suggestion. The coloring of the picture is an intermingling of the
lights of heaven and hell,--soft shades of tenderest pity and warm tints
of unextinguishable love contrasting with the terrible outlines of an
insane and cruel purpose, traced with the blood of murder. The masters
of the old Greek tragedy have scarcely exceeded the sublime horror of
this scene from the American novelist. The murderer confronted with his
gentle and loving victim in her chamber; her anxious solicitude for his
health and quiet; her affectionate caress of welcome; his own relentings
and natural shrinking from his dreadful purpose; and the terrible
strength which he supposes is lent him of Heaven, by which he puts down
the promptings and yearnings of his human heart, and is enabled to
execute the mandate of an inexorable Being,--are described with an
intensity which almost stops the heart of the reader. When the deed is
done a frightful conflict of passions takes place, which can only be told
in the words of the author:--

"I lifted the corpse in my arms and laid it on the bed. I gazed upon it
with delight. Such was my elation that I even broke out into laughter.
I clapped my hands, and exclaimed, 'It is done! My sacred duty is
fulfilled! To that I have sacrificed, O God, Thy last and best gift, my
wife!'

"For a while I thus soared above frailty. I imagined I had set myself
forever beyond the reach of selfishness. But my imaginations were false.
This rapture quickly subsided. I looked again at my wife. My joyous
ebullitions vanished. I asked myself who it was whom I saw. Methought
it could not be my Catharine; it could not be the woman who had lodged
for years in my heart; who had slept nightly in my bosom; who had borne
in her womb and fostered at her breast the beings who called me father;
whom I h