, Dr. D---- told me that he had never before witnessed a seizure
which seemed to combine the symptoms of so many kinds, and yet which
belonged to none of the recognised classes; it certainly was not
apoplexy, catalepsy, nor delirium tremens, and yet it seemed, in
some degree, to partake of the properties of all. It was strange, but
stranger things are coming.

During two or three days Dr. D---- would not allow his patient to
converse in a manner which could excite or exhaust him, with anyone;
he suffered him merely as briefly as possible to express his immediate
wants. And it was not until the fourth day after my early visit, the
particulars of which I have just detailed, that it was thought expedient
that I should see him, and then only because it appeared that his
extreme importunity and impatience to meet me were likely to retard
his recovery more than the mere exhaustion attendant upon a short
conversation could possibly do; perhaps, too, my friend entertained some
hope that if by holy confession his patient's bosom were eased of the
perilous stuff which no doubt oppressed it, his recovery would be more
assured and rapid. It was then, as I have said, upon the fourth day
after my first professional call, that I found myself once more in the
dreary chamber of want and sickness.

The man was in bed, and appeared low and restless. On my entering the
room he raised himself in the bed, and muttered, twice or thrice:

'Thank God! thank God!'

I signed to those of his family who stood by to leave the room, and
took a chair beside the bed. So soon as we were alone, he said, rather
doggedly:

'There's no use in telling me of the sinfulness of bad ways--I know it
all. I know where they lead to--I seen everything about it with my own
eyesight, as plain as I see you.' He rolled himself in the bed, as if
to hide his face in the clothes; and then suddenly raising himself,
he exclaimed with startling vehemence: 'Look, sir! there is no use in
mincing the matter: I'm blasted with the fires of hell; I have been in
hell. What do you think of that? In hell--I'm lost for ever--I have not
a chance. I am damned already--damned--damned!'

The end of this sentence he actually shouted. His vehemence was
perfectly terrific; he threw himself back, and laughed, and sobbed
hysterically. I poured some water into a tea-cup, and gave it to him.
After he had swallowed it, I told him if he had anything to communicate,
to do so as briefly as he