s was--the skin had literally dried on his hands, till they were
like those of a skeleton. There was nothing lifelike in his whole
appearance, except the small, piercing eyes, which glittered with a
startling brightness.

Who could have imagined, to look upon him, that within this withered
body there glowed the most intense and ardent passions it can be given
to a human being to feel on earth!

No young man, in the strength and energy of his prime, ever loved with
so fierce a love, or hated with so bitter a hate, as did this worn,
attenuated being; in truth, it was the fire, undiminished still, of the
strong, passionate heart that throbbed in so frail a tenement, which had
sapped the very springs of life within him, and dried up the blood in
his veins.

Even now, the ceaseless activity with which he busied himself in his
chemical experiments, the convulsive twitching of his mouth from
excessive eagerness, was but the result of the one burning thought that
consumed him, and from which he sought relief in physical action. He
cared nothing at all for these things about which he occupied himself,
but long practice, systematically undertaken, and his own great ability,
had rendered him a wonderful adept in science; he had resolutely become
so, because he knew that these subtle experiments, and the singular
combinations they produced, must, to a certain degree, prove an aliment
to the intolerable restlessness produced by the one strong passion that
lay feeding at his heart, like a serpent coiled around it.

It was a glorious summer day, and outside the thick walls of the turret
the sunlight was glancing, and the green trees waving in the wind; but
he dared not go out to the free air and the smiling nature, for, if
released from the occupation he had created for himself, because it
demanded such incessant attention, the current of thought, undiverted
from its natural course, would too surely ebb back upon his soul with
its waters of exceeding bitterness; and therefore had many years of this
old man's wretched life been spent as he was spending this present
hour--bending over the glowing crucible, that he might avert the shock
of the antagonistic properties which he had purposely combined, in order
that his mind might be engaged in preventing the collision. None knew
better than himself how profitless and miserable was this existence he
had made, but except he fed, even with this food of ashes, the serpent
thought that haun