THE CRYSTAL: A RECORD OF ICC5. 



I see nothing ; but I might have done so, if I had taken the proper 

 measures for that purpose. We will try again." 



" First let me see a little more of this." 



I looked, but saw nothing. 



" The images only remain," said the Doctor, " while the first im- 

 pulse of your attention is directed to them." 



He took the Crystal from me, breathing on it as before, and re- 

 turning it to me with the same words. I looked again, but with as 

 bad success as the last time. 



The Doctor said my wish could not have been sufficiently definitive. 

 It was, " What is the principal event of the next year?" I now changed 

 it to " What will be the principal event of the next year in England?" 

 I know not by what singular fatality /, who had as little care or 

 thought about public affairs as any man under the sun, was led to put 

 a question of this general nature. 



This form of interrogation produced the imaged reply. The 

 scene was the street in which I now live, as I did then. But it was 

 represented as overgrown with grass; and though the beams of the 

 sun indicated late morning, the busy feet of accustomed thousands 

 passed not by like a river, and coaches, chairs, and drays went no 

 longer to and fro. Before many doors, and by the way-side, lay 

 many human forms of man and woman, of old and young, but mostly 

 of the beautiful and the strong. Some were dead, some dying, some 

 asleep ; and as I looked, some of the sleepers fell, without awaking, 

 into the postures of death. Some of the bodies were naked, others 

 nearly so ; a few were very well clothed ; but of the clothed those in 

 mean attire were the most common, because their clothes were not 

 deemed by their friends worth taking off, or considered worth stealing 

 by the heartless scoundrels who made it a trade. 



As I sat looking with a most heavy heart, a few stragglers ap- 

 peared in the street. Some walked as men in sorrow, with their eyes 

 bent towards the ground ; many ran as one runs who is drunken, and 

 many reeled and staggered in their walk, as also the drunken are 

 wont to do. Of these many fell down and and rose not again. Other 

 men then appeared, different from all these. They looked keenly 

 about them to the right hand and the left, and when they saw one who 

 lay dead in good attire, they drew near and stripped it of all that was 

 pleasing in their sight. Miserable, hardened wretches ! But, ah ! 

 more horrible than this! if the dying or comatose were well ap- 

 parelled they drew nigh also unto them, and laying their most villanous 

 hands upon their throats, put out quite the flickering embers of life, 

 and then made spoil of their raiment : and these were things which 

 none of the passers-by prevented or seemed to heed. 



Then appeared a dray coming slowly up the street ; and as it ap- 

 proached, many doors were opened, and bodies brought out and 

 placed on the steps or under the windows sometimes thrown care- 

 lessly down, and at others laid softly and gently on the stones, as one 

 lays'dowri a sleeping child lest he should be hurt or awakened. Of 

 the draymen, some had pipes in their mouths, through which they 

 drew smoke from the strong weed of Virginia ; some had the lower 

 part of their faces covered ; one wore a mask ; and all bore in their 



