478 Recollections of a Night of Fever. ' [May, 
beatings of my pulse ; I knew, too, that the rushing sound below my 
window was the bursting of the waves upon the beach ; and could even 
argue with myself on all I saw and felt. If that were not real, which 
my eyes presented as such, what was real? The moon, the sun itself, 
existed to me but as I saw them ; and if sight be the evidence of reality 
in one case, why not in another? This, therefore, wasno more than the 
‘prologue to delirium ; the thing itself was yet to come. 
The physicians had long since gone. The evening declined rapidly, 
and in those few hours, which may be said to linger between light and 
darkness, I was in a state of comparative quiet. But when night came 
on—eyeless, voiceless, heavy night !—oh, how inexpressibly wretched 
then is the chamber of sickness! Darkness made visible by the dim, 
dull taper, that only serves to light our terrors ;—silence so deep, that 
the low ticking of the clock falls on the ear like rain-drops on stone, 
fretting and consuming ;—the array of phials, full and empty ;—the 
clothes long since disused, and now hanging on the frame, from which it 
is probable the same hand will never again remove them ;—the old, 
hard-featured nurse, whose presence cannot for a moment be separated 
from the idea of disease and suffering ;—the light, ominous click of the 
death-watch, a fable which health with reason laughs at, but which — 
sickness believes, and trembles while it ‘believes :—all these work upon 
the mind, and the mind again upon the body, till the brain is excited to 
delirium. And to that state I was fast tending; I felt it myself, and 
even tried by reasoning to keep down my rising fancies. But it was all - 
to no purpose ; strange shapes began to float about me, while my hands 
and feet burnt like iron thrice heated in the furnace, and my own touch 
‘scorched my own flesh. Those fantastic shadows, too, flung from the — 
various pieces of furniture upon the wall!—how they mocked me by — 
their flitting forms, as the rushlight flickered to and fro under the air! 
« Will it never again be morning? Oh, if this long, dreary night 
would only pass! If I could but again see the light of day !—Hark ! ~ 
the clock strikes ; another hour is gone !” . 
I had spoken this aloud ; and the nurse, with that gratuitous spirit of 
information, which infects the old and heartless when the thing to be 
communicated may give pain, lost no time in setting me right: it was — 
the passing bell I had heard. And what was that to me more than to 
any one beside? I was not the nearer death because another had just 
deceased. Had I been capable of reason, there was nothing in this for ~ 
terror ; but, in such cases, we do not reason—we feel. q 
« Only the passing bell!” I said, repeating her words—“ only—the 
bell that calls the worm into a new feast! Oh, for morning—morning ! — 
—when will it be morning ?—I say, what is the hour ?” 
« Ten, Sir; it has just struck. But you had better try to sleep.” ! 
“No more than ten! I thought it had been three at least—Sleep, 
you say? Ay, but how can I, when that fellow grins at me so horribly, 
and the room goes round, and the lights flicker? But you are right ; 
will go to sleep—to sleep—to sleep !” i. 
I buried my head in the clothes, to-shut out the images that harassed 
me, and for a time slept, or seemed to sleep. It was, however, only 
for a short time—perhaps an hour—perhaps a few minutes—I kno 
not; but time grows longer as we approach the grave, as the shadow 
increase in the decline of day. , 
-The sound of trumpets startled me from my broken slumber. I was 
