Its evidence--the evidence of the sentience--was
to be seen, he said (and I here started as he spoke), in the gradual
yet certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the
waters and the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in that
silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had
molded the destinies of his family, and which made _him_ what I now
saw him--what he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make
none.
Our books--the books which, for years, had formed no small portion of
the mental existence of the invalid--were, as might be supposed, in
strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over
such works as the _Ververt et Chartreuse_[13] of Gresset; the
_Belphegor_[14] of Machiavelli; the _Heaven and Hell_[15] of
Swedenborg; the _Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm_[16] by
Holberg; the _Chiromancy_[17] of Robert Flud, of Jean D'lndagine, and
of De la Chambre[18]; the _Journey into the Blue Distance_ of
Tieck[19]; and the _City of the Sun_[20] of Campanella. One favorite
volume was a small octavo edition of the _Directorium
Inquisitorium_[21] by the Dominican Eymeric de Cironne; and there were
passages in _Pomponius Mela_,[22] about the old African Satyrs and
Oegipans,[23] over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief
delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and
curious book in quarto Gothic--the manual of a forgotten church--the
_Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae_.
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