Well for the wakeful one if , riotously miserable , a fiercer tribe do not surround him -- the devils of a guilty heart that holds its hell within itself . What if Remorse should assume the features of an injured friend ? What if the fiend should come in woman 's garments with a pale beauty amid sin and desolation , and lie down by your side ? What if he should stand at your bed 's foot in the likeness of a corpse with a bloody stain upon the shroud ? Sufficient without such guilt is this nightmare of the soul , this heavy , heavy sinking of the spirits , this wintry gloom about the heart , this indistinct horror of the mind blending itself with the darkness of the chamber . By a desperate effort you start upright , breaking from a sort of conscious sleep and gazing wildly round the bed , as if the fiends were anywhere but in your haunted mind . At the same moment the slumbering embers on the hearth send forth a gleam which palely illuminates the whole outer room and flickers through the door of the bedchamber , but can not quite dispel its obscurity . Your eye searches for whatever may remind you of the living world . With eager minuteness you take note of the table near the fireplace , the book with an ivory knife between its leaves , the unfolded letter , the hat and the fallen glove . Soon the flame vanishes , and with it the whole scene is gone , though its image remains an instant in your mind 's eye when darkness has swallowed the reality . Throughout the chamber there is the same obscurity as before , but not the same gloom within your breast . As your head falls back upon the pillow you think -- in a whisper be it spoken -- how pleasant in these night solitudes would be the rise and fall of a softer breathing than your own , the slight pressure of a tenderer bosom , the quiet throb of a purer heart , imparting its peacefulness to your troubled one , as if the fond sleeper were involving you in her dream . Her influence is over you , though she have no existence but in that momentary image . You sink down in a flowery spot on the borders of sleep and wakefulness , while your thoughts rise before you in pictures , all disconnected , yet all assimilated by a pervading gladsomeness and beauty . The wheeling of gorgeous squadrons that glitter in the sun is succeeded by the merriment of children round the door of a schoolhouse beneath the glimmering shadow of old trees at the corner of a rustic lane . You stand in the sunny rain of a summer shower , and wander among the sunny trees of an autumnal wood , and look upward at the brightest of all rainbows overarching the unbroken sheet of snow on the American side of Niagara . Your mind struggles pleasantly between the dancing radiance round the hearth of a young man and his recent bride and the twittering flight of birds in spring about their new-made nest . You feel the merry bounding of a ship before the breeze , and watch the tuneful feet of rosy girls as they twine their last and merriest dance in a splendid ball-room , and find yourself in the brilliant circle of a crowded theatre as the curtain falls over a light and airy scene . With an involuntary start you seize hold on consciousness , and prove yourself but half awake by running a doubtful parallel between human life and the hour which has now elapsed . In both you emerge from mystery , pass through a vicissitude that you can but imperfectly control , and are borne onward to another mystery .
Now comes the peal XXXXX the distant clock with fainter and fainter strokes as you plunge farther into the wilderness of sleep .
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