"i do believe," said he, soberly, "or, at least, i could believe, if i chose, that there is a devil in this pile of blotted papers. you have read them, and know what i mean, that conception in which i endeavored to embody the character of a fiend, as represented in our traditions and the written records of witchcraft. oh, i have a horror of what was created in my own brain, and shudder at the manuscripts in which i gave that dark idea a sort of material existence! would they were out of my sight!"