oubled brain than I when passing for ever from my
sister's room. The worm was at my heart: and, confining myself to that
stage of life, I may say--the worm that could not die. For if, when
standing upon the threshold of manhood, I had ceased to feel its perpetual
gnawings, _that_ was because a vast expansion of intellect, it was because
new hopes, new necessities, and the frenzy of youthful blood, had
translated me into a new creature. Man is doubtless _one_ by some subtle
_nexus_ that we cannot perceive, extending from the newborn infant to the
superannuated dotard: but as regards many affections and passions incident
to his nature at different stages, he is _not_ one; the unity of man in
this respect is coextensive only with the particular stage to which the
passion belongs. Some passions, as that of sexual love, are celestial by
one half of their origin, animal and earthy by the other half. These will
not survive their own appropriate stage. But love, which is _altogether_
holy, like that between two children, will revisit undoubtedly by glimpses
the silence and the darkness of old age: and I repeat my belief--that,
unless bodily torment should forbid it, that final experience in my
sister's bedroom, or some other in which her innocence was concerned, will
rise again for me to illuminate the hour of death.

On the day following this which I have recorded, came a body of medical
men to examine the brain, and the particular nature of the complaint, for
in some of its symptoms it had shown perplexing anomalies. Such is the
sanctity of death, and especially of death alighting on an innocent child,
that even gossiping people do not gossip on such a subject. Consequently,
I knew nothing of the purpose which drew together these surgeons, nor
suspected any thing of the cruel changes which might have been wrought in
my sister's head. Long after this I saw a similar case; I surveyed the
corpse (it was that of a beautiful boy, eighteen years old, who had died
of the same complaint) one hour _after_ the surgeons had laid the skull in
ruins; but the dishonours of this scrutiny were hidden by bandages, and
had not disturbed the repose of the countenance. So it might have been
here; but, if it were _not_ so, then I was happy in being spared the
shock, from having that marble image of peace, icy and rigid as it was,
unsettled by disfiguring images. Some hours after the strangers had
withdrawn, I crept again to the room, but the door w