naturally vivid, stimulated by such repasts, nearly
mastered me. At times I could scarcely tell where the material ceased
and the immaterial began (if I may so express it); so that once and
again I walked, as it seemed, from the solid earth onward upon an
impalpable plain, where I heard the same voices, I think, that Joan
of Arc heard call to her in the garden at Domremy. She was inspired,
however, while I only lacked exercise. I do not mean this in any literal
sense; I only describe a state of mind. I was at this time of spare
habit, and nervous, excitable temperament. I was ambitious, proud, and
extremely sensitive. I cannot deny that I had seen something of the
world, and had contracted about the average bad habits of young men who
have the sole care of themselves, and rather bungle the matter. It is
necessary to this relation to admit that I had seen a trifle more of
what is called life than a young man ought to see, but at this period
I was not only sick of my experience, but my habits were as correct as
those of any Pharisee in our college, and we had some very favorable
specimens of that ancient sect.

Nor can I deny that at this period of my life I was in a peculiar mental
condition. I well remember an illustration of it. I sat writing late one
night, copying a prize essay,--a merely manual task, leaving my thoughts
free. It was in June, a sultry night, and about midnight a wind arose,
pouring in through the open windows, full of mournful reminiscence, not
of this, but of other summers,--the same wind that De Quincey heard at
noonday in midsummer blowing through the room where he stood, a mere
boy, by the side of his dead sister,--a wind centuries old. As I wrote
on mechanically, I became conscious of a presence in the room, though I
did not lift my eyes from the paper on which I wrote. Gradually I came
to know that my grandmother--dead so long ago that I laughed at
the idea--was in the room. She stood beside her old-fashioned
spinning-wheel, and quite near me. She wore a plain muslin cap with a
high puff in the crown, a short woolen gown, a white and blue checked
apron, and shoes with heels. She did not regard me, but stood facing the
wheel, with the left hand near the spindle, holding lightly between the
thumb and forefinger the white roll of wool which was being spun and
twisted on it. In her right hand she held a small stick. I heard the
sharp click of this against the spokes of the wheel, then the hum of the