ll never forget it till my dying day. Nay, I can scarce
conceive it possible that any earthly sounds could be so discordant, so
repulsive to every feeling of a human soul, as the tones of the voice
that grated on my ear at that moment. They were the sounds of the pit,
wheezed through a grated cranny, or seemed so to my distempered
imagination.

"So! Thou shudderest at my approach now, dost thou?" said he. "Is this
all the gratitude that you deign for an attachment of which the annals
of the world furnish no parallel? An attachment which has caused me to
forego power and dominion, might, homage, conquest and adulation: all
that I might gain one highly valued and sanctified spirit to my great
and true, principles of reformation among mankind. Wherein have I
offended? What have I done for evil, or what have I not done for your
good; that you would thus shun my presence?"

"Great and magnificent prince," said I humbly; "let me request of you
to abandon a poor worthless wight to his own wayward fortune, and
return to the dominion of your people. I am unworthy of the sacrifices
you have made for my sake; and, after all your efforts, I do not feel
that you have rendered either more virtuous or more happy. For the sake
of that which is estimable in human nature, depart from me to your own
home, before you render me a being either altogether above or below the
rest of my fellow creatures. Let me plod on towards Heaven and
happiness in my own way, like those that have gone before me, and I
promise to stick fast by the great principles which you have so
strenuously inculcated, on condition that you depart and leave me for
ever."

"Sooner shall you make the mother abandon the child of her bosom; nay,
sooner cause the shadow to relinquish the substance, than separate me
from your side. Our beings are amalgamated, as it were, and consociated
in one, and never shall I depart from this country until I can carry
you in triumph with me."

I can in nowise describe the effect this appalling speech had on me. It
was like the announcement of death to one who had of late deemed
himself free, if not of something worse than death, and of longer
continuance. There was I doomed to remain in misery, subjugated, soul
and body, to one whose presence was become more intolerable to me than
aught on earth could compensate. And at that moment, when he beheld the
anguish of my soul, he could not conceal that he enjoyed it. I was
troubled for an answ