chance
are not present to the sick man's mind? As I walked through its silent
chambers, where the pale print of death was marked in every face that
lay there, I shuddered to think how the rich man's gold will lead him to
struggle against the will of his Creator. La Morgue, in all its fearful
reality, came up before me, and the cold moist flags on which were
stretched the unknown corpses of the poor seemed far less horrible than
this gorgeous palace of the wealthy dead.

Unquestionably, cases of recovery from trance occur in every land, and
the feelings of returning animation, I have often been told, are those
of most intense suffering. The inch to inch combat with death is a
fearful agony; yet what is it to the horrible sensations of _seeming_
death, in which the consciousness survives all power of exertion, and
the mind burns bright within while the body is about to be given to the
earth. Can there be such a state as this? Some one will say, Is such a
condition possible? I believe it firmly. Many years ago a physician of
some eminence gave me an account of a fearful circumstance in his own
life, which not only bears upon the point in question, but illustrates
in a remarkable degree the powerful agency of volition as a principle of
vitality. I shall give the detail in his own words, without a syllable
of comment, save that I can speak, from my knowledge of the narrator, to
the truth of his narrative.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE 'DREAM OF DEATH'

'It was already near four o'clock ere I bethought me of making any
preparation for my lecture. The day had been, throughout, one of those
heavy and sultry ones that autumn so often brings in our climate, and
I felt from this cause much oppressed and disinclined to exertion,
independently of the fact that I had been greatly over-fatigued during
the preceding week, some cases of a most trying and arduous nature
having fallen to my lot--one of which, from the importance of the life
to a young and dependent family, had engrossed much of my attention, and
aroused in me the warmest anxiety for success. In this frame of mind
I was entering my carriage to proceed to the lecture-room, when an
unsealed note was put into my hands; I opened it hastily, and read that
poor H-----, for whom I was so deeply interested, had just expired. I
was greatly shocked. It was scarcely an hour since I had seen him; and
from the apparent improvement since my former visit, I had ventured to
speak most en