f conscience, despair, are little less powerful
in their effects than the most violent fevers. Richard, when in deepest
anxiety, finds his former cheerfulness is gone, and thinks to bring it
back with a glass of wine. But it is not mental sorrow only that has
banished comfort, it is a sensation of discomfort proceeding from the
very root of his physical organism, the very same sensation that
announces a malignant fever. The Moor, heavily burdened with crimes, and
once crafty enough in absolving all the sensations of humanity--by his
skeleton-process--into nothing, now rises from a dreadful dream, pale and
breathless, with a cold sweat upon his brow. All the images of a future
judgment which he had perhaps believed in as a boy, and blotted out from
his remembrance as a man, assail his dream-bewildered brain. The
sensations are far too confused for the slower march of reason to
overtake and unravel them. Reason is still struggling with fancy, the
spirit with the horrors of the corporeal frame. ["Life of Moor," tragedy
of Krake. Act. v. sc. 1.]

MOOR.--No! I am not shaking. It was but a dream. The dead are not
beginning to rise. Who says I tremble and turn pale? I am quite well,
quite well.

BED.--You are pale as death; your voice is frightened and hesitating.

MOOR.--I am feverish. I will be bled to-morrow. Say only, when the
priest comes, that I have fever.

BED.--But you are very ill.

MOOR.--Yes truly; that is all. And sickness disturbs the brain and
breeds strange mad dreams. Dreams mean nothing. Fie on womanish
cowardice! Dreams mean nothing. I have just had a pleasant dream.
[He falls down in a faint.

Here we have the whole image of the dream suddenly forcing itself upon a
man, and setting in motion the entire system of obscure ideas, stirring
up from the foundation the organ of thought. From all these causes
arises an intense sensation of pain in its utmost concentration, which
shatters the soul from its depth, and lames per consensum the whole
structure of the nerves.

The cold horror that seizes on the man who is about to commit some crime,
or who has just committed one, is nothing else than the horror which
agitates the feverish man, and which is felt on taking nauseous
medicines. The nightly tossings of those who are troubled by remorse,
always accompanied by a high pulse, are veritable fevers, induced by the
connection between the physical organism with the soul; and Lady Macbeth