was unheard. But whenever
the soul would aspire, whenever the imagination kindled to the loftier
ends, whenever the consciousness of our proper destiny struggled against
the unworthy life I pursued, then, Adela--then, it cowered by my side
in the light of noon, or sat by my bed,--a Darkness visible through the
Dark. If, in the galleries of Divine Art, the dreams of my youth woke
the early emulation,--if I turned to the thoughts of sages; if the
example of the great, if the converse of the wise, aroused the silenced
intellect, the demon was with me as by a spell. At last, one evening, at
Genoa, to which city I had travelled in pursuit of the mystic, suddenly,
and when least expected, he appeared before me. It was the time of the
Carnival. It was in one of those half-frantic scenes of noise and revel,
call it not gayety, which establish a heathen saturnalia in the midst
of a Christian festival. Wearied with the dance, I had entered a room in
which several revellers were seated, drinking, singing, shouting; and
in their fantastic dresses and hideous masks, their orgy seemed scarcely
human. I placed myself amongst them, and in that fearful excitement of
the spirits which the happy never know, I was soon the most riotous of
all. The conversation fell on the Revolution of France, which had
always possessed for me an absorbing fascination. The masks spoke of the
millennium it was to bring on earth, not as philosophers rejoicing in
the advent of light, but as ruffians exulting in the annihilation of
law. I know not why it was, but their licentious language infected
myself; and, always desirous to be foremost in every circle, I soon
exceeded even these rioters in declamations on the nature of the liberty
which was about to embrace all the families of the globe,--a liberty
that should pervade not only public legislation, but domestic life; an
emancipation from every fetter that men had forged for themselves. In
the midst of this tirade one of the masks whispered me,--

"'Take care. One listens to you who seems to be a spy!'

"My eyes followed those of the mask, and I observed a man who took
no part in the conversation, but whose gaze was bent upon me. He was
disguised like the rest, yet I found by a general whisper that none had
observed him enter. His silence, his attention, had alarmed the fears of
the other revellers,--they only excited me the more. Rapt in my subject,
I pursued it, insensible to the signs of those about me; a