the most delightful sensations. My heart beat quicker,
my head sat more lightly than usual upon my shoulders; and sounds like the
distant hum of bees, or the music of the spheres, heard in echo afar off,
floated around me. There was no bar between me and perfect happiness, but
the Man-Mountain, who sat on the great elbow-chair opposite, drinking his
brandy-toddy, and occasionally humming an old song with the utmost
indifference.

It was plain that he despised me. While any of the others were present he
was abundantly loquacious, but now he was as dumb as a fish--tippling in
silence, and answering such questions as I put to him in abrupt
monosyllables. The thing was intolerable, but I saw into it: Julia had
played me false; the "Mountain" was the man of her choice, and I his
despised and contemptible rival.

These ideas passed rapidly through my mind, and were accompanied with
myriads of others. I bethought me of every thing connected with Mr.
Tims--his love for Julia--his elephantine dimensions, and his shadow,
huge and imposing as the image of the moon against the orb of day, during
an eclipse. Then I was transported away to the Arctic sea, where I saw him
floundering many a rood, "hugest of those that swim the ocean stream."
Then he was a Kraken fish, outspread like an island upon the deep: then a
mighty black cloud affrighting the mariners with its presence: then a
flying island, like that which greeted the bewildered eyes of Gulliver. At
last he resumed his human shape, and sat before me like "Andes, giant of
the Western Star," tippling the jorum, and sighing deeply.

Yes, he sighed profoundly, passionately, tenderly; and the sighs came from
his breast like blasts of wind from the cavern of Eolus. By Jove, he was
in love; in love with Julia! and I thought it high time to probe him to
the quick.

"Sir," said I, "you must be conscious that you have no right to love
Julia. You have no right to put your immense body between her and me. She
is my betrothed bride, and mine she shall be for ever."

"I have weighty reasons for loving her," replied Mr. Tims.

"Were your reasons as weighty as your person, you _shall not_ love her."

"She _shall_ be mine," responded he, with a deeply-drawn sigh. "You
cannot, at least, prevent her image from being enshrined in my heart. No,
Julia! even when thou descendest to the grave, thy remembrance will cause
thee to live in my imagination, and I shall thus write thine elegy: