s, not one moved or uttered a sound. I
drew near to one, and I shivered with intense cold as I read upon
it--"Voltaire." "Behold," said the demon, "the hell of infidel books;
the light which emanates from them is the light of reason, and they
are doomed to everlasting torpor." I found it too cold to pursue my
investigations any farther in this region, and I gladly passed on from
the leaden gulf of Infidelity.

I had no sooner passed the barrier which separated this department
from the next, than I heard a confused sound like the quacking of
myriads of ducks and geese, and a great flapping of wings; of which I
soon saw the cause. "You are in the hell of newspapers," said my
guide. And sure enough, when I looked up I saw thousands of newspapers
flying about with their great wooden back-bones, and the padlock
dangling like a bobtail at the end, flapping their wings and hawking
at each other like mad. After circling about in the air for a little
while, and biting and tearing each other as much as they could, they
plumped down, head first, into a deep black-looking pool, and were
seen no more. "We place these newspapers deeper in hell than the
Infidel publications," said the Devil; "because they are so much more
extensively read, and thereby do much greater mischief. It is a kind
of pest of which there is no end; and we are obliged to allot the
largest portion of our dominions to containing them."

We now came to an immense pile of a leaden hue, which I found at last
to consist of old worn-out type, which was heaped up to form the wall
of the next division. A monstrous u, turned bottom upwards (in this
way [Symbol: inverted U]) formed the arch of a gateway through which
we passed; and then traversed a draw-bridge, which was thrown across a
river of ink, upon whose banks millions of horrible little demons were
sporting. I presently saw that they were employed in throwing into the
black stream a quantity of books which were heaped up on the shore. As
I looked down into the stream, I saw that they were immediately
devoured by the most hideous and disgusting monsters which were
floundering about there. I looked at one book, which had crawled out
after being thrown into the river; it was dripping with filth, but I
distinguished on the back the words--_Don Juan_. It had hardly climbed
up the bank, however, when one of the demons gave it a kick, and sent
it back into the stream, where it was immediately swallowed. On the
back of