Its evidence--the
evidence of the sentience--was to be seen, he said (and I here started
as he spoke), in the gradual yet certain condensation of an atmosphere
of their own about the waters and the walls. The result was
discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and terrible
influence which for centuries had moulded the destinies of his family,
and which made _him_ what I now saw him--what he was. Such
opinions need no comment, and I will make none.
[Footnote 1: Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the
Bishop of Landaff.--See "Chemical Essays," Vol. V.]
Our books--the books which, for years, had formed no small portion of
the mental existence of the invalid--were, as might be supposed, in
strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over
such works as the Ververt and Chartreuse of Gresset; the Belphegor of
Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean
Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of
Jean D'Indagin?©, and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue
Distance of Tieck; and the City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite
volume was a small octavo edition of the _Directorium
Inquisitorum_, by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were
passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and ?†gipans,
over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours.
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