Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/225

 It now occurred to me that the occupant of this apartment could not be far off, and that some danger and embarrassment could not fail to accrue from being found, thus accoutred and garbed, in a place sacred to the study and repose of another: it was proper, therefore, to withdraw, and either to resume my journey, or wait for the stranger's return, whom perhaps some temporary engagement had called away, in the lower and public room. The former now appeared to be the best expedient, as the return of this unknown person was uncertain, as well as his power to communicate the information which I wanted.

Had paper, as well as the implements of writing, lain upon the desk, perhaps my lawless curiosity would not have scrupled to have pried into it. On the first glance, nothing of that kind appeared; but now, as I turned towards the door, somewhat lying beside the desk, on the side opposite the candle, caught my attention. The impulse was instantaneous and mechanical, that made me leap to the spot and lay my hand upon it: till I felt it between my fingers—till I brought it near my eyes, and read frequently the inscriptions that appeared upon it—I was doubtful whether my senses had deceived me.

Few, perhaps, among mankind have undergone vicissitudes of peril and wonder equal to mine. The miracles of poetry, the transitions of enchantment, are beggarly and mean, compared with those which I had experienced: passage into new forms, overleaping the bars of time and space, reversal of the laws of inanimate and intelligent existence, had been mine to perform and to witness.

No event had been more fertile of sorrow and perplexity than the loss of thy brother's letters: they went by means invisible, and disappeared at a moment when foresight would have least predicted their disappearance. They now placed themselves before me in a manner equally abrupt, in a place and by means no less contrary to expectation. The papers which I now seized were those letters; the parchment cover, the string that tied and the wax that sealed them, appeared not to have been opened or violated.

The power that removed them from my cabinet, and dropped them in this house—a house which I rarely