Page:Tales of humour and romance translated by Holcroft.djvu/205

 caused the warm stream of life again to circulate from the re-invigorated heart. But how changed was he by the transformation!—His perception was lost in the whirlpool of the nervous fluid—his once rapid thoughts now waded sluggishly through the atmosphere of the brain,—the soft moist vapour, which formerly cast its autumnal colouring over all objects was dried up, and their colours now came burning and painful to the eye, through the parched atmosphere. All his feelings became gloomy, and more contracted within himself, and seemed to him as the instinct of animals appears to us,—hunger gnawed him—thirst burnt him, and pain tore him. His bleeding and distracted bosom heaved, and his first breath was a sigh for the heaven he had lost. "Is this," thought he, "the death of mortals?" But as he saw not the promised token of death—no angel to receive him—no heaven shining around him, he found that this was not the death of mortals, but their life.

In the evening the earthly powers of the angel were exhausted, and his head seemed to be crushed beneath the weight of the globe—for sleep had dispatched her messengers; the figures of imagination exchanged their sunshine for a smoky flame, the images impressed upon the brain during the day, were magnified to a colossal size; and confounded with each other, whilst a world