What mainly disturbed me was the idea that it had perceptibly descended.
Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile – an idiot.
I was sick – sick unto death with that long agony.
I stepped on it, and fell violently on my face.
Even in the grave all is not lost.
Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterward (so frail may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed.
And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.
And the death just avoided, was of that very character which I had regarded as fabulous and frivolous in the tales respecting the Inquisition.