THE SPIRIT OF THE CHRONICLE, LEADING THE WAY THROUGH THE CHAMBERS OF SLEEP, AND TRANCE, AND DEATH, SOLVES THE MYSTERIE OF THE LIFE OF ADRIAN DI ALBARONE.
Afar through the gloom and twilight that hangs between the visible and the unreal world, we behold the Spirit of the Chronicle, leading us onward to a dim and shadowy land peopled by Dreams and thronged with Thoughts, robed in forms of light or clad in shapes of doom.
It is the land of Death—the land of the Grave.
The awful region, where the soul, parted from its house of clay, looks over the wide expanse of shadow, and beholds every thought that ever visited its mortal form, spring up into tangible being and life, now gladdening its eternal vision with images of loveliness and beauty, and again affrighting the pale Spirit with shapes of ghastliness and woe.
Thus, as his dread Record draws near its close, thus speaks the Chronicler of the Ancient MSS.——
Death—mighty and irresistible, look down upon the cold corse, and tell us, when does thy hand first unveil the Eternal to the eye of the Soul.—
Life—thou mockery and blasphemy, gaze upon the form of the Mortal Thing, and give us to know, when does thy power cease, when does thy victim pass from thy grasp?
Ye each dispute the possession of the Soul, upon a shadowy battle-field, and now the victory sways to the skeleton, and now to the thing of Flesh. Men know this battle-field by various names, they call it Sleep, they call it Trance, they call it Death.
First the body sleeps, then it is entranced, then it dies. First the Soul gazes with a dim eye upon the Eternal World, then its vision is enwrapt and absorbed, and at last, as the clay dies, it is all Spirit, and Thought, and Dream.
Come with us, reader, with hushed breath and a solemn footstep come with us, while we tread the halls of Old Death, tracing the Soul through the chambers of Sleep and Trance, into the full light of the AWFUL UNKNOWN!