One look of horror, and one long, piercing shriek, and she fell senseless upon the floor at the bedside. They took her up: they sprinkled water in her face; they bathed her temple with essences; and gradually light came back into her eyes. Then they turned toward the bed. What was it they saw there? He had seen the look. He had heard the shriek. He had beheld the last ray of hope depart. The knell of earthly happiness had rung. The gates of another world stood open, near at hand; and he had passed through to that place where all tears are wiped from all eyes. There was nothing but clay left behind.
Such was one of the tales told across the College table; and yet it was not a very sad or solemn place; and many a lighter and a gayer anecdote served to cheer up the heart after such sad pictures. There was a great deal of originality, too, at the table, which amused, if it did not interest. There was Doctor W—— there, who afterward became headmaster of a celebrated public school, and who was in reality a very eccentric man always affecting a most commonplace exterior. The most extraordinary, however, was Mr. R——, celebrated for occupying many hours every morning in shaving himself, an operation, all the accidents of which we generally, in this country, avoid by the precaution of trusting it to others. The process, however, of Mr. R—— who never confided in a barber, was this. He lathered and shaved one side of his face: then read a passage of Thucydides. Then he lathered and shaved the other side, read another passage, and then began again; and so on ad infinitum, or until somebody came in and dragged him out. His notions, however, were more extraordinary even than his habits. He used to contend, and did that night, that man having been created immortal, and having only lost his immortality by the knowledge of good and evil, it was in reality only the fear engendered by that knowledge which caused him to decay, or die. In vain gray hairs, a shriveled skin, defaulting teeth, warned him of the fragility of himself and his hypothesis: he still maintained dogmatically, that unless man were fool enough to be afraid, there would be no occasion for him to die at all. He actually carried his doctrine to the grave with him; for during another visit to Cambridge, many years after, I heard the close of his strange history. Feeling himself somewhat feeble, he went, several years after I saw him, to reside at Richmond, near London, where "the air is delicate." There a chronic disease under which he had been long laboring, assumed a serious form; and his friends and relations persuaded him to send for a physician. The physician giving no heed to his notions regarding corporeal immortality, prescribed for him sagely, but without effect. The disease went on undiminished, and it became necessary to inform him that his life was drawing to an end.
"Fiddlestick's ends," said Mr. R——. "Life has no end, but in consequence of fear. I am not the least afraid in the world; and hang me if I die, in spite of you all. Give me my coat and hat, John. I will go out and take a walk."
"By no means," cried the doctor. "You will only hasten the catastrophe, my dear sir, before any of your affairs are settled."
"Why, sir, you have hardly been able to walk across the room for this fortnight. You will never get half way up the hill;" said his faithful servant.
"Sir, you are at this moment in a dying state," said the provoked doctor.
"I will soon show you," cried Mr. R——; and walking to the door in his dressing gown, without his hat, down the stairs he went, and out into the busy streets of Richmond. For a hundred yards he tottered on; but then he fell upon the pavement, and was carried into a pastry-cook's store, where he expired without uttering one word, even in defense of his favorite theory.
The small town of Landeck, in the Vorarlberg, is surrounded by mountains, which—
I am afraid they are too high for me to get over in the short space which remains of this sheet, though I have written as small as possible, in order to leave myself room to conclude the tale of the Bride of Landeck. I must therefore put it off until I can find time to write you another epistle, in which I trust to be able to conclude all I have to say upon the subject; and in the mean time, with many thanks for your polite attention in printing these gossiping letters, I must beg you to believe me,
Your faithful servant,