'Each time I drove
her away in one moment.'
'Unfortunate youth!' said the holy hermit, 'but
for thine indiscretion thou mightst have had her for
two.'
AN INHABITANT OF CARCOSA
For there be divers sorts of death--some wherein
the body remaineth; and in some it vanisheth quite
away with the spirit. This commonly occurreth only
in solitude (such is God's will) and, none seeing the
end, we say the man is lost, or gone on a long jour-
ney--which indeed he hath; but sometimes it hath
happened in sight of many, as abundant testimony
showeth. In one kind of death the spirit also dieth,
and this it hath been known to do while yet the
body was in vigour for many years. Sometimes, as
is veritably attested, it dieth with the body, but after
a season is raised up again in that place where the
body did decay.
Pondering these words of Hali (whom God rest)
and questioning their full meaning, as one who,
having an intimation, yet doubts if there be not some-
thing behind, other than that which he has dis-
cerned, I noted not whither I had strayed until a
sudden chill wind striking my face revived in me
a sense of my surroundings. I observed with aston-
ishment that everything seemed unfamiliar. On
every side of me stretched a bleak and desolate ex-
panse of plain, covered with a tall overgrowth of
sere grass, which rustled and whistled in the au-
tumn wind with Heaven knows what mysterious and
disquieting suggestion.
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