Tale of a Haunted House [pp. 617-629]

620 TALE OF A HA UKTED HOUSE. [Aug.,
could not recall an iota of the incidents. But I was deeply convinced, profoundly conscious, that I had been dreaming of a
great huddle of events, a confused medley of clouded and conflicting circumstances. But, like the Babylonian monarch in the
Bible, I had no memory of my vision. One thing was certain: it
chased away slumber completely. I remained during the rest of
the night wide awake. I could not win Morpheus to revisit
my weary eyelids any more than Shakspere's Henry IV.,
"So full of ghastly terror was the time."
Now, this was the more remarkable as my soporific abilities had
never been called in question. My enemies might say I was a
bad man, but neither friend nor enemy could say I was a bad
sleeper. I even fancied that I could have challenged competition as the champion sleeper of the Irish university. In other
respects I might be outdone, but in this I was unapproachable.
I sincerely sympathized with Nabuchodonosor, who "called on
the sorcerers and the Chaldeans for to show the king his
dreams." This was precisely what I wanted-sorcerers and
Chaldeans; "my spirit was troubled to know my dream," but I
had no Daniel to recall it to my recollection.
Gradually, however, my visions began of themselves to dawn
on my waking memory. They came wildering over my brain
in a manner which strangely reminded me of the dawn of day.
The mists and clouds which mantled and mixed them up and
kept me in oblivious ignorance cleared slowly away. I began to.
make out what they were. The period of darkness gave way to
a period of light, and glimpses of dreamland were vividly revealed to me. Order assumed the place of chaos, and lucidity,
of darkness. What had I seen? What had I been dreaming
about? In the first place, I saw the room in which I slept as
distinctly, as vividly as if I were wide awake, though there was
no taper, and gas was unknown in those days. There could be
no human light in the apartment. All was buried in darkness.
Yet the chairs, the walls, the accidental disarrangements and arrangements of the furniture, were presented to my mind's eyenot the eye of the body-with a lucidity that was perfectly painful. The place seemed to be bathed in light. Now, as every
one knows, this is one of the characteristics of clairvoyance and
gives origin to its name. It seemed as if the invisible tenants
who had possession of this house were lighting up the theatre of
their subsequent performances with the view of making me experience before my time the sufferings of the damned. This,