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of my commonest thought. The realities of the world affected me as
visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams
became, in turn, not the material of my every-day existence, but in very
deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.
*
* * * *
Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my paternal
halls. Yet differently we grew--I, ill of health, and buried in
gloom--she, agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy; hers, the
ramble on the hill-side--mine the studies of the cloister; I, living
within my own heart, and addicted, body and soul, to the most intense
and painful meditation--she, roaming carelessly through life, with
no thought of the shadows in her path, or the silent flight of the
raven-winged hours. Berenice!--I call upon her name--Berenice!--and
from the gray ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous recollections are
startled at the sound! Ah, vividly is her image before me now, as in the
early days of her light-heartedness and joy! Oh, gorgeous yet fantastic
beauty! Oh, sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim! Oh, Naiad among its
fountains! And then--then all is mystery and terror, and a tale which
should not be told. Disease--a fatal disease, fell like the simoon upon
her frame; and, even while I gazed upon her, the spirit of change swept
over her, pervading her mind, her habits, and her character, and, in a
manner the most subtle and terrible, disturbing even the identity of
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