grotesque creatures inhabited every cranny; white spirits lurked among the silvered branches; the frosty stars looked down upon me as upon one of their kindred, and I looked up at them, and cried in spiritual ecstasy, "Only to you and to me are these things visible!"

Thus I lived, as it were, the inner life, and became familiar with hidden beauties and hidden horrors.

Was I, then, so wrapped up in my own narrow self that I shut my eyes and ears to the pulsing of other human life? Not entirely. There were occasions when I associated with my fellows.

Thus, on a stormy night in September, when the rain came down in torrents, I heard the sounds of loud entreaty proceeding from outside the stone walls of the estate. Had it not been that my sense of hearing was very acute, and that those who were appealing were screaming at the top of their voices, it would have been impossible for me to hear them. The wind assisted them and me; it blew in the direction of the chamber in which I sat reading by the light of a lamp.

"Some people in distress," I thought, and proceeded with my reading.

The sounds of entreaty continued, grew louder, and more deeply imploring.

"They will scream themselves hoarse presently," I thought. "Well, I am comfortable enough."

"Well said, Gabriel, well said!"

Who spoke? Nothing human, for I was the only person awake in house and cottage. Although I was convinced of this I looked around, not in fear but curiosity. Nothing living was in view.

"Is it well?" I asked aloud. "The sounds proceed most likely from poor persons who are benighted, and who have not a roof to cover them."

"That is their affair," said the voice.

"The storm is terrible," I continued. "They may perish in it."

The answer came. "They meet their fate. Leave them to their doom. In the morning their sufferings will be over."

"And I shall live," I said, "guilty and self-condemned. There is no such thing as fate. Human will can save or destroy. They are human, and I will go to them."

The rain and the wind almost blinded me as I walked from my cottage to the gates. All the while the voices continued to beseech 

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