If this cherished self of mine had built the
universe, I should have dwelt with delight on "the wonders of
creation." As it was, I felt rather the vainglory of my promotion
from out of mere rooms and houses into the midst of that grand,
dark, infinite palace.
And then, too, my head, far from the fire, was in cold latitudes,
and it seemed to me strange that I should be lying so still and
passive, whilst the sharp night breeze walked free over my cheek,
and the cold damp clung to my hair, as though my face grew in the
earth and must bear with the footsteps of the wind and the falling
of the dew as meekly as the grass of the field. Besides, I got
puzzled and distracted by having to endure heat and cold at the
same time, for I was always considering whether my feet were not
over-devilled and whether my face was not too well iced. And so
when from time to time the watch quietly and gently kept up the
languishing fire, he seldom, I think, was unseen to my restless
eyes. Yet at last, when they called me and said that the morn
would soon be dawning, I rose from a state of half-oblivion not
much unlike to sleep, though sharply qualified by a sort of
vegetable's consciousness of having been growing still colder and
colder for many and many an hour.
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