And so, for the sake
of a moral at the end, I will call up one more figure, and have
done. A student, ambitious of success by that hot, intemperate
manner of study that now grows so common, read night and day for an
examination. As he went on, the task became more easy to him,
sleep was more easily banished, his brain grew hot and clear and
more capacious, the necessary knowledge daily fuller and more
orderly. It came to the eve of the trial and he watched all night
in his high chamber, reviewing what he knew, and already secure of
success. His window looked eastward, and being (as I said) high
up, and the house itself standing on a hill, commanded a view over
dwindling suburbs to a country horizon. At last my student drew up
his blind, and still in quite a jocund humour, looked abroad. Day
was breaking, the cast was tinging with strange fires, the clouds
breaking up for the coming of the sun; and at the sight, nameless
terror seized upon his mind. He was sane, his senses were
undisturbed; he saw clearly, and knew what he was seeing, and knew
that it was normal; but he could neither bear to see it nor find
the strength to look away, and fled in panic from his chamber into
the enclosure of the street. In the cool air and silence, and
among the sleeping houses, his strength was renewed. Nothing
troubled him but the memory of what had passed, and an abject fear
of its return.
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