scarcely audible sound, she turned her
    glassy eyes from the earth to heaven, -and
    falling prostrate on the black slabs of our
    ancestral vault, responded-"I am here! "
     Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct, fell
    those few simple sounds within my ear,
    and thence like molten lead rolled hiss-
    ingly into my brain. Years-years may
    pass away, but the memory of that
    epoch never. Nor was I indeed igno-
    rant of the flowers and the vine-but
    the hemlock and th ' e cypress over-
    shadowed me night and day. And I
    
    I
    kept no reckoning of time or place, and the
    stars of my fate faded from heaven, and
    therefore the earth grew dark, and its figures
    passed by me like flitting shadows, and
    among them all I beheld only-Morella. The
    winds of the firmament breathed but one
    sound within my cars, and the ripples upon
    the sea murmured evermore-Morella. But
    she died; and with my own hands I bore her
    to the tomb; and I laughed with a long and
    bitter laugh as I found no traces of the first
    in the charnel where I laid the second.-
    Morella.
    
    Metzengerstein
    
    (First published in Southern Literary Messenger, January, 1836.-Ed.)
    
    Pestis eram vivus-moriens tua mors
      ero.-Martin Luther.
    
     HORROR and fatality have been
    stalking abroad in all ages. Why then give a
    date to this story I have to tell? Let it
    suffice to say, that at the period of which I
    speak, there existed, in the interior of
    Hungary, a settled although hidden belief in
    the doctrines of the Metempsychosis. Of
    the doctrines themselves-that is, of their
    falsity, or of their probability-I say
    nothing. I assert, however, that much of
    our incredulity (as La Bruyere says of all
    our unhappiness) "vient de me pouvoir etre
    seuls."
     But there were some points in the
    Hungarian superstition which were fast
    verging to absurdity. They-the Hungarians-
    differed very essentially from their Eastern
    authorities. For example, ~'The soul," said
    the former-I give
    the words of an acute and intelligent
    Parisian--Pne demure qu' un seul fois dans
    un corps sensible: an reste-un cheval, un
    chien, un homme meme, n' est que la
    ressemblance peu tangible de ces
    animaux."

    




     The families of Berlifitzing and
    Metzengerstein had been at variance for
    centuries. Never before were two houses so
    illustrious, mutually embittered by
    hostility so deadly. The origin of this
    enmity seems to be found in the words of
    an ancient prophecy-"A lofty name shall
    have a fearful fall when, as the rider over
    his horse, the mortality of Metzengerstein
    shall triumph over the immortality of
    Berlifitzing.11
     To be sure the words themselves had
    little or no meaning. But more trivial causes
    have given rise-and that no long while ago-
    to consequences equally eventful. Besides,
    the estates, which