The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 354: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

40 her spirit might be indeed passing, so that she could avoid that crowning horror—that tran- sendant catastrophe,—being buried alive! Again did a stupor come over her : again were her senses wrapped in oblivion. The undertaker and his men remained in the room until they had emptied the bottle of spirits; and then they took their leave of the housekeeper and their departure from the mansion. | Presently—she couid not tell how long after the stupor had. fallen upon her — a roseate radiance appeared to be shining all around Ariadne. She was no longer in the shell—no longer wrapped in the garments of the grave—no longer laid out as acorpse. She felt as if she had been wafted into some other sphere; and a strain of sweet celestial music came floating upon her ears. Then, as those silver octaves made the air melo- dious, she fancied that she beheld angel-shapes hovering before her eyes—shapes of seraphs and of sylphs, with azure garments and white wings. The music:swelled into the divinest symphony, exultant throughout the vast regions of space: and it seemed to the maiden that she was wafted quick and unimpeded, but by some invisible power, through the starry firmament,— mingling with aerial beings of indescribable beauty. An ineffable pleasure pervaded her soul as she called to mind all the horrors from which: she had just escaped: for the barrier between life and death seemed to be indeed passed over, and herself emancipated from the trammels of earth and now soaring in heaven. Presently a form.of angelic loveliness and ra- diant with the sunniest smiles, came floating through the roseate atmosphere,—a female form clad in streaming’ robes of azure and of gold, arranged in alternate foldings and spangled with countless gems. ‘The long yellow hair floated like a beaming meteor,: diffusing an enhanced glory all around. But nothing could equal the celestial benignity and seraphic joy that mingled in that beauteous countenance: so that under this angelic figuration Ariadne recollected not immediately the features of her .mother—her long dead mother! Now indeed she knew that she was in heaven: and extending her arms towards the advancing shape, she anticipated the next moment to be clapsed. to its bosom,—when all in an instant the sweet and ecstatic thoughts filling her soul were turned into horror and dismay—the angel shape vanished from her view—utter darkness suddenly entombed her—and down, down she sank as if into an un- fathomable abyss! Down, down she kept descending: down, down into the blackest darkness, where the only change was that made by hideous shapes blacker than the blackness, darker than the darkness itself! Yes— all was confusion and whirl in her brain—a series and a change of mental agony. Now all ofa sudden a tremendous light appeared; and in the distance were seen the inextinguishable but un- consuming fires of hell. No nearer however to them did she approach— but kept falling down, down, far beyond the influence of the molten flames that filled the vast and blazing prison of Satan’s kingdom. But as her eyes remained fixed upon that region of fire, she saw that it broke into the shape of immense buildings—vast palaces, tremendous domes, and colossal pillars—all made of the living flame and exhaling the red atmosphere THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. which hung like a lurid cloud aboveit: Still also as she gazed, she observed the back-ground of that vast city of Satan,—a back-ground forming hills and mountains, some covered with forests, others merely dotted with groups of trees, but all wrought as it were out of the lurid opaque fire. Still keener and keener grew the maiden’s power of vision. She now beheld the windows of all the houses, mansions, and palaces in that city of hell; and she saw that those windows were defended by immense bars of fire. But now the entire city seemed to be made of red hot iron,—every feature of the place of one colour— everything formed of one material. And through those bars she beheld myriads of shadowy forms, all red and glowing as if they themselves were pene- trated with fire, or heated as it were to a candescent and almost transparent state. Keener grew her vision still: and she saw more. She beheld ineffable anguish depicted on every countenance—an anguish such as no living language can describe. In the palaces she beheld the shapes of those who had once been the kings and queens of the earth: but their crowns were now of red hot iron, fastened with red hot nails upon their burning but unconsuming heads, Their sceptres had changed into fiery serpents—their orbs into scorpions of flame. The purple, the scarlet, and the ermine robes that decorated them on earth were succeeded by a flowing vesture of flame; and if in any region of hell the fire was hotter and the tor- ture more agonising than elsewhere, then was this supremacy of all excruciations to be found in these palaces of the kings and queens. In the great man- sions were the shades of those who had been pre- lates aud church-dignitaries upon earth, and who having made religion a means to heap up wealth and honours for their own aggrandisement, were now deservedly enduring retribution in the ebbless and eternal waves of flame that swept through the man- sions of red hot iron. Aud in other mansions were the lords and those who had been great oues upon earth, but who having made earth a heaven for them- selves and a hell for the masses of their fellows creatures, were now enduring the real hell of the other world! | But gradually all this tremendous spectacle began to fade away from Ariadne’s view; and stil she appeared to be falling down with the velocity of a flash of lightning—until all was dark once more, Then gradually she awoke to the consciousness that she had been passing through the phases of a dream, wherein she had beholden both heaven aud hell! Then where was she? Were these thoughts— these harrowing thoughts that poured back iuto her memory, laden with horrible reminiscences,— were all these a dream likewise? Was it a dream that she had been in a trance—that she had been treated as one dead—aud that preparations were made for her funeral? Was all this a dream—ah! dared she think so? But, no: great God! no—it was nota dream! She was there—in utter dark- ness—unable to move—pent up in the narrowest possible space: )es—she was in a trance—and she was in her shell! Another two days passed away; and during the interval very brief indeed had been the moments of consciousness endured by the unfortunate gir’, But it was now on the sixth evening of her sup- posed death, and while she was suffering the tor- \ures of a more vivid sensibility than she had ex- EE ee — es ees coe ee EGomicdoo (C Ss (ECO)