holy perfume floated ever and ever about the valley; and at lone
hours, when my heart beat heavily, the winds that bathed my brow came
unto me laden with soft sighs; and indistinct murmurs filled often
the night air, and once -- oh, but once only! I was awakened from a
slumber, like the slumber of death, by the pressing of spiritual lips
upon my own.
But the void within my heart refused, even thus, to be filled. I
longed for the love which had before filled it to overflowing. At
length the valley pained me through its memories of Eleonora, and I
left it for ever for the vanities and the turbulent triumphs of the
world.
I found myself within a strange city, where all things might have
served to blot from recollection the sweet dreams I had dreamed so
long in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. The pomps and
pageantries of a stately court, and the mad clangor of arms, and the
radiant loveliness of women, bewildered and intoxicated my brain. But
as yet my soul had proved true to its vows, and the indications of
the presence of Eleonora were still given me in the silent hours of
the night. Suddenly these manifestations they ceased, and the world
grew dark before mine eyes, and I stood aghast at the burning
thoughts which possessed, at the terrible temptations which beset me;
for there came from some far, far distant and unknown land, into the
gay court of the king I served, a maiden to whose beauty my whole
recreant heart yielded at once -- at whose footstool I bowed down
without a struggle, in the most ardent, in the most abject worship of
love. What, indeed, was my passion for the young girl of the valley
in comparison with the fervor, and the delirium, and the
spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration with which I poured out my whole
soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde? -- Oh, bright
was the seraph Ermengarde! and in that knowledge I had room for none
other. -- Oh, divine was the angel Ermengarde! and as I looked down
into the depths of her memorial eyes, I thought only of them -- and
of her.
I wedded; -- nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its bitterness
was not visited upon me. And once -- but once again in the silence of
the night; there came through my lattice the soft sighs which had
forsaken me; and they modelled themselves into familiar and sweet
voice, saying:
"Sleep in peace! -- for the Spirit of Love reigneth and ruleth, and,
in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Ermengarde, thou art
absolved, for reasons which shall be made known to thee in Heaven, of
thy vows unto Eleonora."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
Notes to This Volume
Notes --- Scherezade
{*1} The coralites.
{*2} "One of the most remarkable natural curiosities in Texas is a
petrified forest, near the head of Pasigno river. It consists of
several hundred trees, in an erect position, all turned to stone.
Some trees, now growing, are partly petrified. This is a startling
fact for natural philosophers, and must cause them to modify the
existing theory of petrification. -- _Kennedy_.
This account, at first discredited, has since been corroborated by
the discovery of a completely petrified forest, near the head waters
of the Cheyenne, or Chienne river, which has its source in the Black
Hills of the rocky chain.
There is scarcely, perhaps, a spectacle on the surface of the globe
more remarkable, either in a geological or picturesque point of view
than that presented by the petrified forest, near Cairo. The
traveller, having passed the tombs of the caliphs, just beyond the
gates of the city, proceeds to the southward, nearly at right angles
to the road across the desert to Suez, and after having travelled
some ten miles up a low barren valley, covered with sand, gravel, and
sea shells, fresh as if the tide had retired but yesterday, crosses a
low range of sandhills, which has for some distance run parallel to
his path. The scene now presented to him is beyond conception
singular and desolate. A mass of fragments of trees, all converted
into stone, and when struck by his horse's hoof ringing like cast
iron, is seen to extend itself for miles and miles around him, in the
form of a decayed and prostrate forest. The wood is of a dark brown
hue, but retains its form in perfection, the pieces being from one to
fifteen feet in length, and from half a foot to three feet in
thickness, strewed so closely together, as far as the eye can reach,
that an Egyptian donkey can scarcely thread its way through amongst
them, and so natural that, were it in Scotland or Ireland, it might
pass without remark for some enormous drained bog, on which the
exhumed trees lay rotting in the sun. The roots and rudiments of the
branches are, in many cases, nearly perfect, and in some the
worm-holes eaten under the bark are readily recognizable. The most
delicate of the sap vessels, and all the finer portions of the centre
of the wood, are perfectly entire, and bear to be examined with the
strongest magnifiers. The whole are so thoroughly silicified as to
scratch glass and are capable of receiving the highest polish.--
_Asiatic Magazine_.
{*3} The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.
{*4} In Iceland, 1783.
{*5} "During the eruption of Hecla, in 1766, clouds of this kind
produced such a degree of darkness that, at Glaumba, which is more
than fifty leagues from the mountain, people could only find their
way by groping. During the eruption of Vesuvius, in 1794, at Caserta,
four leagues distant, people could only walk by the light of torches.
On the first of May, 1812, a cloud of volcanic ashes and sand, coming
from a volcano in the island of St. Vincent, covered the whole of
Barbadoes, spreading over it so intense a darkness that, at mid-day,
in the open air, one could not perceive the trees or other objects
near him, or even a white handkerchief placed at the distance of six
inches from the eye._" -- Murray, p. 215, Phil. edit._
{*6} In the year 1790, in the Caraccas during an earthquake a portion
of the granite soil sank and left a lake eight hundred yards in
diameter, and from eighty to a hundred feet deep. It was a part of
the forest of Aripao which sank, and the trees remained green for
several months under the water." -- _Murray_, p. 221
{*7} The hardest steel ever manufactured may, under the action of a
blowpipe, be reduced to an impalpable powder, which will float
readily in the atmospheric air.
{*8} The region of the Niger. See Simmona's _Colonial Magazine_ .
{*9} The Myrmeleon-lion-ant. The term "monster" is equally applicable
to small abnormal things and to great, while such epithets as "vast"
are merely comparative. The cavern of the myrmeleon is vast in
comparison with the hole of the common red ant. A grain of silex is
also a "rock."
{*10} The _Epidendron, Flos Aeris,_ of the family of the _Orchideae_,
grows with merely the surface of its roots attached t
o a tree or
other object, from which it derives no nutriment -- subsisting
altogether upon air.
{*11} The _Parasites,_ such as the wonderful _Rafflesia Arnaldii_.
{*12} _Schouw_ advocates a class of plants that grow upon living
animals -- the _Plantae_ _Epizoae_. Of this class are the _Fuci_ and
_Algae_.
_Mr. J. B. Williams, of Salem, Mass._, presented the "National
Institute" with an insect from New Zealand, with the following
description: " '_The Hotte_,a decided caterpillar, or worm, is found
gnawing at the root of the _Rota_ tree, with a plant growing out of
its head. This most peculiar and extraordinary insect travels up both
the _Rota_ and _Ferriri_ trees, and entering into the top, eats its
way, perforating the trunkof the trees until it reaches the root, and
dies, or remains dormant, and the plant propagates out of its head;
the body remains perfect and entire, of a harder substance than when
alive. From this insect the natives make a coloring for tattooing.
{*13} In mines and natural caves we find a species of cryptogamous
_fungus_ that emits an intense phosphorescence.
{*14} The orchis, scabius and valisneria.
{*15} The corolla of this flower (_Aristolochia Clematitis_), which
is tubular, but terminating upwards in a ligulate limb, is inflated
into a globular figure at the base. The tubular part is internally
beset with stiff hairs, pointing downwards. The globular part
contains the pistil, which consists merely of a germen and stigma,
together with the surrounding stamens. But the stamens, being shorter
than the germen, cannot discharge the pollen so as to throw it upon
the stigma, as the flower stands always upright till after
impregnation. And hence, without some additional and peculiar aid,
the pollen must necessarily fan down to the bottom of the flower.
Now, the aid that nature has furnished in this case, is that of the
_Tiputa Pennicornis_, a small insect, which entering the tube of the
corrolla in quest of honey, descends to the bottom, and rummages
about till it becomes quite covered with pollen; but not being able
to force its way out again, owing to the downward position of the
hairs, which converge to a point like the wires of a mouse-trap, and
being somewhat impatient of its confinement it brushes backwards and
forwards, trying every corner, till, after repeatedly traversing the
stigma, it covers it with pollen sufficient for its impregnation, in
consequence of which the flower soon begins to droop, and the hairs
to shrink to the sides of the tube, effecting an easy passage for the
escape of the insect." --_Rev. P. Keith-System of Physiological
Botany_.
{*16} The bees -- ever since bees were -- have been constructing
their cells with just such sides, in just such number, and at just
such inclinations, as it has been demonstrated (in a problem
involving the profoundest mathematical principles) are the very
sides, in the very number, and at the very angles, which will afford
the creatures the most room that is compatible with the greatest
stability of structure.
During the latter part of the last century, the question arose among
mathematicians--"to determine the best form that can be given to the
sails of a windmill, according to their varying distances from the
revolving vanes , and likewise from the centres of the revoloution."
This is an excessively complex problem, for it is, in other words, to
find the best possible position at an infinity of varied distances
and at an infinity of points on the arm.There were a thousand futile
attempts to answer the queryon the part of the most illustrious
mathematicians, and when at length, an undeniable soloution was
discovered, men found that the wings of a bird had given it with
absoloute precisionrvrt since the first bird had traversed the air.
{*17} He observed a flock of pigeons passing betwixt Frankfort and
the Indian territory, one mile at least in breadth; it took up four
hours in passing, which, at the rate of one mile per minute, gives a
length of 240 miles; and, supposing three pigeons to each square
yard, gives 2,230,272,000 Pigeons. -- "_Travels in Canada and the
United States," by Lieut. F. Hall._
{*18} The earth is upheld by a cow of a blue color, having horns four
hundred in number." -- _Sale's Koran_.
{*19} "The _Entozoa_, or intestinal worms, have repeatedly been
observed in the muscles, and in the cerebral substance of men." --
See Wyatt's Physiology, p. 143.
{*20} On the Great Western Railway, between London and Exeter, a
speed of 71 miles per hour has been attained. A train weighing 90
tons was whirled from Paddington to Didcot (53 miles) in 51 minutes.
{*21} The _Eccalobeion_
{*22} Maelzel's Automaton Chess-player.
{*23} Babbage's Calculating Machine.
{*24} _Chabert_, and since him, a hundred others.
{*25} The Electrotype.
{*26} _Wollaston_ made of platinum for the field of views in a
telescope a wire one eighteen-thousandth part of an inch in
thickness. It could be seen only by means of the microscope.
{*27} Newton demonstrated that the retina beneath the influence of
the violet ray of the spectrum, vibrated 900,000,000 of times in a
second.
{*28} Voltaic pile.
{*29} The Electro Telegraph Printing Apparatus.
{*30} The Electro telegraph transmits intelligence instantaneously-
at least at so far as regards any distance upon the earth.
{*31} Common experiments in Natural Philosophy. If two red rays from
two luminous points be admitted into a dark chamber so as to fall on
a white surface, and differ in their length by 0.0000258 of an inch,
their intensity is doubled. So also if the difference in length be
any whole-number multiple of that fraction. A multiple by 2 1/4, 3
1/4, &c., gives an intensity equal to one ray only; but a multiple by
2 1/2, 3 1/2, &c., gives the result of total darkness. In violet rays
similar effects arise when the difference in length is 0.000157 of an
inch; and with all other rays the results are the same -- the
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 75