<Night waned upon this talk, and even the witching hour
had gone by, before we retired to rest. When I placed my head
on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My
imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the
successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far
beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw -- with shut eyes,
but acute mental vision, -- I saw the pale student of unhallowed
arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the
hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the
working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir
with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for
supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavour
to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.
His success would terrify the artist; he would rush away from
his odious handywork, horror-stricken. He would hope that, left
to itself, the slight spark of life which he had communicated
would fade; that this thing, which had received such imperfect
animation, would subside into dead matter; and he might sleep in
the belief that the silence of the grave would quench for ever
the transient existence of the hideous corpse which he had
looked upon as the cradle of life. He sleeps; but he is
awakened; he opens his eyes; behold the horrid thing stands at
his bedside, opening his curtains, and looking on him with
yellow, watery, but speculative eyes.>