Page:"The Mummy" Volume 1.djvu/10

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iv
INTRODUCTION.

storehouse of my memory: I could think of nothing that had not been thought of before.

"It is very strange!" said I, as I walked faster, as though I hoped the rapidity of my motion would shake off the sluggishness of my imagination. It was all in vain! I struck my forehead and called wit to my assistance, but the malignant deity was deaf to my entreaty. "Surely," thought I, "the deep mine of invention cannot be worked out; there must be some new ideas left, if I could but find them." To find them, however, was the difficulty.

Thus lost in meditation, I walked onwards till I reached the brow of a hill, and a superb prospect burst upon me. A fertile valley richly wooded, studded with sumptuous villas and romantic cottages, and watered by a noble river, that wound slowly its lazy course along, spread beneath my feet; and lofty hills swelling to the skies, their summit lost in clouds, bounded the horizon. The sun was setting in all its splendour, and its lingering rays gave those glowing tints and deep masses of shadow to the landscape that sometimes pro-