It is a singular
fact that the features of this favorite phantom bore a very close
resemblance to those of a boy older than myself whom I feared and
hated: still the resemblance was so strong that I called him by the
same name, Harvey.
"Harvey's visits were always expected and always pleasant; but
sometimes there were visitations of another sort, odious and
frightful. One of these I will relate as a specimen of the rest."
"One night, after I had retired to bed and was looking for Harvey, I
observed an unusual number of the tunnel-shaped tremulous clouds
already described, and they seemed intensely black and strongly
agitated. This alarmed me exceedingly, and I had a terrible feeling
that something awful was going to happen. It was not long before I saw
Harvey at his accustomed place, cautiously peeping at me through the
aperture, with an expression of pain and terror on his countenance. He
seemed to warn me to be on my guard, but was afraid to put his head
into the room lest he should be touched by one of the clouds, which
were every moment growing thicker and more numerous. Harvey soon
withdrew and left me alone. On turning my eyes towards the left-hand
wall of the room, I thought I saw at an immense distance below me the
regions of the damned, as I had heard them pictured in sermons. From
this awful world of horror the tunnel-shaped clouds were ascending,
and I perceived that they were the principal instruments of torture in
these gloomy abodes.
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