Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death
      utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.”

      Length of years, and subsequent reflection, have enabled me to
      trace, indeed, some remote connection between this passage in the
      English moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. An
      intensity in thought, action, or speech, was possibly, in her, a
      result, or at least an index, of that gigantic volition which,
      during our long intercourse, failed to give other and more
      immediate evidence of its existence. Of all the women whom I have
      ever known, she, the outwardly calm, the ever-placid Ligeia, was
      the most violently a prey to the tumultuous vultures of stern
      passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate, save by
      the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so delighted
      and appalled me—by the almost magical melody, modulation,
      distinctness and placidity of her very low voice—and by the
      fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her
      manner of utterance) of the wild words which she habitually
      uttered. I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia: it was immense—such as I
      have never known in woman. In the classical tongues was she
      deeply proficient, and as far as my own acquaintance extended in
      regard to the modern dialects of Europe, I have never known her
      at fault. Indeed upon any theme of the most admired, because
      simply the most abstruse of the boasted erudition of the academy,
      have I ever found Ligeia at fault? How singularly—how
      thrillingly, this one point in the nature of my wife has forced
      itself, at this late period only, upon my attention! I said her
      knowledge was such as I have never known in woman—but where
      breathes the man who has traversed, and successfully, all the
      wide areas of moral, physical, and mathematical science? I saw
      not then what I now clearly perceive, that the acquisitions of
      Ligeia were gigantic, were astounding; yet I was sufficiently
      aware of her infinite supremacy to resign myself, with a
      child-like confidence, to her guidance through the chaotic world
      of metaphysical investigation at which I was most busily occupied
      during the earlier years of our marriage. With how vast a
      triumph—with how vivid a delight—with how much of all that is
      ethereal in hope did I feel, as she bent over me in studies but
      little sought—but less known—that delicious vista by slow degrees
      expanding before me, down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden
      path, I might at length pass onward to the goal of a wisdom too
      divinely precious not to be forbidden! How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after
      some years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take wings to
      themselves and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but as a child
      groping benighted. Her presence, her readings alone, rendered
      vividly luminous the many mysteries of the transcendentalism in
      which we were immersed. Wanting the radiant lustre of her eyes,
      letters, lambent and golden, grew duller than Saturnian lead. And
      now those eyes shone less and less frequently upon the pages over
      which I pored. Ligeia grew ill. The wild eyes blazed with a
      too—too glorious effulgence; the pale fingers became of the
      transparent waxen hue of the grave; and the blue veins upon the
      lofty forehead swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of the
      gentle emotion. I saw that she must die—and I struggled
      desperately in spirit with the grim Azrael. And the struggles of
      the passionate wife were, to my astonishment, even more energetic
      than my own. There had been much in her stern nature to impress
      me with the belief that, to her, death would have come without
      its terrors; but not so. Words are impotent to convey any just
      idea of the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestled with
      the Shadow. I groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle. I
      would have soothed—I would have reasoned; but, in the intensity
      of her wild desire for life,—for life—but for life—solace and
      reason were the uttermost folly. Yet not until the last instance,
      amid the most convulsive writhings of her fierce spirit, was
      shaken the external placidity of her demeanor. Her voice grew
      more gentle—grew more low—yet I would not wish to dwell upon the
      wild meaning of the quietly uttered words. My brain reeled as I
      hearkened, entranced, to a melody more than mortal—to assumptions
      and aspirations which mortality had never before known. That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might have
      been easily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love would have
      reigned no ordinary passion. But in death only, was I fully
      impressed with the strength of her affection. For long hours,
      detaining my hand, would she pour out before me the overflowing
      of a heart whose more than passionate devotion amounted to
      idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by such
      confessions?—how had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal
      of my beloved in the hour of her making them? But upon this
      subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that in
      Ligeia’s more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all
      unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length recognized the
      principle of her longing with so wildly earnest a desire for the
      life which was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild
      longing—it is this eager vehemence of desire for life—but for
      life—that I have no power to portray—no utterance capable of
      expressing. At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning me,
      peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain verses
      composed by herself not many days before. I obeyed her. They were
      these:

Lo! ’tis a gala night
    Within the lonesome latter years! An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
    In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
    A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
    The music of the spheres. Mimes, in the form of God on high,
    Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly;
    Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
    That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
    Invisible Wo! That motley drama!—oh, be sure
    It shall not be forgot! With its Phantom chased forever more,
    By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
    To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness and more of Sin
    And Horror the soul of the plot. But see, amid the mimic rout,
    A crawling shape intrude! A blood-red thing that writhes from out
    The scenic solitude!