They
greedily devour their miserable meals, while I loathe mine. They sleep
sometimes soundly, while my sleep is--worse than their waking. They are
revived every morning by some delicious illusion of cunning madness,
soothing them with the hope of escaping, baffling or tormenting their
keeper; my sanity precludes all such hope. _I know I never can escape_,
and the preservation of my faculties is only an aggravation of my
sufferings. I have all their miseries,--I have none of their
consolations. They laugh,--I hear them; would I could laugh like them.’
You will try, and the very effort will be an invocation to the demon of
insanity to come and take full possession of you from that moment for
ever. (11) A fact, related to me by a person who was near committing suicide
  in a similar situation, to escape what he called “the excruciating
  torture of giddiness.”

(There were other details, both of the menaces and temptations employed
by Melmoth, which are too horrible for insertion. One of them may serve
for an instance). “You think that the intellectual power is something distinct from the
vitality of the soul, or, in other words, that if even your reason
should be destroyed, (which it nearly is), your soul might yet enjoy
beatitude in the full exercise of its enlarged and exalted faculties,
and all the clouds which obscured them be dispelled by the Sun of
Righteousness, in whose beams you hope to bask for ever and ever. Now,
without going into any metaphysical subtleties about the distinction
between mind and soul, experience must teach you, that there can be no
crime into which madmen would not, and do not precipitate themselves;
mischief is their occupation, malice their habit, murder their sport,
and blasphemy their delight. Whether a soul in this state can be in a
hopeful one, it is for you to judge; but it seems to me, that with the
loss of reason, (and reason cannot long be retained in this place), you
lose also the hope of immortality.--Listen,” said the tempter, pausing,
“listen to the wretch who is raving near you, and whose blasphemies
might make a demon start.--He was once an eminent puritanical preacher. Half the day he imagines himself in a pulpit, denouncing damnation
against Papists, Arminians, and even Sub-lapsarians, (he being a
Supra-lapsarian himself). He foams, he writhes, he gnashes his teeth;
you would imagine him in the hell he was painting, and that the fire and
brimstone he is so lavish of, were actually exhaling from his jaws. At
night his _creed retaliates on him_; he believes himself one of the
reprobates he has been all day denouncing, and curses God for the very
decree he has all day been glorifying Him for. “He, whom he has for twelve hours been vociferating “is the loveliest
among ten thousand,” becomes the object of demoniac hostility and
execration. He grapples with the iron posts of his bed, and says he is
rooting out the cross from the very foundations of Calvary; and it is
remarkable, that in proportion as his morning exercises are intense,
vivid, and eloquent, his nightly blasphemies are outrageous and
horrible.--Hark! Now he believes himself a demon; listen to his
diabolical eloquence of horror!”

Stanton listened, and shuddered * * * * * * “Escape--escape for your
life,” cried the tempter; “break forth into life, liberty, and sanity. Your social happiness, your intellectual powers, your immortal
interests, perhaps, depend on the choice of this moment.--There is the
door, and the key is my hand. Choose--choose!”--“And how comes the key
in your hand? and what is the condition of my liberation?” said Stanton. * * * * * * *

The explanation occupied several pages, which, to the torture of young
Melmoth, were wholly illegible. It seemed, however, to have been
rejected by Stanton with the utmost rage and horror, for Melmoth at last
made out,--“Begone, monster, demon!--begone to your native place. Even
this mansion of horror trembles to contain you; its walls sweat, and its
floors quiver, while you tread them.” * * * * * * * *

The conclusion of this extraordinary manuscript was in such a state,
that, in fifteen mouldy and crumbling pages, Melmoth could hardly make
out that number of lines. No antiquarian, unfolding with trembling hand
the calcined leaves of an Herculaneum manuscript, and hoping to discover
some lost lines of the Æneis in Virgil’s own autograph, or at least some
unutterable abomination of Petronius or Martial, happily elucidatory of
the mysteries of the Spintriæ, or the orgies of the Phallic worshippers,
ever pored with more luckless diligence, or shook a head of more
hopeless despondency over his task. He could but just make out what
tended rather to excite than assuage that feverish thirst of curiosity
which was consuming his inmost soul. The manuscript told no more of
Melmoth, but mentioned that Stanton was finally liberated from his
confinement,--that his pursuit of Melmoth was incessant and
indefatigable,--that he himself allowed it to be a species of
insanity,--that while he acknowledged it to be the master-passion, he
also felt it the master-torment of his life. He again visited the
Continent, returned to England,--pursued, inquired, traced, bribed, but
in vain. The being whom he had met thrice, under circumstances so
extraordinary, he was fated never to encounter again _in his life-time_. At length, discovering that he had been born in Ireland, he resolved to
go there,--went, and found his pursuit again fruitless, and his
inquiries unanswered. The family knew nothing of him, or at least what
they knew or imagined, they prudently refused to disclose to a stranger,
and Stanton departed unsatisfied. It is remarkable, that he too, as
appeared from many half-obliterated pages of the manuscript, never
disclosed to mortal the particulars of their conversation in the
mad-house; and the slightest allusion to it threw him into fits of rage
and gloom equally singular and alarming. He left the manuscript,
however, in the hands of the family, possibly deeming, from their
incuriosity, their apparent indifference to their relative, or their
obvious inacquaintance with reading of any kind, manuscript or books,
his deposit would be safe. He seems, in fact, to have acted like men,
who, in distress at sea, intrust their letters and dispatches to a
bottle sealed, and commit it to the waves. The last lines of the
manuscript that were legible, were sufficiently extraordinary. * * * * *
*

“I have sought him every where.--The desire of meeting him once more, is
become as a burning fire within me,--it is the necessary condition of my
existence. I have vainly sought him at last in Ireland, of which I find
he is a native.--Perhaps our final meeting will be in * * * * * *

Such was the conclusion of the manuscript which Melmoth found in his
uncle’s closet.