Chapter 245

232 MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE guidance of my wife, and entered with an unflinching heart into the intricacies of her studies. And then — then, when poring over forbidden pages, I felt a forbidden spirit enkindling within me — would Morelia place her cold hand upon my own, and rake up from the ashes of a dead philosophy some low, singular words, whose strange meaning burned themselves in upon my memory. And then, hour after hour, would I linger by her side, and dwell upon the music of her voice, until at length its melody was tainted with terror, and there fell a shadow upon my soul, and I grew pale, and shuddered inwardly at those unearthly tones. And thus, joy suddenly faded into horror, and the most beautiful became the most hideous, as Hinnom became Ge-Henna. It is unnecessary to state the exact character of those disquisitions which, growing out of the volumes I have mentioned, formed, for so long a time, almost the sole conversation of Morelia and myself. By the learned in what might be termed theological morality they will be readily conceived, and by the unlearned, they would, at all events, be little understood. The wild Pantheism of Fichte; the modified TLaWiyyeveaia of Pythagoreans; and above all, the doctrines of Identity as urged by Schelling, were generally the points of discussion presenting the most of beauty to the imaginative Morelia. That identity which is termed personal, Mr. Locke, I think, truly defines to consist in the sameness of a rational being. And since by person we understand an intelligent essence having reason, and since there is a consciousness which always accompanies thinking, it is this which makes us all to be that which we call ourselves , thereby distinguishing us from other beings that think, and giving us our personal identity. But principium individuationis , the notion of that identity which at death is or is not lost forever, was to me, at all times, a consideration of intense interest; not more from the perplexing and exciting nature of its con