The next morning, when I awoke, I joined with all haste the aggregate crowd that proceeded in masses towards the lake—­or Purgatory—­which lies amongst the hills that extend to the north-east of Petigo.  While ascending the bleak, hideous mountain range, whose ridge commands a full view of this celebrated scene of superstition, the manner and appearance of the pilgrims were deeply interesting.  Such groupings as pressed forward around me would have made line studies either for him who wished to deplore or to ridicule the degradations and absurdities of human nature; indeed there was an intense interest in the scene.  I look back at this moment with awe towards the tremulous and high-strained vibrations of my mind, as it responded to the excitement.  Reader, have you ever approached the Eternal City? have you ever, from the dreary solitudes of the Campagna, seen the dome of St. Peter’s for the first time? and have the monuments of the greatest men and the mightiest deeds that ever the earth witnessed—­have the names of the Caesars, and the Catos, and the Scipios, excited a curiosity amounting to a sensation almost too intense to be borne?  I think I can venture to measure the expansion of your mind, as it enlarged itself before the crowding visions of the past, as the dim grandeur of ages rose up and developed itself from amidst the shadows of time; and entranced amidst the magic of your own associations, you desired to stop—­you were almost content to go no farther—­your own Rome, you were in the midst of—­Rome free—­Rome triumphant—­Rome classical.  And perhaps it is well you awoke in good time from your shadowy dream, to escape from the unvaried desolation and the wasting malaria that brooded all around.  Reader, I can fancy that such might have been your sensations when the domes and the spires of the world’s capital first met your vision; and I can assure you, that while ascending the ridge that was to give me a view of Patrick’s Purgatory, my sensations were as impressively, as powerfully excited.  For I desire you to recollect, that the welfare of your immortal soul was not connected with your imaginings, your magnificent visions did not penetrate into the soul’s doom.  You were not submitted to the agency, of a transcendental power.  You were, in a word, a poet, but not a fanatic.  What comparison, then, could there be between the exercise of your free, manly, cultivated understanding, and my feelings on this occasion, with my thick-coming visions of immortality, that almost lifted me from the mountain-path I was ascending, and brought me, as it were, into contact with the invisible world?  I repeat it, then, that such were my feelings, when all the faculties which exist in the mind were aroused and concentrated upon one object.  In such a case, the pilgrim stands, as it were, between life and death; and as it was superstition that placed him there, she certainly conjures up to his heated fancy those dark, fleeting, and indistinct images which are adjusted to that gloom