At first sight I saw enough to satisfy me that she was not a daughter of Eve.  In her eye was the last flash of an expiring star, and her face had the pallor of an heroic death-struggle.  She was dressed in a drapery of a thousand changing colors of the brightest and the most sombre hues, and held a withered garland in her hand.

After having contemplated her for some moments, I asked her name, and what brought her into my attic.  Her eyes, which were following the movements of the clock, turned toward me, and she replied: 

“You see in me the year which is just drawing to its end; I come to receive your thanks and your farewell.”

I raised myself on my elbow in surprise, which soon gave place to bitter resentment.

“Ah! you want thanks,” cried I; “but first let me know what for?

“When I welcomed your coming, I was still young and vigorous:  you have taken from me each day some little of my strength, and you have ended by inflicting an illness upon me; already, thanks to you, my blood is less warm, my muscles less firm, and my feet less agile than before!  You have planted the germs of infirmity in my bosom; there, where the summer flowers of life were growing, you have wickedly sown the nettles of old age!

“And, as if it were not enough to weaken my body, you have also diminished the powers of my soul; you have extinguished her enthusiasm; she is become more sluggish and more timid.  Formerly her eyes took in the whole of mankind in their generous survey; but you have made her nearsighted, and now she hardly sees beyond herself!  That is what you have done for my spiritual being:  then as to my outward existence, see to what grief, neglect, and misery you have reduced it!  For the many days that the fever has kept me chained to this bed, who has taken care of this home in which I placed all my joy?  Shall I not find my closets empty, my bookcase, stripped, all my poor treasures lost through negligence or dishonesty?  Where are the plants I cultivated, the birds I fed?  All are gone! my attic is despoiled, silent and solitary!  As it is only for the last few moments that I have returned to a consciousness of what surrounds me, I am even ignorant who has nursed me during my long illness!  Doubtless some hireling, who will leave when all my means of recompense are exhausted!  And what will my masters, for whom I am bound to work, have said to my absence?  At this time of the year, when business is most pressing, can they have done without me, will they even have tried to do so?  Perhaps I am already superseded in the humble situation by which I earned my daily bread!  And it is thou-thou alone, wicked daughter of Time—­who hast brought all these misfortunes upon me:  strength, health, comfort, work—­thou hast taken all from me.  I have only received outrage and loss from thee, and yet thou darest to claim my gratitude!”

“Ah! die then, since thy day is come; but die despised and cursed; and may I write on thy tomb the epitaph the Arabian poet inscribed upon that of a king: