A Night Journey Round my Room

The clock of St. Philip's Church slowly struck twelve. I counted, one after another, every stroke of the bell, and at the last one I heaved a sigh. "There," said I, "is another day of my life gone, and while the dying tones of the brazen bell are still vibrating in my ears, that part of my journey which preceded midnight is already quite as far from me as the voyages of Ulysses or Jason. In that abyss of the past, moments and ages are of the same duration, and even the future is no less unreal and inconceivable. " Between these two states of nonexistence I stand in equilibrium, as it were, on the edge of a blade.

In truth, Time seems to me something so inconceivable that I should be inclined to believe that it has no existence at all, and that what we call Time is nought but a fiction which we have invented to punish us. I was rejoicing at having found this definition of Time, though obscure as even Time itself, when another clock struck twelve, and this caused me an unpleasant sensation.