Whoever has, in the course of his life, indulged the absorbing passion of the gamester, will remember bow all other pursuits and objects vanished from his mind, how solely he was wrapped in the one wild delusion; with what a sceptre of magic power the despot demon ruled every feeling and every thought.

Far more intense than the passion of the gamester was the frantic yet sublime desire that mastered the breast of Glyndon.

He would be the rival of Zicci, not in human and perishable affections, but in preternatural and eternal lore.

He would have laid down life with content, nay, rapture, as the price of learning those solemn secrets which separated the stranger from mankind..

Such fools are we when we aspire to be over-wise! To be enamoured too madly of the goddess of goddesses is only to embrace a cloud, and to forfeit alike heaven and earth.
The night was most lovely and serene, and the waves scarcely rippled at his feet as the Englishman glided on by the cool and starry beach.