Came the time when all below my knees had ceased.
Such was the pitch of my perfect exaltation, that I knew not the slightest prod of rejoicing at my success.

I knew nothing save that I was making my body die.

All that was I was devoted to that sole task.

I performed the work as thoroughly as any mason laying bricks, and I regarded the work as just about as commonplace as would a brick-mason regard his work.
At the end of an hour my body was dead to the hips, and from the hips up, joint by joint, I continued to will the ascending death.
It was when I reached the level of my heart that the first blurring and dizzying of my consciousness' occurred.

For fear that I should lose consciousness, I willed to hold the death I had gained, and shifted my concentration to my fingers.