And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God
is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels,
nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will. --- Joseph Glanvill.
I CANNOT, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I first became
acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble
through much suffering. Or, perhaps, I cannot now bring these points to mind, because, in
truth, the character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid cast of
beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low musical language, made
their way into my heart by paces so steadily and stealthily progressive that they have
been unnoticed and unknown. Yet I believe that I met her first and most frequently in
some large, old, decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family --- I have surely heard her
speak. That it is of a remotely ancient date cannot be doubted. Ligeia! Ligeia! in studies
of a nature more than all else adapted to deaden impressions of the outward world, it is by
that sweet word alone --- by Ligeia --- that I bring before mine eyes in fancy the image of
her who is no more. And now, while I write, a recollection flashes upon me that I have
never known the paternal name of her who was my friend and my betrothed, and who
became the partner of my studies, and finally the wife of my bosom. Was it a playful
charge on the part of my Ligeia? or was it a test of my strength of affection, that I should
institute no inquiries upon this point? or was it rather a caprice of my own --- a wildly
romantic offering on the shrine of the most passionate devotion? I but indistinctly recall
the fact itself --- what wonder that I have utterly forgotten the circumstances which
originated or attended it? And, indeed, if ever she, the wan and the misty-winged
Ashtophet of idolatrous Egypt, presided, as they tell, over marriages ill-omened, then
most surely she presided over mine.
There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory falls me not. It is the person of
Ligeia. In stature she was tall, somewhat slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated.
I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or the
incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came and departed as a
shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into my closed study save by the dear
music of her low sweet voice, as she placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty
of face no maiden ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream --- an airy
and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered vision
about the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her features were not of that
regular mould which we have been falsely taught to worship in the classical labors of the
heathen. "There is no exquisite beauty," says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all
the forms and genera of beauty, without some strangeness in the proportion." Yet,
although I saw that the features of Ligeia were not of a classic regularity --- although I
perceived that her loveliness was indeed "exquisite," and felt that there was much of
"strangeness" pervading it, yet I have tried in vain to detect the irregularity and to trace
home my own perception of "the strange." I examined the contour of the lofty and pale
forehead --- it was faultless --- how cold indeed that word when applied to a majesty so
divine! --- the skin rivalling the purest ivory, the commanding extent and repose, the
