The woman never raised her face, the upper part of which alone I could see distinctly; but, as soon as I stepped within the threshold, she began to read aloud, in a low and not altogether unpleasing voice, from an ancient little volume which she held open with one hand on the table upon which stood the lamp.

What she read was something like this: "So, then, as darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever have an end.

So, then, is it eternal.

The negation of aught else, is its affirmation.

Where the light cannot come, there abideth the darkness.
The light doth but hollow a mine out of the infinite extension of the darkness.