I placed the slip of paper on the back of a book, and, collecting the fragments of the phosphorus matches which I had brought from the barrel, laid them together upon the paper.

I then, with the palm of my hand, rubbed the whole over quickly, yet steadily.

A clear light diffused itself immediately throughout the whole surface; and had there been any writing upon it, I should not have experienced the least difficulty, I am sure, in reading it.

Not a syllable was there, however--nothing but a dreary and unsatisfactory blank; the illumination died away in a few seconds, and my heart died away within me as it went.
I have before stated more than once that my intellect, for some period prior to this, had been in a condition nearly bordering on idiocy.

There were, to be sure, momentary intervals of perfect sanity, and, now and then, even of energy; but these were few.