A Modern Mephistopheles And A Whisper In The Dark

A haggard youth knelt before a little furnace, kindling a fire, with an expression of quiet desperation on his face, which made the simple operation strange and solemn. A pile of manuscript lay beside him, and in the hollow eyes that watched the white leaves burn was a tragic shadow, terrible to see, -for he was offering the first-born of heart and brain as sacrifice to a hard fate