midnight
Filled though it was with sparkling bijouterie that would have graced the Barberini or Strozzi cabinets , the glitter of the room was cold and cheerless . No light , childish feet had ever pattered down the long rows of shining tiles ; no gushing , mirthful laughter had ever echoed through those lofty windows ; everything pointed to the past -- a classic , storied past , but dead as the mummies of Karnac , and treacherously , repulsively lustrous as the waves that break in silver circles over the buried battlements , and rustling palms and defiled altars of the proud cities of the plain . No rosy memories of early , happy manhood lingered here ; no dewy gleam of the merry morning of life , when hope painted and peopled a smiling world ; no magic trifles that prattled of the springtime of a heart , that in wandering to and fro through the earth , had fed itself with dust and ashes , acrid and bitter ; had studiously collected only the melancholy symbols of mouldering ruin , desolation , and death , and which found its best type in the Taj Mahal , that glistened so mockingly as the gas-light flickered over it . A stranger looking upon St. Elmo Murray for the first time , as he paced the floor , would have found it difficult to realize that only thirty-four years had plowed those deep , rugged lines in his swarthy and colorless but still handsome face ; where midnight orgies and habitual excesses had left their unmistakable plague-spot , and Mephistopheles had stamped his signet . Blase , cynical , scoffing , and hopeless , he had stranded his life , and was recklessly striding to his grave , trampling upon the feelings of all with whom he associated , and at war with a world , in which his lordly brilliant intellect would have lifted him to any eminence he desired , and which , properly directed , would have made him the benefactor and ornament of the society he snubbed and derided . Like all strong though misguided natures , the power and activity of his mind enhanced his wretchedness , and drove him farther and farther from the path of rectitude ; while the consciousness that he was originally capable of loftier , purer aims , and nobler pursuits than those that now engrossed his perverted thoughts , rendered him savagely morose . For nearly fifteen dreary years , nothing but jeers and oaths and sarcasms had crossed his finely sculptured lips , which had forgotten how to smile ; and it was only when the mocking demon of the wine-cup looked out from his gloomy gray eyes that his ringing , sneering laugh struck like a dagger to the heart that loved him , that of his proud but anxious and miserable mother .