three in the morning
Anon , when some more expansive angel of flame would arise from the Pit with steady aspiration , and linger with outspread arms , and burst , I would lift a little from the chair , leaning forward to clap , as at some famous acting ; or I would call to them in shouts of cheer , giving them the names of Woman . For now I seemed to see nothing but some bellowing pandemonic universe through crimson glasses , and the air was wildly hot , and my eye-balls like theirs that walk staring in the inner midst of burning fiery furnaces , and my skin itched with a fierce and prickly itch . Anon I touched the chords of the harp to the air of Wagner 's ` Walküren-ritt . ' Near three in the morning , I reached the climax of my guilty sweets . My drunken eye-lids closed in a luxury of pleasure , and my lips lay stretched in a smile that dribbled ; a sensation of dear peace , of almighty power , consoled me : for now the whole area which through streaming tears I surveyed , mustering its ten thousand thunders , and brawling beyond the stars the voice of its southward-rushing torment , billowed to the horizon one grand Atlantic of smokeless and flushing flame ; and in it sported and washed themselves all the fiends of Hell , with laughter , shouts , wild flights , and holiday ; and I -- first of my race -- had flashed a signal to the nearer planets ... * * * * * * * * * * Those words : ` signal to the nearer planets ' I wrote nearly fourteen months ago , some days after the destruction of London , I being then on board the old _ Boreal _ , making for the coast of France : for the night was dark , though calm , and I was afraid of running into some ship , yet not sleepy , so I wrote to occupy my fingers , the ship lying still . The book in which I wrote has been near me : but no impulse to write anything has visited me , till now I continue ; not , however , that I have very much to put down . I had no intention of wearing out my life in lighting fires every morning to warm myself in the inhospitable island of Britain , and set out to France with the view of seeking some palace in the Riviera , Spain , or perhaps Algiers , there , for the present at least , to make my home .