midnight
These thoughts supported my spirits , while I pursued my undertaking with unremitting ardour . My cheek had grown pale with study , and my person had become emaciated with confinement . Sometimes , on the very brink of certainty , I failed ; yet still I clung to the hope which the next day or the next hour might realize . One secret which I alone possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself ; and the moon gazed on my midnight labours , while , with unrelaxed and breathless eagerness , I pursued nature to her hiding places . Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil , as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave , or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay ? My limbs now tremble , and my eyes swim with the remembrance ; but then a resistless , and almost frantic impulse , urged me forward ; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit . It was indeed but a passing trance , that only made me feel with renewed acuteness so soon as , the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate , I had returned to my old habits .