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