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Could he , for an instant , have supposed that , in my admonisher at Eton , in the destroyer of my honor at Oxford , in him who thwarted my ambition at Rome , my revenge in Paris , my passionate love at Naples , or what he falsely termed my avarice in Egypt , that in this , my arch-enemy and evil genius , I could fail to recognise the William Wilson of my schoolboy days , the namesake , the companion , the rival , the hatred and dreaded rival at Dr. Bransby 's ? I had therefore every reason to be grateful ; although , in point of fact , I was still too stupid to be any thing at all , and hung for , perhaps , a quarter of an hour , in that extraordinary manner , without making the slightest farther exertion , and in a singularly tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment . — at Rome , with how untimely , yet with how spectral an officiousness , stepped he in between me and my ambition ! Having , as I thought , sufficiently collected my ideas , I now , with great caution and deliberation , put my hands behind my back , and unfastened the large iron buckle which belonged to the waist-band of my pantaloons . Upon passing the hand over them they seemed to have protruded from their sockets in no inconsiderable degree ; and all objects in the car , and even the balloon itself , appeared distorted to my vision . " ( The weather was cold ; and , upon quitting my own room , I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper , putting it off upon reaching the scene of play . The singular being who had so disastrously exposed me , had been muffled , I remembered , in a cloak ; and none had been worn at all by any of the members of our party with the exception of myself . Unless for default of this renovation , I could see no reason , therefore , why life could not be sustained even in a vacuum ; for the expansion and compression of chest , commonly called breathing , is action purely muscular , and the cause , not the effect , of respiration .