Page:The Scots Magazine and Edinburgh Literary Miscellany (vol 94, 1824).djvu/603

 hope. Eleonora had laid aside all her affectation. “Saalburg,” said she, with a gentle blush, as he entered, “you know that I have loved; but I have expelled from my heart the traitor who robbed me of those feelings which ought to have been yours. If my heart has still any value in your eyes, take it with this hand, and with it my warmest esteem—my tenderest affection!”

Saalburg kissed the offered hand with delight. “Eleonora,” said he, “Fortune has lowered on me once; now I can bid defiance to her frowns.” And he pressed her to his heart.  was one evening in the latter end of October 1810, that I was left about an hour before midnight, almost alone, in one of the public rooms of the principal hotel in Mantua. The apartment was spacious, and its size seemed augmented, by the scarcity of inmates. A man of apparently spare habits, habited in somewhat rusty garments, and whose general appearance was much below that of the company accustomed to frequent the house, was my only companion. The fire was low, and the candles glimmered dimly in the extent of the room. I had looked in turns over the Gazettes, which were scattered on the tables, and began to think of retiring. I endeavoured to gaze out of the window, but the night was pitchy-dark, and no object was discernible, except where the lamps, attached to the public buildings in the street, made half visible the ill-defined masses of buildings. I sunk back to my seat by the dying coals, and perplexed myself with weighing the comparative advantages of departing to my lodgings, or remaining at the hotel for the night. The clock struck, and I found it was within a quarter of the witching hour. The stranger had not yet spoken, nor was I inclined to break the silence; at length my companion spoke.

“I think, Sir,” said he, “that in the debate which took place this evening, you inclined to the opinion maintained by the Signor Ripari?” There was something in his manner and the tone of his voice much superior to what I should have expected from his appearance.

I answered him in the affirmative.

“Your reasonings, then, do not induce you to believe in the possibility of the appearance on earth of a departed spirit, or at least in the power of such a being to make its presence perceptible to human creatures such as ourselves.”

“I certainly am not guilty,” I replied, “of presuming to assert that such a revisitation is beyond the limits of possibility; probability I own the opinion in question appears to be devoid of.”

“True; argument is against the hypothesis.”

“I know but one in favour of it—the general assent of all ages and nations to the re-appearance of the dead.”

“I do not think,” said he, “that much strength is to be acquired from that argument, considering the state of the earthly inhabitants of the world; their confined reasonings and mental investigation—their consequent wonder and astonishment at many of the operations of Nature, which, though now familiar, were to them inexplicable, may account for the use of a notion, which, when once conceived, would be eagerly embraced, and widely disseminated. Argument, therefore, I may repeat, is entirely against the credibility of the opinion.”

“In that case,” I replied, “the question must be considered as settled, for by what means, except argument, are such inquiries to be prosecuted?”

“You do not, of course, consider arguments, or the conviction arising from them, as the only sources of belief?”

“Certainly not: belief may originate from numerous causes—for instance, from the retention of what has been shewn to us by experience.”

“It is upon that very cause that I ground my belief in the re-appearance of the forms of the dead.”

“Then you are a believer? But do you think that the testimony of Rh