Page:The genius - Carl Grosse tr Joseph Trapp 1796.djvu/21

 done a humane and charitable action, resumed my favorite walk. The great number of strangers I saw there, afforded me a very agreeable pastime; but the figure and deportment of a man, muffled up in a large cloak, with his hat slouched over one half of his face, chiefly engrossed my notice. He daily came to the chapel, was very short in his devotion, and each time stopt a few minutes before the gate to read an ancient inscription, then hung his head in a melancholy pause, hid himself deeper in his cloak, and suddenly went away. His frequent visiting the chapel, and his whole air and demeanor, become equally striking to the rest of the devotees. Whole crowds of people, at last, came from the city, stared at the mystic inscription on the church-wall, and the stranger soon found its avenues quite inaccessible on his arrival, while the gaping multitude, pointed with their fingers at him, and called out so loudly, Behold the Sorcerer! that I really thought he would not have returned again.

"But he never missed a day, and if he could get near the stone, always fixed his