The New-York Weekly Magazine, or Miscellaneous Repository Part 119

"One question more!" the Duke said, "What do you think of the occult wisdom which Hiermanfor is said to have learnt from the Bramins?"

"That it consists in a profound knowledge of physic and natural history."

"And the supernatural power he is boasting of--?"

"Is nothing but a skilful application of that knowledge!"

The Duke remained silent for some time, and then resumed:

"You think it impossible for mortals to acquire a supernatural power?"

I smiled.

"It seems you deny also the possibility of miracles?" Alumbrado said with a dreadful look, which he however soon sweetened again.

"I am convinced of the possibility of miracles," I replied, "because it is self-evident that G.o.d, who is the author of the laws of nature, can alter and suspend them; but this only the Creator can do; man, consequently, is not capable of working miracles."

"But men can become instruments in the hand of G.o.d," Alumbrado continued, "whereby Providence performs miracles!"

"Undoubtedly, but no wretches like the Irishman. The eternal source of truth and holiness can never employ, as an immediate instrument, an impostor who deals in lies and artifice."

"Where will you find a mortal without fault?" the Duke said, "indeed you are too much prejudiced against the Irishman. He did not deceive me out of malice or selfishness, but only for the sake of a just and n.o.ble purpose."

"Actions that are in themselves immoral, like imposition and lies, never can be rendered moral by the justness of their end, and an organ of the G.o.dhead never can employ means of so culpable a nature. But, my friend, if you really are persuaded the furtherance of the revolution to have been a n.o.ble and just action, why has the Irishman been obliged to exert all his arts to prevail on you to a.s.sist in the execution of that undertaking?"

The Duke cast his eyes to the ground, and Alumbrado left us. Miguel seemed to be penetrated with shame and confusion, and continued for some time to keep his eyes rivetted to the ground without uttering a word.

I took him affectionately by the hand: "It was not my intention to tell you my opinion of your adventures with the Irishman in Alumbrado's presence; you have forced me to do it, and I could not help telling my mind freely."

"I thank you for it."

"Your obstinacy and my frankness may prove fatal to me."

"How so?"

"It will perhaps cost me my life and liberty."

"I do not comprehend you."

"I have declared myself against the belief in apparitions, and Alumbrado is perhaps at present on the road to the inquisition, in order to inform against me."

"Have you not yet conquered your prejudices against him? Don't be uneasy, and cease judging unjustly of a man against whom you have no reason of complaint, except a countenance you do not like."

"You did not observe the fiend-like look he darted at me. O my friend, whatever may befall me, I will submit willingly to it, if I have succeeded in recalling you from your errors!"

"I thank you for your love, but I apprehend very much I am one of those unhappy men of whom you have been saying, that no arguments of reason can remove their delusion. I am sensible that my sensations has an immediate evidence, which overpowers every persuasion of the understanding---this I am sensible of, as often as I recall to my mind the apparition at the church-yard."

"You view me with looks of pity," the Duke continued, after a short pause, "I divine your thoughts. However, if you had seen what I have witnessed---"

"Then I should have been astonished at the artful delusion, and the dexterity of the Irishman."

"And at the same time would not have been able to conceive, as well as myself, how it could have been performed in a natural manner."

"I grant it; but I never conclude that any thing has been performed by supernatural means, because I cannot comprehend how it could have been effected in a natural manner. These was a time when you fancied the apparition in Amelia's apartment to have been effected by supernatural means, and yet it was not so. Who would have the childish arrogance to fancy his intellectual faculties to be the scale of the powers of nature, and his knowledge the limit of human art? However, the apparition of the church-yard has some defects, which its author could not efface in spite of his dexterity, and which easily would have dispelled the delusion before the eyes of a cool observer. The Irishman could not give to the phantom the accent of Antonio's voice, how skilfully soever he imitated his features. That the apparition did not move his eyes and lips, nor any limb, is also a suspicious circ.u.mstance, that proves the limits of the artificer's skill. But what renders the reality of the apparition most suspicious is, undoubtedly, your friend's ignorance of what his pretended spirit (consequently his proper self) told you at the church-yard; for if he had known any thing of it, he would not have concealed it from the Prince of Braganza, in whose arms he died, much less from you, in his farewell letter. Finally, if you consider what your tutor has told the Prince about his statue, which has been cut in wood during his imprisonment, you will find it very probable that the Irishman has made use of it in some manner or other for effecting that delusion."

The Duke stared at me like a person suddenly roused from a profound sleep.--"Marquis!" he said, at length, "you have opened my eyes; but my unwont looks are unable to penetrate another fact I cannot expel from my memory."

"Again, an apparition--?"

"Which, however, did not happen to me, but to my father."

"You mean the apparition of Count San*?"

"The very same."

"Your father has related to me all the particulars of it; I have reflected upon it, and imagine I am capable of explaining it in a natural manner. Your father received, two days before the ghost appeared to him, a letter, by which he was informed that the Count was dangerously ill, and that his life was despaired of on account of his advanced age. This intelligence affected him violently, and the idea of the impending dissolution of his dearest friend, prevailed in his mind from that moment. The melancholy of your father seemed to encrease hourly, reduced him in the day to the state of a dreaming person, and disturbed his rest at night. As often us he awoke in the second night, he fancied he heard somebody groan, yet the groaning person was undoubtedly n.o.body but himself, and the cause of his groans originated from the pressure of the blood against the breast. This pressure awakened him once more, early in the morning, with some violence; he fell again asleep a few minutes after, and it was very natural that the object of the dream that stole upon him should be no other but Count San*. Your father mistook that dream for a real apparition, and nothing is more pardonable than this self-deceit. The only circ.u.mstance that renders this incident remarkable, is, that the Count really expired in that very hour. However, I ask you whether it be so very strange, if our imagination, which deceives us so many thousand times by its delusions, should at length coincide once accidentally with the truth?"

"One rather ought to wonder," the Duke replied, "that this is so rarely the case."

"Here you have two instances of apparitions," I resumed, "which agree in their being delusions, only with that difference, that one of them which happened at the church-yard originated from external causes, and the other from the imagination of your father. We are not always so fortunate as to be able to explain apparitions in so natural a manner; our incapacity and ignorance gives us, however, no right to think that they are supernatural."

"You think then that the belief in apparitions and the influence of spirits originates merely from ignorance?"

"Certainly; when man was yet in his unpolished state, and ignorant of the laws of nature and of thinking, the uncivilized mortals could not but observe many external phenomena which they could not explain, their stock of experimental knowledge not being equal to that task.

Necessitated by the law of reason to search for the cause of every effect, they subst.i.tuted unknown causes, when unable to find out any that were known to them, and mistook these powers for spirits, because they were invisible to them, though they perceived their effects."

"I do not deny, my friend, that the original source of the belief in apparitions, and the influence of spirits, has taken its rise from an evidently false conclusion. It has however been frequently the fate of truth, that its discovery was founded on erroneous premises; consequently the manner in which an idea is generated cannot render its internal truth suspected, provided it be supported by other valid arguments."

"Your remark is very just and true, yet it cannot be applied to the present case, for I have already proved that we possess neither an external nor an internal criterion by which we could discern the influence and apparition of those invisible beings, and that we consequently have no sufficient reason to believe in their existence.

This too I will not contest. You have, however, proved only the impossibility of finding out a criterion by which we could discern the real influence of spirits, but not the impossibility of that influence itself. It may yet be supposed that these beings can produce apparitions without, and effects within ourselves, and that we are connected with them in an effectual and secret manner. While this internal impossibility is not proved, it will not be absurd to imagine that men who mortify their sensuality, who are entirely absorbed in meditation, and fix their looks merely on super-terrestial things, may be favoured more frequently with the influence of spiritual beings, and a more intimate connection with them."

(_To be continued._)

ANECDOTE OF MR. FERGUSON.

The following story Mr. Ferguson used frequently to repeat: He had finished the picture of a handsome young lady, whose numerous friends, though they commended the piece, found each some small faults, they thought might be corrected, which would render the likeness complete.

Mr. Ferguson, when informed of it, desired they all might meet him at a certain hour, and being properly placed, with his pallet and brushes in his hand, the picture before him, and the lady sitting in a just light, he begged to be favoured with the opinions and objections of the company present, one by one; he acquiesced with them all, and put himself in a posture to remedy the defects, pointed out. When he had gone through the whole he turned the picture towards them, and every one p.r.o.nounced it so finished a piece, and so perfect a likeness, that it could not be improved. He then requested them to examine both the pencils and canva.s.s, which had been all along perfectly dry, and left them to draw their own conclusions.

+The HISTORY of Mrs. MORDAUNT.+ [Written by Herself.]

(Continued from our last.)