ther self engaged
in study and meditation, now walking up and down the room, immersed in
thought, now sitting down at the desk to write, now rising to search
for a volume among the book-shelves, and imitating in all respects
the peculiar habits of the great Doctor engaged at work and busy with
cogitations. At length, when the cathedral clock had finished striking
through first four and then eleven strokes, as German clocks are wont
to do an hour before twelve, De Wette Number Two manifested signs of
retiring to rest,--took out his watch, the identical large gold one the
other Doctor in the other chamber felt sure was at that moment safe
in his waistcoat-pocket, and wound it up, removed a portion of his
clothing, came to the window, closed the curtains, and in a few moments
the light disappeared. De Wette Number One, waiting a little time until
convinced that Number Two had disposed himself to sleep, retired also
his-self to bed, wondering very much what all this could mean.

Rising the next morning, he crossed the street, and passed up-stairs to
his library. The door was fastened; he applied the key, opened it, and
entered. No one was there; everything appeared in precisely the same
condition in which he had left it the evening before,--his pen lying
upon the paper as he had dropped it on going out, the candles on the
table and the mantel-piece evidently not having been lighted, the
window-curtains drawn aside as he had left them; in fine, there was not
a single trace of any person's having been in the room. "Had he been
insane the night before? He must have been. He was growing old;
something was the matter with his eyes or brain; anyhow, he had been
deceived, and it was very foolish of him to have remained away all
night." Endeavoring to satisfy his mind with some such reflections
as these, he remembered he had not yet examined his bed-room. Almost
ashamed to make the search, now convinced it was all an hallucination of
the senses, he crossed the narrow passageway and opened the door. He
was thunderstruck. The ceiling, a lofty, massive brick arch, had fallen
during the night, filling the room with rubbish and crushing his bed
into atoms. De Wette the Apparition had saved the life of the great
German scholar.

Tholuck, who was walking with me in the fields near Halle when relating
the anecdote, added, upon concluding, "I do not pretend to account
for the phenomenon; no knowledge, scientific or metaphysical, in my
pos