ea is as impossible as a single and
independent particle of matter; and that as various as are the shapes of
objects constituted by the combination of particles, so various are the
minds formed by the combination of ideas. And as idea linked with idea
rose in his mind, he followed on, weaving a chain as incomprehensible to
most minds as the inextricable windings of the Cretan labyrinth, until,
at length lost in the mazy whirl of his own thoughts, the eye of fancy
grew dim and reason tottered on her throne.

Reader, let me conduct you to that little study-room. We will look in at
the window near which Daniel sits. It is night, a calm moonlit night of
May, and the mingled notes of various night birds and innumerable
insects, together with the chastened scenery of the surrounding
mountains, as rock, and stream, and cliff, and waterfall appear in the
softened beams, are enough to draw the most devoted of ordinary students
from their books to contemplate the mighty book of nature, printed in
the type of God, its sublime capitals rendering it legible to every
observer. But for Daniel Kelford these things now possess no interest.
They are unseen and unthought of; for every power of his soul is
centered upon the contents of a small roll of manuscript which lies
before him. He bends over it, takes up sheet after sheet, his interest
increasing as he reads, until he has but one thought, one desire; and
that is to understand and to reduce to practice the strange things
there taught. Beside him dimly burns his untrimmed lamp, for he does not
think to bestow any attention upon it. He has found embodied in words
thoughts and ideas that have long floated like shapeless visions through
his soul, but which he never could grasp, confine, and reduce to
language.

The night wears on; it is late; he has read every page of that strange
manuscript; but he reads it again and again, unmindful of the flight of
time--a wild light sometimes flashing from his large eyes, and a
mysterious expression gathering over his countenance. Were the aged man
whose hand penned these words now alive, he could fall at his feet and
worship him as a god.

But let us turn for a moment, and see from whence he obtained this
wonderful manuscript.

Just on the line dividing the States of North and South Carolina, is an
eminence called "Caesar's Head." When, how, or why it obtained this name
I have never been able to learn. Over its top now passes a turnpike
road; b