ute and intense;
the absence of thought gave way to one thought more terrible, more dark,
more despairing than any which had haunted me since the first year of
Isora's death; and from a numbness and pause, as it were, of existence,
existence became too keen and intolerable a sense. I will enter into an
explanation.

At the court of------, there was an Italian, not uncelebrated for his
wisdom, nor unbeloved for an innocence and integrity of life rarely
indeed to be met with among his countrymen. The acquaintance of this
man, who was about fifty years of age, and who was devoted almost
exclusively to the pursuit of philosophical science, I had sedulously
cultivated. His conversation pleased me; his wisdom improved; and his
benevolence, which reminded me of the traits of La Fontaine, it was so
infantine, made me incline to love him. Upon the growth of the fearful
malady of mind which seized me, I had discontinued my visits and my
invitations to the Italian; and Bezoni (so was he called) felt a little
offended by my neglect. As soon, however, as he discovered my state
of mind, the good man's resentment left him. He forced himself upon
my solitude, and would sit by me whole evenings,--sometimes without
exchanging a word, sometimes with vain attempts to interest, to arouse,
or to amuse me.

At last, one evening--it was the era of a fearful suffering to me--our
conversation turned upon those subjects which are at once the most
important and the most rarely discussed. We spoke of _religion_. We
first talked upon the theology of revealed religion. As Bezoni warmed
into candour, I perceived that his doctrines differed from my own, and
that he inly disbelieved that divine creed which Christians profess to
adore. From a dispute on the ground of faith, we came to one upon the
more debatable ground of reason. We turned from the subject of revealed
to that of natural religion; and we entered long and earnestly into that
grandest of all earthly speculations,--the metaphysical proofs of the
immortality of the soul. Again the sentiments of Bezoni were opposed to
mine. He was a believer in the dark doctrine which teaches that man is
dust and that all things are forgotten in the grave. He expressed his
opinions with a clearness and precision the more impressive because
totally devoid of cavil and of rhetoric. I listened in silence, but with
a deep and most chilling dismay. Even now I think I see the man as he
sat before me, the light of