here little direct intercourse had
taken place between us. Our last meeting was in the arbour where Ariel
was so unexpectedly introduced.

Our acquaintance merely justified a transient salutation; but he did not
content himself with noticing me as I passed, but joined me in my walk
and entered into conversation. It was easy to advert to the occasion
on which we had last met, and to the mysterious incident which then
occurred. I was solicitous to dive into his thoughts upon this head and
put some questions which tended to the point that I wished.

I was somewhat startled when he expressed his belief, that the performer
of this mystic strain was one of the company then present, who exerted,
for this end, a faculty not commonly possessed. Who this person was he
did not venture to guess, and could not discover, by the tokens which
he suffered to appear, that his suspicions glanced at me. He expatiated
with great profoundness and fertility of ideas, on the uses to which a
faculty like this might be employed. No more powerful engine, he said,
could be conceived, by which the ignorant and credulous might be moulded
to our purposes; managed by a man of ordinary talents, it would open for
him the straightest and surest avenues to wealth and power.

His remarks excited in my mind a new strain of thoughts. I had not
hitherto considered the subject in this light, though vague ideas of the
importance of this art could not fail to be occasionally suggested: I
ventured to inquire into his ideas of the mode, in which an art like
this could be employed, so as to effect the purposes he mentioned.

He dealt chiefly in general representations. Men, he said, believed
in the existence and energy of invisible powers, and in the duty of
discovering and conforming to their will. This will was supposed to be
sometimes made known to them through the medium of their senses. A voice
coming from a quarter where no attendant form could be seen would, in
most cases, be ascribed to supernal agency, and a command imposed on
them, in this manner, would be obeyed with religious scrupulousness.
Thus men might be imperiously directed in the disposal of their
industry, their property, and even of their lives. Men, actuated by
a mistaken sense of duty, might, under this influence, be led to the
commission of the most flagitious, as well as the most heroic acts: If
it were his desire to accumulate wealth, or institute a new sect, he
should need no other ins