you so passionately love
develops, to your disquietude and terror, the visionary temperament
which, at her age, is ever liable to fantastic caprices. She hears
Margrave's song, which you say has a wildness of charm that affects
and thrills even you. Who does not know the power of music? and of all
music, there is none so potential as that of the human voice. Thus, in
some languages, charm and song are identical expressions; and even when
a critic, in our own sober newspapers, extols a Malibran or a Grisi, you
may be sure that he will call her 'enchantress.' Well, this lady, your
betrothed, in whom the nervous system is extremely impressionable, hears
a voice which, even to your ear, is strangely melodious, and sees a form
and face which, even to your eye, are endowed with a singular character
of beauty. Her fancy is impressed by what she thus hears and sees; and
impressed the more because, by a coincidence not very uncommon, a face
like that which she beholds has before been presented to her in a dream
or a revery. In the nobleness of genuine, confiding, reverential love,
rather than impute to your beloved a levity of sentiment that would seem
to you a treason, you accept the chimera of 'magical fascination.'
In this frame of mind you sit down to read the memoir of a mystical
enthusiast. Do you begin now to account for the Luminous Shadow? A
dream! And a dream no less because your eyes were open and you believed
yourself awake. The diseased imagination resembles those mirrors which,
being themselves distorted, represent distorted pictures as correct.

"And even this Memoir of Sir Philip Derval's--can you be quite sure that
you actually read the part which relates to Haroun and Louis Grayle? You
say that, while perusing the manuscript, you saw the Luminous Shadow,
and became insensible. The old woman says you were fast asleep. May you
not really have fallen into a slumber, and in that slumber have dreamed
the parts of the tale that relate to Grayle,--dreamed that you beheld
the Shadow? Do you remember what is said so well by Dr. Abercrombie,
to authorize the explanation I suggest to you: 'A person under the
influence of some strong mental impression falls asleep for a few
seconds, perhaps without being sensible of it: some scene or person
appears in a dream, and he starts up under the conviction that it was a
spectral appearance.'" (5)

"But," said I, "the apparition was seen by me again, and when,
certainly, I was not