ssessed.

He made me bring him the manuscript, and devoted much of that night and
the next day to its perusal.

When he gave it me back, which was not till the morning of his
departure, he commenced with eulogies on the scope of its design, and
the manner of its execution, which flattered my vanity so much that
I could not help exclaiming, "Then, at least, there is no trace of
'hallucination' here!"

"Alas, my poor Allen! here, perhaps, hallucination, or self-deception,
is more apparent than in all the strange tales you confided to me. For
here is the hallucination of the man seated on the shores of Nature,
and who would say to its measureless sea, 'So far shalt thou go and no
farther;' here is the hallucination of the creature, who, not content
with exploring the laws of the Creator, ends with submitting to his
interpretation of some three or four laws, in the midst of a code of
which all the rest are in a language unknown to him, the powers and
free-will of the Lawgiver Himself; here is the hallucination by which
Nature is left Godless, because Man is left soulless. What would matter
all our speculations on a Deity who would cease to exist for us when we
are in the grave? Why mete out, like Archytas, the earth and the sea,
and number the sands on the shore that divides them, if the end of this
wisdom be a handful of dust sprinkled over a skull!

"'Nec quidquam tibi prodest
Aerias tentasse dornos, animoque rotundum
Percurrisse polum naorituro.'

"Your book is a proof of the soul that you fail to discover. Without a
soul, no man would work for a Future that begins for his fame when the
breath is gone from his body. Do you remember how you saw that little
child praying at the grave of her father? Shall I tell you that in her
simple orisons she prayed for the benefactor,--who had cared for
the orphan; who had reared over dust that tomb which, in a Christian
burial-ground, is a mute but perceptible memorial of Christian hopes;
that the child prayed, haughty man, for you? And you sat by, knowing
nought of this; sat by, amongst the graves, troubled and tortured with
ghastly doubts, vain of a reason that was sceptical of eternity, and yet
shaken like a reed by a moment's marvel. Shall I tell the child to pray
for you no more; that you disbelieve in a soul? If you do so, what is
the efficacy of prayer? Speak, shall I tell her this? Shall the infant
pray for you never more?"

I was silent; I was thrilled.