.
He threw himself into the attitude of one listening. He gazed earnestly
in a direction in which nothing was visible to his friends. This lasted
for a minute; then turning to his companions, he told them that his
brother had just delivered to him a summons, which must be instantly
obeyed. He then took an hasty and solemn leave of each person, and,
before their surprize would allow them to understand the scene, he
rushed to the edge of the cliff, threw himself headlong, and was seen no
more.

"In the course of my practice in the German army, many cases, equally
remarkable, have occurred. Unquestionably the illusions were maniacal,
though the vulgar thought otherwise. They are all reducible to one
class, [*] and are not more difficult of explication and cure than most
affections of our frame."

This opinion my uncle endeavoured, by various means, to impress upon me.
I listened to his reasonings and illustrations with silent respect. My
astonishment was great on finding proofs of an influence of which I
had supposed there were no examples; but I was far from accounting for
appearances in my uncle's manner. Ideas thronged into my mind which I
was unable to disjoin or to regulate. I reflected that this madness,
if madness it were, had affected Pleyel and myself as well as Wieland.
Pleyel had heard a mysterious voice. I had seen and heard. A form had
showed itself to me as well as to Wieland. The disclosure had been
made in the same spot. The appearance was equally complete and equally
prodigious in both instances. Whatever supposition I should adopt, had
I not equal reason to tremble? What was my security against influences
equally terrific and equally irresistable?

It would be vain to attempt to describe the state of mind which this
idea produced. I wondered at the change which a moment had affected
in my brother's condition. Now was I stupified with tenfold wonder in
contemplating myself. Was I not likewise transformed from rational and
human into a creature of nameless and fearful attributes? Was I not
transported to the brink of the same abyss? Ere a new day should come,
my hands might be embrued in blood, and my remaining life be consigned
to a dungeon and chains.

With moral sensibility like mine, no wonder that this new dread was more
insupportable than the anguish I had lately endured. Grief carries its
own antidote along with it. When thought becomes merely a vehicle of
pain, its progress must be stopped. Dea