e, and had asked
questions affecting his family in Prussia and the chances of descent of
certain property, the replies to which had astounded him. He had heard
of her using marvelous and fearful incantations, but had never himself
witnessed any thing of them. In two or three instances, before the
present, he had taken friends to the house and introduced them under any
name which he chose to apply to them for the time, and the sorceress had
never before chosen to call him to account for the deception, though,
according to the assurances of his friends after leaving the house, she
had never failed to arrive at the truth of their nationalities and
positions in life. There must have been something in myself or my
circumstances, he averred, which had produced so singular an effect upon
the witch, (as he evidently believed her to be,) and he had the
impression that at no distant day I should again hear from her. That was
all, and so we parted, I in any other condition of mind than that
promising sleep, and really without closing my eyes, except for a moment
or two at a time, during the night which followed. When I did attempt to
force myself into slumber, a red spectre stood continually before me, an
unearthly light seemed to sear my covered eyeballs, and I awoke with a
start. Days passed before I sufficiently wore away the impression to be
comfortable, and at least two or three weeks before my rest became again
entirely unbroken.

'You must be partially aware with what anxiety we Americans temporarily
sojourning on the other side of the Atlantic, who loved the country we
had left behind on this, watched the succession of events which preceded
and accompanied the Presidential election of that year. Some suppose
that a man loses his love for his native land, or finds it comparatively
chilled within his bosom, after long residence abroad. The very opposite
is the case, I think! I never knew what the old flag was, until I saw it
waving from the top of an American consulate abroad, or floating from
the gaff of one of our war-vessels, when I came down the mountains to
some port on the Mediterranean. It had been merely red, white and blue
bunting, at home, where the symbols of our national greatness were to be
seen on every hand: it was the _only_ symbol of our national greatness
when we were looking at it from beyond the sea; and the man whose eyes
will not fill with tears and whose throat will not choke a little with
overpowering