r extreme healthiness, was but too
remarkably prone to pensive, if not to sorrowful contemplations. And
thus the obligation which I felt to silence and reserve, strengthened
the morbid impression I had received; whilst the remarkable incident I
have adverted to served powerfully to rivet the superstitious chain
which was continually gathering round me. The incident was this--and
before I repeat it, let me pledge my word of honour, that I report to
you the bare facts of the case, without exaggeration, and in the
simplicity of truth:--There was at that time resident in the great city
which is the scene of my narrative a woman, from some part of Hungary,
who pretended to the gift of looking into futurity. She had made herself
known advantageously in several of the greatest cities of Europe under
the designation of the Hungarian Prophetess; and very extraordinary
instances were cited amongst the highest circles of her success in the
art which she professed. So ample were the pecuniary tributes which she
levied upon the hopes and the fears, or the simple curiosity of the
aristocracy, that she was thus able to display not unfrequently a
disinterestedness and a generosity, which seemed native to her
disposition, amongst the humbler classes of her applicants; for she
rejected no addresses that were made to her, provided only they were not
expressed in levity or scorn, but with sincerity, and in a spirit of
confiding respect. It happened, on one occasion, when a nursery-servant
of ours was waiting in her anteroom for the purpose of taking her turn
in consulting the prophetess professionally, that she had witnessed a
scene of consternation and unaffected maternal grief in this Hungarian
lady upon the sudden seizure of her son, a child of four or five years
old, by a spasmodic inflammation of the throat (since called croup),
peculiar to children, and in those days not very well understood by
medical men. The poor Hungarian, who had lived chiefly in warm, or at
least not damp climates, and had never so much as heard of this
complaint, was almost wild with alarm at the rapid increase of the
symptoms which attend the paroxysms, and especially of that loud and
distressing sound which marks the impeded respiration. Great, therefore,
was her joy and gratitude on finding from our servant that she had
herself been in attendance more than once upon cases of the same nature,
but very much more violent,--and that, consequently, she was well
q