ury your treasures in
a well, I will not confide mine to the brutal stupidity of these monks.
But as this volume should only pass into hands worthy to touch it, and
be laid open for eyes that are capable of comprehending its mysteries,
I shall exact from the reader one condition, which, at the same time,
shall be a proof: I shall carry it with me to the tomb, in order that
he who one day shall read it, may have courage enough to brave the vain
terrors of the grave, in searching for it amid the dust of my sepulchre.
As soon as I am dead, therefore, place this writing on my breast.....
Ah! when the time comes for reading it, I think my withered heart will
spring up again, as the frozen grass at the return of the sun, and that,
from the midst of its infinite transformations, my spirit will enter
into immediate communication with thine!"

Does not the reader long to be at this precious manuscript, which
contains THE TRUTH; and ought he not to be very much obliged to Mrs.
Sand, for being so good as to print it for him? We leave all the story
aside: how Fulgentius had not the spirit to read the manuscript,
but left the secret to Alexis; how Alexis, a stern old philosophical
unbelieving monk as ever was, tried in vain to lift up the gravestone,
but was taken with fever, and obliged to forego the discovery; and how,
finally, Angel, his disciple, a youth amiable and innocent as his name,
was the destined person who brought the long-buried treasure to light.
Trembling and delighted, the pair read this tremendous MANUSCRIPT OF
SPIRIDION.

Will it be believed, that of all the dull, vague, windy documents that
mortal ever set eyes on, this is the dullest? If this be absolute truth,
a quoi bon search for it, since we have long, long had the jewel in our
possession, or since, at least, it has been held up as such by every
sham philosopher who has had a mind to pass off his wares on the public?
Hear Spiridion:--

"How much have I wept, how much have I suffered, how much have I prayed,
how much have I labored, before I understood the cause and the aim of
my passage on this earth! After many incertitudes, after much remorse,
after many scruples, I HAVE COMPREHENDED THAT I WAS A MARTYR!--But why
my martyrdom? said I; what crimne did I commit before I was born, thus
to be condemned to labor and groaning, from the hour when I first saw
the day up to that when I am about to enter into the night of the tomb?

"At last, by dint of implor