the lamp falling on his high forehead and
dark features; even now I think I hear his calm, low voice--the silver
voice of his country--stealing to my heart, and withering the only pure
and unsullied hope which I yet cherished there.

Bezoni left me, unconscious of the anguish he bequeathed me, to think
over all he had said. I did not sleep nor even retire to bed. I laid
my head upon my hands, and surrendered myself to turbulent yet intense
reflection. Every man who has lived much in the world, and conversed
with its various tribes, has, I fear, met with many who, on this
momentous subject, profess the same tenets as Bezoni. But he was the
first person I had met of that sect who had evidently thought long and
deeply upon the creed he had embraced. He was not a voluptuary nor a
boaster nor a wit. He had not been misled by the delusions either of
vanity or of the senses. He was a man pure, innocent, modest, full
of all tender charities and meek dispositions towards mankind: it was
evidently his interest to believe in a future state; he could have had
nothing to fear from it. Not a single passion did he cherish which the
laws of another world would have condemned. Add to this, what I have
observed before, that he was not a man fond of the display of intellect,
nor one that brought to the discussions of wisdom the artillery of wit.
He was grave, humble, and self-diffident, beyond all beings. I would
have given a kingdom to have found something in the advocate by which I
could have condemned the cause: I could not, and I was wretched.

I spent the whole of the next week among my books. I ransacked whatever
in my scanty library the theologians had written or the philosophers
had bequeathed upon that mighty secret. I arranged their arguments in my
mind. I armed myself with their weapons. I felt my heart spring joyously
within me as I felt the strength I had acquired, and I sent to the
philosopher to visit me, that I might conquer and confute him. He came;
but he spoke with pain and reluctance. He saw that I had taken the
matter far more deeply to heart than he could have supposed it possible
in a courtier and a man of fortune and the world. Little did he know of
me or my secret soul. I broke down his reserve at last. I unrolled my
arguments. I answered his, and we spent the whole night in controversy.
He left me, and I was more bewildered than ever.

To speak truth, he had devoted years to the subject: I had devoted only
a we