passion;
"Nothing but empty superstition! And we are so good-natured as to let
ourselves be made the tools of such nonsense."

He lookt sharply at the stranger with his glaring eyes, then slapt him
on the shoulder, and withdrew with him. Meanwhile the moon had arisen,
and was pouring its bright light over the forests and rocks: the party
went each his own way, and Edward too bent his steps homeward. As he
was walking up the narrow footpath, he heard a warm discussion; it
sounded like a quarrel; and when he drew nearer he fancied he
distinguisht Eleazar and the stranger. He struck off therefore into
another path, partly for the sake of avoiding them and not being
forced to return in their company, partly too that he might not have
the air of wishing to overhear what they were disputing about; for
Eleazar was of a very suspicious temper, and mistrusted everybody,
though he took it extremely ill if any one did not place an unlimited
confidence in him.

In the house everything was quiet: except that Rose was singing a
simple air with a supprest voice, scarce audibly in her remote
chamber. Edward was moved by it, and so strongly, that he could not
help being surprised at his extreme susceptibility. Before he fell
asleep, his melancholy had so increast, that he could hardly refrain
from shedding tears.

* * * * *

A few days after this Edward observed the stranger coming out of Herr
Balthasar's apartment. He wondered what such a person could have had
to do there; and, when he entered the old man's room, he found him
violently disturbed and enraged.

"Always the same wild irrational feelings, the same superstitious
foolery, ruling over mankind!" he cried, as Edward came in: "That
miserable fellow there whom you met flatters himself he shall gain a
large sum of money from me, if he can detect our thief by means of
some senseless artifice. He won't come back again, the blockhead! for
I have at length given vent for once to my feelings. There is nothing
in the world so insufferable to me, as when people try, by means of
certain phrases fabricated at random, or of certain traditional
ceremonies, most of them a misgrowth out of historical blunders, or
out of ancient usages which formerly had a very different meaning, to
put themselves in connexion with what they call the invisible world,
nay fancy, though they deem it an object of terrour, that they can
master it thereby. In fact the greater p