The fatal fondness for indulging a spirit of ridicule, and the injurious
and irreparable consequences which sometimes attend the too severe
reply, can never be condemned with more asperity than it deserves. Not
to offend is the first step towards pleasing. To give pain is as much an
offence against humanity as against good-breeding; and surely it is as
well to abstain from an action because it is sinful, as because it is
impolite.
A man of sense and breeding will sometimes join in the laugh, which has
been raised at his expence by an ill natured repartee; but if it was
very cutting, and one of those shocking sorts of truths, which, as they
scarcely can be pardoned even in private, ought never to be uttered in
public, he does not laugh because he wishes to conceal how much he is
hurt; and will remember it, as a treat of malice, when the whole company
should have forgotten it as a stroke of ridicule.
Even women are so far from being privileged by their sex to say
unhandsome or cruel things, that it is this very circumstance which
renders them intolerable. When the arrow is lodged in the heart, it is
no relief to him who is wounded to reflect, that the hand which shot it
was a fair one.
* * * * *
* * * *
THE VICTIM OF MAGICAL DELUSION;
_OR, INTERESTING MEMOIRS OF MIGUEL, DUKE DE CA*I*A._
Unfolding Many Curious Unknown Historical Facts.
_Translated from the German of Tschink._
(Continued from page 299.)
It gave me great pleasure to have found out a mean through which I could
influence you and the Marquis at once, and guide both of you to one
mark. I feared, however, the Marquis of F-------- would discover my
artifices, and for that reason recommended him to the King by a third
person, for the transaction of affairs which removed him far enough
from us.
Duke. Infernal villainy! execrable wretch!----But no, your deeds
contradict your profession. No, Alumbrado, human art cannot produce
miracles like yours. Did not nature herself obey you?
Alumbrado. Your imagination only obeyed me. The idea of the miraculous
had been instilled in your mind already, and I had nothing else to do
but to strengthen it, in order to get possession of the confidence which
Hiermanfor had enjoyed. I thought it, however, prudent to use a
different method. He founded his supernatural power on the occult
sciences, and I on religious mysteries.
I did not find it more difficult to lead you from the delusions of
speculative philosophy, to those of implicit faith, than to give you
proofs of my miraculous power. A little dexterity, a little success on
my part, and a judicious accommodation to circumstances, delivered you
and the Marquis into my power. I gained my purpose, and this was the
only miracle in the whole affair.
Duke. However, the effects which you produced, are still so very
mysterious to me.--
Alumbrado. And yet every thing was done in a very natural manner.
Duke. How could you know the accident that happened at the Inn at *li*,
in the very moment when it took place.
Alumbrado. Because I had preconcerted it with some of my emissaries at
*li*. You now will comprehend how I could know the day and the hour, and
how that incident could agree so exactly with my prediction.
Duke. What end did you mean to gain by that deception?
Alumbrado. The throwing down of the picture by an invisible hand, was to
give you a hint that a higher power had decreed the dethronement of the
King.
Duke. However, the appeasing of the tempestuous sea could be no
delusion, nor an accident. Through what extraordinary means did you
effect it?
Alumbrado. Mere precaution enabled me to effect it. Experience had
taught me that oil possesses the extraordinary quality of restoring the
equilibrium of the water, if violently agitated, and of smoothing the
swelling waves. For that reason I have been used never to make a voyage
without carrying some casks of oil with me; and I had taken the same
precaution when I went on board of the vessel in which you had taken
your passage. Having left you, I ordered my people to beat off the hoops
of the casks and throw them overboard. The oil instantly spread over the
surface of the water and calmed the agitated waves.*
[* Pliny long ago knew that extraordinary quality of the oil, and
in our times it has been confirmed by the experiments of the
immortal Franklin. Mr. Osorezkowsky, the celebrated Russian
academician, experienced the same on his physical voyage, and our
modern seamen in general are no strangers to that effect of the oil,
and frequently make use of it in dangerous surges.]
Duke. [After a pause] It was your intention to persuade me to return to
Lis*n, and you have gained your aim by that expedient; but what would
you have done if no tempest had afforded you an opportunity of deceiving
me by a pretended miracle?
Alumbrado. I should have watched another opportunity, and devised other
artifices; for it was with that view that I accompanied you on your
voyage without your knowledge.
Duke. By what means did you preserve your life, under the hands of the
royal banditti?
Alumbrado. The whole scene you beheld from the top of the turret was
pre-concerted by me. The fellows who attacked me, neither had been sent
by the King, nor were they banditti, but had been previously instructed
by me how to act; their pistols were charged only with powder, and their
poniards did not wound me. This will explain to you the whole miracle.
Duke. Not sent by the King, did you say. He then had no design against
my life?
Alumbrado. No, the King never had the least idea of such a deed.
Duke. Villainous! villainous! to deceive me thus!--And with what view
did you devise that horrid fraud?
Alumbrado. I wanted to inflame your father’s mind with resentment
against the King. Nay, I will tell you more. It was my work that the
King treated you with so much coldness, and neglected to raise your
family: for I had represented you and your father to him, by one of my
agents, as persons who beheld his new dignity with envious eyes. Through
these mutual exasperations, I gained the advantage of increasing your
personal antipathy against the King, and of turning it, at length, into
hatred that had all the appearance of just resentment.
Duke. Ah! I now begin to penetrate the whole atrocity of your artful
wiles. Then it was you who has excited the King against me and my
family, and formed the plots against his life?
Alumbrado. What would it avail me to deny the charge?
Duke. And yet it seemed as if you had not been concerned in the
conspiracy. The design against the King had already been determined, and
still you withheld your consent and assistance.
Alumbrado. And not without reason. I would not expose myself. The grand
Inquisitor and the Primate took care to gain you to our purpose without
your suspecting it, while I was directing the plot behind the curtain; I
should have destroyed my own work if I had stepped forth too soon. My
seeming backwardness spurred you on, and screened me from suspicion.
However, after I had performed the last fictitious miracle, I thought
myself sufficiently secured against all suspicion, and calculated that
it would be reasonable to command you in the name of God to take an
active part in the conspiracy.
Duke. After the last fictitious miracle? Do you mean that incident by
which you showed yourself proof against ball and dagger?
Alumbrado. I do. The miracle will appear very natural to you when I tell
you that I had filled the powder-horn, which I had conveyed secretly
from your apartment, with a powder of my own invention, which could not
carry the ball farther than five steps. Having placed myself seven steps
distant from the gun, I was far enough out of harm’s way. I requested to
be fired at twice, in order to empty the powder-horn of its contents,
a precaution that prevented you from discovering, afterwards, the real
nature of the powder. The dagger with which I stabbed myself, had also
been previously made for that purpose, and could do me no harm. The
blade of it, which was not much pointed, snapped back into the hollow
handle on the smallest resistance, which made you believe that it had
penetrated my breast. A spring which forced it again into its former
situation, rendered it entirely impossible for you to discover the
fraud.
Duke. What views had you in making me believe that you was invulnerable?
Alumbrado. Was it not to be expected that you would repose the utmost
reliance on the assistance of a man who should appear to you proof
against balls and daggers?
However, I have, as yet, explained to you only the particular views I
had in performing fictitious miracles, and now will tell you that every
one of them tended to effect a general end, which was nothing less than
to persuade you and the Marquis to believe that God was working and
speaking through me. Our plot was so hazardous, the circumstances so
unfavourable, and success so improbable, that we had reason to apprehend
you would shrink back from your resolution, when you should have
pondered more maturely the danger which it was attended with. For this
reason I thought it most prudent to appear to you to be an organ of the
godhead, because it was to be expected that you would fear no danger
whatever, if you should be persuaded that our design was the work of
God, and supported by his omnipotent power; for with God nothing is
impossible. In order to corroborate you in that belief, I advised you to
have recourse to prayer.----
Duke. Daring wretch! how could you run that risk?
Alumbrado. Why not? you had already taken your resolution before you
implored God to signify his will to you. The execution of our plan had
been, some time since, the principle idea that prevailed in your mind,
and forced itself upon you on every occasion, and, of course, in your
prayers too; it was, therefore, very natural that in the latter case,
you should mistake for a decree of God, what, in reality, was nothing
else but the voice of your provoked passions. I entertained not the
least apprehension that devotion would produce more pious sentiments in
your mind, because the sophistry of your passions, and the two prelates
had already persuaded you that our design was just; I rather expected
that the fervour of your prayer, particularly at night, would increase
the fermentation of your blood, and animate you with additional courage
to execute our plan.
Duke. Infernal spirit! but no! thou art worse than Satan! for he
respects the temples and altars, but thou hast laid thy snares even in
those sacred places. Prayers and faith, these sacred treasures of man
become in thy hand tools of seduction; and thou dost not tremble at the
idea of being accountable to the all-seeing Judge for thy villainous
deeds?--What wouldst thou have done, daring wretch! if a ray of divine
illumination had dispelled my errors?
Alumbrado. I was not afraid of that. You could expect no such
illumination from above, because your own reason would have pointed out
to you the illegality of your design, if you had consulted your own good
sense rather than your passions. God does not work miracles while we can
be instructed by natural means.
Duke. But suppose he had, for how canst thou prescribe limits to the
wisdom of God, suppose he had, nevertheless, condescended to open mine
eyes through his holy spirit?
Alumbrado. (carelessly.) I then should have had recourse to a natural
expedient--which I intended to adopt in case of emergency. You will
recollect that you missed a sheet of your treatise on the Manicheean
system; it was I who purloined it. If you had shrunk back from your
engagement, I would have threatened you with all the terrors of the
Inquisition; the sheet was written by you and the grand Inquisitor my
friend; consequently now as other choice was left you, than either to
make good your engagement or to experience all the horrors of that
tribunal.
Duke, shuddering with horror. Lead me back to my dungeon, lest the
aspect of this monster should poison me intirely.
The day after the trial, the son of the gaoler brought me a letter,
which, to my utter astonishment, was from the Duke, and contained the
following lines*: * * * * * *
* * * * *
(To be continued.)
[* This letter is the same which is prefixed to the beginning of
these Memoirs.]
* * * * *
* * * *