sounds so hoarsely and so near us? Come out of your thoughts and breathe
another air."

"I will try," said Septimius.

"Do," said the minister, extending his hand to him, "and in a little time
you will find the change."

He shook the young man's hand kindly, and took his leave, while Septimius
entered his house, and turning to the right sat down in his study, where,
before the fireplace, stood the table with books and papers. On the
shelves around the low-studded walls were more books, few in number but of
an erudite appearance, many of them having descended to him from learned
ancestors, and having been brought to light by himself after long lying in
dusty closets; works of good and learned divines, whose wisdom he had
happened, by help of the Devil, to turn to mischief, reading them by the
light of hell-fire. For, indeed, Septimius had but given the clergyman the
merest partial glimpse of his state of mind. He was not a new beginner in
doubt; but, on the contrary, it seemed to him as if he had never been
other than a doubter and questioner, even in his boyhood; believing
nothing, although a thin veil of reverence had kept him from questioning
some things. And now the new, strange thought of the sufficiency of the
world for man, if man were only sufficient for that, kept recurring to
him; and with it came a certain sense, which he had been conscious of
before, that he, at least, might never die. The feeling was not peculiar
to Septimius. It is an instinct, the meaning of which is mistaken. We have
strongly within us the sense of an undying principle, and we transfer that
true sense to this life and to the body, instead of interpreting it justly
as the promise of spiritual immortality.