nurtured, and polished, by the hand of education, and the happy influences
of a more civilized community, all which to the slave has been wanting. He
is a diamond just as it comes from the mine; Plato like that one set in
gold, which sparkles with the radiance of a star, Fausta, upon your
finger. But, surely, the glory of the diamond is, that it is a diamond;
not that Demetrius has polished and set it. Man has within him so much of
the god, that I do not wonder he has been so often deified. The great and
excellent among men, therefore, I think not unworthy of immortality, for
what they are; the humble and the bad, for what they may so easily become,
and might have been, under circumstances but slightly altered.'

'I cannot,' said Julia, as Longinus closed, 'deny strength and
plausibility to your arguments, but I cannot admit that they satisfy me.
After the most elaborate reasoning, I am still left in darkness. No power
nor wit of man has ever wholly scattered the mists which rest upon life
and death. I confess, with Socrates, that I want a promise or a revelation
to enable me to take the voyage of life in a spirit of cheerfulness, and
without the fear of fatal shipwreck. If your reasonings, Longinus, were
only accompanied with authority more than that of man, if I could only
believe that the Divinity inspired you, I could then rest contented and
happy. One word authoritatively declaring man's immortality, a word which
by infallible token I could know to be a word from the Supreme, would to
me be worth infinitely more than all the conjectures, hopes, and
reasonings of all the philosophers. I fully agree with you, that the
instincts of our nature all point both to a God and to immortality. But
the heart longs for something more sure and clear, at least my woman's
heart does. It may be that it is the woman within me which prompts the
feeling--but I wish to lean upon authority in this great matter. I wish to
repose calmly in a divine assurance.'