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CHAPTER LXXXIV

Restless, again, was the night of Juliet; bewildered with varying visions of hope, of despair, of bliss, of horrour; now presenting a fair prospect that opened sweetly to her best affections; now shewing every blossom blighted, by a dark, overwhelming storm.

To engage the good will of her new hostess, she bestowed upon her nearly every thing that she had worn upon entering the cottage. What she had been seen and discovered in, could no longer serve any purpose of concealment; and all disguise was disgusting to her, if not induced by the most imperious necessity. She clothed herself, therefore, from the fairy stores of her munificent old sylph; with whom her debts were so multiplied and so considerable, that she meant, at all events, to call upon her family for their disbursement.

The quietness of this residence, induced her to propose remaining here: and her new hostess, who was one of the many who, where interest preaches passiveness, make it a point not to be troublesome, consented, without objection or enquiry.

Hence, again, she wrote to Gabriella, from whom she languished for intelligence.

In this perfect retirement, she passed her time in deep rumination; her thoughts for ever hovering around the Bishop, upon whose fate her own invariably depended.

Her little apartment was close and hot; unshaded by blinds, unsheltered by shutters; she went forth, therefore, early every morning, to enjoy fresh air in the cool of a neighbouring wood, which, once having entered, she knew not how to quit. Solitude there, had not the character of seclusion; it bore not, as in her room, the air of banishment, if not of imprisonment; and the beautiful prospects around her, though her sole, were a never-failing source of recreation.

She permitted not, however, her love of the country to beguile her into danger by the love of variety; she wandered not far from her new habitation, in the vicinity of Milton-abbey; of which she never lost sight from distance, though frequently from intervening hills and trees.

But no answer arrived from Gabriella; and, in a few days, her own letter was returned, with a line written by the post-man upon the cover, to say, No. – Frith-street, Soho, was empty.

New sorrow, now, and fearful distress assailed every feeling of Juliet: What could have occasioned this sudden measure? Whither was Gabriella gone? Might it be happiness? – or was it some new evil that had caused this change of abode? The letter sent to Salisbury had never been claimed; nor did Juliet dare demand it: but Gabriella might, perhaps, have written her new plan by the address sent from the farm-house.

It was now that she blessed the munificent Sir Jaspar, to whose purse she had immediate recourse for sending a man and horse to the cottage; with written instructions to enquire for a letter, concerning which she had left directions with the good old cottager.

While, to wear away the hours devoted to anxious waiting, she wandered, as usual, in the view of Milton-abbey, from a rich valley, bounded by rising hills, whose circling slopes bore the form of undulating waves, she perceived, from a small distance, a horseman gallopping towards her cottage.

It could not already be her messenger. She felt uneasy, and, gliding to the brow of an eminence, sat down upon the turf, as much as possible out of sight.

In a short time, she heard the quick pacing step of a man in haste. She tried to place herself still more obscurely; but, by moving, caught the eye of the object she meant to avoid. He approached her rapidly, but when near enough to distinguish her, abruptly stopt, as if to recollect himself; and Juliet, at the same moment that she was herself discerned, recognized Harleigh.

With difficulty restraining an exclamation, from surprize and painful emotion, she looked round to discover if it would be possible to elude him; but she could only walk towards Milton-abbey, in full view herself from that noble seat; or immediately face him by returning to her home. She stood still, therefore, though bending her eye to the ground; hurt and offended that, at such a juncture, Harleigh could break into her retreat; and grieved yet more deeply, that Harleigh could excite in her even transitory displeasure.

Harleigh stept forward, but his voice, husky and nervous, so inarticulately pronounced something relative to a packet and a work-bag, that Juliet, losing her displeasure in a sudden hope of hearing some news of her property, raised her head, with a look that demanded an explanation.

Still he strove in vain for sufficient calmness to speak distinctly; yet his answer gave Juliet to understand, that he had conveyed her packet and work-bag to the cottage which he had been told she inhabited.

'And where, Sir,' cried Juliet, surprized into vivacity and pleasure at this unexpected hearing, 'how, and where have they been recovered?'

Harleigh now blushed himself, at the blushes which he knew he must raise in her cheeks, as he replied, that the packet and the work-bag which he had brought, had been dropt in his room at the inn.

Crimson is pale to the depth of red with which shame and confusion dyed her face; while Harleigh, recovering his voice, sought to relieve her embarrassment, by more rapidly continuing his discourse.

'I should sooner have endeavoured to deliver these articles, but that I knew not, till yesterday, that they had fallen to my care. I had left the inn, to follow, and seek Sir Jaspar Herrington; but having various papers and letters in my room, that I had not had time to collect, I obtained leave to take away the key with me, of the landlady, to whom I was well known, – for there, or in that neighbourhood, an irresistible interest has kept me, from the time that, through my groom, I had heard … who had been seen … at Bagshot … entering the Salisbury stage! – Yesterday, when I returned, to the inn, I first perceived these parcels.' —

He stopt; but Juliet could not speak, could not look up; could pronounce no apology, nor enter into any explanation.

'Sir Jaspar Herrington,' he continued, 'whom I have just left, is still at Salisbury; but setting out for town. From him I learnt your immediate direction; but not knowing what might be the value of the packets, nor, – ' He hesitated a moment, and then, with a sigh, added, 'nor how to direct them! I determined upon venturing to deliver them myself.'

The tingling cheeks of Juliet, at the inference of the words 'nor how to direct them,' seemed on fire; but she was totally silent.

'I have carefully sealed them,' he resumed, 'and I have delivered them to the woman of the cottage, for the young lady who at present sleeps there; and, hearing that that young lady was walking in the neighbourhood, I ventured to follow, with this intelligence.'

'You are very good, Sir,' Juliet strove to answer; but her lips were parched, and no words could find their way.

This excess of timidity brought back the courage of Harleigh, who, advancing a step or two, said, 'You will not be angry that Sir Jaspar, moved by my uncontrollable urgency, has had the charity to reveal to me some particulars…'

'Oh! make way for me to pass, Mr Harleigh!' now interrupted Juliet, forcing her voice, and striving to force a passage.

'Did you wish, then,' said Harleigh, in a tone the most melancholy, 'could you wish that I should still languish in harrowing suspense? or burst with ignorance?'

'Oh no!' cried she, raising her eyes, which glistened with tears, 'no! If the mystery that so long has hung about me, by occupying your …' She sought a word, and then continued: 'your imagination … impedes the oblivion that ought to bury me and my misfortunes from further thought, – then, indeed, I ought to be thankful to Sir Jaspar, – and I am thankful that he has let you know, … that he has informed you…'

She could not finish the sentence.

'Yes!' cried Harleigh with energy, 'I have heard the dreadful history of your wrongs! of the violences by which you have suffered, of the inhuman attempts upon your liberty, your safety, your honour! – But since you have thus happily – '

'Mr Harleigh,' cried Juliet, struggling to recover her presence of mind, 'I need no longer, I trust, now, beg your absence! All I can have to say you must, now, understand … anticipate … acknowledge … since you are aware…'

'Ah!' cried Harleigh, in a tone not quite free from reproach; – 'had you but, from the beginning, condescended to inform me of your situation! a situation so impossible to divine! so replete with horrour, with injury, with unheard of suffering, – had you, from the first, instead of avoiding, flying me, deigned to treat me with some trust – '

'Mr Harleigh,' said Juliet, with eagerness, 'whatever may be your surprize that such should be my situation, … my fate, … you can, at least, require, now, no explanation why I have fled you!'

The word why, vibrated instantly to the heart of Harleigh, where it condolingly said: It was duty, then, not averseness, not indifference, that urged that flight! she had not fled, had she not deemed herself engaged! – Juliet, who had hastily uttered the why in the solicitude of self-vindication, shewed, by a change of complexion, the moment that it had passed her lips, that she felt the possible inference of which it was susceptible, and dropt her eyes; fearful to risk discovering the consciousness that they might indicate.

Harleigh, however, now brightened, glowed with revived sensations: 'Ah! be not,' he cried, 'be not the victim of your scruples! let not your too delicate fears of doing wrong by others, urge you to inflict wrong, irreparable wrong, upon yourself! Your real dangers are past; none now remain but from a fancied, – pardon, pardon me! – a fancied refinement, unfounded in reason, or in right! Suffer, therefore – '

'Hold, Sir, hold! – we must not even talk upon this subject: – nor, at this moment, upon any other! – '

Her brow shewed rising displeasure; but Harleigh was intractable. 'Pronounce not,' he cried, 'an interdiction! I make no claim, no plea, no condition. I will speak wholly as an impartial man; – and have you not condescended to tell me, that as a friend, if to that title, – so limited, yet so honourable, – I would confine myself, – you would not disdain to consult with me? As such, I am now here. I feel, I respect, I revere the delicacy of all your ideas, the perfection of your conduct! I will put, therefore, aside, all that relates not simply to yourself, and to your position; I will speak to you, for the moment, and in his absence, – as – as Lord Melbury! – as your brother! – '

An involuntary smile here unbent the knitting brow of Juliet, who could not feel offended, or sorry, that Sir Jaspar had revealed the history of her birth.

She desired, nevertheless, to pass, refusing every species of discussion.

'If you will not answer, will not speak,' cried Harleigh, still obstructing her way, 'fear not, at least, to hear! Are you not at liberty? Is not your persecutor gone? – Can he ever return?'

'Gone?' repeated Juliet.

'I have myself seen him embark! I rode after his chaise, I pursued it to the sea-coast, I saw him under sail.'

Juliet, with uplifted eyes, clasped her hands, from an emotion of ungovernable joy; which a thousand blushes betrayed her vain struggles to suppress.

Harleigh observed not this unmoved: 'Ah, Madam!' he cried, 'since, thus critically, you have escaped; – since, thus happily, you are released; – since no church ritual has ever sanctioned the sacrilegious violence – '

'Spare all ineffectual controversy!' cried Juliet, assuming an air and tone of composure, with which her quick heaving bosom was ill in harmony; 'I can neither talk nor listen upon this subject. You know, now, my story: dread and atrocious as is my connection, my faith to it must be unbroken, till I have seen the Bishop! and till the iniquity of my chains may be proved, and my restoration to my violated freedom may be legalized. Do not look so shocked; so angry, must I say? – Remember, that a point of conscience can be settled only internally! I will speak, therefore, but one word more; and I must hear no reply: little as I feel to belong to the person in question, I cannot consider myself to be my own! 'Tis a tie which, whether or not it binds me to him, excludes me, while thus circumstanced, from all others! – This, Sir, is my last word! – Adieu!'

Harleigh, though looking nearly petrified, still stood before her. 'You fly us, then,' he cried, resentfully, though mournfully, 'both alike? You put us upon a par? – '

'No!' answered Juliet, hastily, 'him I fly because I hate; – You – '

The deep scarlet which mounted into her whole face finished the sentence; in defiance of a sudden and abrupt breaking off, that meant and hoped to snatch the unguarded phrase from comprehension.

But Harleigh felt its fullest contrast; his hopes, his wishes, his whole soul completed it by You, because I love! – not that he could persuade himself that Juliet would have used those words; he knew the contrary; knew that she would sooner thus situated expire; but such, he felt, was the impulse of her thoughts; such the consciousness that broke off her speech.

He durst not venture at any acknowledgement; but, once appeased in his doubts, and satisfied in his feelings, he respected her opinions, and, yielding to her increased, yet speechless eagerness to be gone, he silently, but with eyes of expressive tenderness, ceased to obstruct her passage.

Utterly confounded herself, at the half-pronounced thought, thus inadvertently surprised from her, and thus palpably seized and interpreted, she strove to devize some term that might obviate dangerous consequences; but she felt her cheeks so hot, so cold, and again so hot, that she durst not trust her face to his observation; and, accepting the opening which he made for her, she was returning to her cottage, tortured, – and yet soothed, – by indescribable emotions; when an energetic cry of 'Ellis! – Harleigh! – Ellis!' made her raise her eyes to the adjacent hill, and perceive Elinor.

CHAPTER LXXXV

With arms extended, and a commanding air, Elinor, having made signs to the dismayed Harleigh not to move, awaited, where she stood, the terrified, but obedient Juliet.

'Avoid me not!' she cried, 'Ellis! why should you avoid me? I have given you back your plighted word; and the pride of Harleigh has saved him from all bonds. Why, then, should you fly?'

Juliet attempted not to make any answer.

'The conference, the last conference,' continued Elinor, 'which so ardently I have demanded, is still unaccorded. Repeatedly I could have surprized it, singly, from Harleigh; but – '

She stopt, coloured, looked indignant, yet ashamed, and then haughtily went on: 'Imagine not my courage tarnished by cowardly apprehensions of misinterpretation, – suspicion, – censoriousness;… no! let the world sneer at its pleasure! Its spleen will never keep pace with my contempt. But Harleigh! – I brave not the censure of Harleigh! even though prepared, and resolved, to quit him for evermore! And, with ideas punctilious such as his of feminine delicacy, he might blame, perhaps, – should I seek him alone – '

She blushed more deeply, and, with extreme agitation, added, 'Harleigh, when we shall meet no more, will always honourably say, Her passion for me might be tinctured with madness, but its purity was without alloy!'

She now turned away, to hide a starting tear; but, soon resuming her usually lively manner, said, 'I have traced you, at last, together; and by means of our caustick, bilious fellow-traveller, Riley; whom I encountered by accident; and who runs, snarling, yet curious, after his fellow-creatures, working at making himself enemies, as if enmity were a pleasing, or lucrative profession! From him I learnt, that he had just seen you, – and together! – near Salisbury. I discovered you, Ellis, two days ago; but Harleigh, though I have been roving some time in your vicinity, only this moment.'

A sudden shriek now broke from her, and Juliet, affrighted and looking around, perceived Harleigh pacing hastily away.

The shriek reached him, and he stopt.

'Fly, fly, to him,' she cried, 'Ellis; assure him, I have no present personal project; none! I solemnly promise, none! But I have an opinion to gather from him, of which my ignorance burns, devours me, and will not let me rest, alive nor dead!'

Juliet, distressed, irresolute, ventured not to move.

''Tis his duty,' continued Elinor, 'after his solemn declaration, to initiate me into his motives for believing in a future state. I have been distracting my burthened senses over theological works; but my head is in no condition to comprehend them. They treat, also, of belief in a future state, as of a thing not to be proved, but to be taken for granted. Let him penetrate me with his own notions; or frankly acknowledge their insufficiency. But let him mark that they are indeed his own! Let them be neither fanatical, illusory, nor traditional.'

Juliet was compelled to obey; but while she was repeating her message, Elinor descended the hill, and they all met at its foot.

'Harleigh,' she cried, 'fear me not! Do not imagine I shall again go over the same ground; – at least, not with the monotonous stupidity of again going over it in the same manner. Yet believe not my resolution to be shaken! But I have some doubts, relative to your own principles and opinions, of which I demand a solution.'

She then seated herself upon the turf, and made Harleigh seat himself before her, while Juliet remained by her side.

'Can you feign, Harleigh? Can you endure to act a part, in defiance of your nobler nature, merely to prolong my detested life? Do you join in the popular cry against suicide, merely to arrest my impatient hand? If not, initiate me, I beseech, in the series of pretended reasoning, by which honour, honesty, and understanding such as yours, have been duped into bigotry? How is it, explain! that you can have been worked upon to believe in an existence after death? Ah, Harleigh! could you, indeed, give so sublime a resting-place to my labouring ideas! – I would consent to enter the ecclesiastical court myself, to sing the recantation of what you deem my errours. And then, Albert, I might learn, – with all my wretchedness! – to bear to live, – for then, I might seek and foster some hope in dying!'

'Dear Elinor!' cried Harleigh, gently, almost tenderly, 'let me send for some divine!'

'How conscious is this retreat,' she cried, 'of the weakness of your cause! Ah! why thus try to bewilder a poor forlorn traveller, who is dropping with fatigue upon her road? and to fret and goad her on, when the poor tortured wretch languishes to give up the journey altogether? Why not rather, more generously, more like yourself, aid her to attain repose? to open her burning veins, and bid her pent up blood flow freely to her relief? or kindly point the steel to her agonized heart, whose last sigh would be ecstacy if it owed its liberation to your pitying hand! Oh Harleigh! what vain prejudice, what superstitious sophistry, robs me of the only solace that could soothe my parting breath?'

'What is it Elinor means?' cried Harleigh, alarmed, yet affecting to speak lightly: 'Has she no compunction for the labour she causes my blood in thus perpetually accelerating its circulation.'

'Pardon me, dear Harleigh, I have inadvertently run from my purpose to my wishes. To the point, then. Make me, if it be possible, conceive how your reason has thus been played upon, and your discernment been set asleep. I have studied this matter abroad, with the ablest casuists, I have met with; and though I may not retain, or detail their reasoning, well enough to make a convert of any other, they have fixed for ever in my own mind, a conviction that death and annihilation are one. Why do you knit your brow? – And see how Ellis starts! – And why do you both look at me as if I were mad? Mad? because I would rather crush misery than endure it? Mad? because I would rather, at my own time, die the death of reason, than by compulsion, and when least disposed, that of nature? Of reason, that appreciates life but by enjoyment; not of nature, that would make misery linger, till malady or old age dissolve the worn out fabric. To indulge our little miserable fears and propensities, we give flattering epithets to all our meannesses; for what is endurance of worldly pain and affliction but folly? what patience, but insipidity? what suffering, but cowardice? Oh suicide! triumphant antidote to woe! straight forward, unerring route to rest, to repose! I call upon thy aid! I invoke – '

'Repose? – rest?' interrupted Harleigh, 'how earned? By deserting our duties? By quitting our posts? By forsaking and wounding all by whom we are cherished?'

'One word, Harleigh, answers all that: Did we ask for our being? Why was it given us if doomed to be wretched? To whom are we accountable for renouncing a donation, made without our consent or knowledge? O, if ever that wretched thing called life has a noble moment, it must surely be that of its voluntary sacrifice! lopping off, at a blow, that hydra-headed monster of evil upon evil, called time; bounding over the imps of superstition; dancing upon the pangs of disease; and boldly, hardily mocking the senseless legends, that would frighten us with eternity! – Eternity? to poor, little, frail, finite beings like us! Oh Albert! worldly considerations, monkish inventions, and superstitious reveries set apart; – reason called forth, truth developed, probabilities canvassed, – say! is it not clear that death is an end to all? an abyss eternal? a conclusion? Nature comes but for succession; though the pride of man would give her resurrection. Mouldering all together we go, to form new earth for burying our successors.'

'Horrible, Elinor, most horrible! yet if, indeed, it is your opinion that you are doomed to sink to nothing; if your soul, in the full tide of its energies, and in the pride of intellect, seems to you a mere appendant to the body; if you believe it to be of the same fragile materials; how can you wish to shorten the so short period of consciousness? to abridge the so brief moment of sensibility? Is it not always time enough to think, feel, see, hear, – love and be loved no more?'

'Yes! 'tis always too soon to lose happiness; but misery, – ah Albert! – why should misery, when it can so easily be stilled, be endured?'

'Stilled, Elinor? – What mean you? By annihilation? – How an infidel assumes fortitude to wish for death, is my constant astonishment! To believe in the eternal loss of all he holds, or knows, or feels; to be persuaded that "this sensible, warm being" will "melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew," – and to believe that there all ends! Surely every species of existence must be preferable to such an expectation from its cessation! Dust! literal dust! – Food for worms! – to be trod upon; – crushed; – dug up; – battered down; – is that our termination? That, – and nothing more?'

'Tis shocking, Albert, no doubt; shocking and disgusting. Yet why disguise the fact? Reason, philosophy, analogy, all prove our materialism. Even common observation, even daily experience, in viewing our natural end, where neither sickness nor accident impede, nor shorten its progress, prove it by superannuation; shew clearly that mind and body, when they die the long death of nature, gradually decline together.'

'Were that double decay constant, Elinor, in its junction, you might thence, perhaps, draw that inference; but does not the body wither as completely by decay, in the very prime, and pride, and bloom of youth, where the death is consumption, as in the most worn-out decrepitude of age? Yet the capacity is often, even to the last minute, as perfect as in the vigour of health. Were all within, as well as all without, material, would not the blight to one involve, uniformly, the blight to the other? How often, too, does age, even the oldest, escape any previous decay of intellect! There are records extant, of those who, after attaining their hundredth year, have been capable of bearing testimony in trials; but are there any of those, who, at half that age, have preserved their external appearance? No. It is the body, therefore, not the soul, that, in a natural state, and free from the accelerations of accident, seems first to degenerate. The grace of symmetry, the charm of expression, may last with our existence, and delight to its latest date; but that which we understand exclusively, as personal perfections, – how soon is it over! Not only before the intellects are impaired, but even, and not rarely, before they are arrived at their full completion. Can mind, then, and body be but one and the same thing, when they neither flourish nor wither together?'

'Ah, Harleigh! is it not your willing mind, that here frames its sentiments from its exaltation? Not your deeper understanding, that defines your future expectations from your rational belief?'

'No, Elinor; my belief in the immortality of the soul may be strengthened, but it is not framed by my wishes. Let me, however, ask you a question in return. Your disbelief of the immortality of the soul, is founded on your inability to have it, visually, or orally, demonstrated: Let me, then, ask, can the nature, use, and destinations of the soul, however darkly hidden from our analysing powers, be more impervious to our limited foresight, than the narrower, yet equally, to us, invisible, destiny of our days to come upon earth? But does any one, therefore, from not knowing its purposes, disbelieve that his life may be lengthened? Yet which of us can divine what his fate will be from year to year? What his actions, from hour to hour? his thoughts, from moment to moment?'

'Oh Harleigh! how fatally is that true! how little did I foresee, when I so delighted in your society, that that very delight would but impel me to burn for the moment of bidding you an eternal farewell!'

Harleigh sighed; but with earnestness continued: 'We conceive the soul to influence, if not to direct our whole construction, yet we have no sensible proof of its being in any part of it: how, then, shall we determine that to be destroyed or departed, which we have never known to be created? never seen to exist? O bow we down! for all is inexplicable! We can but say, the body is obvious in its perfection, and still obvious in its decay; the soul is always unsearchable! were we sure it were only our understanding, we might, perhaps, develop it; or only our feelings, we might catch it; but it is something indefinable, of which the consciousness tells us not the qualities, nor the possession the attributes; and of which the end leaves no trace! We follow it not to its dissolution like the body; which, after what we call death, is still as evident, as when our conception of what is soul were yet lent to it: if the soul, then, be equally material, say, is it still there also? though as unseen and hidden as when breath and motion were yet perceptible?'

'Body and soul, Albert, come together with existence, and together are nullified by death.'

'And are you, Elinor, aware whither such reasoning may lead? If the body instead of being the tenement of the soul, is but one and the same with it; – how are you certain, if they are not sundered by death, that they do not in death, though by means, and with effects to us unknown, still exist together? That with the body, whether animated or inert, the soul may not always be adherent? who shall assure you, who, at least, shall demonstrate, that if the soul be but a part of the body, it may not think, though no utterance can be given to its thoughts; and may not feel, though all expression is at an end, and motion is no more? Whither may such reasoning lead? to what strange suggestions may it not conduct us? to what vain fantasies, what useless horrours? May we not apprehend that the insects, the worms which are formed from the human frame, may partake of and retain human consciousness? May we not imagine those wretched reptiles, which creep from our remains, to be sensible of their fallen state, and tortured by their degradation? to resent, as well as seek to elude the ill usage, the blows, the oppressions to which they are exposed? – '

'Fie! Albert, fie!'

'Nay, what proof, if for proof you wait, have you to the contrary? Is it their writhing? their sensitive shrink from your touch? their agonizing efforts to save their miserable existence from your gripe?'

'Harleigh! Harleigh!'

'And this dust, Elinor, to which you settle that, finally, all will be mouldered or crumbled; – fear you not that its every particle may possess some sensitive quality? When we cease to speak, to move, to breathe, you assert the soul to be annihilated: But why? Is it only because you lose sight of its operations? In chemistry are there not sundry substances which, by certain processes, become invisible, and are sought in vain by the spectator; but which, by other processes, are again brought to view? And shall the chemist have this faculty to produce, and to withdraw, from our sight, and the Creator of All be denied any occult powers?'

'Nay, Albert, "how can we reason but from what we know?" – Will you compare a fact which experiment can prove, which reason may discuss, and which the senses may witness, with a bare possibility? A vague conjecture?'

'Is nothing, then, credible, Elinor, that is out of the province of demonstration? nothing probable, that surpasses our understanding? – nothing sacred that is beyond our view? Are we so perfect in our knowledge, even of what we behold, or possess, as to draw such presumptuous conclusions, of the self-sufficiency and omnipotence of our faculties, for judging what is every way out of our sight, or reach? Do we know one radical point of our existence, here, where "we live, and move, and have our being?" Do we comprehend, unequivocally, our immediate attributes and powers? Can we tell even how our hands obey our will? how our desires suffice to guide our feet from place to place? to roll our eyes from object to object? If all were clear, save the existence and the extinction of the soul, then, indeed, we might pronounce all faith, but in self-evidence, to be folly!'