“Madness, say you? Are you sure? Were not these sights, and these sounds, really seen and heard?”
My uncle was surprised at my question. He looked at me with apparent inquietude. “Can you doubt,” said he, “that these were illusions? Does heaven, think you, interfere for such ends?”
“O no; I think it not. Heaven cannot stimulate to such unheard-of outrage. The agent was not good, but evil.”
“Nay, my dear girl,” said my friend, “lay aside these fancies. Neither angel nor devil had any part in this affair.”
“You misunderstand me,” I answered; “I believe the agency to be external and real, but not supernatural.”
“Indeed!” said he, in an accent of surprise. “Whom do you then suppose to be the agent?”
“I know not. All is wildering conjecture. I cannot forget Carwin. I cannot banish the suspicion that he was the setter of these snares. But how can we suppose it to be madness? Did insanity ever before assume this form?”
“Frequently. The illusion, in this case, was more dreadful in its consequences, than any that has come to my knowledge; but, I repeat that similar illusions are not rare. Did you never hear of an instance which occurred in your mother’s family?”
“No. I beseech you relate it. My grandfather’s death I have understood to have been extraordinary, but I know not in what respect. A brother, to whom he was much attached, died in his youth, and this, as I have heard, influenced, in some remarkable way, the fate of my grandfather; but I am unacquainted with particulars.”