A Strange Story — Volume 05Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
Science
A Strange Story — Volume 05
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
On the second evening of Faber's visit I brought to him the draft of deeds
for the sale of his property. He had never been a man of business out of
his profession; he was impatient to sell his property, and disposed to
accept an offer at half its value. I insisted on taking on myself the
task of negotiator; perhaps, too, in this office I was egotistically
anxious to prove to the great physician that which he believed to be my
"hallucination" had in no way obscured my common-sense in the daily
affairs of life. So I concluded, and in a few hours, terms for his
property that were only just, but were infinitely more advantageous than
had appeared to himself to be possible. But as I approached him with the
papers, he put his finger to his lips. Amy was standing by him with her
little book in her hand, and his own Bible lay open on the table. He was
reading to her from the Sacred Volume itself, and impressing on her the
force and beauty of one of the Parables, the adaptation of which had
perplexed her; when he had done, she kissed him, bade him goodnight, and
went away to rest. Then said Faber thoughtfully, and as if to himself
more than me,--
"What a lovely bridge between old age and childhood is religion! How
intuitively the child begins with prayer and worship on entering life, and
how intuitively on quitting life the old man turns back to prayer and
worship, putting himself again side by side with the infant!"
I made no answer, but, after a pause, spoke of fines and freeholds,
title-deeds and money; and when the business on hand was concluded, asked
my learned guest if, before he departed, he would deign to look over the
pages of my ambitious Physiological Work. There were parts of it on which
I much desired his opinion, touching on subjects in which his special
studies made him an authority as high as our land possessed.
He made me bring him the manuscript, and devoted much of that night and
the next day to its perusal.
When he gave it me back, which was not till the morning of his departure,
he commenced with eulogies on the scope of its design, and the manner of
its execution, which flattered my vanity so much that I could not help
exclaiming, "Then, at least, there is no trace of 'hallucination' here!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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