They now found themselves in a strange city. There lived in one of the convents a young monk, who had, by means of a heated imagination, succeeded in so powerfully convincing himself of the force of religious faith, that he believed he should be able to remove mountains, and to prove himself a new apostle in deeds and miracles, if once his soul received the true inspiration, and the Holy Spirit worked its way through him. Besides this, he imbibed all the follies and quackeries which others had rejected,--a circumstance in which visionaries entirely differ from philosophers. The young monk, like every theorist who is inspired with the importance of his subject, was a fiery orator; he thereby soon won over the minds of the simple, especially of the women, who were easily caught by any warm and impassioned appeal. His imagination, however, quickly formed for him another magic wand; for as he, on account of his alliance with the highest of all beings, had a lofty opinion of man, he formed the design of physiognomically dissecting the masterpiece of creation, this favourite of heaven, and of allotting to him his interior qualities by means of his exterior appearance. Men of his character so frequently deceive themselves, that it is impossible to say whether some remaining spark of understanding had whispered to him that this new delusion would give a fresh polish to the old one; and that more pious souls would come to him than ever, in order to be told so many wondrous things about their faces. As he had only seen the four walls of his cell, his penitents, and people of his own cast, and as he was as ignorant in regard to mankind, the world, and true science, as men of sanguine imaginations usually are,--it may be concluded that fancy alone excited him to this scheme. His words and his writings operated prodigiously upon the minds of all those who would much rather be confused than think clearly. This is the case with the greater part of mankind; and, as the hours of life glide away very pleasantly when self-love is tickled, it was impossible that he should be without disciples, for he flattered every body. Our monk did not confine his researches to man alone; for he descended to the more ignoble beasts of the earth, allotted to them their qualities by examining their faces and the structure of their bodies, and imagined that he had made a wonderful discovery when he proved--from the mighty claws, the teeth, and the aspect of the lion, and from the tender, light fabric of the hare--why the lion was not a hare, and the hare a lion. He was strangely surprised that he had succeeded in pointing out so clearly the appropriate and unalterable signs of brute nature, and to be able to apply them to man,--although society has so much accustomed the latter to mask his features, that they are rarely to be seen in their primitive state. Not satisfied with these triumphs, our monk descended even into the kingdoms