"It is on such nights as these," said Mordaunt, who first broke the silence, but with a low and soft voice, "that we are tempted to believe that in Plato's divine fancy there is as divine a truth; that 'our souls are indeed of the same essence as the stars,' and that the mysterious yearning, the impatient wish which swells and soars within us to mingle with their glory, is but the instinctive and natural longing to re-unite the divided portion of an immortal spirit, stored in these cells of clay, with the original lustre of the heavenly and burning whole!" And hence then," said his companion, pursuing the idea, "might we also believe in that wondrous and wild influence which the stars have been fabled to exercise over our fate; hence might we shape a visionary clew to their imagined power over our birth, our destinies, and our death." "Perhaps," rejoined Mordaunt, and Lord Ulswater has since said that his countenance as he spoke wore an awful and strange aspect, which lived long and long afterwards in the memory of his companion, "perhaps they are tokens and signs between the soul and the things of Heaven which do not wholly shame the doctrine of him [Socrates, who taught the belief in omens.] from whose bright wells Plato drew (while he coloured with his own gorgeous errors) the waters of his sublime lore." As Mordaunt thus spoke, his voice changed: he paused abruptly, and, pointing to a distant quarter of the heavens, said,-- "Look yonder; do you see, in the far horizon, one large and solitary star, that, at this very moment, seems to wax pale and paler, as my hand points to it?" "I see it; it shrinks and soars, while we gaze into the farther depths of heaven, as if it were seeking to rise to some higher orbit." "And do you see," rejoined Mordaunt, "yon fleecy but dusky cloud which sweeps slowly along the sky towards it? What shape does that cloud wear to your eyes?" "It seems to me," answered Lord Ulswater, "to assume the exact semblance of a funeral procession: the human shape appears to me as distinctly moulded in the thin vapours as in ourselves; nor would it perhaps ask too great indulgence from our fancy to image amongst the darker forms in the centre of the cloud one bearing the very appearance of a bier,--the plume, and the caparison, and the steeds, and the mourners! Still, as I look, the likeness seems to me to increase!" "Strange!" said Mordaunt, musingly, "how strange is this thing which we call the mind! Strange that the dreams and superstitions of childhood should cling to it with so inseparable and fond a strength! I remember, years since, that I was affected even as I am now, to a degree which wiser men might shrink to confess, upon gazing on a cloud exactly similar to that which at this instant we behold. But see: that cloud has passed over the star; and now, as it rolls away, look, the star itself has vanished into the heavens."