Left to himself, the stricken idealist fell into still more pernicious errors. Witchcraft, was the next delusion he was fated to experience. Not that Toby ever imagined himself to be either a witch or a wizard; but he fell, most obstinately, into the belief,--ay, as obstinately as the knight of La Mancha himself,--that he was under the mischievous power of some who dealt with wicked spirits and practised enchantments. His imagination in this, as in earlier instances of its treacherousness to his judgment, made a rapid, though gradual, abandonment of all self-evident and common-sense conclusions, even in the every-day affairs of life. That nest of temptation--his library--as, also, in the case of the world-known Quixote, was, again, the source from which Toby Lackpenny drew the written proofs for the reality of his credulous vagaries. "Gloomy Glanvil," as critical Toby had called him in the days of his higher spiritual-mindedness, was the superstitious expounder of doctrine to whom the philosophical tailor now attached himself. How could he deny that a compact with evil spirits was possible to fallen human creatures, when he had believed, so heartily, with Swedenborg, that it was possible for sinful man to hold communion with celestial ministers? Besides, was there not the indubitable history of the Witch of Endor, and innumerable other references to dealers with familiar spirits, in the volume of Holy Writ? And were they likely--these wicked and envious agencies of the "evil eye"--to look on any human being so maliciously as on him who had aspired to converse with good angels? Would they not feel an instinctive antipathy towards him? He was convinced they would, as soon as he inwardly asked the question. He had just lost his thimble while he was thinking thus; and though he hunted for it a full hour, he was not able to find it! What though this had often fallen to his share of ill luck before? It was not, now, to be accounted for as an accident. No: it had been spirited away: he was bewitched; he was sure he was. It was by petty acts of mischief that the withered hags of hell usually commenced their annoyance of those whose aspirations after purity had raised their devilish hate. His case, he feared, was too sure to prove a sorrowful one, for he knew not how to counterwork their malevolence. What a dunce he had been to neglect that branch of occult study! But it might not be too late to acquire even a profound knowledge of it; and so he would set about it in right earnest.