In the hurry of my
imagination, I commanded rain to fall, and, by comparing the time of my
command with that of the inundation, I found, that the clouds had
listened to my lips.'
"Might not some other cause," said I, "produce this concurrence? the
Nile does not always rise on the same day.
"'Do not believe,' said he, with impatience, 'that such objections could
escape me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and laboured
against truth with the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myself of
madness, and should not have dared to impart this secret, but to a man
like you, capable of distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible,
and the incredible from the false.'
"Why, sir," said I, "do you call that incredible, which you know, or
think you know, to be true?
"'Because,' said he, 'I cannot prove it by any external evidence; and I
know, too well, the laws of demonstration, to think that my conviction
ought to influence another, who cannot, like me, be conscious of its
force. I, therefore, shall not attempt to gain credit by disputation. It
is sufficient, that I feel this power, that I have long possessed, and
every day exerted it. But the life of man is short, the infirmities of
age increase upon me, and the time will soon come, when the regulator of
the year must mingle with the dust.
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