FILED AWAY WITH THE FOLLOWING TALE.
The tale of the Alchemist was related at our meeting to a concourse of as drowsy listeners as I ever saw congregated around a cheerful fire. The individual who related it, however, manifested a deep interest in every incident of the story. Indeed, when he arrived at some of the more startling and mysterious passages in it, he gave them with a ghostly intonation of voice, slowly and cautiously, looking anxiously around him to discover what impression they made. He exerted all his powers to be interesting, and preserved a very serious air throughout; which caused me to greatly suspect him as one of those easy-natured creatures, who are ever willing to believe whatever they hear, without troubling their heads for philosophic reasons, or permitting their faith to be at all interfered with by measuring probabilities.
After he had finished, it was soon ascertained that the story is a genuine tradition, as faithfully believed by many as any chapter in their Bibles, and certainly oftener thought of and repeated. Upon being questioned, he replied that he had heard it from a number of citizens of well-known veracity, and that to doubt it was regarded, in the neighborhood where the events occurred, as the rankest heresy. Then, too, he added, it has some strong points to recommend it to our belief: it definitely disposes of several matters which would otherwise be compelled to remain forever unsettled; it is old, and many have heretofore given it full credit, which should make us slow to doubt; much of it is marvelous, and therefore incomprehensible, and what we cannot understand it would be irrational to condemn or deny.
This provided against every doubt, and left no other choice but to believe or remain silent. The latter seemed to be generally preferred, and the story was accordingly received as one of those strange tales in which every town used to abound, and filed away as a part of the traditional history of the village to which it related.
S——Y