nothing but himself; nevertheless his words, at one time questioning, at another replying, were such as take place between those who reason strictly on some important subject.  And from what was said by the one, the reply of the other might be easily comprehended by the intellect, although it was not heard by the ear.  The discourses were so lofty and marvellous, both by the sublimity of their topics and a certain unwonted manner of talking, that, exalted above myself in a kind of ecstasy, I did not dare to interrupt them, nor ask Tasso about the spirit, which he had announced to me, but which I did not see.  In this way, while I listened between stupefaction and rapture, a considerable time had elapsed; till at last the spirit departed, as I learned from the words of Torquato; who, turning to me, said, ’From this day forward all your doubts will have vanished from your mind.’  ‘Nay,’ said I, ’they are rather increased; since, though I have heard many things worthy of marvel, I have seen nothing of what you promised to shew me to dispel them.’  He smiled, and said, ‘You have seen and heard more of him than perhaps —­,’ and here he paused.  Fearful of importuning him with new questions, the discourse ended; and the only conclusion I can draw is, what I before said, that it is more likely his visions or frenzies will disorder my own mind than that I shall extirpate his true or imaginary opinion."[30]

Did the “smile” of Tasso at the close of this extraordinary scene, and the words which he omitted to add, signify that his friend had seen and heard more, perhaps, than the poet would have liked to explain?  Did he mean that he himself alone had been seen and heard, and was author of the whole dialogue?  Perhaps he did; for credulity itself can impose;—­can take pleasure in seeing others as credulous as itself.  On the other hand, enough has become known in our days of the phenomena of morbid perception, to render Tasso’s actual belief in such visions not at all surprising.  It is not uncommon for the sanest people of delicate organisation to see faces before them while going to sleep, sometimes in fantastical succession.  A stronger exercise of this disposition in temperaments more delicate will enlarge the face to figure; and there can be no question that an imagination so heated as Tasso’s, so full of the speculations of the later Platonists, and accompanied by a state of body so “nervous,” and a will so bent on its fancies, might embody whatever he chose to behold.  The dialogue he could as easily read in the vision’s looks, whether he heard it or not with ears.  If Nicholay, the Prussian bookseller, who saw crowds of spiritual people go through his rooms, had been a poet, and possessed of as wilful an imagination as Tasso, he might have gifted them all with speaking countenances as easily as with coats and waistcoats.  Swedenborg founded a religion on this morbid faculty; and the Catholics worship a hundred stories of the like sort in the Lives of the Saints, many of which are equally true and false; false in reality, though true in supposition.  Luther himself wrote and studied till he saw the Devil; only the great reformer retained enough of his naturally sturdy health and judgment to throw an inkstand at Satan’s head,—­a thing that philosophy has been doing ever since.