Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
If to act upon our conceptions of right, and to acquit ourselves of all prejudice and
selshness in the formation of our principles, entitle us to the testimony of a good
conscience, I might justly claim it.
I shall not pretend to ascertain my rank in the moral scale. Your notions of duty
dier widely from mine. If a system of deceit, pursued merely from the love of truth;
if voluptuousness, never gratied at the expense of health, may incur censure, I
am censurable. This, indeed, was not the limit of my deviations. Deception was
often unnecessarily practised, and my biloquial faculty did not lie unemployed.
What has happened to yourselves may enable you, in some degree, to judge of the
scenes in which my mystical exploits engaged me. In none of them, indeed, were
the eects equally disastrous, and they were, for the most part, the result of well
digested projects.
To recount these would be an endless task. They were designed as mere
specimens of power, to illustrate the inuence of superstition: to give sceptics the
consolation of certainty: to annihilate the scruples of a tender female, or facilitate
my access to the bosoms of courtiers and monks.
The rst achievement of this kind took place in the convent of the Escurial. For
some time the hospitality of this brotherhood allowed me a cell in that magnicent
and gloomy fabric. I was drawn hither chiey by the treasures of Arabian literature,
which are preserved here in the keeping of a learned Maronite, from Lebanon.
Standing one evening on the steps of the great altar, this devout friar expatiated
on the miraculous evidences of his religion; and, in a moment of enthusiasm,
appealed to San Lorenzo, whose martyrdom was displayed before us. No sooner
was the appeal made than the saint, obsequious to the summons, whispered his
responses from the shrine, and commanded the heretic to tremble and believe.
This event was reported to the convent. With whatever reluctance, I could not
refuse my testimony to its truth, and its inuence on my faith was clearly shewn in
my subsequent conduct.
A lady of rank, in Seville, who had been guilty of many unauthorized indulgences,
was, at last, awakened to remorse, by a voice from Heaven, which she imagined
had commanded her to expiate her sins by an abstinence from all food for thirty
days. Her friends found it impossible to outroot this persuasion, or to overcome
her resolution even by force. I chanced to be one in a numerous company where
she was present. This fatal illusion was mentioned, and an opportunity aorded
to the lady of defending her scheme. At a pause in the discourse, a voice was
heard from the ceiling, which conrmed the truth of her tale; but, at the same
time revoked the command, and, in consideration of her faith, pronounced her
absolution. Satised with this proof, the auditors dismissed their unbelief, and
the lady consented to eat.
In the course of a copious correspondence with Ludlow, the observations I
had collected were given. A sentiment, which I can hardly describe, induced me to
be silent on all adventures connected with my bivocal projects. On other topics, I
wrote fully, and without restraint. I painted, in vivid hues, the scenes with which
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