"Do you believe it, Margaret? Do you think that in aught I meet with I shall ever forget for one moment the object of my going forth? What will be to me all that the world can give or show--what haughty grandeur--what supple flattery--what upstart wealth--what official insolence--what eager, hasty business--what cunning policy and low cabal--what lordly halls and crowded courts, and glittering gems, and eager strife, without the hope, the one bright leading hope, which, like the mariner's star, may lead me away but to guide me surely home again? Oh no, these things form but the waves of a sea through which my bark must steer; but if they once break in, then I am wrecked indeed. Would, dear Margaret, while I am gone, that you could see every thought and feeling of my heart--behold, as in a glass, every act in which I am engaged."
Margaret mused. "Would we could both know the future," she said, "at least as far as our own fate is concerned; would we could see how all this will end. They tell me there is a man lives yonder, down by those few scattered houses on the moor, who can read horoscopes, and tell by various means the destiny of those who will consult him freely. What think you, Ralph," she asked, with a laugh and a blush; "shall we go and ask him our fate? What if he were to say you would prove untrue, and love some fair lady of the court, and forget Margaret? Are you afraid to inquire?"
"Not in the least," he replied; "for I should give no weight to his words, Margaret, whatever he said. The stars tell us of God's might, and every thing throughout nature of his love and bounty; but man's fate is a sealed book, which no stars, nor aught else in the great creation, can aid us in reading. Had the Almighty ever designed that the destiny even of the next coming hour should be known to us, he would have given us clear means of learning it; for the same Being who has taught us all that is necessary for us to know for our conduct here below, and for our salvation hereafter, would not have left us ignorant of any thing that could be beneficial to us to comprehend in our after destiny. However, I have no fear, so let us go."
It may be a question whether Ralph really felt the full amount of skepticism in regard to arts, which obtained almost universal credence in those days, which he assumed. Reason is a fine thing; but alas for poor human nature! reason but too often fails to convince. There would seem to be intuitive convictions, against which argument the most logical fails to operate. Ralph had a thousand times pondered and discussed with himself all the points of superstition that affected the age in which he lived. He had proved to his own satisfaction that the calculations of the astrologer, and all the terrors of supernatural visitants, were either impostures or dreams--to his own satisfaction, I have said, but not to his own conviction, and the two are very distinct. However, he did not suffer the lingering feelings of unwilling belief, in that which his reason rejected, ever to affect him in his conduct, and he again expressed his willingness to go.