( 102 ) 



then submitted to the law of silence ? No , replied 

 Orpheus ; I am not submitted to the law of silence ; 

 I have none but confused thoughts to which I can 

 with difficulty give a realitj^, and above ail , a reality 

 by words. — And I do not know, august father , whe- 

 ther we are born in the same sphère of ideas and sen- 

 timents : and my mouth refuses to express an y speech 

 which isnotlheclothingofthethought. Oldman, were 

 I to inform you of what is passing in me , you would 

 perhaps consider me as a madman. Nevertheless I 

 have conceived a design which l must exécute before 

 ail things. The genius of ancestry inhabits the pro- 

 montory of Leucate. He who is ignorant of the 

 father to who m he owes his existence , and who is 

 animated with an aident désire to know him, that 

 he may be able to transmit faculties which are in 

 themselves capable of being transmitted, he who 

 wishes at the same time, to have an ancestry , a 

 tomb , a posterity , must after having observed the 

 prescribed cérémonies, throw himself from the sum- 

 mit of the promontory into the sea. Either his 

 ephemeral soul is extinguished in the waves , or 

 the i m m or la 1 father, who lives in him, saves an im- 

 perishable race , by revealing the name of the pri- 

 mitive author. A simple mortal should not fear to 

 encounter such a trial , when as it is reported , 

 gods themselves have not disdained to encounter it. 

 Thus several have conquered their place in the hea- 

 vens , and I M r ish only to conquer one on the earth. 



» Thy soul , said Talaon , cannot be extin- 

 guished by water ; for it is not one of those vulgar 



