 deem this distinction a reward or punishment; since I have
possessed it I have been far less happy than before, and nothing but the
consciousness of good intention could have enabled me to support the weariness
of unremitted vigilance.«
    »How long, Sir, said I, has this great office been in your hands?«
    »About ten years ago, said he, my daily observations of the changes of the
sky led me to consider, whether, if I had the power of the seasons, I could
confer greater plenty upon the inhabitants of the earth. This contemplation
fastened on my mind, and I sat days and nights in imaginary dominion, pouring
upon this country and that the showers of fertility, and seconding every fall of
rain with a due proportion of sunshine. I had yet only the will to do good, and
did not imagine that I should ever have the power.
    One day as I was looking on the fields withering with heat, I felt in my
mind a sudden wish that I could send rain on the southern mountains, and raise
the Nile to an inundation. In the hurry of my imagination I commanded rain to
fall, and, by comparing the time of my command, with that of the inundation, I
found that the clouds had listened to my lips.«
    »Might not some other cause, said I, produce this concurrence? the Nile does
not always rise on the same day.«
    »Do not believe, said he with impatience, that such objections could escape
me: I reasoned long against my own conviction, and laboured against truth with
the utmost obstinacy. I sometimes suspected myself of madness, and should not
have dared to impart this secret but to a man like you, capable of
distinguishing the wonderful from the impossible, and the incredible from the
false.«
    »Why, Sir, said I, do you call that incredible, which you know, or think you
know, to be true?«
    »Because,« said he, »I cannot prove it by any external evidence; and I know
too well the laws of demonstration to think that my conviction ought to
influence another, who cannot, like me, be conscious of its force. I, therefore,
shall not attempt to gain credit by disputation. It is sufficient that I feel
this power, that I have long possessed, and every day exerted it. But the life
of man is short, the infirmities of age increase upon me, and the time will soon
come when the regulator of the year must mingle with the dust. The care of
appointing a successor
