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    172 ELIZABETH VON RECKE.

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    ~*» ' Past I. There Are Some Individuals...

    judgment , even in the midst of all lier credulity , is shown in the fact of her having never suffered her fancy to persuade her that her

    longing for a supernatural visitation had been granted . A sunbeam was thrown upon her darkened life , by the marriage

    of her beloved and only sister with the Grand Duke of Courland ; and no court formalities being suffered to interrupt the freedom of

    their intercourse , the princely lady _wsls accustomed to spend many hours in her society , cheering her during days of illness by her

    liveliness and amiability . Frau von Recke ' s belief in magic was sanctified by its intimate

    connection with her religious sentiments ; she considered everything which threw doubt upon it as a profanation of the divineand by

    , an effort of will _, could always restrain her strong understanding from exercising any judgment on matters wMch she conceived to be

    beyond the province of reason . Her faith , too , was nurtured by a constant interchange of letters with Stilling and Lavater . Both

    before and during Cagliostro ' s stay at Mittau , a certain Professor Stark had carried on a similar magic-masonic imposture in the

    same town ; each professor had his adherents , and accused Ms rival of the practice of black magic . Cagliostro ' s fate in Warsaw seemed

    to confirm Stark's charge against him , and Frau von Recke now turned to the latter , who had founded a lodge of Freemasons at

    Mittau , at whose meetings he often spoke upon the connection between the outward and material world and the world of spirits .

    But even here , some of the practices wore a very suspicious appearance in the eyes of a pure being who only aspired to what was

    elevated and heavenly , raising doubts which could not be shaken oif . Then , too , her conversations with men whom she could not but

    respect , and particularly with _Neander and Counsellor _Schwander , had an influence upon her understanding which was far from

    favorable to its mystical tendencies . The latter had long tried in vain every method to wean her from her delusions , but reason and

    ridicule alike failed ; ar . d _, more grieved at Ms _scejjticism than he was at her superstition , s ! . \ e " would beg him , with tears in her eyes ,

    not to speak against _svxji things . At last , however , he obtained from her a promise to abstain for a whole year from reading Lavater

    Stilling , or any books of a similar nature , and kept her supplied , instead with historical works . The errorsdeceits , and prejudices ,

    , which she now read of as having prevailed in former times , made her suspicious of marvellous appearances in her own day , and her

    ideas began to gain clearness and consistency . But the work to which she owed her final emancipation from the fetters of

    superstition , was Leasing ' s Nathan ; for there her spirituality could be nourished with reasonable and wholesome food . The force

    of the passage _" Fervent devotion is easier than righteous action , " struck her greatly , it entered her mind like a flash of lightand

    , illumined all that had before been in obscurity . Cagliostro no

    longer appeared to her as either a white or a black magician ,

    172 Elizabeth Von Recke.

    172 ELIZABETH VON RECKE .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1860, page 172, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051860/page/28/