Now compare the two places; "the streets were more than a mere
assemblage of houses;" . . . "his light moments . . . passed into the
crucible to come forth unchanged. He lacked the magic wand." I think
these two passages indicate the answer to the "why" that I am forced
to resolve; show something of the secret of the strange charm which
"The Ghost-Ship" possesses.

It delights because it is significant, because it is no mere
assemblage of words and facts and observations and incidents, it
delights because its matter has not passed through the crucible
unchanged. On the contrary, the jumble of experiences and impressions
which fell to the lot of the author as to us all had assuredly been
placed in the athanor of art, in that furnace of the sages which is
said to be governed with wisdom. Lead entered the burning of the
fire, gold came forth from it.

This analogy of the process of alchemy which Richard Middleton has
himself suggested is one of the finest and the fittest for our
purpose; but there are many others. The "magic wand" analogy comes to
much the same thing; there is the like notion of something ugly and
insignificant changed to something beautiful and significant.
Something ugly; shall we not say rather something formless transmuted
into form! After all, the Latin Dictionary declares solemnly that
"beauty" is one of the meanings of "forma" And here we are away from
alchemy and the magic wand ideas, and pass to the thought of the
first place that I have quoted: "the streets were more than a mere
assemblage of houses," The puzzle is solved; the jig-saw--I think
they call it--has been successfully fitted together, There in a box
lay all the jagged, irregular pieces, each in itself crazy and
meaningless and irritating by its very lack of meaning: now we see