In interfused radiance
Are lost. Past, present, future, all combined
In one sure instantaneous grasp of mind,
And all infinity unrolls at our command,
And beast and man and God unite, as worlds expand.
- Ormeida Curtis Harrison.



A Fourteenth Century Legend

Friar Bacon, reading one day of the many conquests of England, bethought
himself how he might keep it hereafter from the like conquests and so
make himself famous to all posterity. This (after great study) he found
could be no way so well done as one; which was to make a head of brass,
and if he could make this head to speak (and hear it when it spoke) then
might he be able to wall all England about with brass. To this purpose
he got one Friar Bungey to assist him, who was a great scholar and
magician (but not to be compared to Friar Bacon); these two with great
study and pains so formed a head of brass that in the inward parts
thereof there was all things like as in a natural man's head. This being
done they were as far from perfection of the work as they were before,
for they knew not how to give those parts that they had made motion,
without which it was impossible that it should speak. Many books they
read, but yet could not find out any hope of what they sought, that at
the last they concluded to raise a spirit and to know of him that which
they could not attain by their own studies.

The spirit straight obeyed, and appeared unto them, asking what they
would. He told them that with a continual fume of the six hottest