begin to learn its grammar."

Mejnour then set before his pupil certain tasks, in which the rest of
the night wore itself away.



CHAPTER 4.V.

Great travell hath the gentle Calidore
And toyle endured...
There on a day,--He chaunst to spy a sort of shepheard groomes,
Playing on pipes and caroling apace.
...He, there besyde
Saw a faire damzell.
--Spenser, "Faerie Queene," cant. ix.

For a considerable period the pupil of Mejnour was now absorbed in
labour dependent on the most vigilant attention, on the most minute and
subtle calculation. Results astonishing and various rewarded his toils
and stimulated his interest. Nor were these studies limited to chemical
discovery,--in which it is permitted me to say that the greatest marvels
upon the organisation of physical life seemed wrought by experiments
of the vivifying influence of heat. Mejnour professed to find a
link between all intellectual beings in the existence of a certain
all-pervading and invisible fluid resembling electricity, yet distinct
from the known operations of that mysterious agency--a fluid that
connected thought to thought with the rapidity and precision of the
modern telegraph, and the influence of this fluid, according to Mejnour,
extended to the remotest past,--that is to say, whenever and wheresoever