not know, sir," said he, "whether you have found leisure to study these
enigmas of that mysterious Sphinx, the earth; for though Count Alfieri
has spoken to me of your unusual acquirements, I understand your tastes
have hitherto lain rather in the direction of philosophy and letters;"
and on Odo's prompt admission of ignorance, he courteously continued:
"The physical sciences seem, indeed, less likely to appeal to the
imaginative and poetical faculty in man, and, on the other hand,
religion has appeared to prohibit their too close investigation; yet I
question if any thoughtful mind can enter on the study of these curious
phenomena without feeling, as it were, an affinity between such
investigations and the most abstract forms of thought. For whether we
regard these figured stones as of terriginous origin, either mere lusus
naturae, or mineral formations produced by a plastic virtue latent in
the earth, or whether as in fact organic substances lapidified by the
action of water; in either case, what speculations must their origin
excite, leading us back into that dark and unexplored period of time
when the breath of Creation was yet moving on the face of the waters!"

Odo had listened but confusedly to the first words of this discourse;
but his intellectual curiosity was too great not to respond to such an
appeal, and all his perplexities slipped from him in the pursuit of the
Professor's thought.

One of the other guests seemed struck by his look of attention. "My dear
Vivaldi," said this gentleman, laying down a fossil, and fixing his gaze
on Odo while he addressed the Professor, "why use such superannuated
formulas in introducing a neophyte to a study designed to subvert the
very foundations of the Mosaic cosmogony? I take it the Cavaliere is one
of us, since he is here this evening: why, then, permit him to stray
even for a moment in the labyrinth of theological error?"