asserts), given to all men, though dormant in most; vivid and active in me
because in me self-preservation has been and yet is the strong
master-passion, or instinct; and because I have been taught how to use and
direct such faculties by disciplined teachers,--some by Louis Grayle, the
enchanter; some by my nurse, the singer of charmed songs. But in much
that I will to have done, I know no more than yourself how the agency
acts. Enough for me to will what I wish, and sink calmly into slumber,
sure that the will would work somehow its way. But when I have willed to
know what, when known, should shape my own courses, I could see, without
aid from your pitiful telescopes, all objects howsoever far. What wonder
in that? Have you no learned puzzle-brained metaphysicians who tell you
that space is but an idea, all this palpable universe an idea in the mind,
and no more? Why am I an enigma as dark as the Sibyls, and your
metaphysicians as plain as a hornbook?" Again the sardonic laugh.
"Enough: let what I have said obscure or enlighten your guesses, we come
back to the same link of union, which binds man to man, bids States arise
from the desert, and foeman embrace as brothers. I need you and you need
me; without your aid my life is doomed; without my secret the breath will
have gone from the lips of your Lilian before the sun of to-morrow is red
on the hill-tops."

"Fiend or juggler," I cried in rage, "you shall not so enslave and
enthrall me by this mystic farrago and jargon. Make your fantastic
experiment on yourself if you will: trust to your arts and your powers.
My Lilian's life shall not hang on your fiat. I trust it--to--"

"To what--to man's skill? Hear what the sage of the college shall tell
you, before I ask you again for your aid. Do you trust to God's saving
mercy? Ah, of course you believe in a God? Who, except a philosopher,
can reason a Maker away? But that the Maker will alter His courses to