1829.] Novels by the Author of Headlong Hall. 387 
tented*themselves with requesting that they might dine in the kitchen, which 
seemed to be the only spot on the Island of Pure Intelligence in which there 
was a glimmer of light. 
“Mr. Mystic remarked that he thought this very bad taste, but that he 
should have no objection if the cook would consent; who, he observed, had 
paramount dominion over that important division of the Island of Pure Intel- 
ligence. The cook, with a little murmuring, consented for once to evacuate 
her citadel as soon as the dinner was on table ; entering, however, a pro- 
= that this infringement on her privileges should not be pleaded as a pre- 
eedent. 
“* Mr. Fax was afraid that Mr. Mystic would treat them as Lord Peter treated 
his brothers: that he would put nothing on the table, and regale them with a 
flissertation on the pure idea of absolute substance ; but in this he was agreeably 
disappointed ; for the anticipated cognition of a good dinner very soon smoked 
before them, in the relation of determinate co-existence ; and the objective pheno- 
menon of some superexcellent Madeira quickly put the whole party in perfect 
good-humour. It appeared, indeed, to have a diffusive quality of occult and 
mysterious virtue ; for, with every glass they drank, the fog grew thin, till by 
the _ they had taken off four bottles among them, it had totally disap- 
eared. 
Pee Mr. Mystic now prevailed on them to follow him to the library, where they 
found a blazing fire and a four-branched gas lamp, shedding a much brighter 
radiance than that of the synthetical torch. He said he had been obliged to 
light this lamp, as it seemed they could not see by the usual illumination of 
Cimmerian Lodge. The brilliancy of the gas lights he much disapproved ; 
but he thought it would be very unbecoming in a transcendental philosopher 
to employ any other material for a purpose to which smoke was applicable. 
Mr. Fax said, he should have thought, on the contrary, that ex fumo dare lucem 
would have been, of all things, the most repugnant to his principles; and 
Mr. Mystic replied, that it had not struck him so before, but that Mr. Fax’s 
view of the subject ‘ was exquisitely dusky and fuliginous:’ this being his 
usual mode of expressing approbation, instead of the common phraseology of 
bright thoughts and luminous ideas, which were equally abhorrent to him both 
in theory and practice. However, he*said, there the light was, for their bene- 
fit, and not for his: and as other men’s light was his darkness, he should put 
on a pair of spectacles of smoked glass, which no one could see through but 
himself. Having put on his spectacles, he undrew a black curtain, discovered 
a cylindrical mirror, and placed a sphere before it with great solemnity. 
‘ This sphere,’ said he, ‘is an oblong spheroid in the perception of the cylin- 
drical mirror: as long as the mirror thought that the object of his perception 
was a real external oblong spheroid, he was a mere empirical philosopher ; but 
he has grown wiser since he has been in my library ; and by reflecting very 
deeply on the degree in which the manner of his construction might influence 
the forms of his perception, has taken a very opaque and tenebricose view of 
how much of the spheroidical perception belongs to the object, which is the 
sphere, and how much to the subject, which is himself, in his quality of cylin- 
drical mirror. He has thus discovered the difference between objective and 
subjective reality : and this point of view is transcendentalism.’ 
*¢ A very dusky and fuliginous speculation, indeed,’ said Mr. Fax, come 
plimenting Mr. Mystic in his own phrase. 
“ Tea and coffee were brought in. ‘I divide my day,’ said Mr. Mystic, 
£on a new principle: I am always poetical at breakfast, moral at luncheon, 
metaphysical at dinner, and political at tea. Now you shall know my opi- 
nion of the hopes of the world.--General discontent shall be the basis of 
pa resignation. The materials of political gloom will build the steadfast 
ame of hope. The main point is to get rid of analytical reason, which is 
experimental and practical, and lives only by faith, which is synthetical and 
oracular. The contradictory interests of ten millions, may neutralize each 
other. But the spirit of Antichrist is abroad :—the people read !—nay, they 
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