Introduction, 37 
alchymic art last quoted tells us, “will 
restore you to the health and soundness you 
have lost.” With this result I shall not have 
laboured in vain, and you will all admit I 
have tried my hardest to obey the command 
of our ex-Oddship, Bro. Quaritch, 
** To discover the Philosopher’s Stone,” 
and present it to you accordingly as an Odd 
Volume. 
Now, in my “mind’s eye,” I see a scep- 
tical, unpoetical Brother, who can evolve 
nothing from his inner consciousness but the 
conception of hard solid facts: he says with 
Hamlet,—“ Man delights not me, nor 
women either.” His mind has been intent 
on the absolute discovery of the Philoso- 
pher’s Stone; and he is almost angry with 
me that I have not discovered it. He smiles 
at my story of the Sicilian labourer; and, as 
to the Vases of ‘ Padway in Italy,” he be- 
lieves them to be mythical and unreal ; and 
