“Fare-well for-ev-er to old Kan-ka-kee,Fare-well, my Lonnie-Bird, don’t wait for me.”
“Fare-well for-ev-er to old Kan-ka-kee,Fare-well, my Lonnie-Bird, don’t wait for me.”
“Fare-well for-ev-er to old Kan-ka-kee,
Fare-well, my Lonnie-Bird, don’t wait for me.”
As the hand of the avenger had touched the lever he had burst forth into impassioned song.
And there was more truth than either poetry or music in his improvisation.
For the cruel energy of this modern executioner was beginning to tell upon its ethereal victim. Never in his varied career had that polished and elegant gentleman been so completely “in the whirl.”
There were now subtle but certainchanges and transformations taking place in his attenuated substance. The gay, gallant and fascinating sojourner from the Orient was slowly but surely undergoing some character of transmutation.
“Now, once for all, and finally,”—resumed Bill, bending forward to readjust some part of the machinery,—“Once again and for the last time I say to you, that you must make up your mind,—no, rather your everlasting substance—to your fearful and final experiences as an individual, as an astral man, as aNEE—go. You have proclaimed that all is spirit. I contend that—ALL—IS—MATTER, andHERE SHE GOES.”
But she didn’t go.
As these last fierce words of Bill Vanderhook cut the air like whip strokes, the unhappy prisoner trembled with fear. With one mighty effort of will he gathered his forces into one last effort to break his bonds.
But in vain. He writhed, struggled, twisted and swayed in the unequal contest.But he was bound, as securely bound by the invisible chain of electricity, as was ever the manacled criminal in the strong, barred dungeon. He was rooted to the rim of that fearful aura of his mechanical captor.
Lifting his eyes and his hands toward the ceiling, the despairing captive raised all that remained of his voice in one last wild, weird cry of supplication:—
“Master, Master, why hast thou forsaken me?”
And what had stayed the avenger’s hand as it reached again to press the fatal button? Was it that wild cry, or the wildwordsthat stayed the bloodless executioner in that torture chamber?
Or,—was it the sudden infusion of another element, of another force, of another individuality superior to the little learning and the little arts of both the modern mystic and the modern scientist?
For, at that instant, in a flash of time, occurred a curious thing.
The echoes of the Mystic’s wail werestill resounding among the jars and jugs when Mr. Vanderhook might have been seen to stagger, to relax, to waver as he stood, to reach blindly for a chair, and then, to crumple up and drop gently upon the floor, to close his eyes, to sleep.
And Imogene, who sat upon the cask of copper wire, whose interest had not flagged for an instant, now changed expression suddenly. She yawned, leaned backward to the wall for support, dropped her pretty head to one side, closed her tearful eyes, and she, too, slept.
And then unsensed by the sleepers, but clear to the vision of the miserable Mystic a sudden, luminous cloud appeared, grew and gathered in intensity. It appeared a few feet from the floor, close to the dynamo, within the radius of its attraction.
Steadily the brightness increased until the electric lights were as candles burning at noonday.
From the midst of this increasing splendor was gradually shaped a majestic figure, the face and form of an unearthly being, a man, yet a man so transcendent in presence, so lofty in pose, so dazzling in vestments, so celestial in expression as to separate him—almost wholly—from the little beings who run to and fro upon the earth, calling themselves men.
The wise man—late of India—looked, shuddered, moaned, closed his eyes and bent his head.
The Radiant One paused an instant, and then spoke,—saying:—
“THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH.”
(By a Member of the OrderofThe Brotherhood of India.)
(By a Member of the OrderofThe Brotherhood of India.)
(By a Member of the Order
of
The Brotherhood of India.)
Perverse and degenerate Soul: I have heard your cry, and have come once more to admonish the wilful and wayward child of evil.
I approach you from a plane of life so far above and beyond the physical that these children of the flesh neither see my form nor hear my voice. By the exercise of a power which has been wisely withheld from you, I have arrested the forces of nature which have been but clumsily employed to entrap you. For a few fleeting moments of earthly time I have lulled to harmless sleep the conscious powers of these earth-bound Souls. My message is for you and for you alone.
Listen: Before you were permitted to open the door of knowledge which leads to the exalted spheres of spiritual illumination and power, you were informed by him who held the key, that no man can ever pass that sacred portal and hope thereafter to evade any of the responsibilities which lie beyond.
Patiently and explicitly you were instructed as to the nature, the scope and the meaning of those responsibilities, and the penalties which nature imposes for their conscious and intentional evasion or violation were made plain. Of your own free will and accord you elected to enter and assume those responsibilities, well knowing the consequences of their violation.
When you first entered our sacred Temple of Light, and knelt as a voluntary initiate at our Altar of Truth, you took upon yourself a solemn and binding Obligation. Well you knew its import. You have not forgotten it. Neither can you now evade the penalty of its violation.
That Great One, in the light of whose deific presence all other light is but a somber shadow, has fixed the seal of his judgment upon it. That judgment is irrevocable. From it there is no appeal. You stand condemned.
Before you were permitted thus to bind yourself to the faithful discharge of a sacred trust you were carefully and minutely instructed as to all the principles, forces, activities and processes of nature on which that obligation rests.
That instruction was given to you as the tribute of a higher knowledge and the dispensation of a higher Power. You knew then, as you know now, that the only compensation required from you is that which must flow to all mankind from your right use of the knowledge and power with which you were then and there invested.
Under that instruction you learned to know the fundamental Attribute with which the Great Universal Intelligence has invested you as an intelligent Soul. You have not forgotten it.
Under that instruction you learned to know the fundamental Power with which you were invested as one of our special messengers of Truth. By the development of that power you have opened the door to higher and nobler possibilities of life. You have not forgotten that lesson, nor the responsibility it imposes.
Under that instruction you learned to know the meaning and the application of the Great Law of Compensation to your own life and intelligence. You accepted the responsibilities which that knowledge inevitably imposes. Nor have you forgotten.
Under that instruction you learned to know the primary and fundamental Duty which rests upon one who voluntarily enters the portal of our venerable Order, and when that duty is fully performed. These conditions you have not forgotten.
Under that instruction you learned to know the great underlyingPurposeof your individual being, as well as the ethicaleffect of that purpose accomplished. You have not forgotten them.
From a yet higher Intelligence and an Authority more transcendent you learned to know the full measure and scope of your own Personal Responsibility to yourself and to your fellow men. None of these things have you forgotten.
Thirteen searching questions were asked you and your answers are inscribed in the records of our Order. You have not forgotten them.
Each question and answer form an immutable link in the chain of your individual record. This golden chain of thirteen mighty links of truth was accepted by you as the rule and guide of your conduct toward yourself and all mankind. Behold it now! Each link is broken into many pieces, and each piece becomes a new link in an unbroken chain of evidence against you.
You knew then and you know now, that the right application of knowledge and the right use of power lead upward to the Pathway of Light and Life; and that theperversion of knowledge and the abuse of power inevitably lead downward to the Way of Darkness and Death.
Notwithstanding your knowledge of all these things, you, of your own free will and accord, have turned your face from the light of truth and your feet from the pathway of eternal life and infinite joy. You have scorned the counsels of the just, ignored the judgments of the wise, defied the immutable an inexorable penalties of broken laws, and have walked boldly down the broad highway of darkness and death. Your feet are now hovering on the brink of despair, and your eyes are peering over deep down into the blackness of everlasting darkness. And what then?
Ah, yes, what then? Then it is you cry out to the Master whose loving admonition you have ignored so often, and you entreat him to save you from the doom you so persistently have invited.
You cry for help, but what is the motive that prompts your cry? Is it humility?No. Is it love? No. Is it any motive which could possibly inspire an honest prayer? Alas, no. It is, instead, the lowest and meanest impulse that ever moves the springs of human action—the impulse of Fear. And fear of what? Fear of Justice. Fear of the inevitable penalties which you so deliberately and persistently have invited; penalties which your own conscience recognizes and your reason approves. Fear of the operation of nature’s most beneficent law, the Law of Compensation.
Oh, selfish lover! false friend! unworthy student! obdurate sinner! unconscionable outlaw and indefensible miscreant! Where now is all your boasted power? Why do you cringe and writhe in an agony of fear? Why are you here, the helpless plaything of forces under the control of this witless child of earth?
Listen, and I will tell you: The Law of Retributive Justice is but a single phase of the great Law of Compensation. That Law is immutable, irrevocable and inexorable.Whosoever invites its judgments must suffer its penalties. Under its inevitable and relentless decree you stand a guilty and condemned Soul.
You have violated the most sacred law of your being—the Law of Love. Neither time, place, circumstance, duty nor responsibility has deterred you from your unholy purpose to wreck the happiness and fortunes of a defenseless home.
You have betrayed the trust of a faithful friend. You have abused his generous hospitality, and violated the sanctity of his household.
You have permitted your own degenerate and selfish desires and passions to override every principle of Equity, Justice and Right.
To accomplish an ignoble purpose you have employed all your little knowledge of our noble science in conscious and deliberate violation of a most sacred and binding obligation; and I am come to behold you now, a blackened and perjuredSoul, expiating your crimes and suffering a self-invoked and righteous penalty.
Nay, more: It is you and such as you who have made it possible for offended ignorance to travesty our noble science, misinterpret our exalted philosophy, bring our ancient and honored Order into ignominy and shame, and all our beneficent instructions under the blighting and humiliating ridicule of this Occidental world.
It is you and such as you who have made it necessary for us once more to shut the doors of our sacred Temple of Light against all who shall come to us from your western shores.
It is you and such as you who have furnished the inspiration which prompts the vulgar wit of your overfed, western semi-civilization to amuse itself in derisive ridicule and mockery of the splendid legacy which our Oriental civilization is but waiting to bequeath to your people.
It is you and such as you who furnish the plots and dramatic settings for your literary travesties; and because of yourtrivial and degrading uses of magical powers, our august Fraternity becomes the target of your caustic, western wits and merciless satirists.
It is you and such as you who deliberately, persistently and flagrantly violate and misrepresent the most beneficent and sacred law of life—the Law of Affinity and Love—and by your wicked perversions and vicious subversions fix upon our noble Order a burden of cruel and unjust criticism, in the presence of which we who are thus maligned and misrepresented bow our heads in humiliation, in sorrow and in shame.
It is you and such as you who knowingly and intentionally substitute sensuality for affinity, lust for love, license for law, and by your brazen and shameless disregard of noble principles and benign teachings, say to the world, “Thus saith our Ancient Order of Light.”
You cringe and writhe in double agony, and well you may, as you look upon thepicture in all its hideous deformity; but your punishment is not yet completed.
Listen yet further to the voice of one who would have spared you this unhappy hour. You were informed by one whose words you can not doubt, that no man can apply his knowledge of our higher science to selfish or ignoble purposes without himself, sooner or later, falling a victim to the forces and processes he thus employs.
Had you been true to yourself, true to your friends, true to your instructors, true to the obligation which God or Nature fixes upon every intelligent Soul, this would have been the day of your triumph and joy. Instead of this you have made it the dark and gloomy hour of your humiliation and exile, and in the records of our Order it marks the closing earthly scene of one more dismal and ignominious failure.
When this sleeping child of the flesh shall awaken and once more shall set in motion the forces which hold you in their relentless grasp, what then? Ah, yes, what then? I will tell you.
The vital element which still binds your spiritual body to its far-away physical counterpart will soon be dissipated. Nature’s magnetic chain which heretofore has enabled you to return to the physical body will be broken. Physical death will have overtaken you. The element which enables you to manifest yourself to these children of earth no longer will be at your command. You will pass from their vision and their knowledge for time, and who knows but for eternity.
In the realm of spiritual darkness you will be left to wander alone, and alone to expiate your crimes.
As it has been here, so will it be there, for you and you alone to determine whether you will follow the path which leads onward and upward to infinite light, perfect happiness and eternal life; or backward and downward along the pathway of deepest darkness to disintegration, dissolution, individual extinction, and a resolution back into nature’s elements. Farewell.
“A maximis ad minima.”
PHLOGISTON IS RESTORED.
And now, an awful silence brooded in that fateful chamber. The Great Light had vanished. Darkness was there.
And then, as swiftly as came sleep, so now the awakening of Bill Vanderhook and his wife.
“Gee, I nearly slipped”—muttered the druggist “That infernal machine must have made me dizzy for a second.”
“And here she goes,”—repeated Bill, wholly unconscious of his lapse. His hand is again upon the lever. His eyes are again riveted upon the private exhibit.
But the voice of the gay Gnani is heard no more by man. He makes no more appeals. His freshness is departing forever.His etheric countenance is distorted by unspeakable anguish. Despair looks from his eyes. His delicate hands, unclasped, are fallen to his sides. His head is bowed upon his breast. The foolish wise man now faces himself on all sides. He sees the past, the present, the future,—sin, suffering, and impenetrable silence.
“And here she goes,”—
Whirr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r.
Whizz-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z.
And go she did,—and so did the Illuminat of Illinois.
Without so much as a farewell word to his Alter Ego, the gaseous and now ghastly gentleman was violently lifted from the perpendicular and suddenly bent in a curve corresponding to the arc of that electrical circle in which he revolved.
He was shot like a ball from a cannon, in and out, up and down, and round and round the Vanderhook laboratory. He was projected with fearful speed along the fatal pathway of that deadly attraction.
Words can not exploit the possibilities of electricity when centered upon a human organism, however attenuated. Up to this last moment the captive had been stirred only by his internal emotions of baffled love, and of deadly fear. Now, however, to internal agony was added outward destruction. To the convulsions of the soul were added the contortions of the body, and with every revolution of the fatal cylinder the reappearing envelope of the doomed soul was seen to be shrinking and shriveling out of all semblance to a man.
What at breakfast had been the lithe and debonnair Gnani of Gingalee, a transparent and elegant gentleman, was now but a thick, cloudy shape, an opaque, formless figure, an unhandsome thing resembling the body of a bent, crooked and deformed child.
Bill Vanderhook was wildly elated.
He beamed upon the exhibit with satanic glee. He laughed for joy over the pallid and lifeless thing whirling under his hand. He emitted a low whistle of profoundsatisfaction. He made notes in his book with excited dots and dashes. At last his triumph broke all bounds. He roared like a whole grandstand at the last touchdown.
“I say, Genesy, that’s what you call aNeego on the home run. Get onto the size of him. Looks like ’leven cents, don’t he? Dollars to dimes he hasn’t enough mysticism left to illuminate a hollow punkin. The next Gooroo from Gingalee won’t run up against an Edison plant. If he does, he’ll find he isn’t the whole push. Just look at the shape of him. Now ain’t you stuck on that? And isn’t he just swinging round the circle like a presidential candidate? Well, well, well, I say, Genesy, if this don’t beat the tom-tom.”
The transformation of the mystic was sustaining the hypothesis of the materialist. The reduction of the astral man was a visible, tangible and scientific fact.
And Imogene, the faithless,—what did she? She gazed and shuddered. That which she saw was not her ideal. It wasno longer her lover. Nor was it a man. It was not even suitable bric-a-brac for a refined home. It was only a Spectacle.
She did not speak. There are times when even a woman feels the advantages of silence. But she gazed upon her late admirer and then upon Bill. She had to acknowledge to her inner consciousness that her own husband cut much the better figure of the two.
Round and round swept the cylinder, its fierce currents and their fated victim.
The features of the mystic were no longer recognizable. The contortions and distortions of body, limbs and features were fearful. The external application of electricity and the internal throes of passion and pain have done their fatal work.
Again and again an increased current, regulated by the avenger, hastened in exact ratio the destruction of the astral man.
The victim first lost control, limb by limb, of his entire organism. Then his voice failed. When he would have called to his Lady-bird, speech was silenced—paralyzed.Nothing of sound but a gurgling, hissing whisper issued from that tiny hole—no longer a human mouth. Only the eyes lived. In that small, corrugated sphere, once a perfect head, was left nothing now that was human, nothing of human intelligence save the eyes—two gleaming sparks of light—and even these, receding and diminishing, gave evidence of the vanishing soul. So long, however, as these two glittering points shone through the vapor mask that had been a face, they sought and chilled the marrow of the disillusioned Imogene.
So long as these two points of intelligence burned in that misshapen ball they rested only upon her, and then—finally as the sodden curtains of phlogisticated matter fell before those windows of the soul and conscious love was swallowed up in vapor, she for whom this tragedy was enacted fell shrieking across the cask of copper wire.
Conversation ceased in the death chamber. The cylinder continued to whirl—dizzily, madly, satanically. Sheets of crackling sparks, blue and wicked, streamed out from that insatiable monster. The full current was on. Every horse-power was let loose. The silent but resistless force of electricity was unchained. And the victim of this awful experiment was no longer a man. It was now but a shape, a cloud, a vapor, a shadow.
There was now but a spinning mass of vapor, a shape no larger than an infant that shot in and out of the laboratory, obedient to the avenger’s hand. The rapid revolutions in that fearful orbit traced out a misty band of cloud. That central cylinder became the hub of a huge spokeless wheel.
With every pulse of time the whirr-r-r-r and the whizz-z-z-z-z of that soulless, bloodless executioner seemed to increase. The invisible avenger flew on its tireless wings with vindictive glee. The air of the room was white-hot. There was an ominous snapping and crackling in and above and around.
There was now but a tiny, shapeless mass of cosmic matter flying in and out through floor and ceiling. There was but the faint, shadowy rim of a phantom wheel.
The heat increased.
The light was blinding. The crackling of the atmosphere was maddening.
Only a faint, misty line now marked the path of the departing soul.
During these supreme moments Bill Vanderhook stood like a statue, tense, rigid, implacable. And his wife, the erring Imogene, crumpled and unconscious, overspread the cask of wire.
The dire noises increased. They became more terrible than the ghastly exhibit; and the heat—it was stifling, consuming; and the light—it was paralyzing. What could it mean? The chemist himself was puzzled. He had not anticipated these very unusual phenomena. He did not, however, cease to press the button.
But that strange, unearthly noise, heat and glare increased. They deepened andwidened until, as Bill said afterwards, it seemed like a legion of devils had come to escort the doomed to his final abode in chaos.
Now, everywhere, above, below, and roundabout, there was a twisting, grinding roar, like that within the cylinder of a cyclone. All in an instant—to the man at the lever—his house, the world, the universe, seemed to have been swallowed up.
An explosion, long, loud and terrific, shook the Vanderhook habitation, from the foundation stones to the mansard roof.
And after this was silence, thick, oppressive, damp, dead and awesome.
And phlogiston was restored.
·······
AND BILL IS IT.
·······
A tiny, black, glistening, motionless monster stood between a man and a woman. There were now but two people in the laboratory—the Honorable William K. Vanderhook and his beautiful wife.The one was flushed with victory, the other was pallid with perplexity and fear.
In another instant our hero was eagerly bending over the instrument of his revenge. In one hand he held a tiny spoon, in the other a small vial upon which was a freshly printed label.
It was with infinite care that he scraped the spoon along the rim of the now stilled and silent cylinder. It was with unmeasured caution and infinite pride that he scraped up three great drops of clear, shining water and transferred them to the yawning mouth of the vial.
This done, the druggist fitted a cork nicely into the vial, while a wide smile of satisfaction illumined his countenance from brow to chin and from ear to ear.
When he turned and looked upon his wife the illumination increased.
And what of her? The woman for whom friendship had been sacrificed and a Mystic cut off in the height of his uselessness? Womanlike, as she watched Mr. Leffingwell disappear into vapor she had sensedthe possibilities of the new dispensation. Alonzo had certainly lapsed. Bill had not. She had lost an admirer, but her husband was still in evidence. Alonzo was reduced to nothingness. Bill was yet a substantial fact. The Mystic could no longer contribute to her entertainment. Bill could make things very disagreeable. Astral advantages were gone. Material things remained.
Opinions to the contrary, women are philosophers—in accommodating themselves to the inevitable.
The lovely Imogene had almost dried her tears, even before the explosion came. When it was over she shook herself into adjustment as to her draperies and ribbons and frills. She fluffed up her bangs, slicked her eyebrows and looked almost as fresh as she generally felt.
When it was all over the avenger turned and, tossing the vial to the lady, said in a loud, triumphant voice,—“Well, here we are, Mrs. Vanderhook; here’s your essence of mysticism for yourmooshoir, andhere”—laughing uproariously,—“is a soov’nir spoon for your next pink tea. And now, my dear girl”—as Imogene began to look mournful again—“if you’ll give up this strenuous occultism and be contented with your old Billsey on the earth plane, I’ll cry quits, and get you anything you want—that isn’t astral.”
Imogene wiped her eyes. She looked at him inquiringly. Then she looked at the vial. Then she sidled up alongside her husband.
And now Bill smiled—but it was under his breath. “What is it, Petsey”—and his arm closed around her. “How would you like one of those dandy little watches, or—”
“Oh, Billsey boy, I do believe after all that it’s you that’sIT. I feel this very minute as if we’d just vibrate together after this splendidly. I bet anything, if you’d just practice a little, you could be up to me in no time.”
The Honorable Mayor of Kankakee turned away to conceal his emotion. Andwhen his expression was out of sight he winked—once—slowly and—judiciously—at the now silent cylinder.
Then he said modestly,—“Yes, Honey, I mean to get even with you if I’m spared. And if you want—”
“The watch? Oh, Billsey dear, I should think I did. If you hadn’t dissolved Lonnie he would have gotten me one soon. But, say, can’t I have, too, one of those dear—dear—markee rings? They’re just too, too, utterly—”
“‘Course you can. You can have a whole tray full if you want ’em. You see, Leff saved me a lot of money; and now I’ll spend it on you. You can have rings and pins and any other truck necessary to your happiness.”
“Oh, Billsey, you don’t mean that you will take me to Chicago this winter to the grand opera, and the charity ball, and the horse show, and all the big department stores,—and—and—”
“Yes, yes, old girl, I’ll take you to all these and everything else that you can’tthink of now, and then to the Stock Yards; for it won’t be like going home without seeing the Yards.”
“You’re a dear, sweet, blessed—”
“But here, see here, Imogene, all this isprovided—that there are no more Dudes from Devachan to deal with. D’ye hear me? Is it a go?”
“Here’s my mitt,”—and Imogene laid her delicate little hand in Bill’s big paw.
And thus, over the—no, not the ashes—but the essence of the late Alonzo Leffingwell, Gnani of Gingalee, and Modern Mystic of Low Degree,—was enacted the full and complete reconciliation of Mr. and Mrs. Vanderhook....
“I say, Genesy, girl, it’s supper time, and I’m hungry as a wolf. And say, too, I’m as dry as a fish.”
“Me, too”—murmured Imogene, and clutching up the back of her gown in one hand she laid the other tenderly and confidingly upon her husband’s arm.
And the husband and wife turned from the laboratory and paused in the library.The untouched spread was still on the table.
“What do you say, my dear, to the removal of this cobweb? What would you say to a little ‘Mumm,’ or a ‘High-ball,’ before we go to dinner?”
“Well, Billsey, I’d just say ‘Let’s,’ for I really do feel nervous. But there—goodness gracious! I’ve gone and left that bottle of Lonnie in the laboratory. Oh, well, never mind; I don’t believe he’s much good as essence, anyway. Patchouli’s good enough. Don’t you think so, Billsey?”
········
And close to the cask of copper wire had rolled a tiny vial, rolled and lost itself in the litter thereabouts, a vial on which the double label read as follows:
“Aqua Vitae”Alonzo Leffingwell, D. P.[2]“Memoria in Aeterna.”Finis.“Tacks Vobiscum.”
“Aqua Vitae”Alonzo Leffingwell, D. P.[2]“Memoria in Aeterna.”
“Aqua Vitae”
Alonzo Leffingwell, D. P.[2]
“Memoria in Aeterna.”
Finis.“Tacks Vobiscum.”
Finis.
“Tacks Vobiscum.”
[2]Defunct Philosopher.
[2]Defunct Philosopher.
Literature is but a symbol.
A book is but an array of signs by which ideas are conveyed, facts transmitted, or truths revealed.
The office of literature is to instruct, inspire, entertain, or demoralize the reader.
Varied as individuality itself are the literary devices of authors.
Innumerable are the expedients to which human intelligence resorts in its efforts to transmit knowledge, to impart ideas and ideals, or to illustrate and elucidate truths.
Born of individual aspirations, ambitions and convictions, and formulated by individual genius, are the poems, essays, dramas, songs, sermons, and even the satires of literature.
And none of these has excuse for being,except its creator has something of value to express, reveal or illustrate.
If the author’s motive be pure, and if his cause be just and his art sufficient, we forgive the mere literary form or trick by which he commands attention and awakens interest.
If, for example, a feathery skit be employed to illustrate a substantial fact or lofty principle in nature, or some current social or philosophic pretension, it should not offend the wise. It could in nowise minimize Truth, nor belittle the great purpose in the background.
It is possible, however, that it may teach a valuable lesson by indirection. It may enlarge the understanding and remove the prejudice of a few people.
To travesty a noble theme is easy, for in this great world of ours the sublime and the ridiculous forever march side by side, and oftentimes their relation is one of great intimacy.
Side by side walk the noble and the ignoble, the wise and the foolish, the seriousand the mirthful, the fine and the unrefined, the lofty and the trivial, the religious and the sacrilegious, the philosophic and the foolish.
The wise man and the faker hourly cross each other’s paths, and their contact and contrast often afford a laugh for the merry and a lesson for the thoughtful.
F. H.
HARMONIC SERIES
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The Volumes Thus Far Completed Are:
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These books are not offered as official expositions of the School of Natural Science, but as valuable literature which supplements the general position and purpose of the School.
New books will be added and old books revived, from time to time, so that this series will eventually cover the many and varied lines of ethics, history, research and discovery.
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