My Library

inspection surprised me not a little, for on a calm, disinterested view of the whole subject, I found it utterly impossible to gainsay or invalidate his position and assertions. Yet it was equally impossible to help feeling chagrined, and in no small degree mortified to have my pet hobby thus mercilessly cut up and dissected, laughed at, and thrown out as dog-feed. ’Twas very hard fare, at least to me, and at first seemed unfair also. For a long time I had almost worshipped it as a divine science; holding it to be the true Spiritual Telegraph, by means of which we earthlings might flash thought, not only to the bounds of the globe and the Present, but also to the ends of Time and the Ages Past, or nerved by Hope and Curiosity, dispatch a message to the Great Future and drag back the answer. It was looked upon as the great Messenger of Light, through whom we might easily read the records of a Past so distant that the coal-beds are but yesterday’s creations in comparison. And here, at one fell stroke, Ravalette had toppled the castle remorselessly about my ears. I bit my lip with vexation, and for awhile was silent as, together, we walked up and down a sort of natural esplanade on the sides of the hill next Paris. Mechanically as we walked back and forth, I trod in the footprints made while going, on each return, and just as mechanically observed that Ravalette did the same. One thing struck me as curious, even