But I have excited your curiosity, and I see that you are impatient to
hear what the wisdom, or the folly, it may be, of a life shows for, when
it is crowded into a few lines as the fragrance of a gardenful of roses
is concentrated in a few drops of perfume.
--By this time I confess I was myself a little excited. What was he
going to tell us? The Young Astronomer looked upon him with an eye as
clear and steady and brilliant as the evening star, but I could see that
he too was a little nervous, wondering what would come next.
The old Master adjusted his large round spectacles, and began:
--It has cost me fifty years to find my place in the Order of Things. I
had explored all the sciences; I had studied the literature of all ages;
I had travelled in many lands; I had learned how to follow the working of
thought in men and of sentiment and instinct in women. I had examined
for myself all the religions that could make out any claim for
themselves. I had fasted and prayed with the monks of a lonely convent;
I had mingled with the crowds that shouted glory at camp-meetings; I had
listened to the threats of Calvinists and the promises of Universalists;
I had been a devout attendant on a Jewish Synagogue; I was in
correspondence with an intelligent Buddhist; and I met frequently with
the inner circle of Rationalists, who believed in the persistence of
Force, and the identity of alimentary substances with virtue, and were
reconstructing the universe on this basis, with absolute exclusion of all
Supernumeraries.
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