Thence he went on in feverish unrest,
wildly running up and down all _Niffelheim_ in quest of some centre-point
upon which he could stand firm and look around him. He had an excellent
mind, and, unexcited, could take sufficiently common-sense views of most
matters; but this was too much for him. He made substance of shadows, and
then exhausted himself in giving them battle. He became anxious, uneasy,
nervous,--showing very plainly, that, in his search after the Alkahest, he
had injured his powers by making trial of too many drugs.
Mac, with his sturdy good sense, and unerring mace-like judgment, speedily
became aware of this waste of function to which Clarian was subjecting
himself, and warned me accordingly.
"Why do you let that boy bother his brains about your stupid _Ego_ and
_Non-Ego_?" said he. "Don't you see he is injuring himself, beginning to
sink under a sort of mental _albumenurea_,--at the very time, too, when he
has most need of stamina? He does nothing but read, read, read,--and what,
forsooth? Not anything that will teach him the genuineness of life and
manhood, but those damnable spirit-exalting, body-despising emasculates of
Alexandria,--Madame Guyon's meditations, too, and Isaac Taylor's giddy
see-sawings,--all heresies, and bosh,--'Dead-Sea fruits that turn to
ashes', and not only disgust you, but blister tongue and lips most
vilely. You'll have him next trying to treat with the gods, to attain
Brahm's purification, Boodh's annihilation, to jump over the moon, or doing
something that will make him candidate for the shaved-head-and-blister
treatment.
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