Remember, Ned, his brain is made of finer stuff than that stolid
sponge inside your _pia mater_, that can take in _quantum sufficit_ of
beer, fog, and tobacco-smoke, unharmed. He can't stand it, and he's too
rare and delicate a machine to go cranky thus soon. You've got the child
under your thumb,--bring him out o' that. Make him take a dose of Verulam,
get him back into the world again, and order him four hours _per diem_ at
the dumb-bells."
And so, the next time Clarian came to our rooms, and was eagerly soliciting
my opinion of a little essay he had written, to establish the identity of
the Logos with the Demiurgic Mind, ("Plato's World-Soul, called in 'Timaeus'
the best of Eternal Intelligences, the Noetic Partaker and Digester of
Reason", said Clarian in his tract,) with some corollaries for the purpose
of reconciling _Geist_ and _Freiheit_, all sauced down, _a l'Allemagne_,
with numerous capitals and a proper degree of incomprehensibility,--Mac
bluffly interrupted the colloquy, and accosted Clarian,--
"Younker! do you know you're a fool?"
Clarian colored up,--
"How, Mac?"
"What are we--Ned, and you, and I--here for?"
"To acquire knowledge."
"Ay, knowledge,--but what for?"
"To fit us for heaven."
"Phew! then you calculate to graduate from 'these classic shades' direct
into celestial regions, do you, without sojourning awhile in this terrene
purgatory? I do not, and, moreover, _je n'en ai pas l'envie_; I think the
world has some claims upon me, and I mean to pay that debt, D.
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