Having previously arrived at the conclusion
of London as the meeting-place, I could not now fail to go on to the
inference of _the Thames_; there, or near there, would I find those
whom I sought. The letters "mnnnnr," then, meant the Thames: what did
the still remaining letters mean? I now took these remaining letters,
placing them side by side: I got aaa, sss, ee, oo, p and i. Juxtaposing
these nearly in the order indicated by the frequency of their
occurrence, and their place in the Roman alphabet, you at once and
inevitably get the word _Aesopi._ And now I was fairly startled by this
symmetrical proof of the exactness of my own deductions in other
respects, but, above all, far above all, by the occurrence of that word
_"Aesopi."_ For who was Aesopus? He was a slave who was freed for his
wise and witful sallies: he is therefore typical of the liberty of the
wise--their moral manumission from temporary and narrow law; he was
also a close friend of Croesus: he is typical, then, of the union of
wisdom with wealth--true wisdom with real wealth; lastly, and above
all, he was thrown by the Delphians from a rock on account of his wit:
he is typical, therefore, of death--the shedding of blood--as a result
of wisdom, this thought being an elaboration of Solomon's great maxim,
"in much wisdom is much sorrow.
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