" Then, shaking hands with this
peculiar being, whom she could not but respect for his ingenuity, as
well as for a kindliness and sympathy which lay at the bottom of all his
abstract theories, she left him to his work, at which he would continue
till drowsiness made, as he said, the idea dim and the nerve thick.
Retracing her steps down the long dark stair, not a very efficient
medium for the removal of impressions so unlike the results of our
natural consciousness, Rachel Grierson found herself again among the
bustling crowds of the High Street. Nor could she view these busy people
in the light by which she saw them before entering the little dark room
of the philosopher. Though she did not know the classical word, she
looked upon them as so many _automata_; and the long chain of causes
came into her mind so vividly, that she found herself repeating the very
words of Paul. Then there was the reference to her own individual fate;
and was it not through the self-medium she saw all these people in so
strange a light?--with Hope's lamp dashed down at her feet, and
extinguished at the very moment when, by the communication of her
father, she thought she had the means of recruiting it with a store of
oil never to be exhausted till possession was accomplished. Still under
these impressions, she came to the door of Mr.
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