“There are those who have seen the rim and outer seeming of the logos there are those who have glimpsed and in enthusiasm possessed themselves of some segment and portion of the Logos there are those who thus flicked but not penetrated and radioactivated by the Dynamis go always to and fro assertative that they possess and are possessed of the Logos and the Metaphysikos but this word I bring you this concept I enlarge that those that are not utter are not even inceptive and that holiness is in its definitive essence always always always whole-iness and—­”

It proved that the Essence of the Sun Spirit was Truth, but its Aura and Effluxion were Cheerfulness: 

“Face always the day with the dawn-laugh with the enthusiasm of the initiate who perceives that all works together in the revolutions of the Wheel and who answers the strictures of the Soured Souls of the Destructionists with a Glad Affirmation—­”

It went on for about an hour and seven minutes.

At the end Mrs. Mudge spoke with more vigor and punctuation: 

“Now let me suggest to all of you the advantages of the Theosophical and Pantheistic Oriental Reading Circle, which I represent.  Our object is to unite all the manifestations of the New Era into one cohesive whole—­New Thought, Christian Science, Theosophy, Vedanta, Bahaism, and the other sparks from the one New Light.  The subscription is but ten dollars a year, and for this mere pittance the members receive not only the monthly magazine, Pearls of Healing, but the privilege of sending right to the president, our revered Mother Dobbs, any questions regarding spiritual progress, matrimonial problems, health and well-being questions, financial difficulties, and—­”

They listened to her with adoring attention.  They looked genteel.  They looked ironed-out.  They coughed politely, and crossed their legs with quietness, and in expensive linen handkerchiefs they blew their noses with a delicacy altogether optimistic and refined.

As for Babbitt, he sat and suffered.

When they were blessedly out in the air again, when they drove home through a wind smelling of snow and honest sun, he dared not speak.  They had been too near to quarreling, these days.  Mrs. Babbitt forced it: 

“Did you enjoy Mrs. Mudge’s talk?”

“Well I—­What did you get out of it?”

“Oh, it starts a person thinking.  It gets you out of a routine of ordinary thoughts.”

“Well, I’ll hand it to Opal she isn’t ordinary, but gosh—­Honest, did that stuff mean anything to you?”

“Of course I’m not trained in metaphysics, and there was lots I couldn’t quite grasp, but I did feel it was inspiring.  And she speaks so readily.  I do think you ought to have got something out of it.”

“Well, I didn’t!  I swear, I was simply astonished, the way those women lapped it up!  Why the dickens they want to put in their time listening to all that blaa when they—­”