A sultry August evening, a smoky boarding-house lamp, much skirmishing of mosquitoes, and—­a manuscript system of philosophy!  The prospect was not inviting.  The reading of other people’s manuscripts is surely the crucial test of a devoted benevolence.  There are few ways in which I am so little ready to oblige my fellow-men.  I had, indeed, at times, been induced to inspect sundry romances in blotted embryo; but, as yet, nobody had called upon me with a system of philosophy. Printed philosophy is none too easy reading.  But to sit there, under the guardianship of Clifton, and spell out the dim dogmatism of some nebulous fanatic,—­of course it was not to be thought of for a moment.  With a suave periphrasis of speech I questioned the expediency of the proposition.

“I shall ring for candles that will burn during the night,” said Mr. Clifton, heedless of my expostulation.  “Also some refreshment.  You take tea, I suppose?  You shall read the first ten pages of Vannelle’s writing.  It is possible you may exercise self-control enough to abandon it unfinished.  But you will not sleep tonight.”

There was a confidence in the minister’s tone which gave rather unpleasant emphasis to this final prophecy.  Still, I believed myself capable of the ten pages without establishing a hopelessly wakeful condition,—­indeed, it was something to be guarantied against the opposite infirmity.  The tea, accompanied by a few thin shavings of toast, presently arrived.  The means of procuring light were also furnished us.  Clifton’s hand lay heavily upon the manuscript until the attendant had disappeared for the last time, and the door was locked behind him.  He then opened the papers before me, and signified that the time had come.  I braced myself as for a serious undertaking.

Thus I accepted the task.  How give words to the singular emotions which soon possessed me?  As if some charm, some spell of magnetism, had been given to the paper, my whole consciousness was riveted upon it.  I know not how to represent this bold, this startling attempt to establish a positive basis for metaphysical philosophy, an exact science of all things human and divine.  Here was a man, perchance of more courage and conscience, perchance of more devilish recklessness, than any of his contemporaries.  But how deal with what came to me from that wondrous writing in the ambiguities of common language?  All thought—­even supposing it embodied in a perfect form of speech—­is subject to the limitations of the recipient mind.  My own glimpses of the writer’s meaning were necessarily most indistinct.  I cannot attempt to transfer them.  I was controlled by a force not my own.  The shadow of a mysterious power was over me.  The mists of sentimental pantheism were left far below the clear-cut summits whither the reader was invited to ascend.  There was an interpretation of Revelation far more removed from the apparent letter than that of Swedenborg.  Here was reaffirmed (though for