how he will set you right. The doctrines I have taught him will, I
trust, lead him neither to the mad-house nor the poor-house, as so many
other doctrines have served credulous sticklers. Furthermore," glancing
upon him paternally, "Egbert is both my disciple and my poet. For poetry
is not a thing of ink and rhyme, but of thought and act, and, in the
latter way, is by any one to be found anywhere, when in useful action
sought. In a word, my disciple here is a thriving young merchant, a
practical poet in the West India trade. There," presenting Egbert's hand
to the cosmopolitan, "I join you, and leave you." With which words, and
without bowing, the master withdrew.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE DISCIPLE UNBENDS, AND CONSENTS TO ACT A SOCIAL PART.

In the master's presence the disciple had stood as one not ignorant of
his place; modesty was in his expression, with a sort of reverential
depression. But the presence of the superior withdrawn, he seemed
lithely to shoot up erect from beneath it, like one of those wire men
from a toy snuff-box.

He was, as before said, a young man of about thirty. His countenance of
that neuter sort, which, in repose, is neither prepossessing nor
disagreeable; so that it seemed quite uncertain how he would turn out.
His dress was neat, with just enough of the mode to save it from the
reproach of originality; in which general respect, though with a
readjustment of details, his costume seemed modeled upon his master's.
But, upon the whole, he was, to all appearances, the last person in the
world that one would take for the disciple of any transcendental
philosophy; though, indeed, something about his sharp nose and shaved
chin seemed to hint that if mysticism, as a lesson, ever came in his
way, he might, with the characteristic knack of a true New-Englander,
turn even so profitless a thing to some profitable account.

"Well" said he, now familiarly seating himself in the vacated chair,
"what do you think of Mark? Sublime fellow, ain't he?"

"That each member of the human guild is worthy respect my friend,"
rejoined the cosmopolitan, "is a fact which no admirer of that guild
will question; but that, in view of higher natures, the word sublime, so
frequently applied to them, can, without confusion, be also applied to
man, is a point which man will decide for himself; though, indeed, if he
decide it in the affirmative, it is not for me to object. But I am
curious to know more of that philos