nceforth it had at least a
fixed centre to revolve round. For the fire-baptised soul, long so
scathed and thunder-riven, here feels its own Freedom, which feeling
is its Baphometic Baptism: the citadel of its whole kingdom it has
thus gained by assault, and will keep inexpugnable; outwards from
which the remaining dominions, not indeed without hard battling, will
doubtless by degrees be conquered and pacificated. Under another
figure, we might say, if in that great moment, in the _Rue
Saint-Thomas de l'Enfer_, the old inward Satanic School was not yet
thrown out of doors, it received peremptory judicial notice to
quit;--whereby, for the rest, its howl-chantings, Ernulphus-cursings,
and rebellious gnashings of teeth, might, in the meanwhile, become
only the more tumultuous, and difficult to keep secret.

Accordingly, if we scrutinise these Pilgrimings well, there is perhaps
discernible henceforth a certain incipient method in their madness.
Not wholly as a Spectre does Teufelsdroeckh now storm through the
world; at worst as a spectre-fighting Man, nay who will one day be a
Spectre-queller. If pilgriming restlessly to so many 'Saints' Wells,'
and ever without quenching of his thirst, he nevertheless finds little
secular wells, whereby from time to time some alleviation is
ministered. In a word, he is now, if not ceasing, yet intermitting to
'eat his own heart'; and clutches round him outwardly on the NOT-ME
for wholesomer food. Does not the following glimpse exhibit him in a
much more natural state?

'Towns also and Cities, especially the ancient, I failed not to look
upon with interest. How beautiful to see thereby, as through a long
vista, into the remote Time; to have, as it were, an actual section of
almost the earliest Past brought safe into the Present, and set before
your eyes! There, in that old City, was a live ember of Culinary Fire
put down, say only two thousand years ago; and there, burning more or
less triumphantly, with such fuel as the region yielded, it has burnt,
and still burns, and thou thyself seest the very smoke thereof. Ah!
and the far more mysterious live ember of Vital Fire was then also put
down there; and still miraculously burns and spreads; and the smoke
and ashes thereof (in these Judgment-Halls and Churchyards), and its
bellows-engines (in these Churches), thou still seest; and its flame,
looking out from every kind countenance, and every hateful one, still
warms thee or scorches thee.