ys, so numerously patrol as night-constables about the Mechanics'
Institute of Science, and cackle, like true Old-Roman geese and goslings
round their Capitol, on any alarm, or on none; nay who often, as
illuminated Sceptics, walk abroad into peaceable society, in full
daylight, with rattle and lantern, and insist on guiding you and
guarding you therewith, though the Sun is shining, and the street
populous with mere justice-loving men:" that whole class is
inexpressibly wearisome to him. Hear with what uncommon animation he
perorates:--

"The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and
worship), were he President of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried
the whole _Mecanique Celeste_ and _Hegel's Philosophy_, and the epitome
of all Laboratories and Observatories with their results, in his single
head,--is but a Pair of Spectacles behind which there is no Eye. Let
those who have Eyes look through him, then he may be useful.

"Thou wilt have no Mystery and Mysticism; wilt walk through thy world
by the sunshine of what thou callest Truth, or even by the hand-lamp
of what I call Attorney-Logic; and 'explain' all, 'account' for all, or
believe nothing of it? Nay, thou wilt attempt laughter; whoso recognizes
the unfathomable, all-pervading domain of Mystery, which is everywhere
under our feet and among our hands; to whom the Universe is an Oracle
and Temple, as well as a Kitchen and Cattle-stall,--he shall be a
delirious Mystic; to him thou, with sniffing charity, wilt protrusively
proffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek, as one injured, when he kicks his
foot through it?--_Armer Teufel_! Doth not thy cow calve, doth not
thy bull gender? Thou thyself, wert thou not born, wilt thou not die?
'Explain' me all this, or do one of two things: Retire into private
places with thy foolish cackle; or, what were better, give it up,
and weep, not that the reign of wonder is done, and God's world all
disembellished and prosaic, but that thou hitherto art a Dilettante and
sand-blind Pedant."

CHAPTER XI. PROSPECTIVE.

The Philosophy of Clothes is now to all readers, as we predicted
it would do, unfolding itself into new boundless expansions, of a
cloud-capt, almost chimerical aspect, yet not without azure loomings in
the far distance, and streaks as of an Elysian brightness; the highly
questionable purport and promise of which it is becoming more and more
important for us to ascertain. Is that a real Elysian brightness,