118

VIII. HIS FIRST VISIT TO CHALLIS COURT 143

INTERLUDE 149

THE WONDER AMONG BOOKS

IX. HIS PASSAGE THROUGH THE PRISON OF KNOWLEDGE 155

X. HIS PASTORS AND MASTERS 179

XI. HIS EXAMINATION 193

XII. HIS INTERVIEW WITH HERR GROSSMANN 217

XIII. FUGITIVE 229

PART THREE

MY ASSOCIATION WITH THE WONDER

XIV. HOW I WENT TO PYM TO WRITE A BOOK 235

XV. THE INCIPIENCE OF MY SUBJECTION TO THE WONDER 247

XVI. THE PROGRESS AND RELAXATION OF MY SUBJECTION 267

XVII. RELEASE 284

XVIII. IMPLICATIONS 299

XIX. EPILOGUE: THE USES OF MYSTERY 305

PART ONE

MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT

PART ONE

MY EARLY ASSOCIATIONS WITH GINGER STOTT

CHAPTER I

THE MOTIVE

I

I could not say at which station the woman and her baby entered the
train.

Since we had left London, I had been struggling with Baillie's
translation of Hegel's "Phenomenology." It was not a book to read among
such distracting circumstances as those of a railway journey, but I was
eagerly planning a little dissertation of my own at that time, and my
work as a journalist gave me little leisure for quiet study.

I looked up when the woman entered my compartment, though I did not
notice the name of the station. I caught sight of the baby she was
carrying, and turned back to my book. I thought the child was a freak,
an abnormality; and such things disgust me.

I returned to the study of my Hegel and read: "For knowledge is not the
divergence of the ray, but the ray itself by which the truth comes to
us; and if this ray be removed, the bare direction or the empty place
would alone be indicated."

I kept my eyes on the book--the train had started again--but the next
passage conveyed no meaning to my mind, and as I attempted to re-read it
an impression was interposed between me and the work I was studying.

I saw projected on the page before me an image which I mistook at first
for the likeness of Richard Owen. It was the conformation of the head
that gave rise to the mistak