enon is seen in silkworms fed from the same leaves, and apparently
constituted exactly alike,--one produces yellow silk, another white; and
if we come to man himself, we find that children often resemble neither
father nor mother. The logical deduction from this fact surely involves
the explanation of all the phenomena of nature.

"'Ah, what can be more in harmony with our ideas of God than to believe
that he created all things by the simplest method? The Pythagorean
worship of ONE, from which come all other numbers, and which represented
Primal Matter; that of the number TWO, the first aggregation and the
type of all the rest; that of the number THREE, which throughout
all time has symbolized God,--that is to say, Matter, Force, and
Product,--are they not an echo, lingering along the ages, of some
confused knowledge of the Absolute? Stahl, Becker, Paracelsus, Agrippa,
all the great Searchers into occult causes took the Great Triad for
their watchword,--in other words, the Ternary. Ignorant men who despise
alchemy, that transcendent chemistry, are not aware that our work is
only carrying onward the passionate researches of those great men. Had
I found the Absolute, the Unconditioned, I meant to have grappled with
Motion. Ah! while I am swallowing gunpowder and leading men uselessly to
their death, my former master is piling discovery upon discovery! he
is soaring towards the Absolute, while I--I shall die like a dog in the
trenches!'

"When this poor grand man recovered his composure, he said, in a
touching tone of brotherhood, 'If I see cause for a great experiment
I will bequeath it to you before I die.'--My Pepita," cried Balthazar,
taking his wife's hands, "tears of anguish rolled down his hollow
cheeks, as he cast into my soul the fiery arguments that Lavoisier had
timidly recognized without daring to follow them out--"

"Oh!" cried Madame Claes, unable to refrain from interrupting her
husband, "that man, passing one night under our roof, was able to
deprive us of your love, to destroy with a phrase, a word, the happiness
of a family! Oh, my dear Balthazar, did he make the sign of the cross?
did you examine him? The Tempter alone could have had that flaming eye
which sent forth the fire of Prometheus. Yes, none but the devil could
have torn you from me. From that day you have been neither husband, nor
father, nor master of your family."

"What!" exclaimed Balthazar, springing to his feet and casting a
piercing