"Edna, I am waiting."
"Well, then, Mr. Murray, I should think that these two passages would impress you with peculiar force."
Raising the book she read with much emphasis: "Thou pursuest after wisdom, O Melampus! which is the science of the will of the gods; AND THOU ROAMEST FROM PEOPLE TO PEOPLE, LIKE A MORTAL DRIVEN BY THE DESTINIES. In the times when I kept my night- watches before the caverns, I have sometimes believed that I was about to surprise the thoughts of the sleeping Cybele, and that the mother of the gods, betrayed by her dreams, would let fall some of her secrets. But I have never yet made out more than sounds which faded away in the murmur of night, of words inarticulate as the bubbling of the rivers.
* * * * * * * "Seekest thou to know the gods, O Macareus! and from what source men, animals, and the elements of the universal fire have their origin? The aged ocean, the father of all things, keeps locked within his own breast these secrets; and the nymphs who stand around sing as they weave their eternal dance before him, to cover any sound which might escape from his lips, half opened by slumber. Mortals dear to the gods for their virtue have received from their hands lyres to give delight to man, or the seeds of new plants to make him rich, but from their inexorable lips--nothing!"
"Mr. Murray, am I correct in my conjecture?"
"Quite correct," he answered, smiling grimly.
Taking the book from her hand he threw it on the table, and tossed his cigar into the grate, adding in a defiant, challenging tone: "The mantle of Solomon did not fall at Le Cayla on the shoulders of Maurice de Guerin. After all, he was a wretched hypochondriac, and a tinge of le cahier vert doubtless crept into his eyes."
"Do you forget, sir, that he said, 'When one is a wanderer, one feels that one fulfills the true condition of humanity'? and that among his last words are these, 'The stream of travel is full of delight. Oh! who will set me adrift on this Nile?'"
"Pardon me if I remind you, par parenthese, of the preliminary and courteous En garde! which should be pronounced before a thrust. De Guerin felt starved in Languedoc, and no wonder! But had he penetrated every nook and cranny of the habitable globe, and traversed the vast zaarahs which science accords the universe, he would have died at last as hungry as Ugolino. I speak advisedly, for the true Io gad-fly, ennui, has stung me from hemisphere to hemisphere, across tempestuous oceans, scorching deserts, and icy mountain ranges. I have faced alike the bourrans of the steppes and the Samieli of Shamo, and the result of my vandal life is best epitomized in those grand but grim words of Bossuet: 'On trouve au fond de tout le vide et le neant.' Nineteen years ago, to satisfy my hunger, I set out to hunt the daintiest food this world could furnish, and, like other fools, have learned finally, that life is but a huge, mellow, golden Osher, that mockingly sifts its bitter dust upon our eager lips. Ah! truly, on trouve au fond de tout le vide et le neant!"