Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/248

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EFFECT OF A DRAFT ON CONTEMPLATION.

manifested by one of their modern representatives. Candour obliges me to admit that my speculations on the future were not entirely devoid of anxiety, though I trust they were orthodox, for whilst I admired the humanity of Origen, I was shocked by the heresy of Maurice.

I now began to moralize.

Blown upon by a hundred horse-power, I sympathised with Disraeli refrigerated by his friends. Turning from that painful contemplation, I was calmed by the freshness of the breeze. The action of the pumps, the coolness of the place and of the time, for it was evening, recalled to my recollection M . . . . . . . M . . . . .; so I hoped, for the sake of instruction, that he would in his own adamantine verses snatch if possible from oblivion the moral anatomy of that unsuccessful statesman. Yet, lest even the poet himself should be forgotten, I resolved to give each of them his last chance of celebrity preserved in the modest amber of my own simple prose.

Emerging from my reverie, I made the preconcerted signal; the iron door was opened, and we were again on our road to Leeds.