THE EQUINOX
now and again. He then closed the volume with a snap, and
said in a tone of infinite finality: “Inferentially inadequate
data machicholated cerebrothoracically.”
“ By jingo!” replied his father, “ but you're rr!”
In this position there was only one weak point. There
are people who understand the Integral Calculus, and there
are people capable of disentangling words and sentences. Or
rather, at that time, that was so. The art of darkening
counsel was in its infancy. The future saint was predestined
to change all that.
Arthur were wise, therefore, to find, if possible, a science so
abstruse and venerable that no one at all understood it, and
whose most respected authors wrote in an indecipherable
cryptogram. Such a science was found for little Arthur (the
future saint!) in Alchemy.
To establish a reputation was the work of a moment. To
be “editor” of Paracelsus, Trithemius, Flamel, Eugenius
Philalethes, Ripley, Starkey, Sendivogius, Basil Valentine,
and a dozen others is a splendid position in the world of
humane letters. To achieve this : obtain copies of their works,
and forward carriage paid to a printer, with the remark—
worthy of Julius Czesar at his tersest-—‘ Reprint !’
Would God it had stopped there! But (remember!) the
future saint wasn’t wise, he was only “looking wise,” and he
made a terrible mistake by accepting a few shillings—all too
few !—to whitewash Dr. Wynn Westcott (and English Free-
masons generally) in the Diana Vaughan affair.
He corresponded with learned professors from Leipzig to
Vladivostock; he bombarded Indian Lieutenant-Governors
with long strings of questions: “ Did you ever know any one
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