He never came to
New England, yet there was always a leaven of his style of thinkers here.
Howes was the true adept, seeking what spiritual ore there might be among
the dross of the hermetic philosophy. What he says sincerely and inwardly
was the cant of those outward professors of the doctrine who were content
to dwell in the material part of it forever. In Jonathan Brewster, we
have a specimen of these Wagners. Is it not curious, that there should
have been a _balneum Mariae_ at New London two hundred years ago? that
_la recherche de l'Absolu_ should have been going on there in a log-hut,
under constant fear that the Indians would put out, not merely the flame
of one little life, but, far worse, the fire of our furnace, and so rob
the world of this divine secret, just on the point of revealing itself?
Alas! poor Brewster's secret was one that many have striven after before
and since, who did not call themselves alchemists,--the secret of getting
gold without earning it,--a chase that brings some men to a four-in-hand
on Shoddy Avenue, and some to the penitentiary, in both cases advertising
its utter vanity. Brewster is a capital specimen of his class, who are
better than the average, because they _do_ mix a little imagination with
their sordidness, and who have also their representatives among us, in
those who expect the Jennings and other ideal estates in England.
Pages:
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387