He has always had a keen and primitive interest
in knowing without delay the most secret thoughts of his
fellow-man, who is often his adversary and sometimes his mortal
enemy. He has always had an interest no less great in immediately
transmitting those thoughts through space, in seeing beyond the
continents and seas, in going back into the past, in advancing
into the future, in being able to find in his memory at will not
only all the acquirements of his personal experience but also
those of his ancestors, in communicating with the dead and
perhaps with the sovereign intelligence diffused over the
universe, in discovering hidden springs and treasures, in
escaping the harsh and depressing laws of matter and gravity, in
relieving pain, in curing the greater number of his disorders and
even in restoring his limbs, not to mention many other miracles
which he could work if he knew all the mighty forces that
doubtless slumber in the dark recesses of his life.
Is this once more an unexpected character of the eccentric
physiology of our unknown guest? Here are faculties more precious
than the most precious faculties that have made us what we are,
faculties whose magic buds sprout on every side underneath our
intelligence but have never burst into flower, as though a wind
from another sphere had killed them with its icy breath.
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