Page:A budget of paradoxes (IA cu31924103990507).pdf/418

 there are different degrees of unreason. All the diviners, when they get a colleague or an opponent, at once proceed to reckon him up: but some do it in play and some in earnest. Mr. David Thom found a young gentleman of the name of St. Claire busy at the Beast number: he forthwith added the letters in 🇬🇷 and found 666: this was good fun. But my spiritual tutelary, when he found that he could not make a beast of me, except by changing into, solemnly referred the difficulty to the Almighty: this was poor earnest.

I am glad I did not notice, in time to insert it in the Athenæum, a very remarkable paradoxer brought forward by Mr. Thom, his friend Mr. Wapshare: it is a little too strong for the general public. In the Athenæum they would have seen and read it: but this book will be avoided by the weaker brethren. It is as follows:—

All this seems well meant, and Mr. Thom prints it as convinced of its piety, and 'pronounces no opinion.' Mystics of all sorts! see what you may come to, or what may come to you! I have inserted the above for your good.

There is nothing in this world so steady as some of the paradoxers. They are like the spiders who go on spinning after they