Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/12

 to sit staring like an idiot, worshipping the shapeless phantoms of her own blind creation. This is so universally true, that even in this æra of comparative light, I expect, for a season at least, to find but little credit for my discovery of a New Land, because I cannot lay down its position on any accredited map; geographers having decided and certainly almost supported by the fact, that we know as perfectly every spot of considerable magnitude upon the earth, as I can now see the dots over the i's whilst I am writing. When on my return therefore to England, I first mentioned my discovery of a New Island, connected too with continents of immense extent, I was immediately asked, in a mixed tone of confidence and derision, in what latitudes and longitudes they were all placed?—If I had answered at once, without preface or explanation, that they were in no latitudes or longitudes, being as I conceived no parts of the earth's surface, I admit that I might have been fairly set down as a lunatic or an impostor, because truth,