Page:The Campaner thal, and other writings.djvu/223

 else but the breathing of an air pressed together into proper spissitude, and sprinkled over with a few perfumes. Now, in our days, by clerical persons too much (fluid) breath can never be inhaled through the mouth; seeing the dignity of their station excludes them from that breathing through the smaller pores which Abernethy so highly recommends under the name of air-bath; and can the Gullet in their case be aught else than door-neighbor to the Windpipe, the consonant and fellow-shoot of the Windpipe?—I am running astray; I meant to signify that I this evening had adopted the same opinion; only that I used air or ether, not like the rest for loud laughter, but for the more quiet contemplation of life in general. I even shot forth at my gossip certain speeches which betrayed devoutness. These he at first took for jests, being aware that I was from Court, and of quality. But the concave mirror of the wine-mist at length suspended the images of my soul, enlarged and embodied like spiritual shapes, in the air before me.—Life shaded itself off to my eyes like a hasty summer night, which we little fire-flies shoot across with transient gleam;—I said to him that man must turn himself like the leaves of the great mallow, at the different day-seasons of his life, now to the rising sun, now to the setting, now to the night, towards the Earth and its graves;—I said, the omnipotence of Goodness was driving us and the centuries of the world towards the gates of the City of God, as, according to Euler, the resistance of the Ether leads the circling Earth towards the Sun, &c., &c.

On the strength of these entremets, he considered me the first theologian of his age; and had he been obliged to go to war, would previously have taken my advice on the matter, as belligerent powers were wont of old from