l breath; and now has advanced, till we
stand both on the verge of the rock, the deep Sea rippling greedily
down below. What argument will avail? On the thick Hyperborean,
cherubic reasoning, seraphic eloquence were lost. Prepared for such
extremity, I, deftly enough, whisk aside one step; draw out, from my
interior reservoirs, a sufficient Birmingham Horse-pistol, and say,
"Be so obliging as retire, Friend (_Er ziehe sich zurueck, Freund_),
and with promptitude!" This logic even the Hyperborean understands;
fast enough, with apologetic, petitionary growl, he sidles off; and,
except for suicidal as well as homicidal purposes, need not return.

'Such I hold to be the genuine use of Gunpowder: that it makes all men
alike tall. Nay, if thou be cooler, cleverer than I, if thou have more
_Mind_, though all but no Body whatever, then canst thou kill me
first, and art the taller. Hereby, at last, is the Goliath powerless,
and the David resistless; savage Animalism is nothing, inventive
Spiritualism is all.

'With respect to Duels, indeed, I have my own ideas. Few things, in
this so surprising world, strike me with more surprise. Two little
visual Spectra of men, hovering with insecure enough cohesion in the
midst of the UNFATHOMABLE, and to dissolve therein, at any rate, very
soon,--make pause at the distance of twelve paces asunder; whirl
round; and, simultaneously by the cunningest mechanism, explode one
another into Dissolution; and off-hand become Air, and Non-extant!
Deuce on it (_verdammt_), the little spitfires!--Nay, I think with old
Hugo von Trimberg: "God must needs laugh outright, could such a thing
be, to see his wondrous Manikins here below."'

* * * * *

But amid these specialties, let us not forget the great generality,
which is our chief quest here: How prospered the inner man of
Teufelsdroeckh under so much outward shifting? Does Legion still lurk
in him, though repressed; or has he exorcised that Devil's Brood? We
can answer that the symptoms continue promising. Experience is the
grand spiritual Doctor; and with him Teufelsdroeckh has now been long a
patient, swallowing many a bitter bolus. Unless our poor Friend belong
to the numerous class of Incurables, which seems not likely, some cure
will doubtless be effected. We should rather say that Legion, or the
Satanic School, was now pretty well extirpated and cast out, but next
to nothing introduced in its room; whereby the he