rning to future philosophers, and an example for the edification of
the faithful who worship here."

They walked towards the door, and the contrast between the appearance
of the two brought the ghost of a smile to the thin lips of the pale
sacristan, who was occupied in renewing the tapers upon one of the
side altars. Keyork Arabian might have stood for the portrait of the
gnome-king. His high and pointed head, his immense beard, his stunted
but powerful and thickset limbs, his short, sturdy strides, the fiery,
half-humorous, half-threatening twinkle of his bright eyes gave him
all the appearance of a fantastic figure from a fairy tale, and the
diminutive height of his compact frame set off the noble stature and
graceful motion of his companion.

"So you were pursuing an idea," said the little man as they emerged into
the narrow street. "Now ideas may be divided variously into classes,
as, for instance, ideas which are good, bad, or indifferent. Or you may
contrast the idea of Plato with ideas anything but platonic--take it
as you please. Then there is my idea, which is in itself, good,
interesting, and worthy of the embalming process; and there is your
idea, which I am human enough to consider altogether bad, worthless,
and frivolous, for the plain and substantial reason that it is not mine.
Perhaps that is the best division of all. Thine eye is necessarily,
fatally, irrevocably evil, because mine is essentially, predestinately,
and unchangeably good. If I secretly adopt your idea, I openly assert
that it was never yours at all, but mine from the beginning, by the
prerogatives of greater age, wider experience, and immeasurably superior
wisdom. If you have an idea upon any subject, I will utterly annihilate
it to my own most profound satisfaction; if you have none concerning any
special point, I will force you to accept mine, as mine, or to die the
intellectual death. That is the general theory of the idea."

"And what does it prove?" inquired the Wanderer.

"If you knew anything," answered Keyork, with twinkling eyes, "you would
know that a theory is not a demonstration, but an explanation. But, by
the hypothesis, since you are not I, you can know nothing certainly.
Now my theory explains many things, and, among others, the adamantine,
imperishable, impenetrable nature of the substance vanity upon which
the showman, Nature, projects in fast fading colours the unsubstantial
images of men. Why do you drag me through t