This philosophical exposition, drawled forth in
interminable sentences, was a dark doctrine to the uninitiated. There
was a good deal about "Essences," which, at times, seemed to relate to
the perfumery vended in the fancy-department of apothecaries' shops, and
then again to some obscure matters of "Zones," "Interiors," "Magnetic
Relations," and the like. The central revelation, if I remember rightly,
had to do with a sort of putty, by which, according to the Stellato
cosmogony, Chaos had been stuck together into a Universe. This adhesive
composition was known as "Detached Vitalized Electricity." And having
got upon this sounding title, which conveyed no meaning whatever to the
"undeveloped" understanding, Stellato was profuse in windy talk. This
Detached Vitalized Electricity, spread out over space, connected the
parts of all systems; it appeared at that very instant in the form of
"power" about Miss Turligood's head; in short, it diluted all stray bits
of modern rhetoric, all exploded feats of ancient magic, into the
thinnest of spiritual gruel, which was to supersede the strong meat upon
which the Puritan walked before his Maker.
Somebody summoned the eminent Twynintuft. Like every spirit that was
ever called for, this ex-elocutionist happened to be within a few
seconds' flight of the circle, and had nothing in the world to do but to
swoop down and tip as long as the company could possibly endure him.
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