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Chapter 1 Nil sapientiæ odiosius acumine nimio.—Seneca. At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18-,I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum,in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little backlibrary, or book-closet, au troisième, No. 33, Rue Dunôt,Faubourg St. Germain. For one hour…
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Chapter 2 Truth is stranger than fiction.—Old Saying Having had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsöornot, a work which (like the Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at all, even in Europe; and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any American—if we…
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Chapter 3 The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways;nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to thevastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus. —Joseph Glanville. We had now reached the summit of…