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And in proportion as we really believed this view to be true, it would lead us not away from but into life, not shutting us up, as has been too much the bent of philosophy, like the homunculus of Goethe's 'Faust, in the crystal phial of a set and rigid system, to ring our little chiming bell and flash our tiny light over the vast sea of experience, which all around us foams and floods, myriad-streaming, immense, and clearly seen, yet never felt, through that transparent barrier; but rather, like him when he broke the glass, made free of the illimitable main, to follow under the yellow moon the car of Galatea, her masque of nymphs and tritons, her gliding pomp of cymbals and conchs, away through tempest and calm, by night or day, companioned or alone, to the haunts of the far Cabeiri, and the home where the Mothers dwell."
"What a remarkable boy that is!" said Henry, innocently, to the publisher. "Yes; but he's not quite a boy, though he's young enough. A curious little creature, morbidly learned. A friend of mine says that he would like to catch him and keep him in a bottle, and label it 'the learned homunculus." "What dialect is it he is talking in?" said Henry; "I don't remember to have heard it before."
From the depths of their non-existence they contemplate their fellowman and perceive him a dwarf prostrate forever before solacing arrangements of words; an homunculus riding vaingloriously on the tiny river of ink that flows between monstrous yesterdays and monstrous tomorrows; a baboon strutting through a mirage." The history of Mallare's madness begins thus. And the pages continue.
Mephistopheles sees nothing of it, and the Homunculus taunts him with his northern nature. "Generally," said Goethe, "you will perceive that Mephistopheles appears to disadvantage beside the Homunculus, who is like him in clearness of intellect, and so much superior to him in his tendency to the beautiful and to a useful activity.
Monsieur has thousands and thousands of books, which simply turn his head; and as for me, I have just tow, which are quite enough for all my wants and purposes my Catholic prayer-book and my Cuisiniere Bourgeoise." And with those words my housekeeper helped the little man to fasten up his stock again within the green toilette. The homunculus Coccoz had ceased to smile.
"An eloquent, sophistical speech, prodigiously admired by the slave Democracy of the House," was the comment of John Quincy Adams; words of high praise, for the veteran statesman had little patience with the style of oratory affected by this "homunculus." A correspondent of a Richmond newspaper wrote that this effort had given Douglas high rank as a debater.
"Long after the last of your number Has ceased my front-court to encumber While, treading down rose and ranunculus, You Tommy-make-room-for-your-uncle-us! Troop, all of you man or homunculus, Quick march! for Xanthippe, my housemaid, If once on your pates she a souse made With what, pan or pot, bowl or skoramis, First comes to her hand things were more amiss!
As a being to whom the present is perfectly clear and transparent, the Homunculus sees into the soul of the sleeping Faust, who, enraptured by a lovely dream, beholds Leda visited by swans, while she is bathing in a pleasant spot. The Homunculus, by describing this dream, brings a most charming picture before our eyes.
And there is a thing stranger than all that; for this HOMUNCULUS or part-man of mine that walked about the eighteenth century with Dr. Balfour in his youth, was in the way of meeting other HOMUNCULOS or part-men, in the persons of my other ancestors. These were of a lower order, and doubtless we looked down upon them duly. But as I went to college with Dr.
The homunculus offered me his last book, with his last smile. He said to me: "Here is the Clef des Songes the 'Key of Dreams' with the explanation of any dreams that anybody can have; dreams of gold, dreams of robbers, dreams of death, dreams of falling from the top of a tower.... It is exhaustive."