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To the enlightened altruistic bourgeois to the poverty-stricken workingman of the city to many a dreamer and philanthropist to all the extreme radicals, they were but a shadowy will-of-the-wisp that glimmered briefly and perhaps indicated faintly the gorgeousness of the great day that much later might break upon them.
"It would be so good for you to have something human and capable of a little consideration to go out with," added Bobus, "not to be tied to the tail of a will-of-the-wisp like that Elf- I should not like that for you." "I am not much afraid," said Caroline. "You know I don't stand in such awe of the little donna, and I shall have my Guardsman to take care of me when we are too frivolous for you.
Humor is chiefly representative and descriptive; it is diffuse, and flows along without any other law than its own fantastic will; or it flits about like a will-of-the-wisp, amazing us by its whimsical transitions.
Materialism, we know, argues quite differently; it imagines that a particular state of the nerve centres has the virtue of generating a psychical phenomenon, which represents, according to various metaphors, property, function, effect, and even secretion. Critics have often asked how, with matter in motion, a phenomenon of thought could be explained or fabricated. It is very probable that those who admit this material genesis of thought, represent it to themselves under the form of something subtle, like an electric spark, a puff of wind, a will-of-the-wisp, or an alcoholic flame. Materialists are not alone responsible for these inadequate metaphors, which proceed from a metaphysics constructed of concepts. Let us recollect exactly what a psychical phenomenon is. Let us banish the will-o'-the-wisps, replace them by a precise instance, and return to the visual perception we took as an example a little while back: without intending a pun, "revenons
Had he not better have gone back to Midian, and made use of the present reality, than followed a will-of-the-wisp that led him into a bog, if he got none of the good that he set out expecting to get? Then, did he make a mistake? Would he have been a wiser man if he had stuck to his first refusal? Surely not.
If they say it is great, it is great; if they say it is small, it is small; you see it, and you see it not, by turns; it borrows all its size from the momentary estimation of the speakers: the Will-of-the-wisp vanishes if you go too near, vanishes if you go too far, and only blazes at one angle. Who can tell if Washington be a great man or no? Who can tell if Franklin be?
I was now more than ever impatient to set off, and so was Nowell, for he was anxious to begin his attacks on the elephants, the buffaloes, and elks he was in search of. "Come along, Marsden, we will set off at once to look for my Will-of-the-wisp old friend, though I suspect we shall have to travel fast to catch him," said Mr Fordyce to me.
But it was something to escape from the stifling atmosphere of the cabin where he had tossed from side to side, listening to the heavy breathing of the convict Turk and peasant lad with whom he was quartered, to the silver peace of moon-flooded marsh and lapping water. They made another turn, and in front of them shone out a light, gleaming dully like a will-of-the-wisp.
In this game of hunt the slipper he had imagined that he was growing "hotter" and "hotter" till death balked him at the finish. Westray recollected Mr Sharnall saying more than once that Martin had been on the brink of solving the riddle when the end overtook him. And Sharnall, too, had he not almost grasped the Will-of-the-wisp when fate tripped him on that windy night?
This was a time and place propitious for much clearing-up of uncertain matters; but Debby Alden had not been in the mood to listen; and the mistress of the house was traveling over the country after a will-of-the-wisp which had led her many a long, unfruitful journey. Robert Vail, greatly fatigued with his day's work, came back to Valehurst just at dusk.
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