No resemblance, . . none at all! ... he reiterated over and over again in his own mind, . . except ... except, ... well! ... except in perhaps a few trifling touches of character and temper that were scarcely worth the noting! At this juncture, his uncomfortable reverie was interrupted by the sound of a harsh, metallic voice close behind him.
"What fools there are in the world!" said the voice in emphatic accents of supreme contempt--"What braying asses!--What earth- snouting swine! Saw you not yon crowd of whimpering idiots flying helter-skelter like chaff before the wind, weeping, wailing, and bemoaning their miserable little sins, scattering dust on their addled pates, and howling on their gods for mercy,--all forsooth! because for once in their unobserving lives they behold the river red instead of green! Ay me! 'tis a thing to laugh at, this crass, and brutish ignorance of the multitude,--no teaching will ever cleanse their minds from the cobwebs of vulgar superstition,--and I, in common with every wise and worthy sage of sound repute and knowledge, must needs waste all my scientific labors on a perpetually ungrateful public!"
Turning hastily round Theos confronted the speaker,--a tall, spare man with a pale, clean-shaven, intellectual face, small, shrewd, speculative eyes, and very straight, neatly parted locks,--a man on whose every lineament was expressed a profound belief in himself, and an equally profound scorn for the opinions of any one who might possibly presume to disagree with him. He smiled condescendingly as he met Theos's half-surprised, half-inquiring look, and saluted him with a gravely pompous air, which however, was not without a saving touch of that indescribable, easy grace which seemed to distinguish the manners of all the inhabitants of Al-Kyris. Theos returned the salutation with equal gravity, whereupon the new-comer waving his hand majestically, continued: "You sir, I see, are young, . . and probably you are enrolled among the advanced students of one or other of our great collegiate institutions,--therefore the peculiar, though not at all unnatural tint of the river this morning, is of course no mystery to you, if, as I presume, you follow the Scientific Classes of Instruction in the Physiology of Nature, of Manifestation of Simple and Complex Motive Force, and the Perpetual Evolution of Atoms?"
Theos smiled,--the grandiloquent manner of this self-important individual amused him.
"Most worthy sir," he replied, "you form too favorable an opinion of my scholarly attainments! I am a stranger in Al-Kyris,--and know naught of its educational system, or the interior mechanism of its wondrous civilization! I come from far-off lands, where, if I remember rightly, much is taught and but little retained,--where petty pedagogues persist in dragging new generations of men through old and worn-out ruts of knowledge that future ages shall never have need of, . . and concerning even the progress of science, I confess to a certain incredulity, seeing that to my mind Science somewhat resembles a straight line drawn clear across country but leading, alas! to an ocean wherein all landmarks are lost and swallowed up in blankness. Over and over again the human race has trodden the same pathway of research,--over and over again has it stood bewildered and baffled on the shores of the same vast sea,-- the most marvellous discoveries are after all mere child's play compared to the tremendous secrets that must remain forever unrevealed; and the poor and trifling comprehension of things that we, after a life-time of study, succeed in attaining, is only just sufficient to add to our already burdened existence the undesirable clogs of discontent and disappointed endeavor. We die,--in almost as much ignorance as we were born, . . and when we come face to face with the Last Dark Mystery, what shall our little wisdom profit us?"