“You have destroyed that beautiful glass rose, and because you doubted me.”
“Blame me not for doubting, kind sir, nor blame me for investigating. Without investigation we could never arrive at a certain knowledge of the truth or falsity of any proposition.”
“And you have investigated?”
“Yes.”
“And proved—”
“That glass is not the component part of that pillar,” with confidence.
“One word will dispel that illusion.” Mr. Craft spoke very deliberately.
“Speak it, then, I pray you,” with greater astonishment than ever.
“Malleability!”
Like a flash of lightning, the conviction of the truth of the President’s words fell upon the doubting man’s mind. Malleable glass! that ignis-fatuus which had caused men’s minds to turn from reason to insanity; had caused chemists and philosophers throughout the known world to struggle for years and years, and finally go down to their graves with their hopes unfulfilled; that art which was said to have been known in the third century, during the reign of Tiburon—had been again discovered and made known to mankind.