“Poor soul!” said Lady Bassett. “What a strange world for him to be living in. It seems like a dream.”
“There is something stranger coming in this last letter.”
“I have at last found one madman allied to Genius. It has taken me a fortnight to master his delusion, and to write down the vocabulary he has invented to describe the strange monster of his imagination. All the words I write in italics are his own.
“Mr. Williams says that a machine has been constructed for malignant purposes, which machine is an air-loom. It rivals the human machine in this, that it can operate either on mind or matter. It was invented, and is worked, by a gang of villains superlatively skillful in pneumatic chemistry, physiology, nervous influence, sympathy, and the higher metaphysic, men far beyond the immature science of the present era, which, indeed, is a favorite subject of their ridicule.
“The gang are seven in number, but Williams has only seen the four highest: Bill, the King, a master of the art of magnetic impregnation; Jack, the schoolmaster, the short-hand writer of the gang; Sir Archy, Chief Liar to the Association; and the glove-woman, so called from her always wearing cotton mittens. This personage has never been known to speak to any one.
“The materials used in the air-loom by these pneumatic adepts are infinite; but principally effluvia of certain metals, poisons, soporific scents, etc.
“The principal effects are:
“1st. EVENT-WORKING.—This is done by magnetic manipulation of kings, emperors, prime ministers, and others; so that, while the world is fearing and admiring them, they are, in reality, mere puppets played by the workers of the air-loom.
“2d. CUTTING SOUL FROM SENSE.—This is done by diffusing the magnetic warp from the root of the nose under the base of the skull, till it forms a veil; so that the sentiments of the heart can have no communication with the operations of the intellect.
“3d. KITING.—As boys raise a kite in the air, so the air-loom can lift an idea into the brain, where it floats and undulates for hours together. The victim cannot get rid of an idea so insinuated.