He went into the hall without any delay and took his hat and coat. The girl’s father followed him. As the caller reached for the doorknob, the old gentleman again asked him if he knew what time it was.
“Yes, sir,” was the youth’s reply. “Good-night!” And he left without waiting to put his coat on.
After the door had closed the old gentleman turned to the girl.
“What’s the matter with that fellow?” he asked. “My watch ran down this afternoon and I wanted him to tell me the time, so that I could set it.”—Denver Post.
(545)
CONSCIOUSNESS
Is there any difference between the vibrations of sound on the tympanum of the ear and those on the surface of the water? Science does not seem to see a great difference, but Ruskin finds, in the differing effects, an illustration of the mystery of consciousness:
It is quite true that the tympanum of the ear vibrates under sound, and that the surface of the water in a ditch vibrates, too; but the ditch hears nothing for all that; and my hearing is still to me as blest a mystery as ever, and the interval between the ditch and me, quite as great. If the trembling sound in my ears was once of the marriage-bell which begun my happiness, and is now of the passing bell which ends it, the difference between those two sounds to me can not be counted by the number of concussions. There have been some curious speculations lately as to the conveyance of mental consciousness by “brain-waves.” What does it matter how it is conveyed? The consciousness itself is not a wave. It may be accompanied here or there by any quantity of quivers and shakes, up or down, of anything you can find in the universe that is shakeable—what is that to me? My friend is dead, and my—according to modern views—vibratory sorrow is not one whit less, or less mysterious, to me, than my old quiet one.
(546)
CONSECRATION