𝕷𝖚𝖈𝖆𝖘

Royal Society members and French Encyclopædists are in the Chariot, availing themselves whilst they may of any occasion to preach the Gospels of Reason, denouncing all that was once Magic, though too often in smirking tropes upon the Church of Rome,— visitations, bleeding statues, medical impossibilities,— no, no, far too foreign. One may be allowed an occasional Cock Lane Ghost,— otherwise, for any more in that Article, one must turn to Gothick Fictions, folded acceptably between the covers of Books.

We go rattling thro’ another Day,— another Year,— as thro’ an empty Town without a Name, in the midnight… we have but Memories of some Pause at the Pleasure-Spas of our younger Day, the Maidens, the Cards, the Claret,— we seek to extend our stay, but now a silent Functionary in dark Livery indicates it is time to re-board the Coach, and resume the Journey. Long before the Destination, moreover, shall this Machine come abruptly to a Stop… gather’d dense with Fear, shall we open the Door to confer with the Driver, to discover that there is no Driver,… no Horses,… only the Machine, fading as we stand, and a Prairie of desperate Immensity….