R. Grove turn round on him and tell him that
"the principle of all certitude" is not and cannot be the testimony
of his own senses; that these senses, indeed, are no absolute tests
of phenomena at all; that probably man is surrounded by beings he can
neither see, feel, hear, nor smell; and that, notwithstanding the
excellence of his own eyes, ears, and nose, the universe the
materialist is mapping out so deftly is, and must be, monophysical,
lightless, colourless, soundless--a phantasmagoric show--a deceptive
series of undulations, which become colour, or sound, or what not,
according to the organism upon which they fall.'
These words were followed by a sequence of mystical sonnets about
"the Omnipotence of Love," which showed, beyond doubt, that if my
father was not a scientific thinker, he was, at least, a very
original poet. And this made me perplexed as to what could have drawn
Wilderspin, who scorned the art of poetry, into the meshes of _The
Veiled Queen_. Perhaps, however, it was because Wilderspin's ancestry
was, notwithstanding his English name, largely, if not wholly, Welsh,
as I learnt from Cyril.
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