Page:Headlong Hall - Peacock (1816).djvu/157

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HEADLONG HALL.
149

pages, or shell, the body, which at once envelopes and developes that mysterious and inestimable kernel, the desiderative, determinative, ratiocinative, imaginative, inquisitive, appetitive, comparative, reminiscent congeries of ideas and notions, simple and compound, comprised in the comprehensive denomination of mind, to take a peep, with me, into the mechanical arcana of the anatomico-metaphysical universe. Being not in the least dubitative of your spontaneous compliance, I proceed," added he, suddenly changing his tone, "to get every thing ready in the library.". Saying these words, he vanished.

The Welch squires now imagined they had caught a glimpse of his meaning, and set him down in their minds for a sort of gentleman conjuror, who intended to amuse them before the ball with some tricks of legerdemain. Under this impression, they became very im-