The modern Master of Chemistry promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted ad that the elixir of life is a chimera. However, these philosophers whose hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate into the recesses of nature and show how one works in one’s hiding place.  They ascend into the Heavens; they have discovered how the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders of Heaven, mimic the Earthquake, and even mock the invisible World with its own shadows. A secret is always accompanied by more or less of fear, and produces more or less of cowardice. When Gold Almighty wills it, our secrets are found out. For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. The Holy Scriptures impart to us knowledge and assurance of things much more worthy our attention than all which this World can offer to our acceptance; of things which Heaven itself hath condescended to reveal to us, and to the smallest knowledge of which the highest human wit unassisted could never ascend. The discovery of a secret implies no obligation to retain it. 

There is a rebellious soul in things which must be overcome by powerful charms and incantations. When the human—the physical—system is put under the effect of an excessive stimulant, whether grape, opium, or poison, taken in a quantity not sufficient to produce death, there is for a time, an unnatural exaltation, a tremendous accession of velocity in all the wheels of life. Whatever may be the evils resulting from a too susceptible heart, nothing can be hoped from an insensible one. A man without sensibility exhibits no sign of a soul. Nothing renders the soul so callous and insensible as the searing brands of infamy and disgrace. The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again. It seems that human beings compounded especially for happiness have no longer any business on Earth, or elsewhere. Life has grown so sadly serious, that such must change their nature, or else perish, like the antediluvian creatures, that required, as the condition of their existence, a more summer-like atmosphere than ours. The increasing seriousness of things—the great opportunity of jokes, there are so many who forget to think seriously till it is almost too late. Who can part, forever; only when we come so close that nothing separates us can we meet again, only when what binds us is not my need of your or your need of me nor any chance circumstance, but a deep ingrained likeness of nature that cannot pass away. 

The value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Sometimes no matter how hard some people try, no matter how hard they work, they cannot seem to help themselves. Frequently do we labor to secure the things that debase us into slaves, and overwhelm us with calamity. Great men will take advantage of those who need help to advance their own causes. Trying to build a reputation and create a career, a man found that people just expected and exploited his work for their benefit, giving him nothing in return. His honorable efforts just seem to produce more threats and exploitation. There is a forsaking which still sits at the same board and lies on the same couch with the forsaken soul, withering it the more by unloving proximity. Sincerity is the true knight. At no time are people so sedulously careful to keep their trifling appointments, attend to their ordinary occupations, and thus put a commonplace aspect on life, as when conscious of some secret that if suspected would make them look monstrous in the general eye. There would hardly be a guilty person in the World, were each suspected or accused person to tell his or her own story and be allowed any degree of credit. There is nothing more terrible to a guilty heart, than the eye of a respected friend. Money, you think, is the sole motive to pains and hazard, deception and deviltry, in this World. How much money did the devil make by gulling Eve? There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals.

The Winchester Mystery House

 A small girl in Victorian dress is often seen playing among the garden at The Winchester Mystery House. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/