“I have called myself the Material Idealist. I have adopted an entirely
new trend of philosophy. During the past years, unknown to you and
unknown to my friends, I have allied myself with practical science. I
desired something concrete. While my colleagues and others were pounding
out tomes of wonderful sophistry I have been pounding away at the screen
of the occult. This is a proud moment. I have succeeded. Tomorrow I
shall bring to you the fact and the substance. I have lifted up the
curtain and flooded it with the light of day. You shall have the fact
for your senses. Tomorrow I shall explain it all. I shall deliver my
greatest lecture; in which my whole Me has come to a focus. It is not
spiritualism nor sophistry. It is concrete fact and common sense. The
subject of my lecture tomorrow will be: 'The Blind Spot.'”
Here begins the second part of the mystery.
We know now that the great lecture was never delivered. Immediately the
news was scattered out of the class-room. It became common property.
It was spread over the country and was featured in all the great
metropolitan dailies. In the lecture-room next morning seats were at a
premium; students, professors, instructors and all the prominent people
who could gain admission crowded into the hall; even the irrepressible
reporters had stolen in to take down the greatest scoop of the century.
The place was jammed until even standing room was unthought of. The
crowd, dense and packed and physically uncomfortable, waited.
The minutes dragged by. It was a long, long wait. But at last the bell
rang that ticked the hour. Every one was expectant. And then fifteen
minutes passed by, twenty--the crowd settled down to waiting. At length
one of the colleagues stepped into the doctor's office and telephoned to
his home. His daughter answered.
“Father? Why he left over two hours ago.”
“About what time?”
“Why, it was about seven-thirty. You know he was to deliver his lecture
today on the Blind Spot. I wanted to hear it, but he told me I could
have it at home. He said he was to have a wonderful guest and I must
make ready to receive him. Isn't father there?”
“Not yet. Who was this guest? Did he say?”
“Oh yes! In a way. A most wonderful man. And he gave him a wonderful
name, Rhamda Avec. I remember because it is so funny. I asked father if
he was Sanskrit; and he said he was much older than that. Just imagine!”
“Did your father have his lecture with him?”
“Oh, yes. He glanced over it at breakfast. He told me he was going to
startle the world as it had never been since the day of Columbus.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes. And he was terribly impatient. He said he had to be at the college
before eight to receive the great man. He was to deliver his lecture at
ten. And afterward he would have lunch at noon and he would give me the
whole story. I'm all impatience.”
“Thank you.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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