But I must not fail to tell you of a dramatic episode in connection with my first venture into the realm of biological thought. _The Popular Science Monthly_ has long been proscribed at the parsonage on account of its heretical tendencies. And my purpose was to keep a profound secret the fact that I had purchased a copy containing Minot's article. But some demon prompted me to inquire of my father the meaning of the term "epiphenomenon." Now a long association with the idea of omniscience has rendered him wiser in consciousness than in fact, which is a joke the imagination often plays upon serious people. But he could neither give a definition nor find the word in his ancient Webster. This dictionary is his only unquestioned authority outside the Holy Scriptures, and he declines to accept any word not vouched for by this venerable authority. Therefore he reasoned that "epiphenomenon" had been built up to accommodate some modern theory of thought, some new leprosy of the mind never dreamed of by the noble lexicographer. And so, fixing me with a pair of accusing glasses, he inquired: "My daughter, where did you see this remarkable word?" I do not question that I am a direct descendant from my fictitious grandmother, Eve! I am always being tempted by apples of information, and I have often known the mortifying sensation of wishing to hide my guilty countenance in my more modern petticoat on that account. He read the "blasphemous" article through, only pausing to point out heresies and perversions of the sacred truth as he went along. But when he reached the sentence in which the author calmly asserts the theory of monism, he actually gagged with indignation: "My child, do you know that this godless wretch claims that the same principle of life which makes the cabbage also vitalises man?" I looked horrified, but I could barely restrain my laughter; for, indeed, there are "flat-dutch"-headed gentlemen in his congregation who might as well have come up at the end of a cabbage stalk for all the thinking they do. But I need not tell you that the magazine containing the profane treatise on consciousness was burned, while a livid picture was drawn of my own future if I persisted in stealing forbidden fruit from this particular tree of knowledge. But your last letter put me into a more serious frame of mind. And I _am_ complimented that you entertain the hope that I may be of assistance in re-establishing the lost bond between you and real life. But do you know that you have appealed to the missionary instincts of a barbarian? The attributes of patience and indulgence do not belong to natures like mine. Never has any affliction worked out patience in me, never has my strongest affection taken the form of indulgence. In me Love and Friendship, Sorrow and Gladness, take fiercer forms of expression.