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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Kenilworth by Walter Scott: clear that he who runs may read. Hath not Art, thinkest thou,
the means of completing Nature's imperfect concoctions in her
attempts to form the precious metals, even as by art we can
perfect those other operations of incubation, distillation,
fermentation, and similar processes of an ordinary description,
by which we extract life itself out of a senseless egg, summon
purity and vitality out of muddy dregs, or call into vivacity the
inert substance of a sluggish liquid?"
"I have heard all this before," said Varney, "and my heart is
proof against such cant ever since I sent twenty good gold pieces
(marry, it was in the nonage of my wit) to advance the grand
Kenilworth |
