"I thank you, Edward," he boomed at me. "Candle-light is less fatiguing to the eye. You are very thoughtful." He scratched abominably with his quill, which I suspected he did not know how to use. I endeavoured to read and watch his melodrama at the same time.
I rejoiced inwardly at this, for I was certain that my literal interpretation of his injunction to silence would prove irksome to him in the end.
"A treatise on chemistry?" I suggested. "Or perhaps a monograph on one of the rare elements?"
"Wrong, Edward, wrong again. I am writing _the_ philosophy."
"I call it _the_ philosophy, for it is the only true one. I am the only man who can explain mind and matter--of what the universe is made--why it is, and what the nature of the Supreme Being is."
"What is the universe?" I ventured, hoping to draw him out. Mental hallucinations were novelties to me at that time, and for once Prospero had interested me.
"The universe, Edward, is a complex chemical equation which I am solving. On one side of this equation you have material manifestations of energy; on the other, the manifestations which we call mind and spirit."
"I think I have heard something like this before," I said, a little disappointed.
"The germ of my philosophy, Edward, is to be found in Confucius and repeats itself again in the sayings attributed to Buddha."
"Positive matter is the male essence; negative matter, the female. The ultimate quintessence emanating from the supreme source is a wave vibration independent of time and space. As this travels outward through the atoms and molecules of the ultimate solid--these atoms and molecules which we call stars and planets and which compose this solid--the combinations between these positive and negative ions or wave vibrations produce the varying manifestations of mind and matter. They are all self-perpetuating, yet always passing into new forms. Thus matter begets matter; thought, thought."
"It sounds as plausible as any explanation," I said politely, turning over a page of my book. "I'm going to bed," and I shut myself up in my bedroom. I had had philosophy enough for one evening.
For a week or ten days Prospero worked steadily and amazingly in the laboratory. He did his experiments with skill, ease, and rapidity; furthermore, he put no obstacles in the way of my keeping full records of his work. One day, however, when he returned in the afternoon he was much depressed. His cigarette reappeared upon his lower lip and he spilt its ashes into various mixtures, until, in a rage, he hurled an eggshell Bohemian glass beaker partly full of nitric acid into a far corner of the room. By acting promptly I saved the factory from a fire and the room from any serious damage. Prospero contemplated me gloomily when I had finished clearing up his mess.