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The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this

discovery soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so much

time spent in painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit of

my desires was the most gratifying consummation of my toils. But

this discovery was so great and overwhelming that all the steps

by which I had been progressively led to it were obliterated, and

I beheld only the result. What had been the study and desire of

the wisest men since the creation of the world was now within my

grasp. Not that, like a magic scene, it all opened upon me at

once: the information I had obtained was of a nature rather to

direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them towards the

object of my search than to exhibit that object already

accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the

dead and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering

and seemingly ineffectual light.