Moxons Master 5

Somewhat to my surprise he laughed lightly and answered without hesitation¹:

'Nobody; the incident that you have in mind was caused by my folly² in leaving a machine in action with nothing to act upon, while I undertook the interminable（冗长的） task of enlightening your understanding. Do you happen to know that Consciousness is the creature of Rhythm?'

'O bother them both!' I replied, rising and laying hold of my overcoat. 'I'm going to wish you good night; and I'll add the hope that the machine which you inadvertently（非故意地） left in action will have her gloves on the next time you think it needful to stop her.'

Without waiting to observe the effect of my shot I left the house.

Rain was falling, and the darkness was intense. In the sky beyond the crest³ of a hill toward which I groped my way along precarious⁴（危险的） plank⁵ sidewalks and across miry（泥泞的） , unpaved streets I could see the faint glow of the city's lights, but behind me nothing was visible but a single window of Moxon's house. It glowed with what seemed to me a mysterious and fateful meaning. I knew it was an uncurtained aperture⁶ in my friend's 'machine-shop,' and I had little doubt that he had resumed the studies interrupted by his duties as my instructor⁷ in mechanical consciousness and the fatherhood of Rhythm. Odd, and in some degree humorous, as his convictions seemed to me at that time, I could not wholly divest⁸ myself of the feeling that they had some tragic⁹ relation to his life and character -- perhaps to his destiny -- although I no longer entertained the notion that they were the vagaries¹⁰ of a disordered mind. Whatever might be thought of his views, his exposition of them was too logical for that. Over and over, his last words came back to me: 'Consciousness is the creature of Rhythm.' Bald and terse¹¹ as the statement was, I now found it infinitely¹² alluring¹³（诱惑的） . At each recurrence¹⁴ it broadened in meaning and deepened in suggestion. Why, here (I thought) is something upon which to found a philosophy. If Consciousness is the product of Rhythm all things are conscious, for all have motion, and all motion is rhythmic¹⁵. I wondered if Moxon knew the significance and breadth of his thought -- the scope of this momentous¹⁶ generalization¹⁷; or had he arrived at his philosophic¹⁸ faith by the tortuous¹⁹ and uncertain road of observation? That faith was then new to me, and all Moxon's expounding²⁰ had failed to make me a convert; but now it seemed as if a great light shone about me, like that which fell upon Saul of Tarsus; and out there in the storm and darkness and solitude²¹ I experienced what Lewes calls 'The endless variety and excitement of philosophic thought.' I exulted²²（狂喜） in a new sense of knowledge, a new pride of reason. My feet seemed hardly to touch the earth; it was as if I were uplifted and borne through the air by invisible wings.