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“One day,” Mercury went on, softly and slowly, “in the late summer of 1946, this man felt a change in everything. The ground seemed to become one with the air, with the sun, and, as the night 1 1 edad “His sensitive nature was under perpetual stress, just in the effort of living. This night, his nerves tightened so he could not sleep. It was a typical summer’s night in New Jersey. About 2:00 o'clock in the morning he was under the strain of a nervous headache, and rose from his bed to go to the kitchen. His wife and children were asleep, so he did not turn on the radio, although music would have helped him. Feeling hungry, he made a sandwich, filled a tall glass with ginger ale, and sat down at the wad table. “He took a drink from the glass and munched on the sandwich. Why, he thought suddenly and inadvertently, does nature guard her innermost secrets so well? Why does she reveal them only slowly to man, and only after centuries of complex and exhausting research? At this moment, he was a materialist of the first water. Facts, logic and matter were all that made any sense. “He had some saving grace, however. He probed wherever observation led him, he felt that the universe as a whole was rather intelligent, orderly and purposeful, and he was ready to admit any error he made, ready to admit another was right the instant he was proved right. These were the qualities which were to reward his confused and haphazard gropings, the qualities which alerted him to something strange in the atmosphere of this early morning. “Roosters were crowing nearby, and the wind was blowing, yet in all this sound he sensed an unheard whisper. It was not in the to. ete ote wren tat 1 . 1 1 ro. 1 air, but within him. He lifted the glass to eye level and stared into the liquid, seeking some relief from the tension in his head. The bubbles rose rapidly from the bottom. “Why head. head. The bubbles rose rapidly from the bottom. ‘Why can’t I know the true nature of the universe?’ he asked, the bottom. half of himself, half of the glass. ‘After all, there is the Ether. I see the liquid as the Ether. Look at those bubbles going on 131 NATURE OF INFINITE ENTITIES approached, one with the stars.