"If you are keeping me from my bed, Mrs. Lorraine, merely to lecture my conceit by proving that there are in this world wiser heads than that of Vivian Grey, on my honour, madam, you are giving yourself a great deal of unnecessary trouble."
"You will misunderstand me, then, thou wilful boy!"
"Nay, lady, I will not affect to misunderstand your meaning; but I recognise, you know full well, no intermediate essence between my own good soul, and that ineffable and omnipotent spirit, in whose existence philosophers and priests alike agree."
"Omnipotent, and ineffable essence! Oh! leave such words to scholars, and to schoolboys! And think you, that such indefinite nothings, such unmeaning abstractions, can influence beings whose veins are full of blood, bubbling like this?" And here she grasped Vivian with a feverish hand—"Omnipotent,
