with an air of triumph, as if he said, "There!
that's a parson for you! Did you ever listen
to the like of that? Can you make head or
tail out of it? Not you!" And then he
would turn his sharp countenance once more
towards the preacher, as if with that hatchet-
like instrument he could cut his way into
the intention of his discourse. He said a
great deal about two or three things that
pleased us all. Everything was to be looked
at from two points of view—everything had
two sides, its objectivity and its subjectivity;
and ruling over these, and combining,
correcting, and reconciling them, was the "Ich."
This he pronounced in a very foreign manner,
like a serpent perhaps trying to speak, for it
partook greatly of the hiss in its sound; but
with the help of this "Ich," whatever it
might be, he turned the Christian religion in
any way he liked. "This is its objective
side," he said; "repulsive, perhaps doubtful,
alarming: this is its subjective side alluring,
enchanting, improving. Now, what is wanted
to perfect the bond between objectivity and
subjectivity? Nothing but one, that is the
Ich." So we all went away greatly edified,
and wondering what in the world the Ich
could be.

"The man has been in Germany," said Mr.
Jollico, "and these are some of the nonsensical
results of beer and metaphysics.
Objective and subjective mean outward and
inward,—a stick applied to any head is objective;
my head struck by a stick is subjective;
and Ich means I. So the man means that if
I did not exist the stick would not exist as
regards me, nor the head as regards the stick.
The Ich therefore is to blame for everything,
for if there was no I there would be nothing
at all. I should say he is still in the oolite—
a reptilian brain, with perhaps the development
of a crocodile, but no higher,—ill-defined
spinal cord, and triple-chambered
heart."

However, he was a remarkably handsome
crocodile; fine dark eyes—tall and elastic;
figure,—and he drove the fiery greys at the
rate of twelve miles an hour; and it was
soon understood he had quarrelled with Mr.
Jefferson Smith, and even threatened to
insert his head in Wallaston Brook, both
objectively and subjectively, which created a
scandal in the parish. Mr. Wicket had not called
on the Spavins, or the Willigos, or the Greens.
So they all sided with Mr. Smith, and thought
the clergyman did not know his place and
held his head a great deal too high. Somebody
found out that his father had made his
fortune as a mercer in Liverpool,—and it was
astonishing how he could give himself such
airs. Mrs. Willigo, whose brother had
married the niece of a baronet (afterwards
transported for forgery), refused to meet Mr.
Wicket at Mr. Jollico's, at dinner, as she said
the distinctions of rank ought to be kept up.
Meanwhile Mr. Jefferson Smith went from
house to house as an injured patron, and
awoke the sympathy of half the inhabitants
by his history of the ungrateful conduct of
Mr. Wicket, to whom he had sold the
presentation for half its value. He also said
his religious feelings were in an everlasting
fix, whereby he didn't know whether his
head was his head or not, but sometimes he
rayther believed it must be his heels, and he
would apply to the bishop to set him on his
pins again. But, he added confidentially, if
he had catched sich a fella a-holding forth
to any of his acquaintance some six or seven
years since, he would have had him tied up
to a tree and precious well wolloped with a
strip of bull's hide, as he had done to many a
better man.

And every Sunday the division grew
wider and wider. The statements of Mr.
Wicket astonished us more and more. He
talked despairingly of the church—he almost
laughed at the notion of people being
improved by coming together to show off their
best bonnets and vie with each other in gay
apparel; he saw no good, he said, in people
coming to listen with a sneer, and more
prepared to find fault with the preacher than to
benefit by what they heard,—to criticise the
sermon than to practise the precepts,—and to
gratify their evil-speaking, lying, and slandering,
at the expense of their friends and neighbours.
He told us that the church was a
heap of stones—the pulpit a piece of wood—
the Bible itself a combination of paper and
calf's-skin,—and asked us in a taunting manner
if we could derive any benefit from these.
Then he told us of the Ich again, that gave a
soul to stone, and wood, and paper, and
made each man's own little chamber into
a church, and our own private thoughts
a bible. So Mrs. Willigo and Mrs. Green
threaiened to join the Papists, for they
couldn't bear to hear the church run down,
after all the money spent on its decoration
and repairs, and it was shocking to hear a
clergyman attack the Bible. Mr. and Mrs.
Jells, however, seemed to agree with all that
Mr. Wicket said, and so did Sophy. She
began the study of German, and talked about
Goths by the hour, and said the rector was
soon going to give her a course of Higgle and
Shillings; so it would be charming to be
able to understand his doctrine, and explain
it to Charlie Baskins when he came home;
for he had gone to finish off at Woolwich,
and had no time for philosophical pursuits.
But it was easy to be seen there would be
few opportunities for any explanation, either
of philosophy or anything else, between the
young people; for the old ones took different
sides, and quarrelled on all subjects, particularly
about objectivity and the Ich. Mr.
Baskins believed in neither, and said he
considered Mr. Wicket a very dangerous man,
with very absurd tenets on many points; he had
heard him say, for instance, that crime would
probably not be visited on the ignorant
perpetrator, but on the purse-proud selfish pharisee