Take, for example, the idea of a grand
combination of human energies mustered together in secret, and operating
through invisible agencies for the downfall of Christianity,--an idea
which was conveyed to De Quincey in his childhood through the Abbe
Baruel's book exposing such a general conspiracy was existing throughout
Europe: this was the sort of mystery which arrested and engrossed his
thoughts. Similar elements invested all secret societies with an awful
grandeur in his conception. So, too, the complicated operations of great
cities such as London, which he call the "Nation of London," where even
Nature is mimicked, both in her strict regularity of results, and in the
seeming unconsciousness of all her outward phases, hiding all meaning
under the enigmas that defy solution. In order to this effect it was
absolutely necessary that there should be not simply one mystery
standing alone by itself, and striking in its portentous significance;
there must have been more than this,--namely, a network of occult
influences, a vast organization, wheeling in and out upon itself,
gyrating in mystic cycles and epicycles, repeating over and again its
dark omens, and displaying its insignia in a never-ending variety of
shapes.
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