DISCOVERY OF THE ABSOLUTE

In a low voice he read the intelligence to his wife.  It narrated that a famous mathematician in Poland had made terms for selling the secret of the Absolute, which he had discovered.  As Emmanuel ceased to read, Marguerite asked for the paper; but Claes had heard the almost whispered words.

Of a sudden the dying man lifted himself up on his elbows.  To his frightened family his glance was like the flash of lightning.  The fringe of hair above his forehead stood up; every line in his countenance quivered with excitement, a thrill of passion moved across his face and made it sublime.

He lifted a hand, which was clenched with excitement, and uttering the cry of Archimedes—­“Eureka!”—­fell back with the heaviness of a dead body, and expired with an agonised groan.  His eyes, till the doctor closed them, expressed a frenzied despair.  It was his agony that he could not bequeath to science the solution of the great riddle which was only revealed to him as the veil was rent asunder by the hand of Death.

* * * * *

WILLIAM BECKFORD

History of the Caliph Vathek

William Beckford, son of the famous Lord Mayor, was born at Fonthill, Wiltshire, England, Sept. 29, 1759, and received his education at first from a private tutor, and then at Geneva.  On coming of age, he inherited a million sterling and an annual income of L100,000, and three years later he married the fourth Earl of Aboyne’s daughter, Lady Margaret Gordon, who died in May, 1786.  In 1787 Beckford’s romance, the “History of the Caliph Vathek,” appeared in its original French, an English translation of the work having been published “anonymously and surreptitiously” in 1784.  “Vathek” was written by Beckford in 1781 or 1782 at a single sitting of three days and two nights.  Beckford was a great traveller and a great connoisseur and collector both of pictures and of books; and, apart from “Vathek” and some volumes of travels, he is best known for having secluded himself for twenty years in the magnificent residence which he built in Fonthill.  He died on May 2, 1844.

I.—­Vathek and the Magic Sabres

Vathek, ninth caliph of the race of the Abassides, was the son of Motassem, and the grandson of Haroun al Raschid.  From an early accession to the throne, and the talents he possessed to adorn it, his subjects were induced to expect that his reign would be long and happy.  His figure was pleasing and majestic; but when he was angry one of his eyes became so terrible that no person could bear it, and the wretch upon whom it was fixed instantly fell backward, and sometimes expired.  For fear, however, of depopulating his dominions and making his palace desolate, he but rarely gave way to his anger.