And as there were two roads before Hercules, so there were before him two roads, shown by two figures, in order to serve him; the one an old crone, the other a youth, beautiful as the angel that led the young Tobias.

The old crone had on a mantle, on which were wrought flowers, animals, and human beings, entwined in an arabesque manner.  She had large spectacles on, and beside her lantern she held a bag filled with old gilt cards—­apparatus for witchcraft, and all the amulets of superstition:  leaning on her crutch, wrinkled and shivering, she was, however, soaring, like the mist over the meadow.

“Come with me, and you shall see the world, so that a poet can have benefit from it,” said she.  “I will light my lantern; it is better than that which Diogenes bore; I shall lighten your path.”

And the light shone; the old crone lifted her head, and stood there strong and tall, a powerful female figure.  She was Superstition.

“I am the strongest in the region of romance,” said she,—­and she herself believed it.

And the lantern’s light gave the lustre of the full moon over the whole earth; yes, the earth itself became transparent, as the still waters of the deep sea, or the glass mountains, in the fairy tale.

“My kingdom is thine! sing what thou see’st; sing as if no bard before thee had sung thereof.”

And it was as if the scene continually changed.  Splendid Gothic churches, with painted images in the panes, glided past, and the midnight-bell struck, and the dead arose from the graves.  There, under the bending elder tree, sat the mother, and swathed her newly-born child; old, sunken knights’ castles rose again from the marshy ground; the drawbridge fell, and they saw into the empty halls, adorned with images, where, under the gloomy stairs of the gallery, the death-proclaiming white woman came with a rattling bunch of keys.  The basilisk brooded in the deep cellar; the monster bred from a cock’s egg, invulnerable by every weapon, but not from the sight of its own horrible form:  at the sight of its own image, it bursts like the steel that one breaks with the blow of a stout staff.  And to everything that appeared, from the golden chalice of the altar-table, once the drinking-cup of evil spirits, to the nodding head on the gallows-hill, the old crone hummed her songs; and the crickets chirped, and the raven croaked from the opposite neighbour’s house, and the winding-sheet rolled from the candle.  Through the whole spectral world sounded, “death! death!”

“Go with me to life and truth,” cried the second form, the youth who was beautiful as a cherub.  A flame shone from his brow—­a cherub’s sword glittered in his hand.  “I am Knowledge,” said he:  “my world is greater—­its aim is truth.”

And there was a brightness all around; the spectral images paled; it did not extend over the world they had seen.  Superstition’s lantern had only exhibited magic-lantern images on the old ruined wall, and the wind had driven wet misty vapours past in figures.