“Nay; thy words but kindle it.”

“Follow me, then, and submit to the initiatory labours.”

With that, Mejnour led him into the interior chamber, and proceeded to explain to him certain chemical operations which, though extremely simple in themselves, Glyndon soon perceived were capable of very extraordinary results.

“In the remoter times,” said Mejnour, smiling, “our brotherhood were often compelled to recur to delusions to protect realities; and, as dexterous mechanicians or expert chemists, they obtained the name of sorcerers.  Observe how easy to construct is the Spectre Lion that attended the renowned Leonardo da Vinci!”

And Glyndon beheld with delighted surprise the simple means by which the wildest cheats of the imagination can be formed.  The magical landscapes in which Baptista Porta rejoiced; the apparent change of the seasons with which Albertus Magnus startled the Earl of Holland; nay, even those more dread delusions of the Ghost and Image with which the necromancers of Heraclea woke the conscience of the conqueror of Plataea (Pausanias,—­see Plutarch.),—­all these, as the showman enchants some trembling children on a Christmas Eve with his lantern and phantasmagoria, Mejnour exhibited to his pupil.

....

“And now laugh forever at magic! when these, the very tricks, the very sports and frivolities of science, were the very acts which men viewed with abhorrence, and inquisitors and kings rewarded with the rack and the stake.”

“But the alchemist’s transmutation of metals—­”

“Nature herself is a laboratory in which metals, and all elements, are forever at change.  Easy to make gold,—­easier, more commodious, and cheaper still, to make the pearl, the diamond, and the ruby.  Oh, yes; wise men found sorcery in this too; but they found no sorcery in the discovery that by the simplest combination of things of every-day use they could raise a devil that would sweep away thousands of their kind by the breath of consuming fire.  Discover what will destroy life, and you are a great man!—­what will prolong it, and you are an imposter!  Discover some invention in machinery that will make the rich more rich and the poor more poor, and they will build you a statue!  Discover some mystery in art that will equalise physical disparities, and they will pull down their own houses to stone you!  Ha, ha, my pupil! such is the world Zanoni still cares for!—­you and I will leave this world to itself.  And now that you have seen some few of the effects of science, begin to learn its grammar.”

Mejnour then set before his pupil certain tasks, in which the rest of the night wore itself away.

CHAPTER 4.V.