My Library

Cross, the mediæval and modern Rosicrucians, and the scattering delvers after mystery in all ages, times, and places. He said that among the things that I might learn from him, were the priceless secret of compounding the Elixir of Life, the drinking of which, by mortals, would confer perpetual youth and surprising beauty. Then there was the Lethean Draught, and whomsoever drank thereof, forthwith forgot all care, was oblivious to all that concerned the Future, and lived intensely in the Present. Then there was the Water of Love, and whoever drank thereof became irresistibly magnetic to the opposite sex, and could kindle affection in the heart of ice by mere personal presence. Then there was the Wondrous Stone of the Philosophers, not capable of transmuting, by a touch, whole tons of grossest substance into solid, shining gold, but of making it chemically. Then there was the Magic Crystal Ball, in which the gazer could behold whatever he wished to, that was then transpiring on this earth, or any of the planets. ‘All this knowledge,’ said he, ‘I will expound to you, on certain conditions to be hereafter mentioned.’ “I relate these things in the briefest possible manner, and make no allusions to my feelings during the time I listened to the strange being, Ettelavar, further than to remark, that during the—temptation, shall it be called?—I seemed to be hovering in the aërial expanse, and realized a