les, and watching the
process of some experiment intrusted to his charge, the student would
get entranced in one of these love-dreams, from which he would often
be aroused by some fatal catastrophe. The philosopher, on returning
from his researches in the libraries, would find every thing gone
wrong, and Antonio in despair over the ruins of the whole day's work.
The old man, however, took all quietly, for his had been a life of
experiment and failure.

"We must have patience, my son," would he say, "as all the great
masters that have gone before us have had. Errors, and accidents, and
delays are what we have to contend with. Did not Pontanus err two
hundred times, before he could obtain even the matter on which to
found his experiments? The great Flamel, too, did he not labour
four-and-twenty years, before he ascertained the first agent? What
difficulties and hardships did not Cartilaceus encounter, at the very
threshold of his discoveries? And Bernard de Treves, even after he had
attained a knowledge of all the requisites, was he not delayed full
three years? What you consider accidents, my son, are the machinations
of our invisible enemies. The treasures and golden secrets of nature
are surrounded by spirits hostile to man. The air about us teems with
them. They lurk in the fire of the furnace, in the bottom of the
crucible, and the alembic, and are ever on the alert to take advantage
of those moments when our minds are wandering from intense meditation
on the great truth that we are seeking. We must only strive the more
to purify ourselves from, those gross and earthly feelings which
becloud the soul, and prevent her from piercing into nature's arcana."

"Alas!" thought Antonio, "if to be purified from all earthly feeling
requires that I should cease to love Inez, I fear I shall never
discover the philosopher's stone!"

In this way, matters went on for some time, at the alchymist's. Day
after day was sending the student's gold in vapour up the chimney;
every blast of the furnace made him a ducat the poorer, without
apparently helping him a jot nearer to the golden secret. Still the
young man stood by, and saw piece after piece disappearing without a
murmur: he had daily an opportunity of seeing Inez, and felt as if her
favour would be better than silver or gold, and that every smile was
worth a ducat.

Sometimes, in the cool of the evening, when the toils of the
laboratory happened to be suspended, he would walk