in; your own
soul must grow accustomed to the spot, and filled with the surrounding
nature; for Nature is the source of all inspiration."

With these words Mejnour turned to lighter topics. He made the
Englishman accompany him in long rambles through the wild scenes
around, and he smiled approvingly when the young artist gave way to the
enthusiasm which their fearful beauty could not have failed to rouse in
a duller breast; and then Mejnour poured forth to his wondering pupil
the stores of a knowledge that seemed inexhaustible and boundless. He
gave accounts the most curious, graphic, and minute of the various races
(their characters, habits, creeds, and manners) by which that fair land
had been successively overrun. It is true that his descriptions could
not be found in books, and were unsupported by learned authorities; but
he possessed the true charm of the tale-teller, and spoke of all with
the animated confidence of a personal witness. Sometimes, too, he would
converse upon the more durable and the loftier mysteries of Nature with
an eloquence and a research which invested them with all the colours
rather of poetry than science. Insensibly the young artist found himself
elevated and soothed by the lore of his companion; the fever of his wild
desires was slaked. His mind became more and more lulled into the divine
tranquillity of contemplation; he felt himself a nobler being, and in
the silence of his senses he imagined that he heard the voice of his
soul.

It was to this state that Mejnour evidently sought to bring the
neophyte, and in this elementary initiation the mystic was like every
more ordinary sage. For he who seeks to DISCOVER must first reduce
himself into a kind of abstract idealism, and be rendered up, in solemn
and sweet bondage, to the faculties which CONTEMPLATE and IMAGINE.

Glyndon noticed that, in their rambles, Mejnour often paused, where the
foliage was rifest, to gather some herb or flower; and this reminded him
that he had seen Zanoni similarly occupied. "Can these humble children
of Nature," said he one day to Mejnour,--"things that bloom and wither
in a day, be serviceable to the science of the higher secrets? Is there
a pharmacy for the soul as well as the body, and do the nurslings of the
summer minister not only to human health but spiritual immortality?"

"If," answered Mejnour, "a stranger had visited a wandering tribe before
one property of herbalism was known to them; if he had tol