d the savages
that the herbs which every day they trampled under foot were endowed
with the most potent virtues; that one would restore to health a brother
on the verge of death; that another would paralyse into idiocy their
wisest sage; that a third would strike lifeless to the dust their most
stalwart champion; that tears and laughter, vigour and disease, madness
and reason, wakefulness and sleep, existence and dissolution, were
coiled up in those unregarded leaves,--would they not have held him a
sorcerer or a liar? To half the virtues of the vegetable world mankind
are yet in the darkness of the savages I have supposed. There are
faculties within us with which certain herbs have affinity, and over
which they have power. The moly of the ancients is not all a fable."

The apparent character of Mejnour differed in much from that of Zanoni;
and while it fascinated Glyndon less, it subdued and impressed him
more. The conversation of Zanoni evinced a deep and general interest for
mankind,--a feeling approaching to enthusiasm for art and beauty. The
stories circulated concerning his habits elevated the mystery of his
life by actions of charity and beneficence. And in all this there
was something genial and humane that softened the awe he created, and
tended, perhaps, to raise suspicions as to the loftier secrets that he
arrogated to himself. But Mejnour seemed wholly indifferent to all the
actual world. If he committed no evil, he seemed equally apathetic to
good. His deeds relieved no want, his words pitied no distress. What
we call the heart appeared to have merged into the intellect. He moved,
thought, and lived like some regular and calm abstraction, rather than
one who yet retained, with the form, the feelings and sympathies of his
kind.

Glyndon once, observing the tone of supreme indifference with which he
spoke of those changes on the face of earth which he asserted he had
witnessed, ventured to remark to him the distinction he had noted.

"It is true," said Mejnour, coldly. "My life is the life that
contemplates,--Zanoni's is the life that enjoys: when I gather the herb,
I think but of its uses; Zanoni will pause to admire its beauties."

"And you deem your own the superior and the loftier existence?"

"No. His is the existence of youth,--mine of age. We have cultivated
different faculties. Each has powers the other cannot aspire to. Those
with whom he associates live better,--those who associate with me know