to assist in the entering of
that mental state which is necessary to produce clairvoyant sight. The
best of all mirrors is the soul of man, and it should be always kept
pure, and be protected against dust, and dampness, and rust, so that it
may not become tarnished, but remain perfectly clear, and able to
reflect the light of the divine spirit in its original purity.'

A German writer of the fifteenth century takes a less favourable view of
what he calls pyromancy, although pyromancy is really divination by
fire. He reports the practices of certain Masters of Magic, who made
children look into a wretched mirror for the purpose of obtaining
information in an unholy manner. 'Young boys are said to behold future
things and all things, in a crystal. Base, desperate, and faint-hearted
Christians practise it, to whom the shadow and the phantom of the devil
are dearer than the truth of God. Some take a clear and beautifully
polished crystal, or beryl, which they consecrate and keep clean, and
treat with incense, myrrh, and the like. And when they propose to
practise their art, they wait for a clear day, or select some clean
chamber in which are many candles burning. The Masters then bathe, and
take the pure child into the room with them, and clothe themselves in
pure white garments, and sit down and speak in magic sentences, and then
burn their magic offering, and make the boy look into the stone, and
whisper in his ears secret words which have, as they think, some holy
import, but which are verily words of the devil.'

A sixteenth-century German tells of a man at Elbingen, in Prussia, who
'predicted hidden truths' by means of a mirror, and sold the knowledge
to his customers. Many crystal-seeing old hags are referred to as being
upon terms of intimacy with Black Kaspar. Indeed, in German literature,
both historical, philosophical, legendary, and romantic, we find endless
references to the magic mirror and the divining crystal.

Modern romancists still find dramatic use for the old superstitions.
Quite recently a novel of the present day centred its interest upon an
ancient mirror, which exchanged its reflection for the mind of him who
gazed into it--a practical and startling realization of the idea that
the glass reveals one's true self. Then, not to multiply incidents,
Wilkie Collins, in The Moonstone, introduces what Mr. Rudyard Kipling in
another story calls the 'ink-pool'; and readers of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti will rec