and ripened
courtesans; it is in the soft and unconscious progress of innocence to
desire that I find the true charm of love; it is thus that I defy
satiety; and by contemplating the freshness of others, I sustain the
freshness of my own sensations. From the young hearts of my victims I
draw the ingredients of the caldron in which I re-youth myself. But
enough of this: to the subject before us. You know, then, that in
Neapolis some time since I encountered Ione and Apaecides, brother and
sister, the children of Athenians who had settled at Neapolis. The death
of their parents, who knew and esteemed me, constituted me their
guardian. I was not unmindful of the trust. The youth, docile and mild,
yielded readily to the impression I sought to stamp upon him. Next to
woman, I love the old recollections of my ancestral land; I love to keep
alive--to propagate on distant shores (which her colonies perchance yet
people) her dark and mystic creeds. It may be, that it pleases me to
delude mankind, while I thus serve the deities. To Apaecides I taught
the solemn faith of Isis. I unfolded to him something of those sublime
allegories which are couched beneath her worship. I excited in a soul
peculiarly alive to religious fervor that enthusiasm which imagination
begets on faith. I have placed him amongst you: he is one of you.'

'He is so,' said Calenus: 'but in thus stimulating his faith, you have
robbed him of wisdom. He is horror-struck that he is no longer duped:
our sage delusions, our speaking statues and secret staircases dismay
and revolt him; he pines; he wastes away; he mutters to himself; he
refuses to share our ceremonies. He has been known to frequent the
company of men suspected of adherence to that new and atheistical creed
which denies all our gods, and terms our oracles the inspirations of
that malevolent spirit of which eastern tradition speaks. Our
oracles--alas! we know well whose inspirations they are!'

'This is what I feared,' said Arbaces, musingly, 'from various
reproaches he made me when I last saw him. Of late he hath shunned my
steps. I must find him: I must continue my lessons: I must lead him
into the adytum of Wisdom. I must teach him that there are two stages of
sanctity--the first, FAITH--the next, DELUSION; the one for the vulgar,
the second for the sage.'

'I never passed through the first, I said Calenus; 'nor you either, I
think, my Arbaces.'

'You err,' replied the Egyptian, gr