voted to those which are based in deception, and in which, at any rate, no success is to be obtained except through fellowship with the powers of darkness?"
"Warmth, my good friend," rejoined the Spaniard, "is not argument. We are much too young to understand ourselves thoroughly, or to have fathomed all the mysteries of the universe. And if you but saw the man to whom I owe so much, I am sure all your scruples would vanish. So pious is he, so simple; and so pure is the faith that may be read in the depth of his serene eyes."
"And what say you to Pietro?" replied Antonio. "Were not our feelings towards him precisely of this description?"
"No," answered his friend. "Pietro was a man who laid claim to more than mortal endowments. He came among us like an ambassador from heaven, and strove to dazzle the eyes of ordinary men by the brightness of supernatural accomplishments. He gloried in ceremony and pomp; and even in his condescension he made you feel the prodigious distance that separated him from you. But my new friend, Castalio, is quite a different sort or person. He does not deal in the magnificent or the sublime; rather believing that there must be something spurious or defective in the nature of those who indulge in over lofty aspirations; and that even the greatest of men, in the genuine consciousness of his soul, must bear witness to the truth that he, no less than the most ignorant beggar in the streets, is but a child of clay."
"You excite my curiosity," said Antonio. "Can he read the past and the future, and foretell the destinies of men? Can he, think you, unriddle for me the mysteries of my own particular fate?"
"It is precisely in that sort of research that his wonderful capacity displays itself," answered Alphonso. "And he goes to work in an extremely simple and innocent manner. There are none of the customary adjurations, formulas, shrieks, and death-agonies, to be found in his practice. He has no magical apparatus, no crystals, or imprisoned spirits—no mirror, or skeletons, or smoking incense-vessels. He is in himself all-sufficient. I spoke to him of you, and he informed me that to-day, at this very hour, I should find you standing on the steps of the Lateran church; and you see that it has so come to pass."
Antonio now became extremely anxious; to be introduced to the gifted seer, and to learn from him his destiny. They dined in a garden in the country, and towards evening returned to town.
It was twilight when they entered a small street which ran behind the monument to Augustus. Here they crossed a little grass plot, and knocking at the entrance of a small house, the door was opened, and, arm in arm (Antonio filled with the most intense expectations)—the two friends walked into the hall.
A young man, about thirty years of age, and with nothing remarkable in his appearance, came forward to meet them. He greeted them with great simplicity of manner. "You are welcome," said he to Antonio, "your Spanish friend has spoken so highly in your favour, that I have long been desirous of making your acquaintance. Only you must not imagine that you have come to an adept to whom all mysteries are known, or to a man before whom the foundations of hell tremble. No, my friend, a mere mortal man stands before you—one like yourself, or at least one whom you or any man may resemble, if you fear not to renounce the vain pursuits and tumults of the world, and to devote yourself to a life of severe and earnest study.
"Look around you," continued he, "this is my unostentatious dwelling-place—and in yonder chamber stands my bed. There is no room here for the mighty instruments and treacherous preparations of magic. You see here no circles, or glasses, or globes, or signs of the zodiac—and, in truth, there is no occasion for them. The man who, in humility and profound earnestness of purpose, descends into the depths of his own soul, in order to know himself, has all those secrets laid bare before him, which he would in vain, by any other process, conjure heaven and hell to render up. 'Be. come ye like little children!' These are the words which throw wide the gates of the whole world of mystery—Unsophisticate your nature; and then, though but for an hour or a moment, ye shall be lightened of the load laid upon you by the rash impiety of our first parents—then shall ye wander back into the bosom of para-
