"Salamander and Sylph! I see that you fall into the vulgar error, and translate literally the allegorical language of the mystics."
With that the old gentleman condescended to enter into a very interesting, and, as it seemed to me, a very erudite relation, of the tenets of the Rosicrucians, some of whom, he asserted, still existed, and still prosecuted, in august secrecy, their profound researches into natural science and occult philosophy.
"But this fraternity," said he, "however respectable and virtuous — virtuous I say, for no monastic order is more severe in the practice of moral precepts, or more ardent in Christian faith — this fraternity is but a branch of others yet more transcendant in the powers they have obtained, and yet more illustrious in their origin. Are you acquainted with the Platonists?"
"I have occasionally lost my way in their labyrinth," said I. "Faith, they are rather difficult gentlemen to understand."
"Yet their knottiest problems have never yet been published. Their sublimest works are in manuscript, and constitute the initiatory learning, not only of the Rosicrucians, but of the nobler brotherhoods I have referred to. More solemn and sublime still is the knowledge to be gleaned from the elder Pythagoreans, and the immortal masterpieces of Apollonius."
"Apollonius the impostor of Tyanea! are his writings extant?"
"Impostor!" cried my host; "Apollonius an impostor!"
"I beg your pardon; I did not know he was a friend of yours; and if you vouch for his character, I will believe
