Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 13, 2025
We may come near to expressing the alchemist's view of the essential character of the object of their search by naming it the soul of all things. "Alchemy," a modern writer says, "is the science of the soul of all things." The essence was supposed to have a material form, an ethereal or middle nature, and an immaterial or spiritual life.
What chiefly impressed the journalists of 1933 was the production of gold from bismuth and the realisation albeit upon unprofitable lines of the alchemist's dreams; there was a considerable amount of discussion and expectation in that more intelligent section of the educated publics of the various civilised countries which followed scientific development; but for the most part the world went about its business as the inhabitants of those Swiss villages which live under the perpetual threat of overhanging rocks and mountains go about their business just as though the possible was impossible, as though the inevitable was postponed for ever because it was delayed.
The creditor promised that if he became Duke by the alchemist's influence with his daughter he would forgive the debt; the friend went further, and vowed that he would pay it. The old man promised his good word to both, but when he went to confer with his daughter he found her closeted with Benedetto, and returned without disburdening himself of his errand.
This instantly set the Portuguese king thinking about Prester John, of whom legends spoke as a Christian king ruling over a Christian nation somewhere in what was vaguely called the Indies; and the search after whom is, in maritime discovery, what the alchemist's pursuit after the philosopher's stone was in chemistry.
God knows that my aim has been a lofty and pure one, that I have buried myself in this living tomb, and counted the health of this His feeble and outward image as nothing in comparison with that of the immortal and inward representation and shadow of His own Infinite Mind; that I have toiled through what the world calls wisdom, the lore of the old fathers and time-honored philosophy, not for the dream of power and gratified ambition, not for the alchemist's gold or life-giving elixir, but with an eye single to that which I conceived to be the most fitting object of a godlike spirit, the discovery of Truth, truth perfect and unclouded, truth in its severe and perfect beauty, truth as it sits in awe and holiness in the presence of its Original and Source!
If not wholly without the fond fancies which led the wisdom of the darker ages to the philosopher's stone and the elixir, he had been deterred from the chase of a chimera by want of means to pursue it! for it required the resources or the patronage of a prince or noble to obtain the costly ingredients consumed in the alchemist's crucible.
He was the sharer of the alchemist's secret, and the heir to an inheritance which combined a wealth greater than that of monarchs, to a freedom such as monarchs cannot enjoy. This was a destiny indeed!
I repeated to myself the ninth key of Basilius Valentinus, in which he compares the fire of the last day to the fire of the alchemist, and the world to the alchemist's furnace, and would have us know that all must be dissolved before the divine substance, material gold or immaterial ecstasy, awake.
She spoke English with perfect purity; but she brought out this French epithet in a manner that indicated that she was accustomed to using French epithets. "I think the fire is very pretty," said the young man, glancing at it a moment. "Those little blue tongues, dancing on top of the crimson embers, are extremely picturesque. They are like a fire in an alchemist's laboratory."
He raised his head proudly, stretched forth his rich treasure in the fragile glass, and 'Won won! gold! he cried, as he held high in the air the glass that glittered in the dazzling sunshine. But his hand shook, and the alchemical glass fell to the ground, and broke into a thousand pieces. The last bubble of his prosperity had burst. Wheugh wheugh! And I darted away from the alchemist's castle.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking