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Updated: April 30, 2025
At this day, there is a vast increase of knowledge spread over all society, compared with that in the Middle Ages; but is there not a still greater distinction between the highly educated gentleman and the intelligent mechanic, than there was then between the baron who could not sign his name and the churl at the plough; between the accomplished statesman, versed in all historical lore, and the voter whose politics are formed by his newspaper, than there was between the legislator who passed laws against witches and the burgher who defended his guild from some feudal aggression; between the enlightened scholar and the dunce of to-day, than there was between the monkish alchemist and the blockhead of yesterday?
The highest aim of the alchemist was the evolution of a divine and immortal being out of a mortal and semi-animal man; the development, in short, of all those hidden properties which lie latent in man's nature." "That is a very valuable thing to know," observed Austin, greatly interested.
He hurried forward in the direction from which the sounds proceeded, and at each step they became more distinguishable and bewitching. After a momentary feeling of indecision when he reached the walls of the Schwarzpanier, the Alchemist ascended a flight of steps, and passed through the open casement of a French-window into a modest sitting-room.
Doctor Cacaphodel, the alchemist, returned to his laboratory with a prodigious fragment of granite, which he ground to powder, dissolved in acids, melted in the crucible and burnt with the blowpipe, and published the result of his experiments in one of the heaviest folios of the day. And for all these purposes the gem itself could not have answered better than the granite.
To turn from the popular voices of the day to the comments of those capable of appraising genius, "What a master of composition Fielding was!" exclaimed Coleridge, "Upon my word I think 'Oedipus Tyrannus, the 'Alchemist, and 'Tom Jones' the three most perfect plots ever planned." To Sir Walter Scott Tom Jones was "truth and human nature itself."
"And how if the alchemist, notwithstanding the blood of the black ram, is unhappily not able to bring up the devil?" At this question, a feverish crimson spot took possession of the wan cheek of Fredersdorf, which was instantly chased away by a more intense pallor. "If that is the result, I will either go mad or die," he murmured.
It was more to him than a question of life and death it was somewhat like the alchemist, trembling with hope and fear over his costly dissolvents. At length, Althea's eyes opened, glanced hastily around and closed again. Dr. Hardy was not surprised. For the last half hour he had been expecting this, but he had given no sign.
Now, although from that night he felt his bones disjointed and his bowels crushed, he had not yet experienced, as certain persons say, that who once yielded was free no more; he went to his fate as lead into the crucible of the alchemist.
He approached the alchemist, and after surveying him for a moment in a silence that seemed not without contempt, said, "What, Master Warner, are you so wedded to your new studies that you have not a word to bestow on an old friend?" Adam turned, and after peevishly gazing at the intruder a few moments, his face brightened up into recognition. "En iterum!" he said.
It is not the man or woman who has no temptation to sin, who has the strong character, but the man or woman who has the desire but will not yield to sin. Some people ask: "Why did God make the Devil?" The Devil is God's fire. Like an alchemist God is purifying souls. The Devil is an agent in salvation. "Every Devil in hell is harnessed up to push every saint into heaven."
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