to know what masters could teach this
mode of calculation.

"Those who know it cannot teach it to anyone."

"How did you learn it, then?"

"From a precious manuscript I inherited from my father."

"Sell it me."

"I have burnt it; and I am not empowered to communicate the secret to
anyone before I reach the age of fifty."

"Why fifty?"

"I don't know; but I do know that if I communicated it to anyone before
that age I should run the risk of losing it myself. The elementary spirit
who is attached to the oracle would leave it."

"How do you know that?"

"I saw it so stated in the manuscript I have spoken of."

"Then you are able to discover all secrets?"

"Yes, or I should be if the replies were not sometimes too obscure to be
understood."

"As it does not take much time, will you be kind enough to get me an
answer to another question?"

"With pleasure; you can command me in anything not forbidden by my
familiar spirit."

She asked what her destiny would be, and the oracle replied that she had
not yet taken the first step towards it. Esther was astonished and called
her governess to see the two answers, but the good woman saw nothing
wonderful in them whatever. Esther impatiently called her a blockhead,
and entreated me to let her ask another question. I begged her to do so,
and she asked,

"Who loves me most in Amsterdam?" The oracle replied that no one loved
her as well as he who had given her being: Poor Esther then told me that
I had made her miserable, and that she would die of grief if she could
not succeed in learning the method of calculation. I gave no answer, and
pretended to feel sad at heart. She began to write down another question,
putting her hand in front so as to screen the paper. I rose as if to get
out of her way, but while she was arranging the pyramid I cast my eyes on
the paper whilst walking up and down the room, and read her question.
After she had gone as far as I had taught her, she asked me to extract
the answer, saying that I could do so without reading the question. I
agreed to do so on the condition that she would not ask a second time.

As I had seen her question, it was easy for me to answer it. She had
asked the oracle if she might shew the questions she had propounded to
her father, and the answer was that she would be happy as long as she had
no secrets from her father.

When she read these words she gave a cry of surprise, and could find no
words wherewith to expr