which leads to nothing. {251}

In the Italian legend, brief and rude as it is, there appears a
tremendous power worked out with great consistency. The demon or spirit,
intent on causing remorse or despair (_ad affretare il rimorso_),
threatens the sorcerer with terrible maledictions. And these words, if
we regard their real meaning and spirit, have never been surpassed in any
poem.

And we should note here that the Italian sorcerer who subdues the devil
by simple will and pluck is no Manfred or Faust drawn from the religious
spirit of the Middle Ages. He belongs to the Etruscan age, or to that of
the ancient Magi; he meets malediction with malediction, spell with
spell, curse with curse, injury with injury, sarcasm and jeer with the
same; he insults the devil, calling him his slave:

"Perche io sono di te--molto piu maligno."

Until in the end they change parts, and the demon becomes the one
tormented. Therefore there is in this legend, with all its rudeness, a
conception which is so grand, as regards setting forth the possible power
of man, and the _eritis sicut deus_ of modern science, that it is in
unity and fulness far beyond any variant of the same subject.

That this is of great antiquity is clear, for out of this enchanted
forest of Italian witchcraft and mystical sorcery there never yet came
anything, great or small, which was not at least of the bronze, if not of
the neolithic age.

Truly, when the chief character in a tradition of the old Etruscan land
bears an Etruscan name, or that of a shadow called a shadow, we may well
conclude that it is not of yesterday. So all things rise and bloom and
pass away here on this earth to winter and decay, and are as phantoms
which

"Come like shadows, so depart."

For a last word, "Manfred" and "Faust" are only works of art, intended to
"interest" or amuse or charm the reader, and as such they are great.
They are simply dramas or show-pieces, which also give a high idea of the
artistic skill of their writers. "Intialo" sets forth the great idea of
the true sorcerer, in which they both _fail_, and carries it out
logically to a tremendous triumph. It is the very quintessence of all
heresies, and of the first great heresy, _eritis sicut deus_.

There will not be wanting one or two critics of the low kind who take
their hints from the disavowals of the author to declare that his book is
just what it is not, who will write that I think I have discovered