realm, but in the mint
here?"

"Not too fast, fair maid," replied the Magian, raising a warning hand.
"There is no form which these intermediate beings can not assume. They
have the control of all and everything which mortals may use, so the soul
of Korinna revisiting these scenes may quite well have paid the ferryman
with an obolus."

"Then you know of it?" asked Melissa in surprise; but the Magian broke
in, saying:

"Few such things remain hidden from him who knows, not even the smallest,
if he strives after such knowledge."

As he spoke he gave the girl such a look as made her eyelids fall, and he
went on with greater warmth: "There would be fewer tears shed by
death-beds, my child, if we could but show the world the means by which
the initiated hold converse with the souls of the dead."

Melissa shook her pretty head sadly, and the Magian kindly stroked her
waving hair; then, looking her straight in the eyes, he said: "The dead
live. What once has been can never cease to be, any more than out of
nothing can anything come. It is so simple; and so, too, are the workings
of magic, which amaze you so much. What you call magic, when I practice
it, Eros, the great god of love, has wrought a thousand times in your
breast. When your heart leaps at your brother's caress, when the god's
arrow pierces you, and the glance of a lover fills you with gladness,
when the sweet harmonies of fine music wrap your soul above this earth,
or the wail of a child moves you to compassion, you have felt the magic
power stirring in your own soul. You feel it when some mysterious power,
without any will of your own, prompts you to some act, be it what it may.
And, besides all this, if a leaf flutters off the table without being
touched by any visible hand, you do not doubt that a draught of air,
which you can neither hear nor see, has swept through the room. If at
noon the world is suddenly darkened, you know, without looking up at the
sky, that it is overcast by a cloud. In the very same way you can feel
the nearness of a soul that was dear to you without being able to see it.
All that is necessary is to strengthen the faculty which knows its
presence, and give it the proper training, and then you will see and hear
them. The Magians have the key which unlocks the door of the world of
spirits to the human senses. Your noble brother, in whom the claims of
the spirit have long since triumphed over those of sense, has found this
key without