world's history. It was at Constantinople that, according to a certain
_aureum vellus_ printed at Rorschach in the sixteenth century, he
received the philosopher's stone from Solomon Trismosinus. This person
possessed also the _Universal Panacea_, and it is asserted that he was
seen still alive by a French traveller at the end of the seventeenth
century. Paracelsus then passed through the countries that border the
Danube, and so reached Italy, where he served as a surgeon in the
imperial army. I see no reason why he should not have been present at the
battle of Pavia. He collected information from physicians, surgeons and
alchemists; from executioners, barbers, shepherds, Jews, gipsies,
midwives, and fortune-tellers; from high and low, from learned and
vulgar. In the sketch I have given of his career in that volume you hold,
I have copied out a few words of his upon the acquirement of knowledge
which affect me with a singular emotion.'

Dr Porhoet took his book from Miss Boyd and opened it thoughtfully. He
read out the fine passage from the preface of the _Paragranum_:

'I went in search of my art, often incurring danger of life. I have not
been ashamed to learn that which seemed useful to me even from vagabonds,
hangmen, and barbers. We know that a lover will go far to meet the woman
he adores; how much more will the lover of Wisdom be tempted to go in
search of his divine mistress.'

He turned the page to find a few more lines further on:

'We should look for knowledge where we may expect to find it, and why
should a man be despised who goes in search of it? Those who remain at
home may grow richer and live more comfortably than those who wander; but
I desire neither to live comfortably nor to grow rich.'

'By Jove, those are fine words,' said Arthur, rising to his feet.

Their brave simplicity moved him as no rhetoric could have done, and
they made him more eager still to devote his own life to the difficult
acquisition of knowledge. Dr Porhoet gave him his ironic smile.

'Yet the man who could write that was in many ways a mere buffoon, who
praised his wares with the vulgar glibness of a quack. He was vain and
ostentatious, intemperate and boastful. Listen:

'After me, O Avicenna, Galen, Rhases and Montagnana! After me, not I
after you, ye men of Paris, Montpellier, Meissen, and Cologne; all you
that come from the countries along the Danube and the Rhine, and you that
come from the islands of the sea. It is