vered some
antique?" said he, with a smile; "they are common as pebbles on this
road."

"No," replied Zanoni; "it was but one of those antiques that have
their date, indeed, from the beginning of the world, but which Nature
eternally withers and renews." So saying, he showed Glyndon a small herb
with a pale-blue flower, and then placed it carefully in his bosom.

"You are an herbalist?"

"I am."

"It is, I am told, a study full of interest."

"To those who understand it, doubtless."

"Is the knowledge, then, so rare?"

"Rare! The deeper knowledge is perhaps rather, among the arts, LOST to
the modern philosophy of commonplace and surface! Do you imagine there
was no foundation for those traditions which come dimly down from
remoter ages,--as shells now found on the mountain-tops inform us where
the seas have been? What was the old Colchian magic, but the minute
study of Nature in her lowliest works? What the fable of Medea, but a
proof of the powers that may be extracted from the germ and leaf? The
most gifted of all the Priestcrafts, the mysterious sisterhoods of Cuth,
concerning whose incantations Learning vainly bewilders itself amidst
the maze of legends, sought in the meanest herbs what, perhaps, the
Babylonian Sages explored in vain amidst the loftiest stars. Tradition
yet tells you that there existed a race ("Plut. Symp." l. 5. c. 7.) who
could slay their enemies from afar, without weapon, without movement.
The herb that ye tread on may have deadlier powers than your engineers
can give to their mightiest instruments of war. Can you guess that to
these Italian shores, to the old Circaean Promontory, came the Wise
from the farthest East, to search for plants and simples which your
Pharmacists of the Counter would fling from them as weeds? The first
herbalists--the master chemists of the world--were the tribe that
the ancient reverence called by the name of Titans. (Syncellus, page
14.--"Chemistry the Invention of the Giants.") I remember once, by the
Hebrus, in the reign of -- But this talk," said Zanoni, checking himself
abruptly, and with a cold smile, "serves only to waste your time and my
own." He paused, looked steadily at Glyndon, and continued, "Young man,
think you that vague curiosity will supply the place of earnest labour?
I read your heart. You wish to know me, and not this humble herb: but
pass on; your desire cannot be satisfied."

"You have not the politeness of your countrymen," said Glyndo