e
would have been to Faust a more dangerous tempter than Mephistopheles.
There was no sneer on HIS lip at the pleasures which animated his voice.
To one awaking to a sense of the vanities in knowledge, this reckless
ignorant joyousness of temper was a worse corrupter than all the icy
mockeries of a learned Fiend. But when Paolo took his leave, with a
promise to return the next day, the mind of the Englishman again settled
back to a graver and more thoughtful mood. The elixir seemed, in truth,
to have left the refining effects Mejnour had ascribed to it. As Glyndon
paced to and fro the solitary corridor, or, pausing, gazed upon the
extended and glorious scenery that stretched below, high thoughts
of enterprise and ambition--bright visions of glory--passed in rapid
succession through his soul.

"Mejnour denies me his science. Well," said the painter, proudly, "he
has not robbed me of my art."

What! Clarence Glyndon, dost thou return to that from which thy career
commenced? Was Zanoni right after all?

He found himself in the chamber of the mystic; not a vessel,--not an
herb! the solemn volume is vanished,--the elixir shall sparkle for him
no more! But still in the room itself seems to linger the atmosphere of
a charm. Faster and fiercer it burns within thee, the desire to achieve,
to create! Thou longest for a life beyond the sensual!--but the life
that is permitted to all genius,--that which breathes through the
immortal work, and endures in the imperishable name.

Where are the implements for thine art? Tush!--when did the true workman
ever fail to find his tools? Thou art again in thine own chamber,--the
white wall thy canvas, a fragment of charcoal for thy pencil. They
suffice, at least, to give outline to the conception that may otherwise
vanish with the morrow.

The idea that thus excited the imagination of the artist was
unquestionably noble and august. It was derived from that Egyptian
ceremonial which Diodorus has recorded,--the Judgment of the Dead by the
Living (Diod., lib. i.): when the corpse, duly embalmed, is placed by
the margin of the Acherusian Lake; and before it may be consigned to the
bark which is to bear it across the waters to its final resting-place,
it is permitted to the appointed judges to hear all accusations of the
past life of the deceased, and, if proved, to deprive the corpse of the
rites of sepulture.

Unconsciously to himself, it was Mejnour's description of this custom,
which h