![]() ![]() “I am honest, if I am poor!-were I not, I might soon become rich!” We met now after an absence, and she had been sorely beset while I was away she complained bitterly, and almost reproached me for being poor. She had a haughty but an impatient spirit, and grew angry at the obstacles that prevented our union. Yet still I was too poor to marry, and she grew weary of being tormented on my account. ![]() She often declared that she owed no duty to her new protectress equal in sanctity to that which bound us. But in her new situation among her new associates, Bertha remained true to the friend of her humbler days she often visited the cottage of my father, and when forbidden to go thither, she would stray towards the neighbouring wood, and meet me beside its shady fountain. Henceforth Bertha was clad in silk-inhabited a marble palace-and was looked on as being highly favoured by fortune. She would have found a home beneath my paternal roof, but, unfortunately, the old lady of the near castle, rich, childless, and solitary, declared her intention to adopt her. In an evil hour, a malignant fever carried off both her father and mother, and Bertha became an orphan. I cannot remember the hour when I did not love Bertha we had been neighbours and playmates from infancy,-her parents, like mine, were of humble life, yet respectable,-our attachment had been a source of pleasure to them. My failing steps were directed whither for two years they had every evening been attracted,-a gently bubbling spring of pure living water, beside which lingered a dark-haired girl, whose beaming eyes were fixed on the path I was accustomed each night to tread. My teeth chattered-my hair stood on end -I ran off as fast as my trembling knees would permit. I trembled as I listened to the dire tale they told I required no second warning and when Cornelius came and offered me a purse of gold if I would remain under his roof, I felt as if Satan himself tempted me. ![]() On my return, my friends implored me not to return to the alchymist’s abode. I had been for about a year the pupil of Cornelius, though I was absent when this accident took place. I was then very young-very poor-and very much in love. Experiment after experiment failed, because one pair of hands was insufficient to complete them: the dark spirits laughed at him for not being able to retain a single mortal in his service. ![]() He had no one near him to put coals on his ever-burning fires while he slept, or to attend to the changeful colours of his medicines while he studied. All his scholars at once deserted him-his servants disappeared. The report, true or false, of this accident, was attended with many inconveniences to the renowned philosopher. All the world has also heard of his scholar, who, unawares, raised the foul fiend during his master’s absence, and was destroyed by him. His memory is as immortal as his arts have made me. For ever! Can it be? to live for ever! I have heard of enchantments, in which the victims were plunged into a deep sleep, to wake, after a hundred years, as fresh as ever: I have heard of the Seven Sleepers-thus to be immortal would not be so burthensome: but, oh! the weight of never-ending time-the tedious passage of the still-succeeding hours! How happy was the fabled Nourjahad!-But to my task.Īll the world has heard of Cornelius Agrippa. I will tell my story, and so contrive to pass some few hours of a long eternity, become so wearisome to me. I will tell my story, and my reader shall judge for me. Yet it may have remained concealed there for three hundred years-for some persons have become entirely white-headed before twenty years of age. I detected a grey hair amidst my brown locks this very day-that surely signifies decay. In comparison with him, I am a very young Immortal.Īm I, then, immortal? This is a question which I have asked myself, by day and night, for now three hundred and three years, and yet cannot answer it. More than eighteen centuries have passed over his head. July 16, 1833.-This is a memorable anniversary for me on it I complete my three hundred and twenty-third year! “Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose” ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |