The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1888-01-06
THE ROMANCE OF A BOTTLE
CurLous TaIe % Maglc.

ed garden, had been given Over to TIL
old man that he might divert himso
in it as he pleased without fear of do
mestic invasion. Evidently it vas q place
where the intruding foot of wife or
hOusekeeper was never suffered; a for
horn, disordered place; dark, too, for
the great W ndow was all smirched and
blind with dust, and scraps of paper
with queer, cabalistic devices were
stuck over the lower panes, and ran
showers charged with SCOT had blurred
it till it was now almost opaque.
1t was a long and lofty room. Here
and there the walls were smeared with
rude grotesque sketches, which re-
manned to satirize the memory of the
late propr .etOr, as his genious had ex-
pressed itself in his idlest or most fan
tastic moods. The dim cornes were
spun all across witL cobwebs; dark
bIotches of some long-dried chem
ical fluid, like old blOod-stains, showed
upon the bare flooring; and a little
ridge of dust on either side of a smooth
path some two and half feet wide, run
ming the length of the eastern wall,
marked the course trodden by the old
man when he paced his workshop in
thought or Mediation. The rest of the
floor was covered by a fine layer of
dust.
The old man himself was just the
kind of old man whom you would have
expected to find in such a place. The
brown and wr nkled skin was stretched
tightly over his forehead and the upper
part of his skull, which asce nded to a
sort of blunted point. A thin, irregular
fringe, to pale to be called gray, too
faded to be white, circled his head on
a level with the eacs, and gave him so
far the air of an aged and withered
monk. There was still a certain bold
ness in the forehead, but the eyebrows
hat had been full and bushy had
become mere ragged and colorlsss
tufts. The mouth retained a little of
its native tirmuess, though the loss of
the teeth had deprived it of half of its
character; but what powers of expres-
sion and what show of intellect had
vanished from the other features
seemed to have concentrated them
selves chiefly in the eyes, from which
there radiated a light of almost unnat-
natural b%rilliancy. An eagerness. a
curiosity. and . painful restlessness
slitteted IA thcny-.aa -sPPeSF5a@if
to take in the half of what they
longed to see.
This old man was an alchemist
probably the last Of the alchem SITS.
a LONG line and a cIriousis the line |
OF the alchemists. At the head of it
we may place Herlnes III .smegistus,
the Egyptian, concerning whom so lit
tie is known that we need not hesitate
TO accept the conjecture of his biogra-
pher that at a certain period of his life
he died. Some would assign priority
OF date to Zofmus the Pgnoplite, who
said that one could make gold out of
lead IL one went the right Waycto work,
and who may have been. the chancellor
of the excheguer in a government
whose pecuniary were wan
ing.
The old alchemist in the studio had
WI8d honestly IN his day to make gold
out Of lead. and out Of stones, plants
and Heaven knows what other things;
he had his power Of projection and bis
metals; his crucible, his furnace. and a
poker Of the proper sort like the
other alchemists; but be had not made
any gold Ten fruitless years he had
spent in the endeavor TO produce IL by
technical and prescribed processes
of separation, Ct muturation, and Of
REPRESENTATION; and then, on a day in
bright midwinter. It flashed upon him
with the dazzle and shock OF inspira-
ton thar the thing which above
al things else il beloved him to
discover and make perfect for the
good Of himself and bis fellow men wa
that grand and infallible d~issolvant Of
Paracelsus and Van Helmonk the true
and only elixir which conferred immor-
tallity on mortals. Line BY line she
old man pondered all thaa had been
written by, an on account Of P~aracelsus
and Van Helmont.
Yet, amid the dusky Stiffness Or that
dead chamber, there was d lifeless
thing that scanned to watch. now moc6-
ingly, and now ia sympathy, The lean
rupE figure of the AIchemlst
This thing hat had no life in II was
q bottle. A plain narrow-necked ves-
sci Of pale green glass which spirit
merchants had been once wont e fill
with some extravagant liqueur.
But when he finished his work and
read the closing word. he knew that he
Mad mastered and made his own the
hitherto inviolable secret 81 tho Elixir
OF Llfc.
Qusck upon the stroke OF this inn
mensa discovery came q warning from
within that his own days we're number
ed. Wa 40 then ID die before be could
pfeparaShfs Elixir Of Lief
His spirit was not dashed. for very
~curl0usIy ha desire of life ceased with
h{e enn9icti0n that there was 4 means