behind the age, unacquainted with the higher magic, and who can produce no
other outward and visible token of the Divine favour than the occasional
companionship of a serpent."

"I would not assert that theurgy may not be lawfully undertaken," replied
Plotinus, "provided that the adept shall have purified himself by a fast of
forty months."

"It may be from neglect of this precaution," said Porphyry, "that our
Maximus finds it so much easier to evoke the shades of Commodus and
Caracalla than those of Socrates and Marcus Aurelius; and that these good
spirits, when they do come, have no more recondite information to convey
than that virtue differs from vice, and that one's grandmother is a fitting
object of reverence."

"I fear this must expose Platonic truth to the derision of Epicurean
scoffers," remarked Plotinus.

"O master, speak not of Epicureans, still less of Stoics! Wait till thou
hast regained thy full strength, and then take counsel of some oracle."

"What meanest thou?" exclaimed Plotinus, "I insist upon knowing."

Porphyry was saved from replying by the hasty entrance of a bustling portly
personage of loud voice and imperious manner, in whom Plotinus recognised
Theocles, the chief of the Stoics.

"I rejoice, Plotinus," he began, "that thou hast at length emerged from
that condition of torpor, so unworthy of a philosopher, which I might well
designate as charlatanism were I not so firmly determined to speak no word