Melissa shook her pretty head sadly, and the Magian kindly stroked her
waving hair; then, looking her straight in the eyes, he said: "The dead
live. What once has been can never cease to be, any more than out of
nothing can anything come. It is so simple; and so, too, are the
workings of magic, which amaze you so much. What you call magic, when I
practice it, Eros, the great god of love, has wrought a thousand times in
your breast. When your heart leaps at your brother's caress, when the
god's arrow pierces you, and the glance of a lover fills you with
gladness, when the sweet harmonies of fine music wrap your soul above
this earth, or the wail of a child moves you to compassion, you have felt
the magic power stirring in your own soul. You feel it when some
mysterious power, without any will of your own, prompts you to some act,
be it what it may. And, besides all this, if a leaf flutters off the
table without being touched by any visible hand, you do not doubt that a
draught of air, which you can neither hear nor see, has swept through the
room. If at noon the world is suddenly darkened, you know, without
looking up at the sky, that it is overcast by a cloud. In the very same
way you can feel the nearness of a soul that was dear to you without
being able to see it. All that is necessary is to strengthen the faculty
which knows its presence, and give it the proper training, and then you
will see and hear them. The Magians have the key which unlocks the door
of the world of spirits to the human senses. Your noble brother, in whom
the claims of the spirit have long since triumphed over those of sense,
has found this key without seeking it, since he has been permitted to see
Korinna's soul. And if he follows a competent guide he will see her
again."

"But why? What good will it do him?" asked Melissa, with a reproachful
and anxious look at the man whose influence, as she divined would be
pernicious to her brother, in spite of his knowledge. The Magian gave