passions and petty cares that are begot in time?--who is there in youth
that has not nourished the belief that the universe has secrets not
known to the common herd, and panted, as the hart for the water-springs,
for the fountains that he hid and far away amidst the broad wilderness
of trackless science? The music of the fountain is heard in the soul
within till the steps, deceived and erring, rove away from its waters,
and the wanderer dies in the mighty desert. Think you that none who
have cherished the hope have found the truth, or that the yearning after
the Ineffable Knowledge was given to us utterly in vain? No. Every
desire in human hearts is but a glimpse of things that exist, alike
distant and divine. No! in the world there have been, from age to age,
some brighter and happier spirits who have won to the air in which the
beings above mankind move and breathe. Zicci, great though he be,
stands not alone; he has his predecessors, his contemporary rivals, and
long lines of successors are yet to come!"

"And will you tell me," said Glyndon, "that in yourself I behold one of
that mighty few over whom Zicci has no superiority in power and wisdom?"

"In me," answered the stranger, "you see one from whom Zicci himself
learned many of his loftiest secrets. Before his birth my wisdom was!
On these shores, on this spot, have I stood in ages that your chronicles
but feebly reach. The Phoenician, the Greek, the Oscan, the Roman, the
Lombard,--I have seen them all!--leaves gay and glittering on the trunk
of the universal life--scattered in due season and again renewed; till,
indeed, the same race that gave its glory to the ancient world bestowed
a second youth on the new. For the pure Greeks--the Hellenes, whose
origin has bewildered your dreaming scholars--were of the same great
family as the Norman tribe, born to be the lords of the universe, and in
no land on earth destined to be the hewers of wood. Even the dim