through the wild scenes around, and he smiled approvingly when the young
artist gave way to the enthusiasm which their fearful beauty could not
have failed to rouse in a duller breast; and then Mejnour poured forth
to his wondering pupil the stores of a knowledge that seemed
inexhaustible and boundless. He gave accounts the most curious,
graphic, and minute, of the various races--their characters, habits,
creeds, and manners--by which that fair land had been successively
overrun. It is true that his descriptions could not be found in books,
and were unsupported by learned authorities; but he possessed the true
charm of the tale-teller, and spoke of all with the animated confidence
of a personal witness. Sometimes, too, he would converse upon the more
durable and the loftier mysteries of Nature with an eloquence and a
research which invested them with all the colors rather of poetry than
science. Insensibly the young artist found himself elevated and soothed
by the lore of his companion; the fever of his wild desires was slaked.
His mind became more and more lulled into the divine tranquillity of
contemplation; he felt himself a nobler being; and in the silence of his
senses he imagined that he heard the voice of his soul.

It was to this state that Mejnour sought to bring the Neophyte, and in
this elementary initiation the mystic was like every more ordinary sage.
For he who seeks to discover must first reduce himself into a kind of
abstract idealism, and be rendered up; in solemn and sweet bondage, to
the faculties which contemplate and imagine.

Glyndon noticed that, in their rambles, Mejnour often paused where the
foliage was rifest, to gather some herb or flower; and this reminded him
that he had seen Zicci similarly occupied. "Can these humble children
of Nature," said he one day to Mejnour, "things that bloom and wither in
a day, be serviceable to the science of the higher secrets? Is there a