"Who in this world has not?"
"I never have."
"Because you own you have never loved. Certainly, you never seem to care for any one but yourself; and in yourself you find an unbroken sunny holiday,—high spirits, youth, health, beauty, wealth. Happy boy!"
At that moment my heart was heavy within me.
Margrave resumed,—
"Among the secrets which your knowledge places at the command of your art, what would you give for one which would enable you to defy and to deride a rival where you place your affections, which could lock to yourself, and imperiously control, the will of the being whom you desire to fascinate, by an influence paramount, transcendent?"
"Love has that secret," said I,—"and love alone."
"A power stronger than love can suspend, can change love itself. But if love be the object or dream of your life, love is the rosy associate of youth and beauty. Beauty soon fades, youth soon departs. What if in nature there were means by which beauty and youth can be fixed into blooming duration,—means that could arrest the course, nay, repair the effects, of time on the elements that make up the human frame?"
"Silly boy! Have the Rosicrucians bequeathed to you a prescription for the elixir of life?"
"If I had the prescription I should not ask your aid to discover its ingredients."