The workings of Alphonso’s face showed how closely the simple truth of this proposition had driven home. “Nature,” said he, “is an active principle, whose changes neither add to, nor detract from, the original matter of the universe. The metals,” continued he, seeing she was about to respond, “the metals, my philosophical sister, form the basis of everything. I have detected iron in human blood, and a lustrous substance like that thou sawest in common ashes; hence do the alchemists believe that gold, the most precious of all, is scattered through nature, as the seeds of vegetation are scattered in earth, requiring only the proper gases to develop it and make it abundant as the pebbles on the shore.”
“And have these gases been able to effect the desirable changes?” inquired the queen.
“There are innumerable obstacles in the way of these momentous inquiries,” said the enthusiast. “Nature resists intrusion into her arcana, and I grieve to say, that we have not yet been able to bring about a definite result. Science has achieved only the procuring of the gases, while there remains still the nicer problem—to mix them in their right proportions, at their proper temperatures; for the nascent metal is more delicate than the embryo plant, and an excess of heat or cold destroys like frost or blight.”
“Ah, me!” said Eleanora, with a sigh; “before this great end be accomplished I fear me my brother will have passed away, and then all this toil and research will be lost.”
“My sister,” said Alphonso, abandoning his labors and seating himself, “thou hast unconsciously touched the thorn that rankles deepest in my breast. In nature, nothing seems made in vain; even decay produces new life, and man alone, the crowning work of all, seems made to no purpose.”
“I have sometimes thought,” said Eleanora, as if answering her own reflections, rather than replying to her brother’s remarks, “that man might perhaps be made for the pleasure of a higher order of intelligence, as the lower orders of creation seem formed for our gratification, and that all our miseries spring from an attempt to thwart this plan.”
“If thy thought be not the true solution of man’s destiny, I know not what end he serves in the great scheme of existence,” returned Alphonso, sadly; “I have passed through various vicissitudes of life, from the greatness of earthly state to the poverty of a prison, and I have derived more pleasure from the achievements of science than from all my hereditary honors. And yet even these do not satisfy the longings of my nature.”
“The scripture teaches us, that the superior intelligences find delight in benefitting mortals; and acting upon this hint the good have taught us, that to be blest ourselves we must seek to bless others,” said Eleanora.
“True,” replied the philosopher, breaking out once more into his old enthusiasm, “I have sometimes found alleviation from the weariness of my thoughts in the reflection, that the sciences in which I am engaged will one day exercise a wider and more perfect control over the destiny of the human race, than all the military orders backed by the sanction of ecclesiastical decrees. Science will open the door to Art; and her triumphant offspring, in a train of skillful inventions, shall pass on through long ages, breaking down the stern barriers of kingdoms, and uniting mankind in a common interest; war shall give place to useful Labor, and Science abrogating labor in its turn, shall satisfy the wants of the human race, accomplishing by a touch that which requires the might of thousands. Men shall then have leisure to perform the rites that lift the veil of Isis, and perhaps find means to question Nature even in the innermost recesses of her temple.”
“Oh! life! life!” said the philosopher, in an accent of despair, “why art thou so brief? Why must I die without discovering the sublime agencies?”