"Pardon me, I had forgotten. He tells, in his life of St. Hilarion the Hermit—ah, you never heard of him either—that a gay young man of the town of Gaza, in Syria, fell deeply in love with a young lady, whom he used to see occasionally in those beautiful gardens of tamarisks, figs, and olives for which the place is still so famous; but she was pious, devoted to Heaven and to religion, and, consequently, shunned him—a course which only added the stings of jealousy and attraction to the passion which she had inspired.
"His glances, his tender whispers, his presents, and professions she treated with coldness; his attempted caresses she repulsed with anger and disdain, till, finding all his attempts baffled and ineffectual, in a fit of rage and despair he went to Memphis, which was then the residence of many eminent magicians, all reputed to possess wonderful power.
"There he remained a whole year, studying the dark mysteries under the tutelage of the most learned, until he deemed himself sufficiently instructed; and, exulting in his unholy knowledge, acquired chiefly among the graves which still lie to the south and westward of Memphis, and where one may walk for miles and miles amid bones and fragments of crumbling mummies, he returned to Gaza, confident that now he could bend the inflexible beauty to his will.
"Beneath the marble peristyle of her father's house he contrived to lodge at midnight a plate of brass, whereon he had engraved a potent spell. Hence, the first time she passed over it a wondrous illness seized her! She became furious, says St. Jerome; she tore her glorious hair, she gnashed her teeth, and raved over the name and image of the very youth whom she had so repeatedly driven from her presence in despair by her coldness and hauteur.
"In sorrow and terror her parents conducted her to the hermitage of St. Hilarion; and then, when the holy hands of the old man crossed her, the devil that was within her began to howl, and to confess the truth.
"'I have suffered violence!' he exclaimed, speaking with her tongue, to the fear of all.
"St. Hilarion took a branch of blessed palm, and, having dipped it in holy water as an esperges, threw the sparkling drops profusely over her, on which the devil exclaimed again—
"'I have been forced here against my inclination! Alas! these drops are as freezing ice! Oh, how happy I was at Memphis among the tombs of the dead! Oh! the pains, the tortures I suffer!'
"Then the hermit commanded him to come forth; but the devil told him that he was detained by a brazen spell beneath the peristyle of the maiden's house.
"So cautious was the saint, however, that he would not permit the magic figures to be searched for till he had released the virgin, for fear he should seem to have intercourse with incantations for the performance of a cure, or to have believed that a devil could ever speak truth. He observed that demons are always liars, and cunning only to deceive."