You cannot shun me, though you may seek to do so!" "Stay one moment! You condemn me as doubtful, irresolute, suspicious.
Have I no cause?
Can I yield without a struggle to the strange fascination you exert upon my mind?
What interest can you have in me, a stranger, that you should thus dictate to me the gravest action in the life of man?
Do you suppose that any one in his senses would not pause, and deliberate, and ask himself, 'Why should this stranger care thus for me ?'" "And yet," said Zanoni, "if I told thee that I could initiate thee into the secrets of that magic which the philosophy of the whole existing world treats as a chimera, or imposture; if I promised to show thee how to command the beings of air and ocean, how to accumulate wealth more easily than a child can gather pebbles on the shore, to place in thy hands the essence of the herbs which prolong life from age to age, the mystery of that attraction by which to awe all danger and disarm all violence and subdue man as the serpent charms the bird,--if I told thee that all these it was mine to possess and to communicate, thou wouldst listen to me then, and obey me without a doubt!" "It is true; and I can account for this only by the imperfect associations of my childhood,--by traditions in our house of--" "Your forefather, who, in the revival of science, sought the secrets of Apollonius and Paracelsus." "What!" said Glyndon, amazed, "are you so well acquainted with the annals of an obscure lineage ?" "To the man who aspires to know, no man who has been the meanest student of knowledge should be unknown.

You ask me why I have shown this interest in your fate?
There is one reason which I have not yet told you.

There is a fraternity as to whose laws and whose mysteries the most inquisitive schoolmen are in the dark.

By those laws all are pledged to warn, to aid, and to guide even the remotest descendants of men who have toiled, though vainly, like your ancestor, in the mysteries of the Order.

We are bound to advise them to their welfare; nay, more,--if they command us to it, we must accept them as our pupils.