CHAPTER 4.IV.
It is fit that we who endeavour to rise to an elevation so sublime, should study first to leave behind carnal affections, the frailty of the senses, the passions that belong to matter; secondly, to learn by what means we may ascend to the climax of pure intellect, united with the powers above, without which never can we gain the lore of secret things, nor the magic that effects true wonders .-- Tritemius "On Secret Things and Secret Spirits." It wanted still many minutes of midnight, and Glyndon was once more in the apartment of the mystic.

He had rigidly observed the fast ordained to him; and in the rapt and intense reveries into which his excited fancy had plunged him, he was not only insensible to the wants of the flesh,--he felt above them.
Mejnour, seated beside his disciple, thus addressed him:-- "Man is arrogant in proportion to his ignorance.

Man's natural tendency is to egotism.

Man, in his infancy of knowledge, thinks that all creation was formed for him.

For several ages he saw in the countless worlds that sparkle through space like the bubbles of a shoreless ocean only the petty candles, the household torches, that Providence had been pleased to light for no other purpose but to make the night more agreeable to man.