see the man with a strange vividness.
The story unfolded itself chiefly before the
mind's eye of the seeress, but sometimes
I saw what she described before I heard
her description. She thought the man
in black was perhaps a Fleming of the
sixteenth century, and I could see him.
pass along narrow streets till he came
to a narrow door with some rusty iron-
work above it. He went in, and wishing
to find out how far we had one vision
among us, I kept silent when I saw a dead
body lying upon the table within the door.
The seeress described him going down a
long hall and up into what she called a
pulpit, and beginning to speak. She said,
'He is a clergyman, I can hear his words.
They sound like Low Dutch.' Then after
a little silence, 'No, I am wrong.
I can
see the listeners; he is a doctor lecturing
among his pupils.' I said, 'Do you see
anything near the door?' and she said,
'Yes, I see a subject for dissection.'
Then we saw him go out again into the

Magic.

Ideas of Good and Evil.

narrow streets, I following the story of the seeress, sometimes merely following her words, but sometimes seeing for myself. My acquaintance saw nothing; I think he was forbidden to see, it being his own life, and I think could not in any case. His imagination had no will of its own. Presently the man in black went into a house with two gables facing the road, and up some stairs into a room where a hump-backed woman gave him a key; and then along a corridor, and down some stairs into a large cellar full of retorts and strange vessels of all kinds. Here he seemed to stay a long while, and one saw him eating bread that he took down from a shelf. The evoker of spirits and the seeress began to speculate about the man's character and habits, and decided, from a visionary impression, that his mind was absorbed in naturalism, but that his imagination had been excited by stories of the marvels wrought by magic in past times, and that he was trying to copy them by

naturalistic means.
saw him go to a vessel that stood over a
slow fire, and take out of the vessel a
thing wrapped up in numberless cloths,
which he partly unwrapped, showing at
length what looked like the image of a
man made by somebody who could not
model. The evoker of spirits said that
the man in black was trying to make flesh
by chemical means, and though he had
not succeeded, his brooding had drawn so
many evil spirits about him, that the
image was partly alive. He could see
it moving a little where it lay upon a
table. At that moment I heard something
like little squeals, but kept silent, as when
I saw the dead body. In a moment more
the seeress said, 'I hear little squeals.'
Then the evoker of spirits heard them,
but said, 'They are not squeals; he is
pouring a red liquid out of a retort
through a slit in the cloth; the slit is
over the mouth of the image and the
liquid is gurgling in rather a curious way.'

Presently one of them

Magic.

Ideas of Good and Evil.

Weeks seemed to pass by hurriedly, and somebody saw the man still busy in his cellar. Then more weeks seemed to pass, and now we saw him lying sick in a room up-stairs, and a man in a conical cap standing beside him. We could see the image too. It was in the cellar, but now it could move feebly about the floor. I saw fainter images of the image passing continually from where it crawled to the man in his bed, and I asked the evoker of spirits what they were. He said, 'They are the images of his terror.' Presently the man in the conical cap began to speak, but who heard him I cannot remember. He made the sick man get out of bed and walk, leaning upon him, and in much terror till they came to the cellar. There the man in the conical cap made some symbol over the image, which fell back as if asleep, and putting a knife into the other's hand he said, 'I have taken from it the magical life, but you must take from it the life you gave.' Somebody saw

the sick man stoop and sever the head of the image from its body, and then fall as if he had given himself a mortal wound, for he had filled it with his own life. And then the vision changed and fluttered, and he was lying sick again in the room up-stairs. He seemed to lie there a long time with the man in the conical cap watching beside him, and then, I cannot remember how, the evoker of spirits discovered that though he would in part recover, he would never be well, and that the story had got abroad in the town and shattered his good name. His pupils had left him and men avoided him. He was accursed. He was a magician.

The story was finished, and I looked at my acquaintance. He was white and awestruck. He said, as nearly as I can

remember, All my life I have seen myself in dreams making a man by some means like that. When I was a child I was always thinking out contrivances for

Magic.