With a bow and a wave of his arm the magician appointed a chair to Ramon Alonzo. And not till his guest was seated before the meats did the magician speak again.
“So you would study the Art,” he said.
“Master,” the young man answered him, “I would.”
“Know then,” the magician said, “that all those exercises that men call arts, and all wisdom and all knowledge, are but humble branches of that worthy study that is justly named the Art. Nor is this to be revealed to all chance-come travellers that may imperil themselves by entering my house in the wood. My gratitude to your grandfather however, for some while now unpaid (I trust he prospers), renders me anxious to serve you. For he taught me a branch of learning that he had studied well: it was moreover one of those studies that my researches had not yet covered, the matter of the hunting of boars; and from this, as from every science that learning knows, the Art hath increase, and becometh a yet more awful and reverend power whereby to astound the vulgar, and to punish error, not only in this wood but finally to drive it out of all worldly affairs.”
And he spoke swiftly past his mention of Ramon Alonzo’s grandfather, lest his guest should have the embarrassment of admitting that his grandfather had shared with all the unlearned the vulgar inability to withstand the flight of the years. For himself he kept on a shelf in an upper room a bottle of that medicine philosophers use, which is named elixir vitae, wherein were sufficient doses to ensure his survival till the time when he knew that the world would begin to grow bad. He took one dose in every generation. By certain turns in the tide of life in those that he watched, a touch of grey over the ears, a broadening or a calming, he knew that the heyday of a generation was past and the time had come for his dose. And then he would go one night by resounding stairs, that were never troubled by anything human but him, whatever the rats might dare, and so he would come with his ponderous golden key, for an iron one would have long since rusted away, to the lock he turned only once every thirty years. And, opening the heavy door at the top of the stairs and entering that upper room, he would find his bottle grey with dust on its shelf, perhaps entirely hidden by little curtains that the spiders had drawn across it, and measuring his dose by moonlight he would drink it full in the rays, as though he shared this secret alone with the moon. Then back he would go down those age-worn steps of oak with his old mind suddenly lightened of the cares of that generation, free from its foibles, untroubled by its problems, neither cramped nor duped by its fashions, unyoked by its causes, undriven by its aims, fresh and keen for the wisdom and folly of a new generation. Such a mind, well stored with the wisdom of several ages and repeatedly refreshed with the nimble alertness of youth, now crossed in brief conversation the young mind of Ramon Alonzo, like a terrible blade of Toledo, sharpened in ancient battles, meeting a well-wrought rapier coming fresh to its first war.
“My grandfather unfortunately came to his death,” said Ramon Alonzo.
“Alas,” said the Master.
“Our family is well used to it,” said the youth with a certain pride, for poverty has its pride as well as wealth, and Ramon Alonzo would not be abashed by his forebears’ lack of years even though he should speak with an immortal.
“Is that so?” said the Master.
“I thank you,” said Ramon Alonzo, “for the noble sentiments you so graciously felt for my grandfather and shall greatly value such learning as you may have leisure to teach me, for I would make gold out of the baser metals, my family having great need of it.”
“There are secrets you shall not learn,” replied the magician, “for I may impart them to none; but the making of gold is amongst the least of the crafts that are used by those skilled in the Art, and were only a poor return for the learning I had from your grandfather concerning the hunting of boars.”
“Beyond this wood,” said Ramon Alonzo, “we set much store by gold, and value it beyond the hunting of boars.”
“Beyond this wood,” replied the Master, “lies error, to extirpate which is the object of my studies. For this my lamp is lit, to the grief of the owls, and often burns till lark-song. Of the things you shall learn here earliest the prime is this, that the pursuit of the philosophers is welfare. To this gold often contributes; often it thwarts it. But it was plainly taught by your grandfather that the hunting of boars is amongst those things that bring pure joy to man. This study must therefore always be preferred to such as only bring us happiness incompletely, or that have been known to fail to bring it at all, as the hunting of boars never failed, so I learned from your grandfather.”
“I fear that my grandfather,” said the young man deprecatingly, “was but ill-equipped for discourse with a philosopher, having had insufficient leisure, as I have often been told, for learning.”
“Your grandfather,” answered the Master, “was a very great philosopher. Not only had he found the way to happiness but of that way was a most constant explorer, till none may doubt that he knew its every turning; for he could track the boars to the forest all the way from the fields where they rooted, knowing
