“I also have followed the pursuit of happiness, studying all those methods that are most in use amongst men, as well as some that are hidden from them; and most of these methods are vain, leaving few that are worthy of the investigation of one holding the rank that I now hold amongst wizards. Of these few that have stood the test of my most laborious analysis is this one that I owe to the researches of your grandfather, and which, seeing how few are the ways of attaining happiness, is certainly among the four great branches of learning. Who knows these four great studies hath four different ways of approach to the goal of mankind, and hath that might that is to be got by complete wisdom alone. For this cause I give great honour to your grandfather, and extol his name, and bless it by means of spells, and in my estimation place it high amongst the names of those whose learning has lightened the world. Alas that his studies gave him no time for that last erudition which could have ensured his survival to these days and beyond them.”
The young man was surprised at the value the Master placed upon boar-hunting for, having as yet learned nothing about philosophy, he vaguely and foolishly believed it to be concerned with mere intricate words, and did not know in his youthful ignorance that its real concern was with happiness. Such folly is scarce becoming to young heroes, yet having sought to lure my reader’s interest towards him I feel it my duty to tell the least of his weaknesses, without which my portrait of him would be a false one. And so I expose his ignorance to the eyes of a later age; he will not be abashed by it now; but seated beside the meat at that magic table he felt the triviality of his schoolboy’s scraps of learning before every particle that the magician chose to reveal from his lore. And with all the intensity that trifles can summon up in youth he regretted his disparagement of his grandfather, not on account of his own reverence for him, but because he now perceived him to have been one that the Master held in honour. To cover his confusion he poured himself out some wine from a beaker at his right hand, partly bronze, partly glass, the bronze and glass being intermingled by magic; and, having filled his cup, a clear hollowed crystal, he hastily drank it before he spoke again.
And the wine was a magic wine with a taste of flowers, yet of flowers unknown to Earth, and a flavour of Spices, yet of spices ungathered in any isles Spain knew; and it had in it a memory and a music, and came to the blood like one that was closely kin, and yet of a kinship from ages and ages ago. And all of a sudden the young man saw his folly, in deeming that philosophy prefers the way to the end, and so for a moment he saw his grandfather’s wisdom; but that wonderful wine’s inspiration died swiftly away, and his thoughts were concerned again with the making of gold.
The magician had silently watched him drink of that magic vintage.
“It comes not from these vineyards,” he said. And he waved his arm so wide that he seemed to indicate no vineyard of Spain, nor the neighbouring kingdom of Portugal; nor France, nor Africa, nor the German lands; Italy, Greece, nor the islands.
“Whence?” asked Ramon Alonzo, leaning forward in earnest wonder.
And the Master extended his arm, pointing it higher. It seemed to point towards the Evening Star, that low and blue and large was blinking beyond the window.
“It is magic,” said Ramon Alonzo.
“All’s magic here,” said the Master.
III
The Charwoman Tells of Her Loss
As Ramon Alonzo supped that tall figure of magic stood opposite without moving, and spoke no more; so that the young man ate hastily and soon had finished. He rose from the table, the other signed with his arm, and passed out of the room, Ramon Alonzo following. Soon they came to a lantern which the Master of the Art took down from its hook on the wall; he turned then away from his green door and led his visitor on to the deeps of his house. And it seemed to Ramon Alonzo, with the curious insight of youth, as he followed the black bulk of the Master of the Art looming above the wild shadows that ran from the lantern, that here was the master of a band of shadows leading them home into their native darkness. And so they came to an ancient stairway of stone, that was lit by narrow windows opening on the stars, though tonight the Master brought his lantern to light it in honour of his guest. And it was plain even to Ramon Alonzo from the commotion of the bats, though he had not the art to read the surprise in the eyes of the spiders, that the light of a lantern seldom came that way. They came to a door that no spell had guarded from time; the magician pushed it open and stood aside, and Ramon Alonzo entered. At first he only saw the huge bulk of the bed, but as the lantern was lifted into the room he saw the ruinous panels along the wall; and then the light fell on the bedclothes, and he
