For a last word, “Manfred” and “Faust” are only works of art, intended to “interest” or amuse or charm the reader, and as such they are great. They are simply dramas or show-pieces, which also give a high idea of the artistic skill of their writers. “Intialo” sets forth the great idea of the true sorcerer, in which they both _fail_, and carries it out logically to a tremendous triumph. It is the very quintessence of all heresies, and of the first great heresy, _eritis sicut deus_. There will not be wanting one or two critics of the low kind who take their hints from the disavowals of the author to declare that his book is just what it is not, who will write that I think I have discovered a better poet than Keats in Marietta Pery, and a far greater than Goethe or Byron in the unknown author of the invocation to “Intialo.” But all that I _truly mean_ is that the former is nearer to old tradition, and more succinct than the English bard—“only this and nothing more”—while in “Intialo” we have given, as no one ever expressed it, the true ideal of the magician who, overcoming all qualms of conscience, whether innate or suggested, and trampling under foot all moral human conventions, rises to _will_, and victory over all enemies, especially the demons of the threshold. As a poem, I no more claim special merit for it than I would for Marietta’s; {253} indeed, to the very considerable number of “highly cultivated” people who only perceive poetry in form and style, and cannot find it in the grandest conceptions unless they are elegantly expressed, what I have given in this connection will not appear as poetry at all. CAIN AND HIS WORSHIPPERS THE SPELL OF THE MIRROR—THE INVOCATION TO CAIN—THE WITCH-HISTORY OF CAIN AND ABEL “Rusticus in Luna Quem sarcina deprimit una, Monstrat per spinas Nulli prodesse rapinas.” —ALEXANDER NECKHAM, A.D. 1157. This is, for reasons which I will explain anon, one of the most curious traditions which have been preserved by the Tuscan peasantry. I had made inquiry whether any conjuring by the aid of a mirror existed—“only this and nothing more”—when, some time after, I received the following: LA SCONGIURAZIONE DELLO SPECCHIO. _When one wishes to enchant a lover_. “Go at midnight when there is a fine full moon, and take a small mirror, which must be kept in a box of a fine red colour, and at each of the four corners of the box put a candle with a pin, or with a pin in its point, and observe that two of the pins must have red heads, and two black, and form a cross, and note that every candle must have two tassels hanging from it, one red and one black.