“I am not,” said I, “particularly interested in explaining what the Germans call the Night-Side of nature, or the marvellous deeds recorded in sacred and profane history; I would be able to do those deeds, reproduce those wonderful phenomena, and exert myself a power over the primordial elements or primitive forces of nature, be they spirits, be they what they will. I am tired of being pent up within this narrow cage, and of being the slave of every external influence. I would master nature; ride upon the whirlwind and direct the storm. There may, for aught I know, be an element of truth in the marvellous machinery of the Arabian Nights Entertainments, and something more than the extravagances of an Oriental imagination in those tales of magic, of good and evil Genii. What, if the tale of Aladdin’s Lamp were true? Who dare say that the river and ocean gods, the Naiads, the Dryads, Hamadryads, Pan and his reed, Apollo and his lyre, Mercury and his wand, the supernal and infernal gods of classic poetry, were all mere creatures of the poetic imagination? Perhaps even the _diablerie_ of modern German romance, of Hoffman, Baron de Fouquè, and others, has more of reality than most readers suspect.” “All the gods of the Gentiles were devils,” replied Mr. Cotton, “and to a considerable extent I concede the reality you intimate. There are good angels and bad, and both have intercourse with mankind. The air swarms with evil spirits, with devils, fallen angels, endowed with a more than human intelligence, and a more than human power. These are under a chief called Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan, who seeks to seduce men from their allegiance to God, to make them receive him for their master, to put him in the place of God, and to pay him divine honors. It was this fallen angel, the prince of this world as St. Paul calls him, and the prince of the powers of the air, who everywhere and unceasingly besieges the Christian, and against whom we have to be constantly on the guard, that the ancient Gentiles literally worshipped as God, and it is these evil spirits, these powers of the air, that swarm around us, and infest all nature, that ancient classic poetry celebrates, and that your modern philosophers would persuade us were mere poetic fancies.” “The powers or forces themselves, I concede,” said Mr. Winslow, “but I do not recognize their personality, nor their superhuman character.”