Rider Haggard, in _She_ and _Ayesha_, its sequel, describes a wonderful woman who possesses the secret of eternal life and has lived for thousands of years, ever young and beautiful, supernaturally enchanting. Her magic potion not only gives her length of days but protection against danger as well, for her rival's dagger glances harmlessly away from her, and she is proof against chance and fate. She gains her immortal life partly by bathing in a secret essence or vapor whose emanations give her mystic force and immortal beauty. There are many other elements of supernaturalism in association with the not impossible She,--magic vision, reincarnation, a mystic light that envelops her body, the power to call up the dead, to reanimate the skeletons in the desert and raise them to dreadful life. She is an interesting but fearsome personality. In _Ahrinziman_, by Anita Silvani, we have magic chemistry yielding up the elixir of life. Jelul-uh-din has lived for five hundred years and looks forward to a still more protracted existence. His magic drug not only gives him prolonged life but will do anything he wishes besides, since he has hypnotized it. Yet he is found dead. "On his wrists were marks of giant fingers, scorched and burnt into the flesh like marks of hot iron. And on his throat were marks of a similar hand which had evidently strangled him." It is apparent that his master, the De'il, got impatient and cut short the leisurely existence that he felt belonged to him. Hawthorne was greatly interested in the theme of the elixir of life. He gives us two brews of it in _Septimius Felton_, one an Indian potion concocted by an old sachem. The red man gets so old that his tribe find him a great nuisance and obstacle to progress so they gravely request permission to kill him. But his skull is so hard that the stone hammers are smashed when they try to brain him, his skin so tough that no arrows will pierce it, and nothing seems to avail. Finally they fill his mouth and nostrils with clay and put him in the sun to bake, till presently his heart bursts with a loud explosion, tearing his body to fragments. This brew of his is matched by one made by an European scientist after long endeavors. Here the ultimate ingredient is supposed to be a strange herb that grows from a mysterious grave. At last, just when the youth thinks he has the right combination, the woman who has lured him on to destruction dashes the cup from his lips, saving him from the poison he would have drunk. The flower has grown from the grave of her lover, whom the young scientist has murdered.