Bulwer-Lytton's _The Haunters and the Haunted_ tells the story of a mysterious being who passes through untold years with a strange power over life and the personality of others. He appears, no man knows whence nor why, and disappears as strangely, while about his whole career is a shroud of mystery. Thackeray, in his _Notch on the Axe_, burlesques this and similar stories in playful satire, yet seems to enjoy his theme. It is not wholly a burlesque, we may suppose. He adds a touch of realism to his humorous description by the fact that, throughout his hero's long-continued life, or series of lives--one doesn't know which--he retains always his German-Jewish accent. Andrew Lang describes[165] the person who may have been the original of these stories in real life. Horace Walpole has mentioned him in his letters and he seems to have a teasing mystery about his life and career that makes him much talked-of. [165] In _St. Germain the Deathless_. Edwin Lester Arnold[166] tells a story of continued life with an Oriental setting and mystery. Edward Bellamy's _Looking Backward_, by the introduction of a magic sleep makes a man live far beyond the natural span and be able to see into the distant future, while the youth in Mark Twain's _A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court_ has a magic length of life, living a dual existence, in Arthurian England and in present-day America. H. G. Wells[167] uses something of the same idea, in that he makes his hero live a very long time in a few hours, compressing time into minute tabules, as it were, as he does in another story of the magic accelerator that makes a man live fast and furiously with tenfold powers at crucial moments. The story of Peter Rugg, the Missing Man, is that of another immortal wanderer, whose story is told in _Myths and Legends of Our Land_, and utilized by Alfred Austin. He goes out into a storm, saying, "I will see home to-night or I will never see it!" He flies forever pursued by the storm, never resting, and never seeing his home. This is symbolic of the haunted soul pursued by its own destiny. [166] In _The Strange Adventures of Phra the Phoenician_. [167] In his _Time Machine_. The theme of the elixir of life is one of the old motifs of supernaturalism retained in modern fiction. The conventional alchemist has given place to a more up-to-date investigator in the chemical laboratory, yet the same thrill of interest is imparted by the thought of a magic potion prepared by man that shall endow him with earthly immortality. The theme has changed less in its treatment and symbolism than most of the supernatural elements in fiction, for though we see the added elements of modern satire and symbolism, its essential aspects remain the same.