Zorastro : a romance / by Creswick J. Thompson [pseud.].

  • Charles Thompson
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Zorastro : a romance / by Creswick J. Thompson [pseud.]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    all kinds of instruments, books, and imple- ments of the alchemist’s art. There were several furnaces, two of which were glowing. Stills of immense size and curious shape, retorts, cucurbites, and alembics in endless variety were scattered about in every direc- tion. Against the wall stood a large oak cabinet, strangely carved with grotesque faces of men and animals. An embrasure at the far end of the apartment was filled by a long bench or table, on which lay a shape- less mass completely covered with a black cloth. Karl’s eyes were fascinated by this object, and as he gazed at it, he seemed to discern the profile of a face, and the outline of a human figure beneath the covering. Then his ear caught the conversation again, in which Zorastro and the Count were deeply engaged. The latter was holding in his outstretched hand a small flask partly filled with a dark red liquid. “I am now studying the great problem of life and death,” he said, in his thin, high- pitched voice, “which to me is more attrac- tive than the Stone. This medium, the arcanum sanguinis hominis, has been the