Elixir of Immortality. Ah! if now I might drink, I should live for ever!" As he spoke, a golden flash gleamed from the fluid; a well-remembered fragrance stole over the air; he raised himself, all weak as he was-strength seemed miraculously to re-enter his frame-he stretched forth his hand—a loud explosion startled me a ray of fire shot up from the elixir, and the glass vessel which contained it was shivered to atoms! I turned The old lady was speechless with fury, and | broke forth into invective only when we were far on our road to my natal cottage. My mother received the fair fugitive, escaped from a gilt cage to nature and liberty, with tenderness and joy; my father, who loved her, welcomed her heartily; it was a day of rejoicing, which did not need the addition of the celestial potion of the alchemist to steep me in delight. Soon after this eventful day I became the my eyes towards the philosopher; he had fallen husband of Bertha. I ceased to be the scholar, back-his eyes were glassy-his features rigid of Cornelius, but I continued his friend. -he was dead! always felt grateful to him for having, unawares, procured me that delicious draught of a divine elixir, which, instead of curing me of love (sad | cure! solitary and joyless remedy for evils which seem blessings to the memory), had inspired me with courage and resolution, thus winning for me an inestimable treasure in my Bertha. I But I lived, and was to live for ever! So said the unfortunate alchemist, and for a few days I believed his words. I remembered the glorious drunkenness that had followed my stolen draught. I reflected on the change I had felt in my frame-in my soul. The bounding elasticity of the one-the buoyant I often called to mind that period of trance- lightness of the other. I surveyed myself in like inebriation with wonder. The drink of a mirror, and could perceive no change in my Cornelius had not fulfilled the task for which features during the space of the five years which he affirmed that it had been prepared, but its had elapsed. I remembered the radiant hues effects were more potent and blissful than words and grateful scent of that delicious beverage can express. They had faded by degrees, yet-worthy the gift it was capable of bestowing they lingered long-and painted life in hues of splendour. Bertha often wondered at my lightness of heart and unaccustomed gaiety; for, before, I had been rather serious, or even sad, in my disposition. She loved me the better for my cheerful temper, and our days were winged by joy. Five years afterwards I was suddenly summoned to the bedside of the dying Cornelius. He had sent for me in haste, conjuring my instant presence. I found him stretched on his pallet, enfeebled even to death; all of life that yet remained animated his piercing eyes, and they were fixed on a glass vessel, full of a roseate liquid. "Behold," he said, in a broken and inward voice, "the vanity of human wishes! a second time my hopes are about to be crowned, a second time they are destroyed. Look at that liquor-you remember five years ago I had prepared the same, with the same success;-then, as now, my thirsting lips expected to taste the immortal elixir-you dashed it from me! and at present it is too late." I was, then, IMMORTAL! A few days after I laughed at my credulity. The old proverb, that "a prophet is least regarded in his own country," was true with respect to me and my defunct master. I loved him as a man-I respected him as a sagebut I derided the notion that he could command the powers of darkness, and laughed at the superstitious fears with which he was regarded by the vulgar. He was a wise philosopher, but had no acquaintance with any spirits but those clad in flesh and blood. His science was simply human; and human science, I soon persuaded myself, could never conquer nature's laws so far as to imprison the soul for ever within its carnal habitation. Cornelius had brewed a soul-refreshing drink-more inebriating than wine-sweeter and more fragrant than any fruit: it possessed probably strong medicinal powers, imparting gladness to the heart and vigour to the limbs; but its effects would wear out; already were they diminished in my frame. I was a lucky fellow to have quaffed health and joyous spirits, and perhaps long life, at my master's hands; but my good fortune ended there: longevity was far different He spoke with difficulty, and fell back on his pillow. I could not help saying"How, revered master, can a cure for love from immortality. restore you to life?" I continued to entertain this belief for many years. Sometimes a thought stole across me Was the alchemist indeed deceived? But my habitual credence was, that I should meet "A cure for love and for all things-the the fate of all the children of Adam at my ap A faint smile gleamed across his face as I listened earnestly to his scarcely intelligible answer. pointed time—a little late, but still at a natural | deigned to communicate any portion of my age. Yet it was certain that I retained a wonderfully youthful look. I was laughed at for my vanity in consulting the mirror so often, but I consulted it in vain-my brow was untrenched-my cheeks-my eyes-my whole person continued as untarnished as in my twentieth year. I was troubled. I looked at the faded beauty of Bertha-I seemed more like her son. By degrees our neighbours began to make similar observations, and I found at last that I went by the name of the scholar bewitched. Bertha herself grew uneasy. She became jealous and peevish, and at length she began to question me. We had no children; we were all in all to each other; and though, as she grew older, her vivacious spirit became a little allied to ill-temper, and her beauty sadly diminished, I cherished her in my heart as the mistress I had idolized, the wife I had sought and won with such perfect love. good fortune, might be stoned as my accomplice. At length she insinuated that I must share my secret with her, and bestow on her like benefits to those I myself enjoyed, or she would denounce me-and then she burst into tears. Thus beset, methought it was the best way to tell the truth. I revealed it as tenderly as I could, and spoke only of a very long life, not of immortality-which representation, indeed, coincided best with my own ideas. When I ended, I rose and said, "And now, my Bertha, will you denounce the lover of your youth?--You will not, I know. But it is too hard, my poor wife, that you should suffer from my ill-luck and the accursed arts of Cornelius. I will leave you-you have wealth enough, and friends will return in my absence. I will go; young as I seem, and strong as I am, I can work and gain my bread among strangers, unsuspected and unknown. I loved you in youth; God is my witness that I would not desert you in age, but that your safety and happiness require it." At last our situation became intolerable: Bertha was fifty-I twenty years of age. I had, in very shame, in some measure adopted the habits of a more advanced age; I no longer I took my cap and moved towards the door; mingled in the dance among the young and in a moment Bertha's arms were round my gay, but my heart bounded along with them neck, and her lips were pressed to mine. "No, while I restrained my feet; and a sorry figure my husband, my Winzy," she said, "you I cut among the Nestors of our village. But shall not go alone-take me with you; we will before the time I mention things were altered remove from this place, and, as you say, among -we were universally shunned; we were- strangers we shall be unsuspected and safe. I at least, I was reported to have kept up an am not so very old as quite to shame you, my iniquitous acquaintance with some of my former Winzy; and I dare say the charm will soon master's supposed friends. Poor Bertha was wear off, and, with the blessing of God, you pitied, but deserted. I was regarded with will become more elderly-looking, as is fitting; horror and detestation. you shall not leave me. What was to be done? we sat by our winter fire-poverty had made itself felt, for none would buy the produce of my farm; and often I had been forced to journey twenty miles, to some place where I was not known, to dispose of our property. It is true we had saved something for an evil day-that day was come. We sat by our lone fireside-the old-hearted youth and his antiquated wife. Again Bertha insisted on knowing the truth; she recapitulated all she had ever heard said about me, and added her own observations. She conjured me to cast off the spell; she described how much more comely gray hairs were than my chestnut locks; she descanted on the reverence and respect due to age-how preferable to the slight regard paid to mere children: could I imagine that the despicable gifts of youth and good looks outweighed disgrace, hatred, and scorn? Nay, in the end I should be burned as a dealer in the black art, while she, to whom I had not I returned the good soul's embrace heartily. "I will not, my Bertha; but for your sake I had not thought of such a thing. I will be your true, faithful husband while you are spared to me, and do my duty by you to the last." The next day we prepared secretly for our emigration. We were obliged to make great pecuniary sacrifices-it could not be helped. We realized a sum sufficient, at least, to maintain us while Bertha lived; and, without saying adieu to any one, quitted our native country to take refuge in a remote part of western France. It was a cruel thing to transport poor Bertha from her native village, and the friends of her youth, to a new country, new language, new customs. The strange secret of my destiny rendered this removal immaterial to me; but I compassionated her deeply, and was glad to perceive that she found compensation for her misfortunes in a variety of little ridiculous circumstances. Away from all tell-tale chroniclers, she sought to decrease the apparent disparity of our ages by a thousand feminine arts —rouge, youthful dress, and assumed juvenility of manner. I could not be angry-Did not I myself wear a mask? Why quarrel with hers, because it was less successful? I grieved deeply when I remembered that this was my Bertha, whom I had loved so fondly, and won with such transport—the dark-eyed, dark-haired girl, with smiles of enchanting archness and a step like a fawn-this mincing, simpering, jealous old woman. I should have revered her gray locks and withered cheeks; but thus!- -It was my work, I knew; but I did not the less deplore this type of human weakness. Her jealousy never slept. Her chief occupation was to discover that, in spite of outward appearances, I was myself growing old. I verily believed that the poor soul loved me truly in her heart, but never had woman so tormenting a mode of displaying fondness. She would discern wrinkles in my face and decrepitude in my walk, while I bounded along in youthful vigour, the youngest looking of twenty youths. I never dared address another woman: on one occasion, fancying that the belle of the village regarded me with favouring eyes, she brought me a gray wig. Her constant discourse among her acquaintances was, that though I looked so young, there was ruin at work within my frame; and she affirmed that the worst symptom about me was my apparent health. My youth was a disease, she said, and I ought at all times to prepare, if not for a sudden and awful death, at least to awake some morning white-headed, and bowed down with all the marks of advanced years. I let her talk-I often joined in her conjectures. Her warnings chimed in with my never-ceasing speculations concerning my state, and I took an earnest, though painful, interest in listening to all that her quick wit and excited imagination could say on the subject. I pause here in my history-I will pursue it no further. A sailor without rudder or compass, tossed on a stormy sea-a traveller lost on a wide-spread heath, without landmark or stone to guide him-such have I been: more lost, more hopeless than either. A nearing ship, a gleam from some far cot, may save them; but I have no beacon except the hope of death. Death! mysterious, ill-visaged friend of weak humanity! Why alone of all mortals have you cast me from your sheltering fold? O, for the peace of the grave! the deep silence of the iron-bound tomb! that thought would cease to work in my brain, and my heart beat no more with emotions varied only by new forms of sadness! Am I immortal? I return to my first question. In the first place, is it not more probable that the beverage of the alchemist was fraught rather with longevity than eternal life? Such is my hope. And then be it remembered, that I only drank half of the potion prepared by him. Was not the whole necessary to complete the charm? To have drained half the Elixir of Immortality is but to be half immortalmy For-ever is thus truncated and null. But again, who shall number the years of the half of eternity? I often try to imagine by what rule the infinite may be divided. Sometimes I fancy age advancing upon me. One gray hair I have found. Fool! do I lament? Yes, the fear of age and death often creeps coldly into my heart; and the more I live, the more I dread death, even while I abhor life. Such an enigma is man-born to perish-when he wars, as I do, against the established laws of his nature. But for this anomaly of feeling surely I might die: the medicine of the alchemist would not be proof against fire-sword-and the strangling waters. I have gazed upon the blue depths of many a placid lake, and the tumultuous rushing of many a mighty river, and have said, Peace inhabits those waters; yet I have turned my steps away, to live yet another day. I have asked myself, whether suicide would be a crime in one to whom thus only the portals of the other world could be opened. Why dwell on these minute circumstances? We lived on for many long years. Bertha became bed-rid and paralytic; I nursed her as a mother might a child. She grew peevish, and still harped upon one string-of how long II have done all, except presenting myself as a should survive her. It has ever been a source of consolation to me, that I performed my duty scrupulously towards her. She had been mine in youth, she was mine in age, and at last, when I heaped the sod over her corpse, I wept to feel that I had lost all that really bound me to humanity. Since then how many have been my cares and woes, how few and empty my enjoyments! soldier or duellist, an object of destruction to my-no, not my fellow-mortals, and therefore I have shrunk away. They are not my fellows. The inextinguishable power of life in my frame, and their ephemeral existence, places us wide as the poles asunder. I could not raise a hand against the meanest or the most powerful among them. Thus I have lived on for many a year-alone, and weary of myself-desirous of death, yet never dying-a mortal immortal. Neither ambition nor avarice can enter my mind, and the ardent love that gnaws at my heart, never to be returned never to find an equal on which to expend itself-lives there only to torment me. This very day I conceived a design by which I may end all-without self-slaughter, without making another man a Cain--an expedition, which mortal frame can never survive, even endued with the youth and strength that inhabits mine. Thus I shall put my immortality to the test, and rest for ever-or return, the wonder and benefactor of the human species. Before I go, a miserable vanity has caused me to pen these pages. I would not die, and leave no name behind. Three centuries have passed since I quaffed the fatal beverage: another year shall not elapse before, encountering gigantic dangers-warring with the powers of frost in their home-beset by famine, toil, and tempest-I yield this body, too tenacious a cage for a soul which thirsts for freedom, to the destructive elements of air and wateror, if I survive, my name shall be recorded as one of the most famous among the sons of men; and, my task achieved, I shall adopt more resolute means, and, by scattering and annihilating the atoms that compose my frame, set at liberty the life imprisoned within, and so cruelly prevented from soaring from this dim earth to a sphere more congenial to its immortal essence. THE CHARM. FROM THE SPANISH. Wind the shell, bind the spell ;— What is in it? Fond farewell! Wreathed with drops from azure eyes, Twilight vows, and midnight sighs. Bind it on the maiden's soul! Oceans may between you sweep, But the spell's as strong and deep! Anguish, distance, time are vainDeath alone can loose the chain. Literary Gazette. THE TEACHER'S LESSON. I saw a child some four years old, Alone she went-unchecked-untold- She gazed around on earth and sky- And now gay groups of roses bright, In circling thickets bound herYet on she went with footsteps light, Still gazing all around her. And now she paused, and now she stooped, A simple daisy 'twas, that drooped The child did kiss the little gem, And to her bosom pressed it; And there she placed the fragile stem And with soft words caressed it. I love to read a lesson true, Children are simple-loving-true; Begin with simple lessons-things And children know His A, B, C, As bees where flowers are set: Would'st thou a skilful teacher be? Learn, then, this alphabet. From leaf to leaf, from page to page, Point thou with reverent gaze to heaven, THE PANTOFLES. FROM THE ITALIAN OF GOZZI. he believed such (for your misers seldom have any), observed that his pantofles had made him quite the by-word of the city, and that it was high time to buy a new pair. "To say the truth," said Casem, "I have long thought of doing so, but they are not yet so worn as to be unable to serve me a little longer!"—and having undressed himself, he went into the stove. During the luxury he was there enjoying, the Cadi of Bagdad came in, and having undressed himself, he went into the stove likewise. Casem soon after came out, and having dressed himself, looked about for his pantofles, but nowhere could he find them. In the place of his own he found a pair sufficiently different to be not only new, but splendid; and feeling convinced that they were a gift from his friend (not the less so, perhaps, because he wished it), he triumphantly thrust his toes in them, and issued forth into the air, radiant with joy and a skin nearly clean. In Bagdad lived an old merchant of the name of Abon Casem, who was famous for his riches, but still more for his avarice. His coffers were small to look at (if you could get a sight of them), and very dirty; but they were crammed with jewels. His clothes were as scanty as need be; but then, even in his clothes there was multum in parvo; to wit, much dirt in little space. All the embroidery he wore was of that kind which is of necessity attendant upon a ragged state of drapery. It meandered over his bony form in all the beauty of ill-sewn patches. His turban was of the finest kind of linen for lasting; a kind of canvas, and so mixed with elementary substances, that its original colour, if it still existed, was invisible. But of all his habiliments, his slippers were most deserving the study of the curious. They were the extreme cases both of his body and his dirt. The soles consisted chiefly of huge nails, and the upper leathers of almost every-slippers in vain. Nowhere could they be found. thing. The ship of the Argonauts was not a greater miscellany. During the ten years of their performance in the character of shoes, the most skilful cobblers had exercised their science and ingenuity in keeping them together. The accumulation of materials had been so great, and their weight was so heavy in proportion, that they were promoted to honours of proverbialism; and Abon Casem's slippers became a favourite comparison when a superfluity of weight was the subject of discourse. It happened one day, as this precious merchant was walking in the market, that he had a great quantity of fine glass bottles offered him for sale; and as the proposed bargain was greatly on his side, and he made it still more so, he bought them. The vendor informed him, furthermore, that a perfumer having lately become bankrupt, had no resource left but to sell, at a very low price, a large quantity of rose-water; and Casem, greatly rejoicing at this news, and hastening to the poor man's shop, bought up all the rose-water at half its value. He then carried it home, and comfortably put it in his bottles. Delighted with these good bargains, and buoyant in his spirits, our hero, instead of making a feast, according to the custom of his fellows, thought it more advisable to go to the bath, where he had not been for some time. While employed in the intricate business of undressing, one of his friends, or one whom On the other hand, when the cadi had performed the necessary purifications, and was dressed, his slaves looked for his lordship's Instead of the embroidered pantofles of the judge, they detected, in a corner, only the phenomena left by Casem, which were too well known to leave a doubt how their master's had disappeared. The slaves made out immediately for Casem, and brought him back to the indig nant magistrate, who, deaf to his attempts at defence, sent him to prison. Now in the East, the claws of justice open just as wide, and no wider, as the purse of the culprit; and it may be supposed that Abon Casem, who was known to be as rich as he was miserly, did not get his freedom at the same rate as his rose-water. The miserable Casem returned home, tearing his beard, for beard is not a dear stuff; and being mightily enraged with the pantofles, he seized upon them, and threw them out of his window into the Tigris. It happened a few days after, that some fishermen drew their nets under the window, and the weight being greater than usual, they were exulting in their success, when out came the pantofles. Furious against Casem (for who did not know Casem's pantofles?) they threw them in at the window, at the same time reviling him for the accident. Unhappy Casem! The pantofles flew into his room, fell among his bottles, which were ranged with great care along the shelf, and overthrowing them, covered the room with glass and rose-water. Imagine, if you can, the miser's agony! With a loud voice, and tearing his beard, according to custom, he roared out, |