"Pardon me; I fear you have not seen Souter Johnny and Tam O'Shanter."

"Ah!" said the old gentleman, shaking his head, "I live very much out of
the world, I see. I suppose Shakespeare has ceased to be admired?"

"On the contrary; people make the adoration of Shakespeare the excuse
for attacking everybody else. But then our critics have discovered that
Shakespeare is so REAL!"

"Real! The poet who has never once drawn a character to be met with in
actual life,--who has never once descended to a passion that is false,
or a personage who is real!"

I was about to reply very severely to this paradox, when I perceived
that my companion was growing a little out of temper. And he who wishes
to catch a Rosicrucian, must take care not to disturb the waters. I
thought it better, therefore, to turn the conversation.

"Revenons a nos moutons," said I; "you promised to enlighten my
ignorance as to the Rosicrucians."

"Well!" quoth he, rather sternly; "but for what purpose? Perhaps you
desire only to enter the temple in order to ridicule the rites?"

"What do you take me for! Surely, were I so inclined, the fate of the
Abbe de Villars is a sufficient warning to all men not to treat idly
of the realms of the Salamander and the Sylph. Everybody knows how
mysteriously that ingenious personage was deprived of his life, in
revenge for the witty mockeries of his 'Comte de Gabalis.'"