"Salamander and Sylph! I see that you fall into the vulgar error, and
translate literally the allegorical language of the mystics."

With that the old gentleman condescended to enter into a very
interesting, and, as it seemed to me, a very erudite relation, of the
tenets of the Rosicrucians, some of whom, he asserted, still existed,
and still prosecuted, in august secrecy, their profound researches into
natural science and occult philosophy.

"But this fraternity," said he, "however respectable and
virtuous,--virtuous I say, for no monastic order is more severe in the
practice of moral precepts, or more ardent in Christian faith,--this
fraternity is but a branch of others yet more transcendent in the powers
they have obtained, and yet more illustrious in their origin. Are you
acquainted with the Platonists?"

"I have occasionally lost my way in their labyrinth," said I. "Faith,
they are rather difficult gentlemen to understand."

"Yet their knottiest problems have never yet been published. Their
sublimest works are in manuscript, and constitute the initiatory
learning, not only of the Rosicrucians, but of the nobler brotherhoods
I have referred to. More solemn and sublime still is the knowledge to
be gleaned from the elder Pythagoreans, and the immortal masterpieces of
Apollonius."

"Apollonius, the imposter of Tyanea! are his writings extant?"

"Imposter!" cried my host; "Apollonius an imposter!"