the object of our conference.

"Whilst those earth-born creatures do not surpass a degree of
perfection which, by beauty of form, has been attained by Antinoues
and by Madame de Parabere, and at which they alone have arrived by
the faculty known to Democritus and myself; the beings formed by
fire enjoy a wisdom and an intelligence of which we cannot possibly
conceive the limit.

"Such is, my son, the nature of the glorious children of the suns;
they know the laws of the universe just as we know the rules of
chess, and the course of the stars does not trouble them any more
than the moves on the chessboard of the king and the other men
trouble us. Those genii create worlds in such spaces of the infinite
where none at present exist, and organise them at their will. It
distracts them momentarily from their principal business, which is
to unite among themselves in unspeakable love. Only last night I
turned my telescope on the Sign of the Virgin and saw on it a far-
away vortex of light. No doubt, my son, that was the still
unfinished work of one of those fire beings.

"Truly the universe has no other origin; far from being the effect
of a single will, it is the result of the sublime freaks of a great
many genii, recreating themselves by working on it each in his own
turn and on his own side. That's what explains the diversity, the
splendour and the imperfection. For the force and foresight of those
genii, immense as they were, had still their limits. I should
deceive you were I to say that a man, philosopher or magician, can
have familiar intercourse with them.