The Hermetic Museum, Vol. II — trans. A. E. Waite (1893)
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The translator’s English as printed (A. E. Waite). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
this land. You shall be my brother and my heir in respect of this grand secret, which is the despair of the learned. For this : reason give thanks to God for this message : it is better than to become heir-apparent to a crown. For only those whom God has chosen next to His own heavenly saints, ever receive this Art by which He is so highly honoured. I will write no more to you at the present time: mount on horseback, and come to me without delay." When I had perused these lines, I set out at the very same hour, and at once hastened to my master, though the distance exceeded a hundred miles. I continued with him forty days, and learned all the secrets of Alchemy (although before I had understood philosophy as well as any other person in the kingdom). Yet it would be foolish to suppose that the work itself can be completed within forty days: I say that ! was fully instructed within that time, but the work itself requires a longer period. Then all that had been dark became as clear as the light, when I beheld the secret gates of Nature unbarred ; I saw so plainly the causes and the ra£zeza/e of everything, that it was no longer possible for me to doubtordespair. Ifyou are as fortunate in your master as I, you will never be assailed by despondency.
The third enemy against whom you must guard is deceit, and this one is perhaps more dangerous than the other two. The servants whom you must employ to feed your furnaces are frequently most untrustworthy. Some are careless, and go to sleep when they should be attending to the fire ; others are depraved, and do you all the harm they can ; others, again, are either stupid or conceited and over-confident, and disobey instructions ; some have fingers retentive of other people's property, or they are drunken, negligent, and absent-minded. Be on your guard against all these, if you wish to be spared some great loss. If servants are faithful, they are generally stupid ; those who are quick-witted, are generally also false ; and it is difficult to say whether the deceitful or the stupid are the greater evil of the two. For when I had all my experiments in proper train, some thievish servants ran away with my materials and utensils, and left me nothing but the empty laboratory ; and when I calculated the cost, time, and labour of beginning the work all over again, I had almost in the bitterness of my heart resolved to bid an everlasting farewell to this Art of Alchemy. For it will hardly be believed how completely I had been stripped of all that T possessed, although ten trustworthy persons still survive to attest the fact. Indeed the blow was so great that it could hardly have been inflicted on me by human agency alone, without the instigation and co-operation of the Devil. I also made an Elixir of Life, of which a merchant's wife bereft me, and I procured a quintessence, with many other precious preparations, but of all these things [I was robbed by wicked men, and thus found, to my smart, that in the sweetest cup of this world's joy, there is a liberal infusion of bitterness. Let me tell you a little more of what has fallen under my observation, concerning the perplexities ofthis work. The calamity of which l am thinking happened to a good and godly man ; and I am the only person that can give a true account of it.