She turned to Dr Porhoet.
'You are a bold man to assert that now and then the old alchemists
actually did make gold,' she said.
'I have not gone quite so far as that,' he smiled. 'I assert merely that,
if evidence as conclusive were offered of any other historical event, it
would be credited beyond doubt. We can disbelieve these circumstantial
details only by coming to the conclusion beforehand that it is impossible
they should be true.'
'I wish you would write that life of Paracelsus which you suggest in your
preface.'
Dr Porhoet, smiling shook his head.
'I don't think I shall ever do that now,' he said. 'Yet he is the most
interesting of all the alchemists, for he offers the fascinating problem
of an immensely complex character. It is impossible to know to what
extent he was a charlatan and to what a man of serious science.'
Susie glanced at Oliver Haddo, who sat in silence, his heavy face in
shadow, his eyes fixed steadily on the speaker. The immobility of that
vast bulk was peculiar.
'His name is not so ridiculous as later associations have made it seem,'
proceeded the doctor, 'for he belonged to the celebrated family of
Bombast, and they were called Hohenheim after their ancient residence,
which was a castle near Stuttgart in Wuertemberg.
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