He gave laws to the elements; he could reverse the order of nature; his eye read the mandates of futurity, and the infernal spirits were submissive to his commands. Why shrink you from me? I understand that enquiring look. Your suspicions are right, though your terrors are unfounded. My guardian concealed not from me his most precious acquisition. Yet, had I never seen

you , I should never have exerted my power. Like you I shuddered at the thoughts of magic: like you I had formed a terrible idea of the consequences of raising a daemon. To preserve that life which your love had taught me to prize, I had recourse to means which I trembled at employing. You remember that night which I passed in St. Clare’s sepulchre? Then was it that, surrounded by mouldering bodies, I dared to perform those mystic rites which summoned to my aid a fallen angel. Judge what must have been my joy at discovering that my terrors were imaginary: I saw the daemon obedient to my orders, I saw him trembling at my frown, and found that, instead of selling my soul to a master, my courage had purchased for myself a slave.”