"Philosopher's stone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... last resource of baffled ingenuity and disappointed ambition. The philosopher thus becomes an impostor; and by the pretended transmutation of the baser metals into gold, or the discovery of the philosopher's stone, he attempts to sustain his sinking reputation, and recover the fortune he has lost. The communication of the great secret is now the staple commodity with which he is to barter, and the grand talisman with which he is to conjure. It can be ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... it easier for honest men to enjoy their own. If style could really be taught, it is a question whether its teachers should not be regarded as mischief-makers and enemies of mankind. The Rosicrucians professed to have found the philosopher's stone, and the shadowy sages of modern Thibet are said, by those who speak for them, to have compassed the instantaneous transference of bodies from place to place. In either case, the holders of these secrets have laudably refused to publish ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... was for ever playing with this girl or the other, smiling, mincing, toying, and it all came to nothing. A very unpleasant creature was Mr. Charlie Colston, a byword with women in Eastthorpe, even amongst the nursery-maids. Mrs. Furze knew all about his youth; but she brought out her philosopher's stone and used it with effect. She did not intend to mate Catharine with a fool, and make her miserable. If she could not have persuaded herself that the young man was everything that could be desired she would have thought no more about him. The whole alchemical ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... that was probably created and, right or wrong, there is nobody on this earth at present who can prove my theory to be mistaken. Be sure that a medieval alchemist, searching in vain for elixir vitae, or the philosopher's stone, chanced upon this infernal synthesis and fusion. For him, no doubt, it proved a philosopher's stone in earnest, for the Borgia always extended a generous hand to those who could assist their damnable activities. Transmutation—so a skilled ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... personified, was to incarnate their unity, the expression of their exclusive faction interests was to become the expression of their common class interest; the monarchy was to accomplish what only the abolition of two monarchies—the republic could and did accomplish. This was the philosopher's stone, for the finding of which the doctors of the party of Order were breaking their heads. As though the Legitimate monarchy ever could be the monarchy of the industrial bourgeoisie, or the bourgeois monarchy ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... to amuse and cheer the king's mind by telling him, from time to time, that he was going to be supplied with inexhaustible treasures of wealth by the discovery of the philosopher's stone. The philosopher's stone was an imaginary substance which the alchemists of those days were all the time attempting to discover, by means of which lead and iron, and all other metals, could be turned to gold. There were royal ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... great degree, self-taught with regard to my favourite studies. My father was not scientific, and I was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's thirst for knowledge. Under the guidance of my new preceptors I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... the hermetic mystery, and of the red powder, "glistening and glorious in the sun." And the solution shone out at last, bright and amazing, as he lay quiet in the court of Avallaunius. He knew that he himself had solved the riddle, that he held in his hand the powder of projection, the philosopher's stone transmuting all it touched to fine gold; the gold of exquisite impressions. He understood now something of the alchemical symbolism; the crucible and the furnace, the "Green Dragon," and the "Son Blessed of the Fire" had, he saw, a peculiar meaning. He understood, too, why the uninitiated were ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... Noir. I had played at it in every city in Europe, without, however, the care or the wish to study the Theory of Chances—that philosopher's stone of all gamblers! And a gambler, in the strict sense of the word, I had never been. I was heart-whole from the corroding passion for play. My gaming was a mere idle amusement. I never resorted to it by necessity, because I never knew what it was ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various
... head—I should say heart. He has—great and good man—the largest faith in mucilage. He often makes it a text, and he sticks to it, he does—does Dr. PLASTERWELL. Nothing like mucilage, PUNCHINELLO. It is the hope of the human race, and the salvation of woman. It is the Philosopher's Stone in solution; the essence and link which connects and cements all that is great, good, and lovely, in the past, present, and future. At least, such is the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... peculiar homage which ignorance paid to knowledge. There were, here and there, individuals, the record of whose eccentricity opens up for us vistas into the marvellous domain of magic and mystery which cast its glamour of romance over the old world of the alchemist in pursuit of the philosopher's stone. One of the most remarkable of latter-day disciples of Peter Woulfe, of whom some interesting particulars are given in Timbs' Modern Eccentrics, has a peculiar claim to notice here, if only for having for many years pursued his ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... greatly increased by his great-grandson, Hugo de Greene, but was again jeoparded in the year 1456, when Basil Greene, being commissioned by Henry the Sixth to enrich his sovereign by discovering the philosopher's stone, squandered the greater part of his fortune in unavailing experiments; while his son, who was also infected with the spirit of the age, was blown up in his laboratory when just on the point of ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... repeat too emphatically that there is not a single fact in embryology to justify the assumption that the laws of development, now known to be so precise and definite for every animal, have ever been less so, or have ever been allowed to run into each other. The philosopher's stone is no more to be found in the organic than the inorganic world; and we shall seek as vainly to transform the lower animal types into the higher ones by any of our theories as did the alchemists of old to change ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... claim to be true Protestants, and call upon all men to help them in their efforts to promote learning and religion. They possess great secrets and the world ought to know them. They are perfectly at home in bottling the elixir of life, and have been in possession of the philosopher's stone a long time. Their great object is to benefit their fellow creatures. Who will ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... (Psa 119:67), persecutions flow from grace; poverty, sickness, yea, death itself is now made ours by the grace of God through Christ (1 Cor 3:22; Rev 3:19; Heb 12:5-7). O grace, O happy church of God! all things that happen to thee are, for Christ's sake, turned into grace. They talk of the philosopher's stone, and how, if one had it, it would turn all things into gold. O! but can it turn all things into grace? can it make all things work together for good? No, no, this quality, virtue, excellency, what shall I call it, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... unpotentiality of wealth, here we materialise those dreams of happiness which are the enchantment of youth, the resolve of maturity, the solace of old age. Let other questants abandon hope, for I have found the philosopher's stone. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Ay, I know you have arsenic, Vitriol, sal-tartar, argaile, alkali, Cinoper: I know all.—This fellow, captain, Will come, in time, to be a great distiller, And give a say—I will not say directly, But very fair—at the philosopher's stone. ...
— The Alchemist • Ben Jonson
... body to be burned, and have not this love, it profiteth me nothing," 1 Cor. xiii. 1, 3. 'tis splendidum peccatum, without charity. This is an all-apprehending love, a deifying love, a refined, pure, divine love, the quintessence of all love, the true philosopher's stone, Non potest enim, as [4602]Austin infers, veraciter amicus esse hominis, nisi fuerit ipsius primitus veritatis, He is no true friend that loves not God's truth. And therefore this is true love indeed, the cause ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... or science that is too difficult for industry to attain to; it is the gift of tongues, and makes a man understood and valued in all countries and by all nations; it is the philosopher's stone, that turns all metals, and even stones, into gold, and suffers not want to break into its dwelling; it is the northwest passage, that brings the merchant's ship as soon to him as he can desire. In a word, it conquers all enemies, and makes fortune ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... supposed that by subliming or purifying the imperfect metals to a high enough degree, they might convert them into the perfect one; but in general it was acknowledged that there was no way of making gold but by means of gold itself. The philosopher's stone, as it was called, was a powder containing the pure essence of gold, and how to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... originated in the East from one of the crusaders in the fourteenth century; but it attracted at least no public notice till the beginning of the seventeenth century. Its adherents appear to have imbibed their notions from the Arabians, and claimed the possession of the philosopher's stone, the art of transmuting ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... eternity." In the same letter he assures his friend that he approves of his choice of history and morals as the subjects of his winter studies; but, he adds, "I doubt not but you design to season them with a little divinity now and then, which, like the philosopher's stone in the hands of a good man, will turn them and every lawful acquirement into the nature of itself, and make them more ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... Haward, a happy man, went with raised face through the stillness and the moonlight to his lodging at Marot's ordinary. No phantoms of the night disturbed him. He had found the philosopher's stone, had drunk of the divine elixir. Life was at last a thing much to be desired, and the Giver of life was good, and the ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... into poverty and without a dowry, and as my husband had only a large library of books and a great deal of learning, the bed and pillows were thought the most profitable investment. After this I thought that I had discovered the philosopher's stone. So when a new carpet or mattress was going to be needed, or when, at the close of the year, it began to be evident that my family accounts, like poor Dora's, "wouldn't add up," then I used to say to my faithful friend ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... their inspiration were men versed in chemistry, in science, in physics, and the treatment of diseases, and since, further, they included alchemists and people professing to be in possession of the Philosopher's Stone, their resemblance with the Rosicrucians is at once apparent. Indeed, in turning back to the branches of magic enumerated by the Rosicrucian Robert Fludd, we find not only Natural Magic, "that most occult and secret department of physics by which the mystical properties of natural substances ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... so infatuated do we find him, so taken up with his beloved object, as not to bestow a few minutes on the decency of his person. In the back of the room is one who owes his ruin to an indefatigable search after the philosopher's stone. Strange and unaccountable!—Hence we are taught by these characters, as well as by the pair of human wings on the tester of the bed, that scheming is the sure and certain road to beggary: and that more owe their misfortunes to wild and romantic notions, than to any ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... lower jaw by the same bare parts, with the capability of contracting or of perfectly relaxing the grasp, by the application or withdrawal of the powers of the lever. This is the intended action of the bit,—the philosopher's stone,—after which all bit-projectors and bit-makers have laboured; the obstacles to be overcome are various and perhaps insuperable, and indeed could the powers of the lever be employed on such exquisitely sensitive parts as the bare jaws, when ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... you have got the philosopher's stone, sure you will no longer complain of bad times, or the difficulty ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... converting tin into silver, and copper into gold; or rather, I may say, the discovery of the philosopher's stone, for which the sages of past centuries have searched in vain, but which I firmly believe it has been reserved for me to find out. I shall then become the richest individual in Amsterdam, and I have resolved ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... once sprang from his seat in the House of Representatives, and exclaimed in his piercing voice, "Mr. Speaker, I have found it." And then, in the stillness which followed this strange outburst, he added, "I have found the Philosopher's stone: it is ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... grace—a science which, even yet, in perfect good faith, busied itself with the mysteries of the Rosy Cross, mixed strange ingredients into a possible Elixir of Life, ran far afield in search for the Philosopher's Stone, gathered herbs for the confection of simples during auspicious phases of the moon, and beheld in comet and meteor awful forewarnings of public ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... extent that I mean. The world has not yet learned the riches of frugality, says, I think, Cicero, somewhere; and nobody can testify to the truth of that remark better than I. If a man knows how to spend less than his income, however small that may be, why—he has the philosopher's stone.' And Sir William looked in Somerset's face with frugality written in every pore of his own, as much as to say, 'And here you see one who has been a living instance of those ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... been temperate," said Zadig; "know that there is no such thing in nature as a basilisk; that temperance and exercise are the two great preservatives of health; and that the art of reconciling intemperance and health is as chimerical as the philosopher's stone, judicial astrology, or the theology of ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... of no great value or extent, and that the old man who dwells there with his son is little different from a sorcerer, whom it is not safe to approach — at least not with intent to meddle. Men say that he is in league with the devil, and that he has sold his soul for the philosopher's stone, that changes all it touches to gold. They say, too, that those who offend him speedily sicken of some fell disease that no medicine can cure. Though he must have wondrous wealth, he has let his house fall into gloomy decay. ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... impostors, who from the aspect of the planetary world pretended to predict the fortunes and destinies of individuals. You will see in the laboratories alchemists searching for a universal medicine, an elixir of life, and for the philosopher's stone, or a method of converting all metals into gold; but unexpected and useful discoveries you will find, even in this age, arise amidst the clouds of deception and the smoke of the furnace. Delusion and error vanish and pass away, and truths ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... of a Lancaster Herald. The costumes however are carefully correct, and give us useful hints as to the fashion of the raiment of our ancestors. From the peculiar piety and earnestness (most important elements in the search for the philosopher's stone), of the small "signs" and prayers appended to these papers, it is, Ithink, clear, that he was working in all good faith and belief. Possibly the following lines, which seem to have been his favourite motto, may ...
— Animaduersions uppon the annotacions and corrections of some imperfections of impressiones of Chaucer's workes - 1865 edition • Francis Thynne
... break it into scientific harness. Solomon De Caus, as all the world has heard, was put into a lunatic asylum for inventing the steam-engine, though no one would have doubted his sanity if he had offered to raise the devil, or to produce the philosopher's stone, or the elixir vitae. Now, these precious possessions have not been more in men's minds than a system of conveniently suspended animation. There is scarcely a peasantry in Europe that does not sing the ballad of the dead bride. This lady, in the legends, always loves the cavalier not selected ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... system of the Alchemists, the Adepts, or seekers of the philosopher's stone. No system has been more misunderstood than this. It was secret, esoteric, and highly symbolical. No one has so well revealed its true design as E.A. Hitchcock, who, in his delightful work entitled "Remarks upon Alchemy and the Alchemists," says, "The genuine Alchemists were ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... fierce denunciations by the war party of these figures as wilful fictions. Science has made in that interval such gigantic strides. The awful intellect of man may at last make war impossible for his physical strength. He can forge but cannot wield the hammer of Thor; nor has Science yet discovered the philosopher's stone. Without it, what exchequer can accept chronic warfare and escape bankruptcy? After what has been witnessed in these latest days, the sieges and battles of that distant epoch seem like the fights of pigmies ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and sages, highly blessed and of great wisdom, have obtained the region of Brahman. It is by this that the Gandharvas and the Apsaras acquired such personal beauty, and it is through Brahmacharya that Surya riseth to make the day. As the seekers of the philosopher's stone derive great happiness when they obtain the object of their search those mentioned above (the celestials and others), on completing their Brahmacharya, derive great happiness in consequence of being able to have whatever they desire. He, O king, who devoted to the practice ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... a satisfactory definition of gentleman is as difficult as to discover the philosopher's stone; and yet if we may not say just what a gentleman is, we can certainly say what he is not. We may affirm indisputably that a man, however rich, and of however fine a title in countries where rank is acknowledged, if he behave selfishly, coarsely, and indecently, is not a gentleman. "From which, ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... inflation came with relentless and rapid pace. With the people still convinced of the inevitable outcome of their united efforts; with the thinkers of the South still evolving their theories of the philosopher's stone to change all this mass of paper into gold; and with the press of the country blatant about the speedy and certain collapse of northern credit; above all, with millions of pounds of cotton rotting in our warehouses—Confederate money, little by little, bought ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... instantly set the Portuguese king thinking about Prester John, of whom legends spoke as a Christian king ruling over a Christian nation somewhere in what was vaguely called the Indies; and the search after whom is, in maritime discovery, what the alchemist's pursuit after the philosopher's stone was in chemistry. The king concluded that this "greater power" must be Prester John; and accordingly Bartholomew Diaz and two other captains were sent out on further discovery. They did not find Prester John, but made their way southwards along a thousand and fifty miles of new ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... of Paradise The Pea Blossom The Pen and the Inkstand The Philosopher's Stone The Phoenix Bird The Portuguese Duck The Porter's Son Poultry Meg's Family The Princess and the Pea The ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... nineteenth century and a story of grotesque supernaturalism can be converted into a pleasant harmony. A similar effect is produced in one of Balzac's finest stories, the 'Recherche de l'Absolu.' Every accessory is provided to induce us, so long as we are under the spell, to regard the discovery of the philosopher's stone as a reasonable application of human energy. We are never quite clear whether Balthazar Claes is a madman or a commanding genius. We are kept trembling on the verge of a revelation till we become interested in spite of our more sober sense. A ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... his enchantments, he discovered that the man whom he had trusted had been robbing him for many years: all the time he had been searching for the philosopher's stone, the gold already his had been tumbling into the bags of his steward. But what enraged him far more was, that the fellow had constantly pretended difficulty in providing the means necessary for the prosecution of his ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... the berries were of several sorts, and growing riper each day, and the bears in the timber above knew this, and came down punctually with the season, making variety in the otherwise even life of the prospectors. It was now August, and Lin sat on a wet hill making mud-pies for sixty days. But the philosopher's stone was not in the wash at that placer, nor did Lin gather gold-dust sufficient to cover the nail of his thumb. Then they heard of an excitement at Obo, Nevada, and, hurrying to Obo, they made ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... likelihood, the three horses named by the unknown soothsayer had won. Who was this gipsy? It would be worth bringing the soothsayer to Mardykes, and giving his people a camp on the warren, and all the poultry they could catch, and a pig or a sheep every now and then. Why, that seer was worth the philosopher's stone, and could make Sir Bale's fortune in a season. Some one else would be sure to pick him ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Gentleman who was never in an Error in his Life,— consequently cou'd never be convinced. Sr. he understands Politics and Butterflies, Whale fishing and Cricket, Fortification and Shittle Cock; Poetry and Wolf Dogs; in short ev'ry thing, in ev'ry Art and Science, from a Pins Head, to the Longitude & Philosopher's Stone, better ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... sense, we may exhibit both pure, and learn with certainty what each part can accomplish of itself, so as to prevent on the one hand the errors of a still crude untrained judgement, and on the other hand (what is far more necessary) the extravagances of genius, by which, as by the adepts of the philosopher's stone, without any methodical study or knowledge of nature, visionary treasures are promised and the true are thrown away. In one word, science (critically undertaken and methodically directed) is the narrow gate that leads to the true doctrine of practical wisdom, if we understand by this not merely ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... that there is no need to go beyond this world to explain how the desire of perfect happiness is not in vain. It works like the desire of the philosopher's stone among the old alchemists. The thing they were in search of was a chimera, but in looking for it they found a real good, modern chemistry. In like manner, it is contended, though perfect happiness is not to ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... help us all!—we sometimes find him sitting domiciliated at our hearthstones. He changes like the wizard we used to read of in our wonderful fairy books, who was an ogre one moment and a mouse the next. He is more potent than the philosopher's stone; for that changed everything into gold only, while he becomes, at will, all the ores and alloys of creation. Fortunatus's wishing-cap and Prince Hussein's tapestry were baby toys to him. They whisked their owners away to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... writer, towards the close of the same century;[71] nor among the physicians and materialists, from Moses to Geber the Arab,[72] who is supposed to have lived in the seventh century. In that author's work, entitled the "Philosopher's stone," mention is made of medicine that cures all leprous diseases. This passage, some authors suppose, to have given the first hint of the matter, though Geber himself, perhaps, meant no such thing; for, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... Alchemy," which, contrary to the general belief, dealt in the mastery of Mental Forces, rather than Material Elements-the Transmutation of one kind of Mental Vibrations into others, instead of the changing of one kind of metal into another. The legends of the "Philosopher's Stone" which would turn base metal into Gold, was an allegory relating to Hermetic Philosophy, readily understood by all ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... and, while you have got the Philosopher's stone, sure, you will no longer complain of bad times or the difficulty of ...
— One Thousand Secrets of Wise and Rich Men Revealed • C. A. Bogardus
... the alchemists been so intent upon the desire to discover the far famed philosopher's stone, as to make them unmindful of the accidental dawnings of more valuable discoveries, this little experiment in chemistry might have induced them to prosecute a more thorough search into the principle, and Photogenic art would not now, as it is, ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling
... stop with the first example,—take a sample brick from antiquity. If you once commence collecting them in ever so small a way, or with any excuse to your own pocket, you will find yourself subject to a fascination more irresistible than the love of money,—more absorbing than the search for the philosopher's stone. While you are in Rome, you will find yourself unable to keep your feet from ways that lead to the antiquaries, or your money out of the hands of a class (with two or three exceptions) of cheats. You will find the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... of the general expectation, which looked for nothing less than a sort of financial philosopher's stone. Besides, the Bank of England was willing to compete with the South Sea Company. If the Company could coin money out of cobwebs, why should not the Bank be able to accomplish the same feat? The friends of the Bank reminded the House of Commons of the great services which that corporation ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... I've found something that beats that all hollow. I've found the philosopher's stone. I've found the back door at least to the house of happiness.' And I'll swear I don't believe he was joking, although it's sometimes hard to tell ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... mandrake, it emphasizes the conchological ancestry of these deities and their connexion with the guardians of the subterranean palaces where pearls are found. But Artemis was not only the opener of the treasure-houses, but she also possessed the secret of the philosopher's stone: she could transmute base substances into gold,[341] for was she not the offspring of the Golden Hathor? To open the portal either of birth or wealth she used her magic wand or key. As Nub, the lady of gold, the Great Mother could not only ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... we were ever to get farther. We understood that we were the victims of our own shamming, and we grew to be better citizens for it. The police force became an army of heroes—for a season. All the good in it came out; and there is a lot of it in the worst of times. Roosevelt had the true philosopher's stone that turns dross to gold, in his own sturdy faith in his fellow-man. Men became good ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... most malignant type, but variously modified by greet diversities of temper and understanding. Buckingham was a sated man of pleasure, who had turned to ambition as to a pastime. As he had tried to amuse himself with architecture and music, with writing farces and with seeking for the philosopher's stone, so he now tried to amuse himself with a secret negotiation and a Dutch war. He had already, rather from fickleness and love of novelty than from any deep design, been faithless to every party. At one time he had ranked among the Cavaliers. At another ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... author says about the famous Philosopher's Stone of the Alchemists, the Path of Initiation, and ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... circumstance was imputed to some antipathy between these vegetables; nor was it for some time resolved by the natural rule, that the flag has its nourishment in marshy ground, whereas the fern loves a deep dryish soil. The attributes of the divining-rod were fully credited; the discovery of the philosopher's stone was daily hoped for; and electricity, magnetism, and other remarkable and misconceived phenomena were appealed to as proof of the reasonableness of their expectations. Until such phenomena were traced to their sources, imaginary and often mystical causes were assigned to them, for the same reason ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... morality, like all the rest, needs demonstration and rule; and finally, that the eclectic idea is the least reasonable of all, since it is of no use to say that there are several criteria if we cannot point out one. I very much fear that it will be with the criterion as with the philosopher's stone; that it will finally be abandoned, not only as insolvable, but as chimerical. Consequently, I entertain no hopes of having found it; nevertheless, I am not sure that some one more ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... of public research enlighten the public on the proceedings at the Mint? The whole system is as little comprehensible by the uninitiated as the philosopher's stone. The cost of the Mint is prodigious—the machinery is all that machinery can be; yet we have one of the ugliest coinages of any nation of Europe. A new issue of coin is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... distinguish sounds as other men distinguish colours. His companions are crotchets and quavers. Time will never be a match for him, for he beats him most unmercifully. He runs after an Italian air open-mouthed, with as much eagerness as some fools have sought the philosopher's stone. He can bring a tune over the seas, and thinks it more excellent because far-fetched. His most admired domestics are Soprano, Siciliano, Andantino, and all the Anos and Inos that constitute the musical science. He can scrape, ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... were too tame for him. He has gone to some far-remote wilds in the East,—some say in search of the Philosopher's Stone; for he actually maintained in his house a Sicilian adventurer, who, when at work on that famous discovery, was stifled by the fumes of his own crucible. After that misfortune, Margrave took Paris in disgust, ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... I have heard from those who have crossed the Himalaya from China, that it rises in that country on the other side of the mountains, and, forcing its way through them, arrives at Bighamber. They say that gold is found there in large quantities, and the reason they assign is this—the philosopher's stone is found in that country, and whatever touches it becomes gold, but the stone itself can never be found!" Near Muttra he encountered the splendid cortege of Lord Auckland, then returning to Calcutta after his famous interview with Runjeet Singh ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... was to chemistry that he chiefly turned his attention. His library comprised the works of almost every known writer on the subject, and he hoped that he might gain an immortal reputation by discovering one or both of the great secrets then sought for—the elixir of life, or the philosopher's stone that would convert all things into gold. It was not that he himself had any desire for a long life, still less did he yearn for more wealth than he possessed, but he fondly believed that these discoveries would ameliorate ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... through an air-hole, Archdeacon Claude excavating, turning over, digging up the earth in the two cellars, whose supports had been daubed with numberless couplets and hieroglyphics by Nicolas Flamel himself. It was supposed that Flamel had buried the philosopher's stone in the cellar; and the alchemists, for the space of two centuries, from Magistri to Father Pacifique, never ceased to worry the soil until the house, so cruelly ransacked and turned over, ended by falling into dust ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... extravagancy is not man capable of entertaining, when once his shackled reason is led in triumph by fancy and prejudice! The ancient alchemists give very much into this stuff, by which they thought they should discover the philosopher's stone; and some of the most celebrated empirics employed it in the pursuit of the universal medicine. Paracelsus, a bold empiric and wild Caballist, asserted that he had discovered it, and called it his 'Alkahest'. Why or wherefore, God knows; only that those madmen ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... Holy Land; another age went mad for fear of the devil, and offered up hundreds of thousands of victims to the delusion of witchcraft. At another time, the many became crazed on the subject of the philosopher's stone, and committed follies till then unheard of in the pursuit. It was once thought a venial offence, in very many countries of Europe, to destroy an enemy by slow poison. Persons who would have revolted at the idea of stabbing a man to the heart, drugged ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... circumstances had then, for a time, separated them widely. Steele had left college without taking a degree, had been disinherited by a rich relation, had led a vagrant life, had served in the army, had tried to find the philosopher's stone, and had written a religious treatise and several comedies. He was one of those people whom it is impossible either to hate or to respect. His temper was sweet, his affections warm, his spirits lively, his passions strong, and ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... like many other alchemists of that period, had spent years in search of the philosopher's stone and the elixir of life. His vain experiments to transmute the baser metals into gold reduced him to poverty and want. His quest after these secrets had led him to study deeply the nature and composition of ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... or affection. Voluptuous precaution; and as ineffectual as absurd. Love, from its very nature, must be transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant, would be as wild a search as for the philosopher's stone, or the grand panacea; and the discovery would be equally useless, or rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is friendship. It has been well said, by a shrewd satirist, "that rare as true love is, true friendship is ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... only adults, but even children, and the individual "suggestions," startling in their senselessness, such as faith in witches, in the utility of torture for the discovery of the truth, the search for the elixir of life, the philosopher's stone, or the passion for tulips valued at several thousand guldens a bulb which took hold of Holland. Such irrational "suggestions" always have been existing, and still exist, in all spheres of human life—religious, philosophical, political, economical, scientific, ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... procured, be most profitably employed in building spare comb, to be used in strengthening feeble stocks, and for a great variety of purposes. Give me the means of cheaply obtaining large amounts of comb, and I have almost found the philosopher's stone in ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... than the text. "Lucas," the circle-squarer, who explains how, when he was in a room with a lady and her two daughters, he perceived that "this was all that was necessary for him to attain the cubation of two pyramids," is very choice. "Cambriel"—who not only attained the philosopher's stone and the universal medicine, but ascertained that God is six feet six high, of flame-coloured complexion, and with particularly perfect ankles—runs him hard. And so does Rose Marius Sardat, who sent a copy of his Loi d'Union, a large and nicely ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... there isn't anything wonderful about it. You talk as if you were doing something special. You aren't. You're no more than a man who drops into a pub for a drink, to liven himself up a bit. Only you give it a lot of names, and make out as if you were looking for the philosopher's stone, or something like that. When you're only killing time like the rest of folks, before time ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... definite purpose before him to be accomplished in life. It is true it was not a very lofty or a very noble purpose, merely to be rich; but he had been obliged to do his own philosophizing. He had not yet discovered the true philosopher's stone. He had concluded, like the alchemists of old, that it was the art of turning anything into gold. The paupers, in their poverty, had talked most and prayed most for that which they had not. Wealth was to them the ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... the help of this and other circumstances, makes me have little belief in such things as many men talk of. Not but that I think that fishes both smell and hear, as I have express in my former discourse: but there is a mysterious knack, which though it be much easier than the philosopher's stone, yet is not attainable by common capacities, or else lies locked up in the brain or breast of some chemical man, that, like the Rosicrucians, will not yet reveal it. But let me nevertheless tell you, that camphire, ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... the common practices of the scholars who studied astrology and other sciences in the Middle Ages was the search for the philosopher's stone, which they believed had the power of giving eternal youth. They would melt metals in pots for this purpose. These pots were called by the Old Latin name of test. From this word we now have the modern word ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... He travels into Europe, Africa, Asia, searcheth every creek, sea, city, mountain, gulf, to what end? See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all. An alchemist spends his fortunes to find out the philosopher's stone forsooth, cure all diseases, make men long-lived, victorious, fortunate, invisible, and beggars himself, misled by those seducing impostors (which he shall never attain) to make gold; an antiquary consumes his treasure and ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... make his studies at Ingolstadt, and acquire there the honors of a Doctor of Medicine. Both these statements may be true, as also that he was for some time the companion and pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, of Nettesheim, the celebrated scholar, whose learning and mysterious researches after the philosopher's stone brought him, like many other wise men of the age, into suspicion of witchcraft. Agrippa had a pet dog, black, like the mystical companion of Dr. Faustus, and, in the eyes of a superstitious multitude, like him, the representative of the Evil One. Black dogs seem to have been everywhere considered ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... selection, of order, and with a view to the succession of the seasons. You all bemoan the dulness of life; you, in Paris, the torpor of ennui stifles you, you cry. On the contrary, I would wish the days were weeks, and the weeks months. And why? Simply because I have discovered the philosopher's stone. I have grasped the secret of my era. The comedy of rank is played out; the life of the trifler is at an end; all that went out with the Bourbons. Individualism is the new order. To-day a man exists simply by virtue ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... insanity; and as there are plenty who wish to learn the secret, there is no want of professors." This seems to be the only species of alchemy to which the Jesuits have said the Chinese are addicted. The preparation of the liquor of life is their philosopher's stone; and, in all probability, is composed of opium and other drugs which, by encreasing the stimulus, gives a momentary exhilaration to the spirits; and the succeeding languor requiring another and another draught ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... no knowledge of him but that, after his parents' death, he had ceased to ply the apothecary's trade, and had given himself up to the study of Alchemy. If folks spoke truth he had already discovered the philosopher's stone, or was nigh to doing so: but notwithstanding that many learned men, and among them the Magister had assured me, that such a thing was by no means beyond the skill of man, Lorenz Abenberger for certain had not attained his ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... theoretical riddles, this one rested on a very simple piece of ignorance. The trouble was that without realizing it I too had been in search of the philosopher's stone. I too was looking for something that could not be found. That happened in this case to be nothing less than an absolutely true philosophy of politics. It was the old indolence of hoping that somebody ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... Mountjoy was of the ancient nobility, but utterly decayed in the support thereof, patrimony, through his grandfather's excess, his father's vanity in search of the philosopher's stone, and his brother's untimely prodigality; all of which seemed, by a joint conspiracy, to ruinate the house, and altogether to annihilate it; as he came from Oxford, he took the Inner Temple in the way to court, whither ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... study of biology, and all that sort of thing," said he; "and, although a good deal of a skeptic, and inclined to follow Huxley, I can't bring myself to conceive of life without organism. Such theorizing is, to my mind, on a par with the illogical search for the philosopher's stone and a perpetual motor." ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... work, and when his debts accumulated in greater proportion even than his receipts, in place of having recourse, like Rubens, to his painting-room, Van Dyck tried a shorter road to get rich, by following the idle example of Sir Kenelm Digby in his pursuit of alchemy and the philosopher's stone. ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... as in the East, there were still men who believed in the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life. By means of the still undiscovered Stone they hoped to change base metals into gold, while the equally undiscovered Elixir was to prolong life indefinitely, and ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... nobleman was known to dabble in magic, and there were one or two dark passages in his past life of which more than a whisper had gone abroad. Of being a student of alchemy, a "philosopher"—that is to say, a seeker after the philosopher's stone, which was to effect the transmutation of metals—he made no secret. But if you taxed him with demoniacal practices he would deny it, yet in a way ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... of reason." Reason from the Stanleys—reason from the Goulburns—reason from the Aberdeens! When the Marquis of Londonderry shall have discovered the longitude, and Colonel Sibthorp have found out the philosopher's stone, we may then begin to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... romance, and day-dreaming, and at eleven absorbed his master's Rosicrucian theories of spiritual existence where spirits held converse with each other and with mankind. A mystic Platonism, which taught that Pindar's story of the Argo was only a recipe for the philosopher's stone, fascinated him at fourteen. The philosophy of obedience and of the subjection of reason to authority was early taught him, and he sought to live from within, hearing only the divine law, as the worshipers of Cybele heard only the flutes. His twin ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... into the whole nation and silence the criticism of all possible opponents. Copies of his little book came to Moscow. Lenin read it and caused excruciating jealousy in the minds of several other Communists, who had also been trying to find the philosopher's stone that should turn discouragement into hope, by singling out Gusev for his special praise and insisting that his plans should be fully discussed at the Supreme Council in the Kremlin. Trotsky followed Lenin's lead, and in the end a general ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... therefore, which is to exist at all must be a death-disliking race, for it is only at the cost of death that we can rid ourselves of all aversion to the idea of dying, so that the hunt after a philosophy which shall strip death of his terrors is like trying to find the philosopher's stone which cannot be found and which, if found, would defeat its ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... crowded scenes of the day, we seemed surrounded by the very silence and repose, the majesty of Death. Everyone had retired to rest; the curfew had long tolled, and the fires were nearly all out. Only here and there a lighted lattice spoke of a late watcher, who perhaps was searching for the philosopher's stone or the elixir of life, wherewith to turn the grey hairs of age to the flowing locks of youth—the feeble gait of one stricken in years to the vigour and comeliness of manhood. Vain wish! and needless; for why will they not look at life in its truer aspect, ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... home of fern and burned stone; but in fine all go one way—that is, to shards at the last, so that our great expenses in glasses (beside that they breed much strife toward such as have the charge of them) are worst of all bestowed in mine opinion, because their pieces do turn unto no profit. If the philosopher's stone were once found, and one part hereof mixed with forty of molten glass, it would induce such a metallical toughness thereunto that a fall should nothing hurt it in such manner; yet it might peradventure bunch ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... does indeed produce, in some measure, all those effects which the alchymist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone; and if it does not bring riches, it does the same thing, by banishing the desire of them. If it cannot remove the disquietudes arising out of a man's mind, body or fortune, it makes him easy under them. It has indeed a kindly influence on the soul of man, in respect of every thing to ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... as a paradox, beats quadrature, duplication, trisection, philosopher's stone, perpetual motion, magic, astrology, mesmerism, clairvoyance, spiritualism, homoeopathy, hydropathy, kinesipathy, Essays and Reviews, and Bishop Colenso,[333] all put together. Of all the suppositions ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... some time; when one day he found the barber's son alone in the shop, and was informed that his father had gone to divert himself with viewing some experiments which the sultan was making of the mixture of various metals, being an adept in chemistry, and eager in search of the philosopher's stone. The dervish now invited the young man to accompany him to the spot where the experiments were making, and on their arrival they saw a vast furnace, into which the sultan and his attendants cast pieces of metal of various sorts. The dervish having taken a lump of ore ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... he had found the philosopher's stone, and knew the secret he had come into the wilds ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... Don Juan I am all my race! Snarer of hearts, astrologer of eyes; I'll have herbaria full of blighted names, And the philosopher's stone I ...
— L'Aiglon • Edmond Rostand
... jeopardy was this; when the repast was ended, one of the gentlemen coolly requested him to waive all delicacy, and point out the place in which the captain's money was concealed. He might as well have asked him to produce the philosopher's stone. However, pleading the truth was of no use; his determined requisitor seconded the demand by snapping a pistol at his breast; having missed fire, he recocked, and again presented; but the fatal weapon was struck aside by Barbazan, who reproved ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... pacific, and mercantile people, interchanging products with all the trading nations of the world, and conferring and reaping those blessings which follow in the train of just and honorable trade wheresoever its enterprising spirit leads in the pursuit of honest gain. As the vain search for the philosopher's stone conducted to many a useful and valuable discovery, so may we be assured that the real seeking for gold through the profitable medium of commerce has been, is, and will be the grand source of filling the earth ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... rather to solve than to deny. While we hear, every day, the small pretenders to science talk of the absurdities of alchemy and the dream of the Philosopher's Stone, a more erudite knowledge is aware that by alchemists the greatest discoveries in science have been made, and much which still seems abstruse, had we the key to the mystic phraseology they were compelled to adopt, might open the way to yet more noble acquisitions. The Philosopher's ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Certainly a chemist of our day would be thought very unwise who should undertake a series of researches with the object of discovering a mineral having such qualities as the alchemists attributed to the philosopher's stone. But when as yet the facts on which the science of chemistry is based were unknown, there was nothing unreasonable in supposing that such a mineral might exist, or the means of compounding it be discovered. Nay, many arguments from analogy might be urged to show that the supposition was altogether ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... who knew to his cost what Athalie really was—the only hinderance to Timea's happiness, the finder of the philosopher's stone which exercises everywhere a malevolent spell—that one man finds his death by a single false step ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... moment to flit about it—shadows that could be thrown by no tangible form, yet that had a grotesque likeness to the human kind. A clink of hammers and a hiss of steam were sometimes heard, and his neighbors devoutly hoped that if he secured the secret of the philosopher's stone or the universal solvent, it would be honestly ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... historical books as 'The Last Days of Pompeii' are not only well constructed dramatically, but are painfully accurate in details, and may still be read for information as well as for pleasure. The 'Zanoni' species is undeniably interesting. The weird traditions of the 'Philosopher's Stone' and the 'Elixir of Life' can never cease to fascinate human souls, and all the paraphernalia of magic are charming to minds weary of the matter-of-factitude of current existence. The stories are put together with Bulwer's unfailing cleverness, and in all external respects ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... man who, by abstraction of all sensuous influences, and by child-like submission to the will of God, has made himself a partaker of the heavenly intelligence, becomes thereby possessed of the philosopher's stone. He is never at a loss. All creatures on earth and powers in heaven are submissive to him; he can cure all diseases, and can himself live as long as he chooses, for he holds the elixir of life, which Adam and the early fathers employed before the Flood, and by which ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... into the order, to a strict observance of certain established rules. They pretended chiefly to devote themselves to medicine, but above all that, to be masters of important secrets, and among others, that of the philosopher's stone; all which they affirmed to have received by tradition from the ancient Egyptians, {92} Chaldeans, the Magi, and the Gymnosophists. By their pretences that they could restore youth, they received the name of Immortelles. Their pretension ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... doggedly self-approving the lad looks! I thought he was fit to die with shame, and there he sits grinning smiles, as good as to say, 'Let the world wag as it will, I've the philosopher's stone in my waist-coat pocket, and the elixir of life in my cupboard; I'm independent of ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... the treasury, which were destined for this war. His alliances were already assured, his generals had been formed by himself, and all seemed to forebode such a storm as must probably have overwhelmed an emperor devoted to the search after the philosopher's stone, and a king of Spain under the dominion of the Inquisition. Henry was impatient to join his army; but his mind had become harassed with sinister forebodings, and his chagrin was increased by a temporary alienation ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... by which these things are done? What makes the well-told story seem real, rich with life, actual, engrossing? It is the secret of genius, of the novelist's art, and the writer who cannot practise the art might as well try to discover the Philosopher's Stone, or to "harp fish out of the water." However, let me tell the legend as simply as may be, and as ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... Wednesday after the Monday on which the chance had happened,) he went to the King, and told him he had tried the House of Commons, and found it would not do!(1167) Bounce! went all the project into shivers, like the vessels in Ben Jonson's Alchymist, when they are on the brink of the philosopher's stone. The poor King, who, from being fatigued with the Duke of Newcastle, and sick of Pelham's timidity and compromises, had given in to this mad hurly-burly of alterations, was confounded with having floundered to no purpose, and to find himself more than ever in the power of men he ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... how to spend less than you get," said Franklin, "you have the philosopher's stone." The great trouble with many young people is that they do not acquire the saving habit at the start, and never find the "philosopher's stone." They don't learn to spend less than they get. If they learned that lesson in time, they would have little difficulty in making themselves ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... been on the verge of bringing off. Fred, immaculately clad, and with irreproachable references, had approached Greenfields, the Bond Street jewellers, with a formula for manufacturing gold. He had discovered the philosopher's stone. "Of course, I don't want you to go into this until I've proved that it can actually be done," he said airily. "See there. I made that handful of gold-dust myself. You test it, and see that it's all right. Now, I'll sell you the secret of making that for ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... to Lady Kenmure. All around her God had been dealing all that day with Lady Boyd's neighbours as well as with her, only they had not observed it. But she had not only an eye to see but a mind and a heart to observe also. She had a heart that, like the fabled Philosopher's Stone, turned all it touched and all that touched it immediately to fine gold. Riding home late one night from a hunting supper-party, young Lord Boyd saw his mother's candle still burning, and he made bold to knock at her door to ask why she was not asleep. Without saying a word, she took her son by ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... sexual activity, as well as with tissue and spiritual elasticity, has been one of the haunting phantoms of the imagination for as long as we have records of articulate humanity. Together with El Dorado, the Elixir of Youth has shared the honors with the Philosopher's Stone. The idea of employing the chemical materials of the sex glands, the testes or the ovaries, to bring back youth, to restore juvenility, had not, as far as we know, occurred to anyone who at any rate put himself on record, by word or deed, until 1889. The hero of the new departure was ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... smallest particle of ambition, and have no desire to be either famous or mighty, or to make triumphal progresses. If I could really do anything for you, believe me, I would do it gladly. But I assure you I possess neither the philosopher's stone, nor a prescription for a universal panacea. I do not believe either that the remedies they recommend so highly to you are very effectual, so I am much obliged to you for your confidence in me, and beg you to leave me in ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... others, that could discover truly the way of milk coming into the breasts of a woman; and he that could invent proper characters to express to another the mixture of relishes and tastes. And says, that to him that invents gold, he gives nothing for the philosopher's stone; for (says he) they that find out that, will be able to pay themselves. But, says he, by this means it is better than to go to a lecture; for here my executors, that must part with this, will be sure to be well convinced of the invention before they do part with their money. ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... Leo X, the great despiser of gold, his didactic poem on the making of the metal, is said to have received in return a beautiful but empty purse. The mystic science which besides gold sought for the omnipotent philosopher's stone, is a late northern growth, which had its rise in the theories ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... and it is of the new he proposed speaking. From the new Council great things are expected, and of the men who have been selected a good deal might be hoped. We all wanted progress. We talked of progress; but progress, like the philosopher's stone, could not be easily attained. He hoped and believed the gentlemen who had been elected would do their best to try to push the colony along. He trusted the gentlemen going into Council would not, like ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... Mr. Edmond Cowper, Francys Garland, and his man Rowley. Aug. 13th, Mr. Thomas Sowthwell ryd to Prag ward from Trebon. He told us of the philosopher (his scholemaster to write) whose name was Mr. Swyft, who gave him a lump of the philosopher's stone so big as his fist: a Jesuit named Mr. Stale had it of him. Aug. 14th, Mr. Sowthwell cam againe. Aug. 24th, vidi divinam aquam demonstratione magnifici domini et amici mei incomparabilis D. Ed. Kelei ante meridiem tertia hora. Aug. 27th, John Basset (so namyng ...
— The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee - And the Catalog of His Library of Manuscripts • John Dee
... came back to the thought of Principle. Confucius had said that heaven was principle. And heaven is harmony. But had evil any principle? Mankind are accustomed to speak lightly and knowingly of their "principles." But in their search for the Philosopher's Stone they have overlooked the Principle which the Master used to effect his mighty works—"that Mind which was in Christ Jesus." The Principle of Jesus was God. And, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... over the details of Von Kempelen's confession (as far as it went) and release, for these are familiar to the public. That he has actually realized, in spirit and in effect, if not to the letter, the old chimaera of the philosopher's stone, no sane person is at liberty to doubt. The opinions of Arago are, of course, entitled to the greatest consideration; but he is by no means infallible; and what he says of bismuth, in his report to the Academy, must be taken cum grano salis. The simple truth is, that up ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... vortices (or vortexes) of Descartes. Still I have a due care of the needful, and keep a look out ahead, as my notions upon the score of moneys coincide with yours, and with all men's who have lived to see that every guinea is a philosopher's stone, or at least his touch-stone. You will doubt me the less, when I pronounce my firm belief, that Cash ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... and they remained to drink—which is a habit in the mountain-desert. A travelling drummer or a patent medicine man had offered Pale Annie a handsome stake to simply go about with him and lend the sanction of his face to the talk of the drummer, but Pale Annie had discovered a veritable philosopher's stone in Elkhead and he was ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... affection, he rushed to the physicians and demanded their aid. They replied they could give none. He determined to find a cure, if he had to seek in all parts of the earth. He visited the learned doctors of Africa and Asia, and learned many wonderful things—even, it was said, the composition of the philosopher's stone itself; but what he did not find, and what has never yet been found, was what he went forth to seek—a ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... the Arab, and the Turk have passed through its walls; yet it still exists and still flourishes; is full of life, wealth, and enjoyment. Here is a city that has quaffed the magical elixir and secured the philosopher's stone, that is always young and always rich. As yet, the disciples of progress have not been able exactly to match this instance of Damascus, but it is said that they have great faith in the ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... speedily making a fortune. He could not build up the coveted temple stone by stone, but wished it to rise like a fairy castle. With such views, he had wandered about the country with his wife (whom he had married since his arrival), in search of the philosopher's stone. He had several times engaged in subordinate capacities, but his impatient hopes would not brook the distance between him and the goal. He had been to New Orleans, but the city was almost deserted. On his arrival at Vicksburg, Jaspar had been pointed out to him as a person who could probably ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton
... moralists are PRACTICALLY agreed: neminem laede, immo omnes quantum potes juva—is REALLY the proposition which all moral teachers strive to establish, ... the REAL basis of ethics which has been sought, like the philosopher's stone, for centuries."—The difficulty of establishing the proposition referred to may indeed be great—it is well known that Schopenhauer also was unsuccessful in his efforts; and whoever has thoroughly realized how absurdly false and sentimental this ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... of Commons, were both due to the borough of Stafford. It is, in fact, a stepping-stone to the House of Commons, always ready for the highest bidder and promiser, but whoever would sit for Stafford for a series of Parliaments, would need the use of the Philosopher's Stone. The independent electors would exhaust California if ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... analysis of substances which has in modern times developed into chemistry, and which aimed chiefly at the discovery of the philosopher's stone, of a universal solvent, and of the elixir of life; it has been defined to be "an art without art, which has its beginning in falsehood, its middle in toil, and its end ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... was once leavened with it. Alchemy, astrology, and magic were a fashionable cult, and so long as its professors pleased their patrons, proclaimed "smooth things and prophesied deceits," all went well with them; but it is an easy thing to offend fickle-minded folk, and when the philosopher's stone and the secret of perpetual youth after much research were not producible, the cry of "impostor" was readily raised, and the trade of magic had its uncertainties, as ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... you if it be, Mr. Gilbert? If you could find a philosopher's stone to turn sinners into saints, now—but naught save God's grace can do that; and that last seems ofttimes over long in coming." And ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... these poor people are content. If they are, they possess a virtue which produces, in some measure at all events, all those effects which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's stone; and if their content does not bring riches, it banishes the desire for them. Years ago the people could entertain some small hope of prosperity now and again. If the opium crop were good, money was plentiful. But now no opium ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... art of converting metals into gold, including the search after the "Philosopher's Stone," by which this change was to be effected; and the discovery of a panacea or medicine for the cure ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... most curious things revealed to us in these volumes is the fact that John Winthrop, Jr., was seeking the philosopher's stone, that universal elixir which could transmute all things to its own substance. This is plain from the correspondence of Edward Howes. Howes goes to a certain doctor, professedly to consult him about the method of making ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... 1930; and the war has been a stern intimation that the matter is not one to be trifled with. I abandon the legend of Don Juan with its erotic associations, and go back to the legend of the Garden of Eden. I exploit the eternal interest of the philosopher's stone which enables men to live for ever. I am not, I hope, under more illusion than is humanly inevitable as to the crudity of this my beginning of a Bible for Creative Evolution. I am doing the best I can at ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... intercept and plunder. The marvels which were constantly being revealed as actual facts seemed no less wonderful than the extravagances of medieval romance; and it was scarcely more than a matter of course that men should search in the new strange lands for the fountain of perpetual youth and the philosopher's stone. The supernatural beings and events of Spenser's 'Faerie Queene' could scarcely seem incredible to an age where incredulity was almost unknown because it was impossible to set a bound how far any one might ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... been commensurate with that of other districts in Scotland, owing to the severe, and in our view mischievous, commercial enactment which supplanted the native manufacture of kelp, by the substitution of foreign barilla; but if the branches are removed, no discovery short of the philosopher's stone will establish the metallic currency there. Do our legislators seriously mean to compel the population of about one-fourth of Scotland, comprehending the whole western and northern divisions, to accept the fish-curer's notes, instead of those of a joint-stock bank, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... declaring himself the Messiah and King of Europe in the year of grace 1591, and getting himself believed by some, so long as he remained unhanged; or, more pathetic still, many weary lives wasted day by day in fruitless silent search after the impossible philosopher's stone, or elixir of life. As in law, so in science, there were no sufficient rules of evidence clearly and unmistakably laid down for the guidance of the investigator; and consequently it was only necessary to broach a novel theory in order to have it accepted, without ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... irrelevant book, picture, acquaintance, or activity—ah me! you may well say it is an ideal. Yes, it is what men have meant by El Dorado, The Promised Land, and all such shy haunts of the Beatific Vision. Probably the quest of the Philosopher's Stone is not more wild. Yet men still seek that precious substitute for Midas. Brave spirits! Unconquerable idealists! Salt ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... fiery glance upon the canvas. "Throw off the Isis veil which thou didst put over thy head when the profane approached thee. What art thou folding thy dark robe so carefully over thy breast for? I want to see thy heart; that is the philosopher's stone through which the mystery is revealed. Art thou not I? Why dost thou put on such a bold and mighty air before me? Wilt thou contend with thy master? Thinkest thou that the ruby, thy heart, which sparkles so, can crush my breast? Up then—step forward—come here! ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... is an excellent idea; John Randolph called it the philosopher's stone," added Squire Lee, as he returned the note to his ...
— Now or Never - The Adventures of Bobby Bright • Oliver Optic
... employments, have found the philosopher's stone; since, by making the Iliad pass through your poetical crucible into an English form, without losing aught of it's original beauty, you have drawn the golden current of Pactolus to Twickenham. I call this finding the philosopher's stone, since you alone found out the secret, and nobody else has got into it. A——n and T——l tried it, but their experiments failed; and they lost, if not their money, at least a certain portion of their fame in the trial—while you touched the mantle of the ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... out of my road, but I thought a modern alchemist worthy of a visit, particularly as several inhabitants of Luton gravely assured me, that he had succeeded in discovering the Philosopher's Stone, and also the Universal Solvent. The reports about him would have rendered it culpable not to have hazarded anything for a personal interview. I learnt that he had been a man of fashion, and at one time largely concerned ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 342, November 22, 1828 • Various
... Men, possess'd with Notions of the strange Advancement of Learning and Sciences, on foot in this Age, and the Progress they are like to make in the next; as, the Universal Medicine, which will certainly cure all that have it; the Philosopher's Stone, which will be found out by Men that care not for Riches: the transfusion of young Blood into old Men's Veins, which will make them as gamesome as the Lambs, from which 'tis to be derived; an Universal Language, which may serve all ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... found what he sought in the Biblical text: "In the beginning the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." Similarly, the author of The Sodic Hydrolith clenches his argument in favour of the existence of the Philosopher's Stone, by the quotation: "Therefore, thus saith the Lord; behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a Stone, a tried Stone, a precious corner Stone, a sure foundation. He that has it shall not be confounded." This author works out in detail an analogy between ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... neighbours she had attempted to hoodwink. They asked her if she meant to see herself and her children ruined, adding that her husband was spending a fortune on scientific instruments, machinery, books, and materials in a search for the Philosopher's Stone. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... in the omnipotence of church plunder has induced these philosophers to overlook all care of the public estate, just as the dream of the philosopher's stone induces dupes, under the more plausible delusion of the hermetic art, to neglect all rational means of improving their fortunes. With these philosophic financiers, this universal medicine made of church mummy ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... chimeras thou art the most chimerical! I would rather seek dry figs on the bottom of the sea and fresh ones on this heath,—I would rather seek liberty, or truth itself, or the philosopher's stone, than to run after thee, most deceitful of lights, will-o'-the-wisp of ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various |
