| 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 |
| 1 | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 |
|
with a black matter like pitch, and fingers that it employed with such
incredible speed and dexterity that it would have had no trouble in
writing out twenty thousand copies of the Koran in an hour, and this
with so exquisite a precision, that in all the copies there should not
be found one to vary from another by the breadth of the finest hair.
This thing was of prodigious strength, so that it erected or overthrew
the mightiest empires at a breath; but its powers were exercised equally
for evil and for good.'"
"
"
Ridiculous!" said the king.
'Among this nation of necromancers there was also one who had in his
veins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple of sitting
down to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his dinner was
thoroughly roasted upon its floor. (*24) Another had the faculty of
converting the common metals into gold, without even looking at them
during the process. (*25) Another had such a delicacy of touch that he
made a wire so fine as to be invisible. (*26) Another had such quickness
of perception that he counted all the separate motions of an elastic
body, while it was springing backward and forward at the rate of nine
hundred millions of times in a second.'" (*27)
"Absurd!" said the king.
5
6
Page
Quick Jump
|