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"
'Another of these magicians, by means of a fluid that nobody ever yet
saw, could make the corpses of his friends brandish their arms, kick out
their legs, fight, or even get up and dance at his will. (*28) Another
had cultivated his voice to so great an extent that he could have made
himself heard from one end of the world to the other. (*29) Another had
so long an arm that he could sit down in Damascus and indite a letter
at Bagdad--or indeed at any distance whatsoever. (*30) Another commanded
the lightning to come down to him out of the heavens, and it came at his
call; and served him for a plaything when it came. Another took two
loud sounds and out of them made a silence. Another constructed a
deep darkness out of two brilliant lights. (*31) Another made ice in a
red-hot furnace. (*32) Another directed the sun to paint his portrait,
and the sun did. (*33) Another took this luminary with the moon and the
planets, and having first weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed
into their depths and found out the solidity of the substance of which
they were made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so surprising a
necromantic ability, that not even their infants, nor their commonest
cats and dogs have any difficulty in seeing objects that do not exist at
all, or that for twenty millions of years before the birth of the nation
itself had been blotted out from the face of creation."' (*34)
Analogous experiments in respect to sound produce analogous results.
"Preposterous!" said the king.
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