The liquid was black and undulated with waves of carmine and gold, or white and granulated with dots of ink, which sometimes took the shape of a frog or a star.

Sometimes the liquid was milky and troubled, sometimes flames rose from it as if there were a film of alcohol over the surface.
Eliphas Levi explained the symbolism of these bottled volatiles as fully as he cared to, but abstained from giving the famous recipe for the grand magisterium.

He was keeping up the pleasantry of his other books, in which, beginning with an air of solemnity, he affirmed his intention of unveiling the old arcana, and, when the time came to fulfil his promise, begged the question, alleging the excuse that he would perish if he betrayed such burning secrets.

The same excuse, which had done duty through the ages, served in masking the perfect ignorance of the cheap occultists of the present day.
"As a matter of fact, the 'great work' is simple," said Durtal to himself, folding up the manuscript of Nicolas Flamel.

"The hermetic philosophers discovered--and modern science, after long evading the issue, no longer denies--that the metals are compounds, and that their components are identical.