Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.

fright, while a tremor permeated his being, and he cried aloud, " This is reality! I fear bats and detest owls." " Yet these animated natural forms are no more dis- tinct than the other visible shapes plainly hovering around in the air," observed Athothis. " They are equally apparent," whispered Paulus An- drocydes, with timidity; " but I still doubt my vision, though I shudder with horror." " Courage!" said Athothis, cheeringly, at the same time uttering a low, musical laugh that sounded like the aeolian murmur of an evening zephyr. " Ah! this must be the abiding place of a medium, for look at the swarms of sprites and goblins climbing through the window cracks and key-holes." " 'T is the home of the healing medium, Professor Diabolus," replied Paulus Androcydes ; " and he is said to work wonders with the sick." u He hath an appropriate name," quoth Athothis; " and 't is easy to cure diseases dependent on a vivid imagination, when the patient hath implicit confidence in the power of the medium." The two spirits now hov- ered over a large cut-stone residence, on the outskirts of the Park. This building, surmounted by a steep slate roof, faced to the southwest, and commanded a magnifi- cent twilight view of the misty hills, at whose base flowed a mysterious river. "Let us enter!" continued the Egyptian ; " for now I shall witness a seance by your much-vaunted modern magi, who can not do their work in the full sunlight like the necromancers of my day, but are yet quite clever in their manifestations. After all, such exhibitions of trickery and supernatural power combined are best carried on under cover of Set, who is the true patron of the art. Under the first dynasty