Page:The Great Secret.djvu/88

72 He was a scientific fiend, if we dare to compare the playful and turbulent companions and followers of the orthodox devil with such humans as Dr Fernandez, who, to discover a single scientific secret, would coldly mutilate half humanity.

The Miltonic devil is such a capricious and impulsive character compared with the embodied devils of to-day, that they, the older fiends, must surely stand like abashed schoolboys before their master, or else slink back to hell abashed. The new humour is much too complete and sardonic for such an absolute novice as poor old Mephistopheles. The old hell can only be regarded as a commonplace skittle-alley to these gentlemen. The brimstone is not strong enough for their refined palates. They quaff a more potent mixture, and play euchre or poker in a hotter place than would have satisfied dear old Faust.

Dr Fernandez was not impetuous like Dr Faustus. He had youth enough to satisfy him. No Marguerite could have tempted him, however alluring or fresh she might have been. He did not care for the petty vices of drinking, eating or ostentation, and diabolical murder hardly moved his blood, unless there was something peculiarly atrocious, original and refined about it. He was a mild-voiced, gentle epicure, who seldom lost his temper, yet withal a laborious and patient investigator, and a great, as well as earnest, inventor in his own peculiar line.

A bomb or infernal machine bursting a second of time before his calculations, even although it did its duty, caused him exquisite pain and humiliation, so finely strung was his nature and so engrossed was he in his peculiar science. While his companions extolled him upon what they considered a complete success, he