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THE LABYRINTH OF THE WORLD
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less, some of those who were more forward could not refrain from opening them, and finding them quite empty, showed this to the others; these then also opened theirs, but no one found anything. They then cried "Fraud! fraud!" and spoke furiously to him who sold the wares; but he calmed them, saying that these were the most secret of secret things, and that they were invisible to all but "filiis scientiæ" (that is, the sons of science); therefore if but one out of a thousand obtained anything, this was no fault of his.

(Eventus Famæ.)

5. And they mostly allowed themselves to be appeased by this. Meanwhile, the man took himself off, and the spectators, in very different humours, dispersed in divers directions; whether some of them ascertained something concerning these mysteries or not, I have hitherto been unable to learn. This only I know, that everything, as it were, became quiet. Those whom I had at first most seen running and rushing about, these I afterwards beheld sitting in corners with locked mouths, as it appeared; either they had been admitted to the mysteries (as some believed of them), and were obliged to carry out their oath of silence, or (as it seemed to me, looking without any spectacles), they were ashamed of their hopes and of their uselessly expended labour. Then all this dispersed and became quiet, as after a storm the clouds disperse without rain. And I said to my guide: "Is nothing, then, to come