On the Secrets of the Adepts

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...terms original: "-rum," likely completing "terminorum" (of the terms) from the previous page., and it is the Spirit of Wine, not the common kind, but the Philosophical, which, once known and possessed, will reveal to its owner the greatest philosophical, medical, alchemical, and magical mysteries of the more secret Chemistry. In none of the books of the Adepts Adepts: Alchemists who were believed to have attained the ultimate secrets of the "Great Work," such as the creation of the Philosopher's Stone. known to me so far have I found anything rare that does not owe its origin and essence to this Spirit; indeed, I would even dare to assert that whatever chemical Spirits—whether "lower" or "higher," fixed or volatile—can accomplish, this same Spirit of ours will accomplish as well.

This was the reason why I devoted all my effort and "burned the midnight oil," original: "operam & oleum." A classical idiom for intensive study and labor. leaving no stone unturned for the sake of acquiring or attaining this Spirit of Wine. While I turned over and over in my mind those abstruse, varied, and masked terms with which the authors clouded this substance—treating it as the key to all Philosophy—behold, the fame of your great name reached me in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania—