A substance that passes through the fire (that is to say, the line) becomes metaphorical. As most of the Sulphur turns metaphorical, the incombustible Mercury remains (often still garmented with combustible Sulphur) as a liquid Salt or a celestial Salt, or both. The Salt in the ashes is its fixed counterpart. It may be inferred from an entire reading of Percy Bysshe Shelley's A Defence of Poetry that what is commonly referred to as "Spirit of Philosophical Wine"(the delineable metaphor), and also as the "Secret Fire" (the readable metaphor), and also still the "Alkahest" (the destructive, or the audible metaphor) will, by itself or containing the tinctures or Salts of various subjects, when burned, produce this type of volatile Mercurial Salt as an exalted fixed remainder. The volatile is for a health of an entire reading, the fixed is for transmutation of metals.
You, reader, can go about crying in your nakedness for the burning through the line, but the burning through the line is done after the vestal stage of an entire reading, which does not occur before the mortification of the atramentous stage, which is not enjoyed by jumping up and down. Beware the eating of the burning through the line, for where will its Sibylline clouds lead you? Only back to lead; beware, reader; you will poison yourself beyond repair.
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