CHAPTER 3.V.
Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still.
Shakespeare.
Venerable Brotherhood, so sacred and so little known, from whose
secret and precious archives the materials for this history have
been drawn; ye who have retained, from century to century, all
that time has spared of the august and venerable science,--thanks
to you, if now, for the first time, some record of the thoughts
and actions of no false and self-styled luminary of your Order be
given, however imperfectly, to the world. Many have called
themselves of your band; many spurious pretenders have been
so-called by the learned ignorance which still, baffled and
perplexed, is driven to confess that it knows nothing of your
origin, your ceremonies or doctrines, nor even if you still have
local habitation on the earth. Thanks to you if I, the only one
of my country, in this age, admitted, with a profane footstep,
into your mysterious Academe (The reader will have the goodness
to remember that this is said by the author of the original MS.,
not by the editor.), have been by you empowered and instructed to
adapt to the comprehension of the uninitiated, some few of the
starry truths which shone on the great Shemaia of the Chaldean
Lore, and gleamed dimly through the darkened knowledge of latter
disciples, labouring, like Psellus and Iamblichus, to revive the
embers of the fire which burned in the Hamarin of the East.
Though not to us of an aged and hoary world is vouchsafed the
NAME which, so say the earliest oracles of the earth, "rushes
into the infinite worlds," yet is it ours to trace the reviving
truths, through each new discovery of the philosopher and
chemist. The laws of attraction, of electricity, and of the yet
more mysterious agency of that great principal of life, which, if
drawn from the universe, would leave the universe a grave, were
but the code in which the Theurgy of old sought the guides that
led it to a legislation and science of its own. To rebuild on
words the fragments of this history, it seems to me as if, in a
solemn trance, I was led through the ruins of a city whose only
remains were tombs. From the sarcophagus and the urn I awake the
genius (The Greek Genius of Death.) of the extinguished Torch,
and so closely does its shape resemble Eros, that at moments I
scarcely know which of ye dictates to me,--O Love! O Death!
And it stirred in the virgin's heart,--this new, unfathomable,
and divine emotion! Was it only the ordinary affection of the
pulse and the fancy, of the eye to the Beautiful, of the ear to
the Eloquent, or did it not justify the notion she herself
conceived of it,--that it was born not of the senses, that it was
less of earthly and human love than the effect of some wondrous
but not unholy charm? I said that, from that day in which, no
longer with awe and trembling, she surrendered herself to the
influence of Zanoni, she had sought to put her thoughts into
words. Let the thoughts attest their own nature.
THE SELF CONFESSIONAL.
"Is it the daylight that shines on me, or the memory of thy
presence? Wherever I look, the world seems full of thee; in
every ray that trembles on the water, that smiles upon the
leaves, I behold but a likeness to thine eyes. What is this
change, that alters not only myself, but the face of the whole
universe?
...
How instantaneously leaped into life the power with which thou
swayest my heart in its ebb and flow. Thousands were around me,
and I saw but thee. That was the night in which I first entered
upon the world which crowds life into a drama, and has no
language but music. How strangely and how suddenly with thee
became that world evermore connected! What the delusion of the
stage was to others, thy presence was to me. My life, too,
seemed to centre into those short hours, and from thy lips I
heard a music, mute to all ears but mine. I sit in the room
where my father dwelt. Here, on that happy night, forgetting why
THEY were so happy, I shrunk into the shadow, and sought to guess
what thou wert to me; and my mother's low voice woke me, and I
crept to my father's side, close--close, from fear of my own
thoughts.
"Ah! sweet and sad was the morrow to that night, when thy lips
warned me of the future. An orphan now,--what is there that
lives for me to think of, to dream upon, to revere, but thou!
"How tenderly thou hast rebuked me for the grievous wrong that my
thoughts did thee! Why should I have shuddered to feel thee
glancing upon my thoughts like the beam on the solitary tree, to
which thou didst once liken me so well? It was--it was, that,
like the tree, I struggled for the light, and the light came.
They tell me of love, and my very life of the stage breathes the
language of love into my lips. No; again and again, I know THAT
is not the love that I feel for thee!--it is not a passion, it is
a thought! I ask not to be loved again. I murmur not that thy
words are stern and thy looks are cold. I ask not if I have
rivals; I sigh not to be fair in thine eyes. It is my SPIRIT
that would blend itself with thine. I would give worlds, though
we were apart, though oceans rolled between us, to know the hour
in which thy gaze was lifted to the stars,--in which thy heart
poured itself in prayer. They tell me thou art more beautiful
than the marble images that are fairer than all human forms; but
I have never dared to gaze steadfastly on thy face, that memory
might compare thee with the rest. Only thine eyes and thy soft,
calm smile haunt me; as when I look upon the moon, all that
passes into my heart is her silent light.
...
"Often, when the air is calm, I have thought that I hear the
strains of my father's music; often, though long stilled in the
grave, have they waked me from the dreams of the solemn night.
Methinks, ere thou comest to me that I hear them herald thy
approach. Methinks I hear them wail and moan, when I sink back
into myself on seeing thee depart. Thou art OF that music,--its
spirit, its genius. My father must have guessed at thee and thy
native regions, when the winds hushed to listen to his tones, and
the world deemed him mad! I hear where I sit, the far murmur of
the sea. Murmur on, ye blessed waters! The waves are the pulses
of the shore. They beat with the gladness of the morning wind,--
so beats my heart in the freshness and light that make up the
thoughts of thee!
...
"Often in my childhood I have mused and asked for what I was
born; and my soul answered my heart and said, 'THOU WERT BORN TO
WORSHIP!' Yes; I know why the real world has ever seemed to me
so false and cold. I know why the world of the stage charmed and
dazzled me. I know why it was so sweet to sit apart and gaze my
whole being into the distant heavens. My nature is not formed
for this life, happy though that life seem to others. It is its
very want to have ever before it some image loftier than itself!
Stranger, in what realm above, when the grave is past, shall my
soul, hour after hour, worship at the same source as thine?
...
"In the gardens of my neighbour there is a small fountain. I
stood by it this morning after sunrise. How it sprung up, with
its eager spray, to the sunbeams! And then I thought that I
should see thee again this day, and so sprung my heart to the new
morning which thou bringest me from the skies.
...
"I HAVE seen, I have LISTENED to thee again. How bold I have
become! I ran on with my childlike thoughts and stories, my
recollections of the past, as if I had known thee from an infant.
Suddenly the idea of my presumption struck me. I stopped, and
timidly sought thine eyes.
"'Well, and when you found that the nightingale refused to
sing?'--
"'Ah!' I said, 'what to thee this history of the heart of a
child?'
"'Viola,' didst thou answer, with that voice, so inexpressibly
calm and earnest!--'Viola, the darkness of a child's heart is
often but the shadow of a star. Speak on! And thy nightingale,
when they caught and caged it, refused to sing?'
"'And I placed the cage yonder, amidst the vine-leaves, and took
up my lute, and spoke to it on the strings; for I thought that
all music was its native language, and it would understand that I
sought to comfort it.'
"'Yes,' saidst thou. 'And at last it answered thee, but not with
song,--in a sharp, brief cry; so mournful, that thy hands let
fall the lute, and the tears gushed from thine eyes. So softly
didst thou unbar the cage, and the nightingale flew into yonder
thicket; and thou heardst the foliage rustle, and, looking
through the moonlight, thine eyes saw that it had found its mate.
It sang to thee then from the boughs a long, loud, joyous
jubilee. And musing, thou didst feel that it was not the vine-
leaves or the moonlight that made the bird give melody to night,
and that the secret of its music was the presence of a thing
beloved.'
"How didst thou know my thoughts in that childlike time better
than I knew myself! How is the humble life of my past years,
with its mean events, so mysteriously familiar to thee, bright
stranger! I wonder,--but I do not again dare to fear thee!
...
"Once the thought of him oppressed and weighed me down. As an
infant that longs for the moon, my being was one vague desire for
something never to be attained. Now I feel rather as if to think
of thee sufficed to remove every fetter from my spirit. I float
in the still seas of light, and nothing seems too high for my
wings, too glorious for my eyes. It was mine ignorance that made
me fear thee. A knowledge that is not in books seems to breathe
around thee as an atmosphere. How little have I read!--how
little have I learned! Yet when thou art by my side, it seems as
if the veil were lifted from all wisdom and all Nature. I
startle when I look even at the words I have written; they seem
not to come from myself, but are the signs of another language
which thou hast taught my heart, and which my hand traces
rapidly, as at thy dictation. Sometimes, while I write or muse,
I could fancy that I heard light wings hovering around me, and
saw dim shapes of beauty floating round, and vanishing as they
smiled upon me. No unquiet and fearful dream ever comes to me
now in sleep, yet sleep and waking are alike but as one dream.
In sleep I wander with thee, not through the paths of earth, but
through impalpable air--an air which seems a music--upward and
upward, as the soul mounts on the tones of a lyre! Till I knew
thee, I was as a slave to the earth. Thou hast given to me the
liberty of the universe! Before, it was life; it seems to me now
as if I had commenced eternity!
...
"Formerly, when I was to appear upon the stage, my heart beat
more loudly. I trembled to encounter the audience, whose breath
gave shame or renown; and now I have no fear of them. I see
them, heed them, hear them not! I know that there will be music
in my voice, for it is a hymn that I pour to thee. Thou never
comest to the theatre; and that no longer grieves me. Thou art
become too sacred to appear a part of the common world, and I
feel glad that thou art not by when crowds have a right to judge
me.
...
"And he spoke to me of ANOTHER: to another he would consign me!
No, it is not love that I feel for thee, Zanoni; or why did I
hear thee without anger, why did thy command seem to me not a
thing impossible? As the strings of the instrument obey the hand
of the master, thy look modulates the wildest chords of my heart
to thy will. If it please thee,--yes, let it be so. Thou art
lord of my destinies; they cannot rebel against thee! I almost
think I could love him, whoever it be, on whom thou wouldst shed
the rays that circumfuse thyself. Whatever thou hast touched, I
love; whatever thou speakest of, I love. Thy hand played with
these vine leaves; I wear them in my bosom. Thou seemest to me
the source of all love; too high and too bright to be loved
thyself, but darting light into other objects, on which the eye
can gaze less dazzled. No, no; it is not love that I feel for
thee, and therefore it is that I do not blush to nourish and
confess it. Shame on me if I loved, knowing myself so worthless
a thing to thee!
...
"ANOTHER!--my memory echoes back that word. Another! Dost thou
mean that I shall see thee no more? It is not sadness,--it is
not despair that seizes me. I cannot weep. It is an utter sense
of desolation. I am plunged back into the common life; and I
shudder coldly at the solitude. But I will obey thee, if thou
wilt. Shall I not see thee again beyond the grave? O how sweet
it were to die!
"Why do I not struggle from the web in which my will is thus
entangled? Hast thou a right to dispose of me thus? Give me
back--give me back the life I knew before I gave life itself away
to thee. Give me back the careless dreams of my youth,---my
liberty of heart that sung aloud as it walked the earth. Thou
hast disenchanted me of everything that is not of thyself. Where
was the sin, at least, to think of thee,--to see thee? Thy kiss
still glows upon my hand; is that hand mine to bestow? Thy kiss
claimed and hallowed it to thyself. Stranger, I will NOT obey
thee.
...
"Another day,--one day of the fatal three is gone! It is strange
to me that since the sleep of the last night, a deep calm has
settled upon my breast. I feel so assured that my very being is
become a part of thee, that I cannot believe that my life can be
separated from thine; and in this conviction I repose, and smile
even at thy words and my own fears. Thou art fond of one maxim,
which thou repeatest in a thousand forms,--that the beauty of the
soul is faith; that as ideal loveliness to the sculptor, faith is
to the heart; that faith, rightly understood, extends over all
the works of the Creator, whom we can know but through belief;
that it embraces a tranquil confidence in ourselves, and a serene
repose as to our future; that it is the moonlight that sways the
tides of the human sea. That faith I comprehend now. I reject
all doubt, all fear. I know that I have inextricably linked the
whole that makes the inner life to thee; and thou canst not tear
me from thee, if thou wouldst! And this change from struggle
into calm came to me with sleep,--a sleep without a dream; but
when I woke, it was with a mysterious sense of happiness,--an
indistinct memory of something blessed,--as if thou hadst cast
from afar off a smile upon my slumber. At night I was so sad;
not a blossom that had not closed itself up, as if never more to
open to the sun; and the night itself, in the heart as on the
earth, has ripened the blossoms into flowers. The world is
beautiful once more, but beautiful in repose,--not a breeze stirs
thy tree, not a doubt my soul!"
