CHAPTER 7.IX.
Think not my magic wonders wrought by aid
Of Stygian angels summoned up from hell;
Scorned and accursed be those who have essayed
Her gloomy Dives and Afrites to compel.
But by perception of the secret powers
Of mineral springs in Nature's inmost cell,
Of herbs in curtain of her greenest bowers,
And of the moving stars o'er mountain tops and towers.
Wiffen's "Translation of Tasso," cant. xiv. xliii.
"You are safe here, young Englishman!" said Zanoni, motioning
Glyndon to a seat. "Fortunate for you that I come on your track
at last!"
"Far happier had it been if we had never met! Yet even in these
last hours of my fate, I rejoice to look once more on the face of
that ominous and mysterious being to whom I can ascribe all the
sufferings I have known. Here, then, thou shalt not palter with
or elude me. Here, before we part, thou shalt unravel to me the
dark enigma, if not of thy life, of my own!"
"Hast thou suffered? Poor neophyte!" said Zanoni, pityingly.
"Yes; I see it on thy brow. But wherefore wouldst thou blame me?
Did I not warn thee against the whispers of thy spirit; did I not
warn thee to forbear? Did I not tell thee that the ordeal was
one of awful hazard and tremendous fears,--nay, did I not offer
to resign to thee the heart that was mighty enough, while mine,
Glyndon, to content me? Was it not thine own daring and resolute
choice to brave the initiation! Of thine own free will didst
thou make Mejnour thy master, and his lore thy study!"
"But whence came the irresistible desires of that wild and unholy
knowledge? I knew them not till thine evil eye fell upon me, and
I was drawn into the magic atmosphere of thy being!"
"Thou errest!--the desires were in thee; and, whether in one
direction or the other, would have forced their way! Man! thou
askest me the enigma of thy fate and my own! Look round all
being, is there not mystery everywhere? Can thine eye trace the
ripening of the grain beneath the earth? In the moral and the
physical world alike, lie dark portents, far more wondrous than
the powers thou wouldst ascribe to me!"
"Dost thou disown those powers; dost thou confess thyself an
imposter?--or wilt thou dare to tell me that thou art indeed sold
to the Evil one,--a magician whose familiar has haunted me night
and day?"
"It matters not what I am," returned Zanoni; "it matters only
whether I can aid thee to exorcise thy dismal phantom, and return
once more to the wholesome air of this common life. Something,
however, will I tell thee, not to vindicate myself, but the
Heaven and the Nature that thy doubts malign."
Zanoni paused a moment, and resumed with a slight smile,--
"In thy younger days thou hast doubtless read with delight the
great Christian poet, whose muse, like the morning it celebrated,
came to earth, 'crowned with flowers culled in Paradise.'
('L'aurea testa
Di rose colte in Paradiso infiora.'
Tasso, "Ger. Lib." iv. l.)
"No spirit was more imbued with the knightly superstitions of the
time; and surely the Poet of Jerusalem hath sufficiently, to
satisfy even the Inquisitor he consulted, execrated all the
practitioners of the unlawful spells invoked,--
'Per isforzar Cocito o Flegetonte.'
(To constrain Cocytus or Phlegethon.)
But in his sorrows and his wrongs, in the prison of his madhouse,
know you not that Tasso himself found his solace, his escape, in
the recognition of a holy and spiritual Theurgia,--of a magic
that could summon the Angel, or the Good Genius, not the Fiend?
And do you not remember how he, deeply versed as he was for his
age, in the mysteries of the nobler Platonism, which hints at the
secrets of all the starry brotherhoods, from the Chaldean to the
later Rosicrucian, discriminates in his lovely verse, between the
black art of Ismeno and the glorious lore of the Enchanter who
counsels and guides upon their errand the champions of the Holy
Land? HIS, not the charms wrought by the aid of the Stygian
Rebels (See this remarkable passage, which does indeed not
unfaithfully represent the doctrine of the Pythagorean and the
Platonist, in Tasso, cant. xiv. stanzas xli. to xlvii. ("Ger.
Lib.") They are beautifully translated by Wiffen.), but the
perception of the secret powers of the fountain and the herb,--
the Arcana of the unknown nature and the various motions of the
stars. His, the holy haunts of Lebanon and Carmel,--beneath his
feet he saw the clouds, the snows, the hues of Iris, the
generations of the rains and dews. Did the Christian Hermit who
converted that Enchanter (no fabulous being, but the type of all
spirit that would aspire through Nature up to God) command him to
lay aside these sublime studies, 'Le solite arte e l' uso mio'?
No! but to cherish and direct them to worthy ends. And in this
grand conception of the poet lies the secret of the true
Theurgia, which startles your ignorance in a more learned day
with puerile apprehensions, and the nightmares of a sick man's
dreams."
Again Zanoni paused, and again resumed:--
"In ages far remote,--of a civilisation far different from that
which now merges the individual in the state,--there existed men
of ardent minds, and an intense desire of knowledge. In the
mighty and solemn kingdoms in which they dwelt, there were no
turbulent and earthly channels to work off the fever of their
minds. Set in the antique mould of casts through which no
intellect could pierce, no valour could force its way, the thirst
for wisdom alone reigned in the hearts of those who received its
study as a heritage from sire to son. Hence, even in your
imperfect records of the progress of human knowledge, you find
that, in the earliest ages, Philosophy descended not to the
business and homes of men. It dwelt amidst the wonders of the
loftier creation; it sought to analyse the formation of matter,--
the essentials of the prevailing soul; to read the mysteries of
the starry orbs; to dive into those depths of Nature in which
Zoroaster is said by the schoolmen first to have discovered the
arts which your ignorance classes under the name of magic. In
such an age, then, arose some men, who, amidst the vanities and
delusions of their class, imagined that they detected gleams of a
brighter and steadier lore. They fancied an affinity existing
among all the works of Nature, and that in the lowliest lay the
secret attraction that might conduct them upward to the loftiest.
(Agreeably, it would seem, to the notion of Iamblichus and
Plotinus, that the universe is as an animal; so that there is
sympathy and communication between one part and the other; in the
smallest part may be the subtlest nerve. And hence the universal
magnetism of Nature. But man contemplates the universe as an
animalcule would an elephant. The animalcule, seeing scarcely
the tip of the hoof, would be incapable of comprehending that the
trunk belonged to the same creature,--that the effect produced
upon one extremity would be felt in an instant by the other.)
Centuries passed, and lives were wasted in these discoveries; but
step after step was chronicled and marked, and became the guide
to the few who alone had the hereditary privilege to track their
path.
At last from this dimness upon some eyes the light broke; but
think not, young visionary, that to those who nursed unholy
thoughts, over whom the Origin of Evil held a sway, that dawning
was vouchsafed. It could be given then, as now, only to the
purest ecstasies of imagination and intellect, undistracted by
the cares of a vulgar life, or the appetites of the common clay.
Far from descending to the assistance of a fiend, theirs was but
the august ambition to approach nearer to the Fount of Good; the
more they emancipated themselves from this limbo of the planets,
the more they were penetrated by the splendour and beneficence of
God. And if they sought, and at last discovered, how to the eye
of the Spirit all the subtler modifications of being and of
matter might be made apparent; if they discovered how, for the
wings of the Spirit, all space might be annihilated, and while
the body stood heavy and solid here, as a deserted tomb, the
freed IDEA might wander from star to star,--if such discoveries
became in truth their own, the sublimest luxury of their
knowledge was but this, to wonder, to venerate, and adore! For,
as one not unlearned in these high matters has expressed it,
'There is a principle of the soul superior to all external
nature, and through this principle we are capable of surpassing
the order and systems of the world, and participating the
immortal life and the energy of the Sublime Celestials. When the
soul is elevated to natures above itself, it deserts the order to
which it is awhile compelled, and by a religious magnetism is
attracted to another and a loftier, with which it blends and
mingles.' (From Iamblichus, "On the Mysteries," c. 7, sect. 7.)
Grant, then, that such beings found at last the secret to arrest
death; to fascinate danger and the foe; to walk the revolutions
of the earth unharmed,--think you that this life could teach them
other desire than to yearn the more for the Immortal, and to fit
their intellect the better for the higher being to which they
might, when Time and Death exist no longer, be transferred? Away
with your gloomy fantasies of sorcerer and demon!--the soul can
aspire only to the light; and even the error of our lofty
knowledge was but the forgetfulness of the weakness, the
passions, and the bonds which the death we so vainly conquered
only can purge away!"
This address was so different from what Glyndon had anticipated,
that he remained for some moments speechless, and at length
faltered out,--
"But why, then, to me--"
"Why," added Zanoni,--"why to thee have been only the penance and
the terror,--the Threshold and the Phantom? Vain man! look to
the commonest elements of the common learning. Can every tyro at
his mere wish and will become the master; can the student, when
he has bought his Euclid, become a Newton; can the youth whom the
Muses haunt, say, 'I will equal Homer;' yea, can yon pale tyrant,
with all the parchment laws of a hundred system-shapers, and the
pikes of his dauntless multitude, carve, at his will, a
constitution not more vicious than the one which the madness of a
mob could overthrow? When, in that far time to which I have
referred, the student aspired to the heights to which thou
wouldst have sprung at a single bound, he was trained from his
very cradle to the career he was to run. The internal and the
outward nature were made clear to his eyes, year after year, as
they opened on the day. He was not admitted to the practical
initiation till not one earthly wish chained that sublimest
faculty which you call the IMAGINATION, one carnal desire clouded
the penetrative essence that you call the INTELLECT. And even
then, and at the best, how few attained to the last mystery!
Happier inasmuch as they attained the earlier to the holy glories
for which Death is the heavenliest gate."
Zanoni paused, and a shade of thought and sorrow darkened his
celestial beauty.
"And are there, indeed, others, besides thee and Mejnour, who lay
claim to thine attributes, and have attained to thy secrets?"
"Others there have been before us, but we two now are alone on
earth."
"Imposter, thou betrayest thyself! If they could conquer Death,
why live they not yet?" (Glyndon appears to forget that Mejnour
had before answered the very question which his doubts here a
second time suggest.)
"Child of a day!" answered Zanoni, mournfully, "have I not told
thee the error of our knowledge was the forgetfulness of the
desires and passions which the spirit never can wholly and
permanently conquer while this matter cloaks it? Canst thou
think that it is no sorrow, either to reject all human ties, all
friendship, and all love, or to see, day after day, friendship
and love wither from our life, as blossoms from the stem? Canst
thou wonder how, with the power to live while the world shall
last, ere even our ordinary date be finished we yet may prefer to
die? Wonder rather that there are two who have clung so
faithfully to earth! Me, I confess, that earth can enamour yet.
Attaining to the last secret while youth was in its bloom, youth
still colours all around me with its own luxuriant beauty; to me,
yet, to breathe is to enjoy. The freshness has not faded from
the face of Nature, and not an herb in which I cannot discover a
new charm,--an undetected wonder.
As with my youth, so with Mejnour's age: he will tell you that
life to him is but a power to examine; and not till he has
exhausted all the marvels which the Creator has sown on earth,
would he desire new habitations for the renewed Spirit to
explore. We are the types of the two essences of what is
imperishable,--'ART, that enjoys; and SCIENCE, that
contemplates!' And now, that thou mayest be contented that the
secrets are not vouchsafed to thee, learn that so utterly must
the idea detach itself from what makes up the occupation and
excitement of men; so must it be void of whatever would covet, or
love, or hate,--that for the ambitious man, for the lover, the
hater, the power avails not. And I, at last, bound and blinded
by the most common of household ties; I, darkened and helpless,
adjure thee, the baffled and discontented,--I adjure thee to
direct, to guide me; where are they? Oh, tell me,--speak! My
wife,--my child? Silent!--oh, thou knowest now that I am no
sorcerer, no enemy. I cannot give thee what thy faculties deny,
--I cannot achieve what the passionless Mejnour failed to
accomplish; but I can give thee the next-best boon, perhaps the
fairest,--I can reconcile thee to the daily world, and place
peace between thy conscience and thyself."
"Wilt thou promise?"
"By their sweet lives, I promise!"
Glyndon looked and believed. He whispered the address to the
house whither his fatal step already had brought woe and doom.
"Bless thee for this," exclaimed Zanoni, passionately, "and thou
shalt be blessed! What! couldst thou not perceive that at the
entrance to all the grander worlds dwell the race that intimidate
and awe? Who in thy daily world ever left the old regions of
Custom and Prescription, and felt not the first seizure of the
shapeless and nameless Fear? Everywhere around thee where men
aspire and labour, though they see it not,--in the closet of the
sage, in the council of the demagogue, in the camp of the
warrior,--everywhere cowers and darkens the Unutterable Horror.
But there, where thou hast ventured, alone is the Phantom
VISIBLE; and never will it cease to haunt, till thou canst pass
to the Infinite, as the seraph; or return to the Familiar, as a
child! But answer me this: when, seeking to adhere to some calm
resolve of virtue, the Phantom hath stalked suddenly to thy side;
when its voice hath whispered thee despair; when its ghastly eyes
would scare thee back to those scenes of earthly craft or riotous
excitement from which, as it leaves thee to worse foes to the
soul, its presence is ever absent,--hast thou never bravely
resisted the spectre and thine own horror; hast thou never said,
'Come what may, to Virtue I will cling?'"
"Alas!" answered Glyndon, "only of late have I dared to do so."
"And thou hast felt then that the Phantom grew more dim and its
power more faint?"
"It is true."
"Rejoice, then!--thou hast overcome the true terror and mystery
of the ordeal. Resolve is the first success. Rejoice, for the
exorcism is sure! Thou art not of those who, denying a life to
come, are the victims of the Inexorable Horror. Oh, when shall
men learn, at last, that if the Great Religion inculcates so
rigidly the necessity of FAITH, it is not alone that FAITH leads
to the world to be; but that without faith there is no excellence
in this,--faith in something wiser, happier, diviner, than we see
on earth!--the artist calls it the Ideal,--the priest, Faith.
The Ideal and Faith are one and the same. Return, O wanderer,
return! Feel what beauty and holiness dwell in the Customary and
the Old. Back to thy gateway glide, thou Horror! and calm, on
the childlike heart, smile again, O azure Heaven, with thy night
and thy morning star but as one, though under its double name of
Memory and Hope!"
As he thus spoke, Zanoni laid his hand gently on the burning
temples of his excited and wondering listener; and presently a
sort of trance came over him: he imagined that he was returned
to the home of his infancy; that he was in the small chamber
where, over his early slumbers, his mother had watched and
prayed. There it was,--visible, palpable, solitary, unaltered.
In the recess, the homely bed; on the walls, the shelves filled
with holy books; the very easel on which he had first sought to
call the ideal to the canvas, dust-covered, broken, in the
corner. Below the window lay the old churchyard: he saw it
green in the distance, the sun glancing through the yew-trees; he
saw the tomb where father and mother lay united, and the spire
pointing up to heaven, the symbol of the hopes of those who
consigned the ashes to the dust; in his ear rang the bells,
pealing, as on a Sabbath day. Far fled all the visions of
anxiety and awe that had haunted and convulsed; youth, boyhood,
childhood came back to him with innocent desires and hopes; he
thought he fell upon his knees to pray. He woke,--he woke in
delicious tears, he felt that the Phantom was fled forever. He
looked round,--Zanoni was gone. On the table lay these lines,
the ink yet wet:--
"I will find ways and means for thy escape. At nightfall, as the
clock strikes nine, a boat shall wait thee on the river before
this house; the boatman will guide thee to a retreat where thou
mayst rest in safety till the Reign of Terror, which nears its
close, be past. Think no more of the sensual love that lured,
and wellnigh lost thee. It betrayed, and would have destroyed.
Thou wilt regain thy land in safety,--long years yet spared to
thee to muse over the past, and to redeem it. For thy future, be
thy dream thy guide, and thy tears thy baptism."
The Englishman obeyed the injunctions of the letter, and found
their truth.
