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第63章

zanoni-第63章

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and remember who guides our fate!〃



As she lifted her eyes above; a dark cloud swept suddenly over

the scene。  It wrapped the orange…trees; the azure ocean; the

dense sands; but still the last images that it veiled from the

charmed eyes of Glyndon were the forms of Viola and Zanoni。  The

face of the one rapt; serene; and radiant; the face of the other;

dark; thoughtful; and locked in more than its usual rigidness of

melancholy beauty and profound repose。



〃Rouse thyself;〃 said Mejnour; 〃thy ordeal has commenced!  There

are pretenders to the solemn science who could have shown thee

the absent; and prated to thee; in their charlatanic jargon; of

the secret electricities and the magnetic fluid of whose true

properties they know but the germs and elements。  I will lend

thee the books of those glorious dupes; and thou wilt find; in

the dark ages; how many erring steps have stumbled upon the

threshold of the mighty learning; and fancied they had pierced

the temple。  Hermes and Albert and Paracelsus; I knew ye all;

but; noble as ye were; ye were fated to be deceived。  Ye had not

souls of faith; and daring fitted for the destinies at which ye

aimed!  Yet Paracelsusmodest Paracelsushad an arrogance that

soared higher than all our knowledge。  Ho; ho!he thought he

could make a race of men from chemistry; he arrogated to himself

the Divine gift;the breath of life。  (Paracelsus; 〃De Nat。

Rer。;〃 lib。 i。)



He would have made men; and; after all; confessed that they could

be but pygmies!  My art is to make men above mankind。  But you

are impatient of my digressions。  Forgive me。  All these men

(they were great dreamers; as you desire to be) were intimate

friends of mine。  But they are dead and rotten。 They talked of

spirits;but they dreaded to be in other company than that of

men。  Like orators whom I have heard; when I stood by the Pnyx of

Athens; blazing with words like comets in the assembly; and

extinguishing their ardour like holiday rockets when they were in

the field。  Ho; ho! Demosthenes; my hero…coward; how nimble were

thy heels at Chaeronea!  And thou art impatient still!  Boy; I

could tell thee such truths of the past as would make thee the

luminary of schools。  But thou lustest only for the shadows of

the future。  Thou shalt have thy wish。  But the mind must be

first exercised and trained。  Go to thy room; and sleep; fast

austerely; read no books; meditate; imagine; dream; bewilder

thyself if thou wilt。  Thought shapes out its own chaos at last。

Before midnight; seek me again!〃





CHAPTER 4。IV。



It is fit that we who endeavour to rise to an elevation so

sublime; should study first to leave behind carnal affections;

the frailty of the senses; the passions that belong to matter;

secondly; to learn by what means we may ascend to the climax of

pure intellect; united with the powers above; without which never

can we gain the lore of secret things; nor the magic that effects

true wonders。Tritemius 〃On Secret Things and Secret Spirits。〃



It wanted still many minutes of midnight; and Glyndon was once

more in the apartment of the mystic。  He had rigidly observed the

fast ordained to him; and in the rapt and intense reveries into

which his excited fancy had plunged him; he was not only

insensible to the wants of the flesh;he felt above them。



Mejnour; seated beside his disciple; thus addressed him:



〃Man is arrogant in proportion to his ignorance。  Man's natural

tendency is to egotism。  Man; in his infancy of knowledge; thinks

that all creation was formed for him。  For several ages he saw in

the countless worlds that sparkle through space like the bubbles

of a shoreless ocean only the petty candles; the household

torches; that Providence had been pleased to light for no other

purpose but to make the night more agreeable to man。  Astronomy

has corrected this delusion of human vanity; and man now

reluctantly confesses that the stars are worlds larger and more

glorious than his own;that the earth on which he crawls is a

scarce visible speck on the vast chart of creation。  But in the

small as in the vast; God is equally profuse of life。  The

traveller looks upon the tree; and fancies its boughs were formed

for his shelter in the summer sun; or his fuel in the winter

frosts。  But in each leaf of these boughs the Creator has made a

world; it swarms with innumerable races。  Each drop of the water

in yon moat is an orb more populous than a kingdom is of men。

Everywhere; then; in this immense design; science brings new life

to light。  Life is the one pervading principle; and even the

thing that seems to die and putrify but engenders new life; and

changes to fresh forms of matter。  Reasoning; then; by evident

analogy:  if not a leaf; if not a drop of water; but is; no less

than yonder star; a habitable and breathing world;nay; if even

man himself is a world to other lives; and millions and myriads

dwell in the rivers of his blood; and inhabit man's frame as man

inhabits earth; commonsense (if your schoolmen had it) would

suffice to teach that the circumfluent infinite which you call

spacethe countless Impalpable which divides earth from the moon

and starsis filled also with its correspondent and appropriate

life。  Is it not a visible absurdity to suppose that being is

crowded upon every leaf; and yet absent from the immensities of

space?  The law of the Great System forbids the waste even of an

atom; it knows no spot where something of life does not breathe。

In the very charnel…house is the nursery of production and

animation。  Is that true?  Well; then; can you conceive that

space; which is the Infinite itself; is alone a waste; is alone

lifeless; is less useful to the one design of universal being

than the dead carcass of a dog; than the peopled leaf; than the

swarming globule?  The microscope shows you the creatures on the

leaf; no mechanical tube is yet invented to discover the nobler

and more gifted things that hover in the illimitable air。  Yet

between these last and man is a mysterious and terrible affinity。

And hence; by tales and legends; not wholly false nor wholly

true; have arisen from time to time; beliefs in apparitions and

spectres。  If more common to the earlier and simpler tribes than

to the men of your duller age; it is but that; with the first;

the senses are more keen and quick。  And as the savage can see or

scent miles away the traces of a foe; invisible to the gross

sense of the civilised animal; so the barrier itself between him

and the creatures of the airy world is less thickened and

obscured。  Do you listen?〃



〃With my soul!〃



〃But first; to penetrate this barrier; the soul with which you

listen must be sharpened by intense enthusiasm; purified from all

earthlier desires。  Not without reason have the so…styled

magicians; in all lands and times; insisted on chastity and

abstemious reverie as the communicants of inspiration。  When thus

prepared; science can be brought to aid it; the sight itself may

be rendered more subtle; the nerves more acute; the spirit more

alive and outward; and the element itselfthe air; the space

may be made; by certain secrets of the higher chemistry; more

palpable and clear。  And this; too; is not magic; as the

credulous call it; as I have so often said before; magic (or

science that violates Nature) exists not:  it is but the science

by which Nature can be controlled。  Now; in space there are

millions of beings not literally spiritual; for they have all;

like the animalculae unseen by the naked eye; certain forms of

matter; though matter so delicate; air…drawn; and subtle; that it

is; as it were; but a film; a gossamer that clothes the spirit。

Hence the Rosicrucian's lovely phantoms of sylph and gnome。  Yet;

in truth; these races and tribes differ more widely; each from

each; than the Calmuc from the Greek;differ in attributes and

powers。  In the drop of water you see how the animalculae vary;


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