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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77376 ***
+FLAXIUS
+
+LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF AN IMMORTAL
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CHARLES GODFREY LELAND
+
+AUTHOR OF ‘THE BREITMANN BALLADS,’ ETC.
+
+LONDON
+
+PHILIP WELLBY
+
+6 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN
+
+1902
+
+
+
+
+Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, (late) Printers to Her Majesty
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+FLAXIUS AND THE FAIRY
+
+FLAXIUS AND THE GOD
+
+FLAXIUS AND ROOSEVELDT
+
+FLAXIUS AND HAMLET
+
+HOW FLAXIUS MADE THE FORTUNE OF EADWARD THE GRANDSON OF AEOLFRIC
+
+FLAXIUS AND ASMODEUS
+
+FLAXIUS IN FLORENCE
+
+FLAXIUS AND THE EMPEROR JULIAN
+
+FLAXIUS IN HADES
+
+FLAXIUS AND ADELINDÈ
+
+FLAXIUS AND THE WERE-WOLF
+
+FLAXIUS AND BREITMANN
+
+FLAXIUS IN INDIA
+
+THE WONDERFUL STORY OF MISS JESABELLE ROCKHARD
+
+HOW FLAXIUS SAT AS JUDGE WITH A JURY OF TWELVE DEVILS
+
+FLAXIUS AND THE BOOKSELLER
+
+FLAXIUS IN THE FUTURE
+
+THE EVANISHMENT OF FLAXIUS
+
+BREITMANN’S LAST BALLAD
+
+
+
+
+FIRST WORDS
+
+
+THE _raison d’être_, cause for existence, and origin of this book, may
+be found in the following extract from a review of the _Florentine
+Legends_, which appeared in the _Daily Chronicle_ of June 19, 1895:--
+
+‘Mr. Leland frequently refers throughout his narratives to a certain
+Flaxius. We were somewhat puzzled as to whom this Flaxius might be,
+until we came across the statement that the author had once begun
+a book entitled, _The Experiences of Flaxius the Immortal_. The
+reflections of the Immortal are quoted extensively in this volume, and
+we can only say we wish the Flaxius project a happy ending, and would
+not be surprised if the new sage, racy of Italian soil, as he appears
+to be, should even a little eclipse Mr. Leland’s old hero of Lager beer
+celebrity.’
+
+For which kind word all thanks, and from the heart, since it suggested
+what had never been seriously thought of; for, in truth, the
+experiences had no more been written than the books which appear in
+the catalogue of the library given in the _Chronicle_ of Pantagruel.
+Now, I have had all my life a strange love for works on varied
+subjects, in unity of style, even as in Mendelssohn’s _Songs without
+Words_ there are many melodies forming one work. Such were the best
+sketches of Irving, and such was my first original venture, _Meister
+Karl’s Sketch-Book_, which had the remarkable fortune to attract, most
+unexpectedly, a very kind letter on it from Washington Irving, and
+subsequently another of seven large closely written pages, critical
+and laudatory, from Lord Bulwer Lytton, the novelist, who, with all
+modesty be it said, took several palpable hints from it for his _Kenelm
+Chillingly_, into which he introduced me under a pseudonym, as a small
+_memento_. And it is in this style that the present work is composed of
+different stories, which, however, make one _parure_, or, changing the
+metaphor, of varied dishes in one dinner met.
+
+I beg the reader to pardon this fond disquisition, but it is natural
+for an author to think fondly of his first work, as it is for a mother
+to do the same by her first-born; and I was the more influenced to do
+so by its having been in the same _genre_ as the present volume.
+
+The comparison, made by the reviewer of the _Chronicle_, between the
+warrior-bard Hans Breitmann and his possible rival Flaxius, suggested
+the idea of making the two meet in this volume, the result of which
+encounter is two Breitmann ballads, never before published, with others
+which had indeed appeared casually in another form, but not as yet
+in any edition of the poems, and which will be assuredly new to most
+of my readers. And as these later lays--of which I have only given a
+specimen--all turn on marvellous mediæval legends of magic, I will
+mention, by way of _avant-courier_, that I have in manuscript, and
+have been writing or revising this thirty years, a curious collection
+of _Ballads of Witchcraft and Songs of Sorcery_, which I cannot but
+think would greatly please all lovers of _occulta_, and which will be
+published should sign be given that it would be wanted by the public.
+
+I would end by recording that this work is most kindly and cordially
+dedicated to certain friends who have greatly aided me at different
+times in collecting Italian folk-lore, that is to say, to Miss Roma
+Lister, who was from the first specially interested in Flaxius, and
+to Mrs. Tessa Arbuthnot; whereunto I might add the names of all who
+have for many years and in many ways shown friendship and cordial
+kindness--of late in sad trials by illness--to whom be all thanks.
+
+CHARLES GODFREY LELAND.
+
+FLORENCE, _June 1902_.
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS AND THE FAIRY
+
+OR, HOW HE BECAME AN IMMORTAL
+
+‘This work is a collection of Fables.’--_Sir Roger Lestrange._
+
+‘There is no expression of politeness but has its root in the moral
+nature of man.’--_Goethe._
+
+‘There is no policy like politeness, and a good manner is the best
+thing in the world, either to get a good name or to supply the want of
+it.’--_Bulwer Lytton._
+
+‘Politeness is like Generosity; nay, I am not sure that it is not
+Generosity itself. But neither deserves respect unless perfectly
+innate--unaffected and natural.’--_L’Accademia._
+
+
+LONG ago, when Time was in its early dawn--_à prima pueritia_, or in
+its pink infancy--Flaxius the Neophyte was also in his youth; for which
+reason he and the world got on very well together. He was far from
+having attained to high magic, though of an eminently respectable old
+priestly-sorcering family, and of fairy descent, but he had in him
+those qualities which in any age advance the man who gets a fair trial.
+And that we may the better understand what these qualities were, I
+will narrate the first bud of incident, or rosy adventure, by which it
+befell that he too rose in life.
+
+It happened one day that on the annual holiday or festival of Volterra,
+in the first Etruscan age, lied about by Inghirami, Flaxius saw in the
+street, among the many in the middle distance, a girl who was, _à prima
+vista_, evidently not respectable, or was rather so far from it that it
+might not have been said, _habet pudicitiam in propatulo_. Yet there
+was nothing arrogantly offensive in the poor thing; she seemed to be of
+that kind whose whole life, like the donkey’s, is a sad, mute speech to
+the effect: ‘If you don’t care for me--and I’m not astonished that you
+don’t--then don’t speak to me, but pray do not abuse me, for I can’t
+help it--indeed I can’t.’
+
+This silent-violet eloquence was, however, lost on a group of two
+or three rude young men and girls who came howling along in high,
+red-poppy spirits, and who, seeing the poor forlorn creature, proceeded
+to hoot her in the manner peculiar to the virtuous vulgar of all ages,
+by hurling at her terms intended to make her feel deeply that she was
+indeed that which her sad attire proclaimed her to be.
+
+‘And out of the way of your betters, O Dirt, and into the dirt!’ cried
+a youth, giving a bump to the Moral Calamity, which sent her reeling,
+so that she indeed fell in the mud of the street, at which all roared
+with laughter.
+
+Now in all the country round there was not a taller or more robust bull
+of a young man than Flaxius, and seeing this, he gave the Guardian or
+Vindicator of Morals and Holy Virtue a blow which levelled him likewise
+in the grey dirt, and with as little difficulty sent the rest flying;
+for there was that in his patrician appearance, quite as much as in his
+iron strength, which inspired fear. He picked up the girl, bade her
+be of good cheer, and not mind what had happened; there was something
+marvellously moving and honey-comforting in his tone of voice, which
+snatched a grace beyond the reach of skill.
+
+It is an art little known now to the world, that of the voice trained
+to woo and win feeling, to inspire awe and emotion by musical tone--but
+it formed a part of cultured magic in early times, and Flaxius was
+at the head of the class in Enchanting natural elocution and Musical
+morality.
+
+... And furthermore bestowed on her a silver coin, and was about to
+depart, when the girl astonished him by saying, in tones as marked and
+deeply magical as his own:
+
+‘Why did you pity me?’
+
+Flaxius replied, ‘Because you, doing no one injustice, were unjustly
+treated.’
+
+‘Do you not see what I am?’
+
+‘I see nothing beyond what I behold in all human beings, one cast by
+fate or chance into a certain life. And few indeed are what they fain
+would be.’
+
+‘Then you despise no one?’
+
+‘I very deeply despise all who make no effort to know or do what is
+_better_. I despise all who can only--I say _only_--realise their own
+dignity in the abasement of others. I despise the man who requires to
+own slaves in order to know that he is free.... I feel....’
+
+‘There are not many who feel as you do,’ replied the girl. And this
+time in the voice Flaxius recognised that he was indeed speaking to
+a _magia_, or one of the initiated in high wisdom. Therefore he was
+not astonished to see in her eyes a strange and as yet unperceived
+expression of marvellous intellect and electric beauty, and note a
+divine dignity and grace in her carriage. She signed to him to follow
+her, and he obeyed.
+
+‘No, there are yet few,’ he answered, ‘but there will ever be more and
+more in the ages to come. I would that I could live to see the time
+when all slavery and social injustice will disappear. But will it ever
+be?’
+
+‘Who knows,’ replied his companion. ‘Who knows how long we may live, or
+how bad or good the world may become, or anything?’
+
+‘Do not the gods know?’ said Flaxius, amazed.
+
+‘Who knows what the gods know?’ replied the _magia_. ‘They do not even
+know what they know themselves.’
+
+By this high time the pair had passed as if by enchantment, or in a
+dream, into a strange mountain country, unknown to Flaxius. Wilder
+grew the rocks and road until they came to a marvellous place where
+the cliffs were like a vast range of rude castles all in one. As they
+approached, Flaxius saw them change to magnificent ancient structures.
+Then they entered a golden door, and soon were in a splendidly
+furnished apartment. The _magia_ was now a being of unearthly beauty,
+robed in light. Before her Flaxius forgot--it is to be desired that
+modern realists would do the same--even the transcendental upholstery.
+
+‘Remarkable Young Man,’ said the beautiful being (pray be it noted
+by the reader that all the phrases here given are far more poetic in
+Etruscan), ‘I have brought you hither on important business.’
+
+‘At your command, Daughter of the Most Beautiful,’ replied Flaxius.
+This was a delicate compliment, according to magic, for it was from a
+high formula of worship, and was therefore tenderly blasphemous in the
+genitive. The lady smiled subjectively, not with her face, but in her
+intonation, as she replied in the ablative absolute:
+
+‘Know that I was this day what I was, for being what those were who
+insulted me, and truly in being every whit as base as they.’
+
+‘This is a kind of poem,’ reflected Flaxius. [A great many of the
+lyrics of that age were riddles, like some of the songs, and not a few
+of the novelettes of the present time, to say nothing of Browning.]
+
+‘I was doing a deserved penance, from which you rescued me. Listen!
+I was born of the fairy race, but by long study, penance, and prayer
+to the Sublimities, rose to the higher order of spirits, beyond which
+are the minor gods, such as those to whom the great deities assign
+specialties in nature, or even in mortal life. My protectress was
+_Thana_, the chaste goddess of the moon, or Diana, and as power was to
+be gained by renouncing pleasure, I became proud of maiden _virtue_,
+believing it was a virtue in itself, and not one of the means thereto.’
+
+‘More and more interesting,’ reflected Flaxius, ‘And a neat
+distinction!’
+
+‘And one day, in my vanity, I insulted one of the beautiful attendants
+on Turan or Venus, the Goddess of Beauty and Love; for I reviled a
+Lasa, or one of the spirits who are attendants on and mistresses of the
+souls which come from earth. Yes, I insulted her, much as I was this
+day insulted by the mob. There was an appeal to the gods, and Tinia,
+the Lord of All, sentenced me to assume the mortal form in which you
+to-day first beheld me, and to endure the insults of men till I should
+learn higher truth, and until I should meet with a mortal who would
+treat me sincerely with true humanity. This I have done, and now I am
+not only freed from penance, but find myself advanced far beyond what
+I was,--going in golden glory ever on. Yet I say, in truth, that I did
+not suffer once or in the least as a mortal, from the time that I was
+struck by the great truth in all its branches, that no one should be
+condemned for being what one is by fate, and that Inferno is not too
+bad for a prurient prude on the prowl.
+
+‘But to _you_, who were in this my master, I owe great gratitude. By
+penance and prayer I have accumulated much power which I proposed to
+devote to advancing myself to higher lives. But it shall go to you in
+the form of two wishes. I can wait for more and work a while longer.
+Ask for whatever you can imagine, such as a mortal may require--wealth
+or power, choose!’
+
+‘Your ladyship,’ replied Flaxius, ‘is decidedly determined to prove
+that in this world the less a man does, the better he is paid for
+it. Having been already rewarded a millionfold by the sight of your
+superb beauty, for what I declare in all sincerity seems to me to be
+a mere little street incident, in which I casually comported myself
+as a simply decent man should, I am, of course, to receive further
+recompense beyond all human conception. ’Tis the rule. So be it! Yet I
+pray you, most Beautifully Grateful, do not ascribe it to modesty or
+virtue if I am not extravagant in my desire. I have heard of a man who
+having been offered a wish by a god, forthwith wished that his future
+wishes might all be granted. Cunning, that! And they were all granted,
+so that in the end he became the most miserable creature on earth, and
+ended by wishing himself to the devil, and got there, as must befall
+most mortals who get all they want. Now as you, O Beyond-all-Dreams,
+are inconceivably my superior in wisdom, it occurs to me that a
+single wish guided by your sagacity would be more to my benefit than
+a thousand emanating from my weak mind. Therefore, for a beginning, I
+wish that your Divine Loveliness would kindly tell me what my second
+wish should be.’
+
+‘There is in that wish,’ replied the spirit, ‘a combination of
+generosity, courtesy, and gratitude, such as a first-class god need
+not be ashamed of. Well, I will choose for you a wish that would suit
+few men. You shall live on earth, a philosopher, but ever in manly
+strength and health, as long as you will, and to the end of time if you
+choose it. You will see and feel so deeply into Nature--as I can well
+foresee--that the passing away of other mortals, races, or kingdoms,
+will be but as the passing away of other guests from a hostelry, or
+as clouds from the sky. For to such as you are, O Humorist! to live
+on earth or in heaven, amid ghosts or gods, would in the end be all
+one and the same; you would note it all with curious observation, and
+be the same unchanged in every age. For to him who has like unto thee
+attained to seeing things absolutely as they _are_--gods or geese are
+all one and the same.’
+
+‘What a stupendous truth!’ thought Flaxius, ‘and how beautifully
+expressed! I could go on listening to this lady till I should grow
+thirsty--for fame!’
+
+‘And they _are_ all one and the same,’ continued the spirit-lady, ‘to
+him who is honest--which always means generous; they are all one and
+the same to the upright or charitable. How do you like your gift?’
+
+‘I am delighted, O my Eyes, beyond all expression, and now see how wise
+I was to trust to your higher wisdom. To tell the truth, O Diva, I was
+dreadfully afraid lest your grace might bestow on me wealth--I detest
+business--unbounded dominion, ineffable winsomeness, æsthetic taste--O
+Rubbish!--gratified ambition--O Emetics!--and power--not being, I
+trust, a cad. For to tell the truth, I was fearfully afraid of all
+earthly blessings, and so as to secure the least of evils, resolved to
+take but one, as I was in politeness bound not to decline your offer of
+sugar-plums, and therefore choose what it seems best to you to give.’
+
+‘You are, O philosopher,’ replied the spirit, ‘so ingenious in your
+generosity, that you make yourself almost discourteous. Man, I read
+your heart, and know that you are no more free from desire than are the
+gods; for to wish for nothing is to live no more. Now, will I hold you
+firmly, and give you more, whether you will or not. Thy first wish was
+no wish at all, O Flaxius; it was but a kindly gift to me to spare my
+power, and aid me on my road to higher life. Therefore, a wish still
+remains to thee, and I warn thee that the favours of the gods are not
+to be lightly cast aside. Therefore, make a wish now for thyself, and
+look that thou put into it all thy heart, and all thy self.’
+
+‘Then, lady,’ replied Flaxius, ‘since I must ask for Something, I wish
+to know in what manner I can best show my gratitude to you for all this
+kindness.’
+
+‘Go thy way for an incorrigible rogue!’ exclaimed the spirit, this time
+with a divinely genial smile on her countenance. ‘I see that thou wilt
+never be beaten at this game. Ages on ages hence, when thou may’st
+take a fancy to leave the world, there shall be inscribed on thy tomb:
+“Here lies Flaxius, never surpassed among men or gods in generosity,
+courtesy, or coolness!”’
+
+‘And the gratitude, O Marvellous One,’ exclaimed Flaxius.
+
+‘Thou canst show it best by remaining here as my guest, and regarding
+my house as a home. When weary of wandering about in the wide world,
+come here and rest, and ever be welcome. Here no haunting _Hintial_ or
+Spirit of the Shadow can cast a gloom over life; in these fairy palaces
+all is peace. ‘But remember, Flaxius,’ added the beautiful spirit,
+‘that it is still not too late for thee to express and receive another
+wish. By the eternal law of the Aesir, this must be done within the
+fated, favourable hour when a spirit offers it. Opportunity is golden,
+and I ask it as a favour.’
+
+‘Then, your Resplendent Picturesqueness and Benign Benevolence,’
+replied Flaxius, quoting at hap-hazard what he could recall from the
+Etruscan prayer-book, and grasping desperately in earnest at the first
+thing he could think of which would be nice to have, or to be, ‘make me
+an Original Character.’
+
+The Peri of Loveliness raised the two most beautiful little hands which
+Flaxius had ever seen, and slightly spreading the rosy fingers, struck
+them downwards abruptly, even as mortals do when they ‘give it up’ in
+mild despair, and are dead-locked, grassed, or gravelled.
+
+‘I hope I utter no blasphemy against the power of the immortals,’
+said the Beautiful One, ‘but I verily believe the gods themselves,
+O Flaxius, can add nothing to thee as thou art in that respect. O
+Tinia, father of the deities, ineffable, overwhelming, and unspeakable
+Fulminator!’ she exclaimed, with the passion of a wildly inspired
+divinity, ‘am I not right, and if so, give me a sign, that I speak the
+truth? My destiny! what _can_ one do with such a man!’
+
+Over all Northern Italy there roared such a peal of thunder as the
+oldest _aruspices_ or _lucumones_ had never heard before. It rang in
+Rome, and rolled beyond the Alps. Vesuvius, by fair Parthenopis,
+answered it with the tremendous peal of an eruption, as Vulcan (termed
+_Sethlans_, the earthly deity of fire) answered his awful brother of
+the air. It drove the gods of the fields and roads, the fairies and
+satyrs, _silvani_, fauns, _dusii_, and all their kind, in terror to
+the mountain caves and forests. It pierced, like a spirit, to the
+depths of the darkest caverns wherein reposed the ancestors, and the
+dead amid the painted vases and mystic bronzes turned over in their
+eternal sleep; and every statue in the land was found next morning
+in a changed position, or bottom upwards. The _magi_ consulted the
+_Ars Fulguritora_, written of yore by the nymph Begoe, to translate
+the mighty peal, for unto them its words were a distinct language. And
+as they overturned the holy utterance, syllable by syllable, from the
+dictionary into Etruscan, it read:
+
+
+  ‘Fear not, O daughter, for thou speakest truth:
+  That is about the size of it, in sooth,
+  For well I ween on earth no queerer _cus_
+  Did ever live than this thy Flaxius.’
+
+
+  [_Cus_, be it observed, is a terminal noun signifying a person of any
+  kind--as _rusticus_, _grammaticus_, _clericus_, and many other kinds
+  of cusses--its use here being a proof of the immense antiquity of the
+  Sabine Latin version of the original from which this tale is taken.]
+
+  _Ab hac origine et itinere terrestri illuc profectus est_--‘’twas thus
+  that Flaxius got his start in life.’ _Ab hoc disce_--‘learn from his
+  legend this,’ concludes the scroll:
+
+
+  ‘Be it a slipper or be she a shrew,
+  Be civil to women whatever you do!’
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS AND THE GOD
+
+  ‘Every Divinity--no matter who--
+  Is but the ideal of an age or race
+  Which makes its god, though it be not with hands,
+  Just in the form
+  which it would like to wear.
+  And every man in this is like his age.’
+
+
+AGES have passed away since Flaxius found himself one twilight in
+autumn in the wild Lombard land of Northern Italy. Towering far as eye
+could see, vast cliffs or mighty peaks sprang up like living forms,
+with precipiced sides falling gracefully as classic draperies; bold
+and strange and all unlike the rounded hills and undulating plains of
+other countries. Before him spread, as if into a steel-blue eternity,
+the shining Mediterranean; all about him seemed beautiful, cold, and
+strange as in a dream. The western sky was one even hue of rich, ripe
+orange turning into brown. Upon a distant headland rose an ancient
+tower, by which rested a vessel with one long, sloping sail. A chill
+stole o’er the whispering breeze, and the evening star shone gently
+forth.
+
+And standing there high upon the mountain, the mystic magian and
+undying one looked around among the rocks and said:
+
+‘Here it was that the Fairy, who is so obliging as to rule my destiny,
+as yonder star is said to rule the heart, bade me come at dated day and
+hour to meet with one, whose acquaintance, as she assured me, would
+prove to be remarkably interesting. Truly with all my utmost stretch of
+thought, be it in levelled prose or rolling poetry, I can conjure up
+nothing personal here, or make any spiritual bread out of these stones,
+but then, ’tis only purblind ignorance which vows that all is nothing
+which it cannot see. Now, as there is no form near me, and as I can
+with sorcerer’s sight see for fifty miles adown, and all around the
+land and sea, I opine that he, the beloved personage, to keep the tryst
+must come here on the wings of thought far sweeping. Light of my Soul,
+I give thee half an hour!’
+
+But as Flaxius made this last remark, he observed a Cypress plant,
+about six feet high, with leafage reaching to the ground, a furlong
+distant on a cliff, was evidently moving from its place towards him,
+and, as it moved, was growing human in its form. The head became
+distinct, the shoulders next, then the lower foliage unfolded in a long
+dark robe.
+
+Like all illuminati--such as you and I--Flaxius drew critical,
+philosophical deductions first, before examining vulgar details, in
+these words:
+
+‘I wonder, now, whether the seeing saplings waving in the wind did not
+first suggest to man, ghosts? But this is really a Being. Fairy mine,
+I did not think that thou wouldst play a miracle on _me_! Thaumaturgy
+among us is really too bad. But perhaps,’ he added, ‘it is a fancy of
+the gentleman himself--habit becomes strict nature with us all.’
+
+As the form drew near him, Flaxius recognised in the face and mien
+of the stranger, though it would not be apparent to the world,
+a Gymnosophist. So they were once termed, whom we should call
+Brahmins--that is, Indian sages. Evidently the stranger had come far
+astray into the Italian land.
+
+Now, as Flaxius had passed a century or two of his youth in company
+with his friend Pythagoras in study at the leading Indian universities,
+he understood the stranger at a glance. Therefore he addressed
+him familiarly in Romany, which is a cousin to Hindi, which is a
+grand-daughter to Sanskrit, and therefore all in the family and
+generally spoken:
+
+‘_Latcho divvus prala! Būt mishto hom dikàv tute!_’ (‘Good day,
+brother! Right glad I am to see thee!’)
+
+But the stranger gravely replied in the mother of Sanskrit, or ancient
+Aryan of the Tertiary period:
+
+‘I am of older race than thou hast deemed. I was among the fathers
+of those who first came into India from the far North, and I speak
+the tongue which is destined in its descendants to encircle the whole
+world. And thou, too, knowest it, Flaxius, as I know thee, for we have
+met ere now, long since, beyond the Ganges, though thou now speakest
+flippantly, like a mad college youth, in the language of the roads. But
+thou art only a boy as yet in years, and wilt learn wisdom in time. And
+the fairy who watches over thee has sent me here that thou mayst have
+a lesson which will profit thee so far as thou art wise, and redouble
+what there is in thee, be it small or great, and mend thy flippant
+speech.’
+
+To which Flaxius humbly and gently replied, in good Sanskrit:
+
+‘Few, indeed, O father, are the diamond dewdrops of immortality which
+have fallen into my vase from the infinite heaven of wisdom; barely the
+flavour of a taste of the Amrecta cup of true knowledge has come to me
+from the depth of the soundless sea of Truth, and if thou canst add to
+it ever so little, it will be most gratefully received. I am as one who
+murmurs feebly in a sleep, mid broken dreams. I pray thee, waken me to
+life and light!’
+
+‘It is not from me, Flaxius,’ answered the Aryan sage, ‘that thy lesson
+is to come, but from one nearer allied to thee in that philosophy of
+life which thou art next to learn. My footsteps wander in the silent
+paths, far beyond humanity and the visible scope of sense; thine have
+not yet trodden all the ways of the world in which thou hast a part.
+As yet, for thee, there is perfume in the green valleys, amid violets
+and asphodel; for thee, birds still sing in leafy trees; for thee, the
+lovely nymph amid the reeds still smiles and beckons with a cautious
+air, and brave men welcome thee with the wine-cup in the weaponed
+hall; for thee is yet the ring and the crash of arms, and the joy of
+battle, and council among sages and kings. All of this I have left far
+behind me--for it was my fate. Whether to press on through the ages, or
+exhaust the age ere leaving it, is not a question for us. To every one
+let his road and ours be plain.
+
+‘Now, as to him whom thou art here to meet. Here in this land, as
+indeed in many others, long ere thy Etruscan ancestors had brought
+Egyptian and Greek art or culture into their own rude strength and
+tremendous superstition and faith in ancient forms, there were men who
+after death became spirits, and were worshipped as gods. Yet even then,
+so inherent was earth in their natures, they remained of the world
+worldly, and existed in that nature which we of India ever aspire to
+transcend. Among them was one who vowed never to quit this world and
+human life till he had mastered its last secret.’
+
+‘A most original and glorious god, that!’ observed Flaxius, ‘and one
+rather to my mind. Was he, think you, square right or round wrong?’
+
+‘Being assumedly in his right mind, he did nothing wrong,’ answered the
+Aryan. ‘Nay, there is a point to come, in the dim and remote future,
+where our paths will meet. But, to the god himself! Look about thee,
+and tell me what thou seest?’
+
+‘I behold,’ replied Flaxius, after a pause, ‘vast rocks, or remnants,
+as it seems on closer look, of some tremendous architecture of long
+lost ages, of rudest form, yet worked with giant will, so worn by time
+and so tossed in confusion that few would trace in them the hand of
+man. I myself did not at first observe that these were ruins of some
+massy building.’
+
+‘What modern culture would not note,’ replied the Aryan, ‘has, however,
+been retained in popular tradition, for the wild shepherd who pastures
+his goats amid these rocks, or the old crones while spindling in their
+shade, record, in what has been called the “Gospel of the Distaff,”
+tales of a time when there was a mighty temple in this spot--a
+marvellous building of high walls and towers, from whose lofty summit
+men beheld the sun while it was still dark on earth, or, as legend
+grows in greatness, all night long. This tale their ancestors brought
+from the icy North, where, indeed, it is true enough in a way, and ever
+will be.
+
+‘Therein dwelt the god, who had been a mighty man, uniting in himself
+all that was of the earth earthy, of human craft most crafty, of
+strength the strongest, of honeyed sweetness the most sweet, of mortal
+bitterness, the bitterest. He gave himself unto the very life of the
+life of what the Egyptian Hermes has called the downward-borne elements
+of God; but suffered not a fibre, a breath of that which transcends
+life--or what we call the spiritual or divine--to mingle with, or
+enter into his sphere. Hence, dealing only with material things, he
+found that all things material do somewhere clash or fail, and that,
+however high human thoughts may rise, there is always some higher point
+whence they appear as mockeries and failures, or foolish incompletions.
+He ended--supposing an end--by seeing in all things that which,
+beginning as almost senseless fun, and witless laughter in apes and
+boors, rises to humour and true wit in culture, flits as the paradox
+o’er many a problem of life, thrills or charms or terrifies as contrast
+or contradiction in the struggle of forces, appals and bewilders us
+in the agony and suffering, pain and tragedy of the elements and man,
+and ends all in death and new birth. To him in all is one stupendous
+humour, whether in laughter or in weeping, or in the deepest human
+wisdom--for in all lies _the paradox_ always visible from some point to
+the god.’
+
+‘Verily,’ observed Flaxius, ‘_that_ is having a keen perception of a
+joke on a tremendous scale. And considering that all nature hath as
+yet appeared to me as consisting principally of conundrums, I should
+infer that our god will find no lack of work or of amusement for some
+time to come. Truly, I begin to surmise that there is more wisdom in
+the world than the wisest are aware of, and that the greater we become
+the greater are our jests and the more poetic our _quodlibets_; yea and
+that even a pun may be so sublime that a church may be founded on it.
+It has indeed occurred to me many a time that many a doctrine, creed or
+law divine, for which myriads of lives have been lost, is all _bosh_,
+as ye say in your ancient Indian tongue, ‘mere noise and nonsense.’
+Like bricks set in a row on end by children, they only knock one
+another down in due succession at the last.
+
+‘Therefore Humour in its highest and holiest, or most diabolical sense,
+is the one true _aurea catena_, or golden chain which runs through all
+things, so far as man can know them. Yes, it is like a tremendous rock
+which I once saw even in thy native land, O Sage. It overhung the road
+so terribly that the heart of him who passed under it quaked with fear,
+but when it was passed, men, looking backwards, beheld that in the
+sunshine it wore the form of a great grotesque face beaming with winky
+laughter.’
+
+‘Thou dost indeed rise to the occasion, Flaxius,’ replied the Sage,
+with an expression which seemed almost like the reflected, far-away,
+dim phantom of a pre-historic smile. It was his first for seven hundred
+and fifty-three years, reckoning from the fifteenth of August, which is
+the Ascension Day of Buddha. ‘Almost thou persuadest me that the god
+has a convert ready-baked to his hand. But it is past the sunset, and I
+know that we are awaited. Follow me!’
+
+He led the way along a winding path or easy footway, now beside vast,
+uplifted stones, now by the edges of tremendous cliffs, at whose base,
+far below, was heard the sound of a torrent, like human voices laughing
+together; overhead leaned, far out, graceful trees or shrubs, like
+daring girls seeking to look below for coming lovers--kneeling on tufts
+of waving mountain vines, softly lighted by the stars and rising moon.
+
+The breeze came from the sea to woo the night, and its cool breath was
+pleasant to the giant-like young Etruscan, but the Indian sage drew his
+cloak about him, and as he seated himself on a stone said:
+
+‘Yet a few minutes and we shall be before the ancient god. Know that
+long ago, even during the days of the earliest dwellers in Italy, there
+was a civilisation which far transcended that of savages, for wherever
+there is a race with genius there will be work, however rude, to prove
+it. At that time, the spirit of whom I spoke had here a temple. Then in
+a later age, when other races such as thine, O Flaxius, invaded Italy,
+these people, forewarned by divinity, left the marvellous image brought
+from some Asian clime in which their deity had dwelt, and, walling
+up the shrine with utmost care, laboured long to destroy all outward
+traces of man’s work, and fled.
+
+‘Then the god, who had before ever been present in the statue, also
+left the cave. But once a year does he return to it, to revivify
+that which was once himself, unto mankind, even as in all countries
+feudal possessions are held by the tenure of annual presence and the
+performance of some deed. And the performance to which he is pledged,
+is to answer to such words as may be spoken to him, which indeed are
+few and far between, since among the spiritual and Theosophists,
+there are not many who care for such inveterate old heathenism, and
+hard-pressed, material, firm-baked worldliness as his.
+
+‘Thou, O Flaxius, having by mortal virtue won the grace of an immortal
+_Fata_, or celestial fairy who is well nigh one of the gods, hast had
+the strange chance of a man who is to be perfected in worldly wisdom,
+and therefore art sent to confer with him who mastered it in the past.
+Long it is, I ween, since he ever saw before his shrine such a neophyte
+as thou art!’
+
+‘And now let us enter!’
+
+Saying this, he pressed aside the boughs and leaves of a dense thicket
+or copse, finding again a passage, till he came to what seemed to be
+a bare wall of rock. Here, he tapped thrice with his staff, whereupon
+a door opened, and they entered a wide-arched hall illuminated by a
+very soft and brilliant light, whose source was not visible, but seemed
+to be in the air itself. A single and silent form, that of a youth of
+beautiful, but strange type, as of another race, led them to the baths,
+where they found, after their ablutions in perfumed water, fresh linen
+garments ready for them. They were then taken to another apartment
+where a meal was spread. It gave no great promise, being simply a cake
+for each, with wine, which, however, in no wise astonished sages who
+knew the secrets of transcendental cookery, and of draughts distilled
+with Rosicrucian skill. And then, being greatly refreshed, the Aryan
+spoke once more:
+
+‘Thou wilt now behold the god, and I bid and beg thee earnestly,
+that thou, ere speaking, wilt consider long and very seriously his
+countenance, following it to the very depths of its expression, and
+through all the shadows and tones of meaning which it awakens in thy
+memory or imagination. Now if thou art, as becomes a true student of
+wisdom, keenly perceptive of the soul in the face--that is, a genuine
+physiognomist--then wilt thou, with the aid of what I have told thee,
+know enough to learn more.’
+
+And with this they went into a great hall. At the further end, in a
+wonderfully quaint shrine, which seemed like a dense swarm of blinking
+jewels and living gems swimming in gold, was a most marvellous image.
+It was apparently of some strange creamy-white or ivory-like material,
+browned or veined by great antiquity into rich dark tones and blending
+polished hues, as if time had completed on it with unusual care the
+daintiest part of the hand-work of the artist. One would think it
+had been made by Keats. In the form itself there was manifest a most
+archaic rudeness; there was in it nothing of the divine grace of the
+Greek, and yet it had not the ugliness of the old traditional forms of
+the Egyptian, for he who made it had gone straight to nature, copying
+what he saw there without convention. It was the converse of art.
+
+Flaxius bowed low before the form; the Aryan prostrated himself flat
+on the ground, uttering a fervent prayer in many strophes, burning
+incense withal, and chanting an invocation. But the young Etruscan
+gazed boldly at the god, steadily and without fear, as a Norse champion
+might have gazed at Odin or Thor, had either faced him. And as the
+mystic light shone on the deeply inscrutable countenance of the Aryan
+sage and the splendid self-confidence and jovial air of Flaxius, like
+an Asiatic pre-figuring of the Roman or of the race predestined to
+conquer the world,--and finally on the marvellous mystery of the god,
+the wisest observer might well have thought that even in those days
+such a trio was without its equal on earth. There they were, even as
+they are to-day: the transcendental Oriental, the vigorous prototype of
+the coming Europe, and the obscuring image of the giant Past--a goodly
+picture for the artist who could do it justice!
+
+And what Flaxius first beheld in the face was the coarse and laughing
+look, not even of the lowest faun or satyr, but of a boor or clown
+‘grinning through a horse-collar,’ such as I have seen in a head of the
+fourteenth century in an old hall in Herefordshire: a look changing,
+an instant later, into the expression of a devil, with an unutterable
+depth of malice and despair, as of lunacy in man. But whether it was
+the play of the mystic light, or of something more marvellous within,
+he suddenly saw a new soul in it, as of a higher and more cultured
+fiend--a Mephistopheles who denied all things and smiled on all; and
+yet it was the same face, and anon there came insensibly the expression
+of the sage who, cold and calm, observes all human error and earthly
+change, like one studying insoluble problems.
+
+‘Now we have come,’ thought Flaxius, ‘to the earliest Greek
+philosophers, Cynic and Stoic and Epicurean--sunshine on ice!’
+
+And anon it was the poet, seeking his similes and correspondences in
+nature and man, caring not, so that he found the beautiful and vivid,
+how contradictory the elements might be.
+
+‘Ha! art thou there, Hesiod--or is it Homer--or Sappho--or seest thou
+thy singers of the Mahabarata and Kalidasa?’ inquired Flaxius of the
+Indian. ‘Yes--’tis all the same--the simile and the antithesis--the
+contradiction and anomaly which point man’s highest poetry.’
+
+But the face was ever the same nor had it changed.
+
+‘And last of all I see the seeker into all,’ reflected Flaxius. ‘He
+who from the lowest sense of incongruity, as from the deepest agony of
+passion and faith, from the highest truth evolved by philosophy, as
+from the whirling million-folded threads of the garment of God, draws
+only the conclusion of strife and absurd change. The eternal Wheel of
+the Law, held by a laughing fiend--all is Humour--and thus endeth the
+first lesson!’
+
+Then he spoke to the god.
+
+‘I perceive that I can see in thee no more, since I have got back to my
+beginning. Doubtless there are in thee higher phases which I, the mere
+pupil, cannot perceive. All of us cannot fathom everything. But what I
+have learned during this past hour transcends all that I knew before,
+and I must live ages upon earth to master it. Humour is the perception
+of incongruity and imperfection, of contrasts and errors; the truest
+humorist is he who sees it with the most philosophy and truth.’
+
+There was silence, and then there came a deep yet soft and solemn voice
+from the god:
+
+‘Thou hast learned all which I expected from thee--now learn to live
+in life, and take it as it comes, since gods and men are all subject
+to the same laws. _Seek_ continually. Knowledge is the soil which when
+well cultivated yields the grain by which thou canst live. Children, go
+in peace, I have spoken!’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘He spoke well,’ said the Aryan sage; ‘very well, but not beyond his
+past. Mine is another road. The true and far-advanced sage, my Flaxius,
+can by penance and contemplation rise through the ages far above all
+changes and contradictions of nature and of matter, and pass through
+the Gate of Nirvana--to eternal and unchangeable peace and happiness.
+Whether it be, as some suppose, into absorption with the highest
+happiness, or to pursue new fields of individual actions beyond all
+that intellect has ever dreamed, I know not, but that he can escape
+thereby the miseries of change, I _do_ believe.’
+
+‘But that is only for one in millions,’ remarked Flaxius.
+
+‘Eternity is long,’ replied the Sage.
+
+‘I think,’ answered the Etruscan, ‘that as all truth is three-fold,
+there may be yet a third way. What it is I truly do not know, but I
+will think of it. Meanwhile I have enough to do for many a year, in
+following out what I this night have learned. Before I endeavour to
+excel in the higher heavenly mathematics and celestial algebra and
+transcendental curves and equations, I will first master this earthly
+arithmetic. Perhaps a few of your sages might find the gate of Nirvana
+sooner if they would do so. You Theosophists forget that you are
+here in this world as ants, and that the visions and thoughts of the
+eagle--however grand and fine they may be--are misplaced in the emmet.
+Speculations in billions of æons and millions of millenniums and blue
+eternities are folly for men whose manifest measure of black and white
+time is the change of day and night, the course of seasons and the
+path of years. You narrate minutely what occurred for thousands of
+Kalpacs to the gods, yet cannot trace your own human history accurately
+for more than a few centuries. To me it seems that knowledge--like
+charity--should begin at home. And like unto it, friend, but even
+worse, do I find your esoteric reincarnation. The gradual evolution
+of all men through revolving cycles, which requires for ‘complete
+unfoldment’ a solar system on the seven principles through each of
+which the soul makes seven rounds, in seven races, and so on through
+seventy times seven sevenings, with seven times seventy new senses,
+seasonings, and so on, ere you can get the human being into good form,
+reminds one very much of the machine depicted by Hogarth. There are
+in it steel wheels and springs, cogs, latchets, levers, eccentrics,
+valves, and God knows what all--to draw a cork!
+
+‘You reply that Eternity is long, and by that saying you refute
+yourself. For life seems to be all to him who is in it. And you require
+man to master, study, understand, and in life live up to a system which
+he can only comprehend, or do anything with in a million of years.
+Wherein, O friend, thou art illogical.
+
+‘And yet, O Aryan, I thank thy faith, for the time was not quite lost
+which I spent in studying it. For even as oysters lead to soup, and
+soup to fish and good _pièces de résistance_, or beef and game, so
+do I prophetically foresee that this thy Indian soup of speculation
+will lead to German metaphysics, which will conduce to the fish of a
+_Natur-philosophie_, which will bring man to the English roast beef of
+Darwin and Huxley, and solid pudding thereunto.
+
+‘And I thank thee for introducing me to this god, in whom I find
+incarnate the moral aspect of the mere materialism in which I, for the
+time, live, move, and have my being. Truly, it is not quite enough
+for one who would fain think that ’tis not all of life to live, nor
+all of death to die, but it is all in all sufficient for the disciple
+of Epicurus and Lucretius, which it is well to be for once in life’s
+journey, wherein we must sometimes stop in queer inns of Hedonism.
+
+‘Now may we in the ages often meet! Farewell until our paths again are
+one!’
+
+And with this each went his way again into life.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘_Hæc fabula docet_,’ wrote the great master as a note, ‘this legend
+teacheth a lesson which may peradventure not be unto all quite so
+plain as a fly in a milk-pan, or the sun at noon-day, _oculis subjecta
+fidelibus_, or “before our werry eyes,” as the elder Weller hath
+it, or as intelligible as one-third of the sermon of Arlotto was to
+himself--_che n’intese lui_--for which reason, O refined reader, I will
+explain it to thee! The ancient godkin whom I did interview represents
+the practical wisdom of life as based on a narrow materialism which
+sees in all things only atoms and chance, and believes that nature does
+but carry out things to a certain extent when they fail, or roll the
+stone up a hill, whence it comes tumbling back on Sisyphus. Therefore
+his worshippers found in life only contradictions--and paradoxes
+without end. Now it is true that these abound in life, and are the soul
+of humour and of poetry, and exist from laughter up to sublimity in
+everything material--yet is this crude materialism far away different
+from that Evolution which I afterwards learned, which goes deeper
+than atoms, and believes in infinite progress from stage to stage,
+in ideals, and the ever-advancing power of volitional consciousness
+or human will. In the course of progress through the ages, paradoxes
+disappear, or else are succeeded by high and nobler and purer forms of
+the complex and contradictory.’
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS AND ROOSEVELDT
+
+  ‘When Julius Cæsar gave the deputies
+  From Gaul their rights and treated them as men,
+  All Rome roared out in rage, because in Rome
+  All foreigners were held as vile and low:
+  And thus it was that Cæsar showed himself
+  Most perfectly the bravest of mankind,
+  And fittest man of all to rule the state.’
+
+  _Comment by Miss Winifrede Orr, on the following chapter._
+
+  ‘And the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying: This man receiveth
+  sinners, and eateth with them.’--_St. Luke_, xv. 2.
+
+
+THE wise and great Flaxius in his steps from century to century did
+much to endear himself to the men of the present, who take a pride in
+their northern ancestry. For when no elegant Roman scholar would have
+given a rusty denarius to know what was going on in the whole world,
+north of Italy, our sage made himself intimate with Odin and Thor, not
+to mention the God Frey (whose name is yet borne by descendants of the
+old stock), had been favoured by Freya, had read the first edition of
+the Edda scraped in runes on birch-bark, had suggested emendations in
+it, and so on. He was a great friend of Olaf Tryggvason, whose true
+history, and it is a marvellous one, yet remains to be written. And
+here-and-thereing about, it happened that he came into the Netherlands,
+where he made acquaintance with King Gambrinus the inventor of beer.
+But, in fact, it was Flaxius who, having in India learned from Vishnu
+the art of brewing _Soma_, which is now generally agreed to have been
+India pale ale, taught him the secret. And not to digress, I would
+here note that Bass has his name from Bassaro, a place in Lydia, where
+Bacchus had a temple, which name is supposed to be derived from the
+Hebrew _Bassar_, to gather in a vintage, because in those days beer was
+regarded as a sort of wine, an idea still preserved by German poets,
+who call it barley-wine. As for ale, Flaxius affirms that it is found
+in the marvellous myth of Ale-sia, a city of Sicily, where there was a
+fountain, which foamed up joyously at the sound of music, so that the
+froth ran over the brim, just as Lager is believed to foam in the glass
+when students sing. For which the reader may consult Pliny (_lib._
+3), and Solinus. As for the Lager, I have witnessed that miracle
+myself--and hope to see it again. And it is also true, as it is lovely,
+that the beautiful, clear Pilsener beer, as well as that of Vienna,
+will leap up in joyous bubbles when it hears an orchestra play, as
+ye may see for yourselves, according to Puttuli, if you chance to be
+present when it occurs! And it is for this reason that the Cup of the
+Winds, which is before me as I write, a goblet of the tenth century,
+carved from wood, and undoubtedly a Lombard beer-cup, has on it the
+four Modes in music, each represented by a female figure playing on a
+musical instrument, and all their skirts blowing in a high wind, to
+signify _aria_ or melody, which is a pun in wood, even as the Catholic
+Church is one in stone. _Ergo bibamus!_
+
+And while thus up-and-downing in the North, Flaxius came to Holland,
+which had at that time been but recently taken by the Dutch. Now
+at this particular period, or P. P., as a friend of mine used to
+denote the great dates in the margin of his history, the Netherlands
+were under the dominion of Siegfried the Dragon-killer (as you may
+learn from Wagner’s opera), who had for a wife eventually the fair
+Chriemhilde, so sweetly described in the _Book of Heroes_:
+
+
+  ‘Her heart in beauty burning--a ruddy ruby shone.
+  The gleaming of her eyelets was like the glowing moon.
+  She clad herself in roses and pearls as bright and rare:
+  Yet none came to the maiden to give her comfort there.
+
+  She was right fair of figure and slender in the waist,
+  Like to a golden lustre, naught in her form misplaced;
+  Her hands and fingers perfect, each unto either trim;
+  Her nails so white and shining, you could see yourself therein.
+
+  Her hair was bound in beauty with noble silken twine,
+  She let it flow a-downward, that lovely maiden fine.
+  She wore a crown with jewels, and all of gold so red.
+  Of Elberich the Dwarfling she had in truth great need.
+
+  And in that crown bright shining lay a carbùncle stone,
+  Which even in the palace like a bright topaz shone.
+  Upon her head the ringlets in glossy masses lay;
+  They gleamed as clear and brightly as doth the sun by day.
+
+  She stood alone, unheeded, right sorrowful her mood.
+  How beautiful her colour, it was like milk and blood;
+  And through her locks so purely the neck shone white as snow.
+  Ah! Elberich the Little felt deep the maiden’s woe.’
+
+
+Then in time her sorrow was relieved, and amid the conflicting jar
+of legendary songs, it appeared that she married Siegfried. But her
+great deed was to lay out a glorious and wonderful garden of roses, or
+Rooseveldt, in German Rosengarten, of which Carlyle writes:
+
+‘Chriemhild, whose altered history makes such a figure in the
+_Nibelungen_, had, it would seem, a rose-garden some seven English
+miles in circuit, fenced only by a silk thread, wherein, however,
+she maintained twelve stout fighting men, and these, so unspeakable
+was their prowess, sufficed to defend the silk-thread garden against
+all mortals. A good antiquary, Von der Hagen, imagines that this
+rose-garden in the primæval tradition glances obliquely at the
+Ecliptic, with its Twelve signs, at Jupiter’s fight with the Titans,
+and we know not what confused skirmishing in the Utgard, Asgard, or
+Midgard of the Scandinavians.’
+
+Of the great battle of all the heroes of the North about or in this
+rose-field, I will say nothing. Suffice it to write that in time the
+fair Chriemhilde had a son by Siegfried, ‘though history passes it
+over, oh,’ and this offspring grew up to be a glorious youth, who was
+known as the Lord of the Rooseveldt, from his patrimony, being often
+called simply Roosevelt, for brevity’s sake. And he was a credit to his
+highly respectable ancestry, first making himself famous in learning
+and letters, then in council, holding divers offices, and yet again
+in a war with Spain, wherein he gained great renown, till in the
+fulness of time he governed Holland, or had a kingdom therein, which he
+administered with wisdom and grace.
+
+Now there are some folk who are brave in one way, and some in another;
+some braving-mad when drunk, and others only bold while sober, or to
+show off, or to gratify temper; but Roosevelt was brave all round,
+having not only physical, but in the highest degree moral courage, for
+he had that of his Opinions, which is the noblest of all. And Flaxius
+to his great joy observed this.
+
+The king had soon seen in the Sage great wisdom and a genial spirit,
+and had therefore made of him a friend. It came to pass one day that
+as they were riding near the Rhine, they saw seated by the road-side a
+poor man, of very dark colour, yet one who seemed as if he might be far
+better than his looks.
+
+‘Whence camest thou?’ asked the king.
+
+‘With the sun whose livery I wear, from the South. I am of the dark
+races, and was brought here a captive.’
+
+‘What hast thou seen?’
+
+‘I have seen sorrow, and felt oppression, heard curses, tasted
+bitterness, and smelt the air of dungeons, and all because of my
+colour, for God knows my soul is white enough, and were my skin the
+same I should be called learned, and, perhaps, something more. Yet at
+this minute I am hungry, and few, indeed, are they who would give me
+food, and none who would eat with me.’
+
+‘By Frey and all the gods!’ cried Roosevelt in anger, ‘come thou with
+me, friend, and we will see whether no man will keep thy company!
+For I am lord of all this land, and I swear that this day thou shalt
+dine with me in my palace, sitting at my table with me, and may Loki
+and Svanttowit, Teuston, Vith, and Busteric, Chrodo, Swackenhammer,
+Irminsul, Hela, Hellwolf, Zernebock,[1] and the whole gang, do their
+worst with me, if I stand not by thee!’
+
+So they went to the palace, and the pilgrim was bathed and clad in
+seemly garments; and when the horn was blown for dinner, and the band
+struck up, lo! there sat the dark man at the royal table, and Roosevelt
+treated him as he did the other guests.
+
+But the dark man behaved modestly, like any other gentleman, conversing
+chiefly with Flaxius about foreign countries.
+
+‘There will be a row about this,’ said Flaxius to Breitmann, a northern
+warrior, who spoke a barbarous Dutch, and who was something of a bard,
+because he had sung a ‘bardy.’ He was Poet Laureate.
+
+‘You pet all you got on it,’ was the reply. ‘All de small minds who
+had rader live in a liddle country dan in a pig von, will pe hoppin’
+mad. And efery man who has nodding boot a white colour to make him
+resbectaple, and a crate many pious beople among dem, will fluke and
+coorse and damn der Roosevelt; for peing too moosh like de Lord Jesus,
+who did in his vay de fery same ding. I shall have to sing a song apout
+dis.’
+
+It is certainly true that what Breitmann (who as a poet was also
+something of a prophet) predicted, came to pass. For there was great
+rage all over the land, and people cursed, and ‘swore in high Dutch,’
+and abused their lord for being morally brave and good; and it was
+noticed withal that everybody in the land who came of a race which had
+ever grunted and groaned because it had been ‘persecuted’--and there
+were a great many of these--all cried out the loudest against ‘the
+nigger,’ to show their social superiority. But the king, knowing that
+he had done right before God and man, cared not one broken straw for
+them all.
+
+‘Go thy ways, O King,’ said Flaxius admiringly, ‘for the best and
+noblest, kindest and bravest man who ever sat on a throne, and had the
+least fear to do what is right. Others have been of good descent and
+brave, some again brave and learned, others as bold and honest, but of
+them all, thou alone art all, and with it the only one who dared be a
+friend to the downtrodden and oppressed. Now for this, God bless thee,
+Roosevelt, and thou shalt be blessed! And even if the future has no
+more great or glorious deeds for thee, rest content. Thou hast shown
+more true courage than any monarch before thee ever did, saving Christ,
+the Lord of all the world.’
+
+Then it came to pass in the year 1901....
+
+But here the chronicle abruptly ends.
+
+History repeats itself.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now the Laureate kept his word, and made a song, which he sang to a
+harp, which song travelled from Scheveningen up the Rhine, till it
+arrived, about a month later, at Cologne. It was thence transferred
+to Heidelberg by a wandering Minne-singer to Constance, which lies on
+the Bodensee, as is affirmed in a very ancient ballad, which consists
+of nothing else but this fact repeated fifty times in different forms,
+in which it bears a great resemblance to much modern intellectual
+effort, as displayed in political speeches, sermons, and the like.
+And from the Bodensee it was colported by divers wandering students
+and Handwerksburschen through German Switzerland, till one warm day
+it crossed the Alps and got to Verona or Berne in Lombardy, where I
+believe it stopped, albeit there is a passage or two in the _Divina
+Commedia_, which indicate that Dante had possibly come across some rude
+Italian version of it. And this was the _Lied_, which I have followed
+closely:
+
+
+  DER NOBLE ROOSEVELT
+
+  ‘It is writ in many a shtory which came from olden time,
+  In legends full of glory, in many a minstrel’s rhyme;
+  Dot he who acted kindly since history began,
+  And gently to all beople, was der truest gentleman.
+
+  And among de very truest of dis kind in der Welt,
+  As die Rose among de Ritters, I put der Roosevelt;
+  For brave in dis, or dat, in deed, is many a king or knight,
+  But Roosevelt’s der only von dot’s brave in all dot’s right.
+
+  Grand in der crash of pattle among de cavaliers,
+  Grand in der rush of warriors among de breakin’ spears,
+  Vhen Odin to de Northmen his help in glory brings,
+  Und de Spaniards fly before dem all shkared like avery-dings.
+
+  But vhere he show der grandest and rise to der Beyond,
+  On de oder side of Jordan, above dis eart’ly pond,
+  Is when he knows he’s in der right he’s efer at his ease,
+  Und in spite of all de tyfels, will do yoost what he blease.
+
+  So Gott be-help him onwards unto a glorious end!
+  For de trodden-down and lowly efer find in him a friend.
+  Votefer snobs and copperheads against his name may bring,
+  Heaven pless dee for dy nople heart, O Roosevelt, my king!
+
+
+[1] _Zernebock._ It was over this deity that George Borrow came to
+grief when he ridiculed Walter Scott for making an old Saxon witch
+swear by him. For the Saxons did adopt Zernebock, though he was the
+_Cerneboh_ or black god of their Slavonic neighbours.
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS AND HAMLET
+
+SHOWING HOW THE PRINCE OF DENMARK, WHEN AT THE UNIVERSITY OF
+WITTENBERG, LISTENED TO THE LECTURE ON ROMAN HISTORY BY THE LEARNED
+FLAXIUS, AND WAS TAKEN BY THE LATTER TO A BALL, AND INTRODUCED TO THE
+FAIRY QUEEN.
+
+‘O valiant Hamlet, and worthy of immortal fame, who, being shrewdly
+armed with feint of folly, covered a wisdom too high for human wit
+under a marvellous disguise of want of sense, and in that subtlety
+found means whereby he did protect himself, and yet revenge the murder
+of his father long before.’--_Saxo Grammaticus_, Lib. 3.
+
+
+IT happened once, amid the blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry of
+the centuries, as they whirled magnificently on--many ere this of ours,
+yet many more after wise Flaxius had his natal day--that the scholar
+went to the University of Wittenberg to see what he could pick up in
+the way of ideas. For, with all his experience and erudition, he was
+always learning something new, as any man may at any hour in this world
+school, if he be not too proud to note facts; as somebody’s wisdom hath
+it in Latin: ‘_Ea est vera nominis existimatio quæ non ex sermonibus,
+sed ex rebus istis deducitur_’; or, as an Englishman more concisely
+expressed it: ‘There’s nothing like facts to learn from.’
+
+And being a man of marked, yet modest mien, who conversed in Latin with
+singular purity, and one who, when he so pleased, could construct his
+whole discourse out of nothing but quotations from the classics--or
+from the works of his auditors, which was even more agreeable to
+them--he was soon held in great esteem. And having read in public a
+paper, _De vera Essentia Verborum_, in which he demonstrated from A.
+Artemidorus down to Z. Zoilus, that words have souls, he came to be
+regarded as _clericus vel addiscens_, almost a professor.
+
+So it befel one day, when a certain teacher named Brunkenstrorphius
+was incapacitated--owing to fourteen bottles of Rhenish wine the night
+before--from lecturing, that Flaxius kindly took his place, and read to
+his class in Roman history, the subject for that day being Nero.
+
+Now, as Flaxius had had the great advantage of having been long
+personally acquainted with this emperor--to whom he was introduced
+by Seneca--and had been present by special invitation at the
+brilliant reception which was lighted by a whole congregation of early
+Christians rolled in pitch and ignited, had talked with Locusta, and
+seen the stupendous spectacle of the burning of Rome with an Imperial
+orchestra of one, and received an estate for exclaiming, ‘_Artes omnes
+novit Cæsar!_’ and was finally in at the death of that remarkable
+artist, he had almost as good a conception of the true character of
+the latter as sundry modern novelists and immoralists, who have so
+black- or white-washed him by turns that his memory seems to be like
+the Cathedral of Florence, or a zebra, or a chequer board, or a bad
+photograph, or what the Liberal and Conservative press in turn declared
+of G.O.M.--that is to say, an alternation of ebony and ivory, of coal
+and alabaster, the raven and blanche dove, or a Prussian sentry-box,
+or a cup jewelled in niello, or Saint Paul’s, or a cardinal’s
+conscience....
+
+According to Flaxius the emperor was in himself something such a
+combination, well nigh beyond all the analysis of our modern moral
+chemistry, the wondrous product of a monstrous age, a terrible Thought
+elaborated with agony from a mighty but corrupt world, one who, in the
+true spirit of history, was more a symbol than a man; mere bronze medal
+from the iron die of his time. The lecturer could well nigh believe
+that no Nero, _per se_, had ever existed at all, but had been a mere
+_simulacrum_ or phantom set up in a high place, wherewith the Mighty
+Powers who rule the world had mocked or lessoned man; a Pharos, or
+beacon-tower with an effulgent burning-head, standing deeply footed in
+the freezing-cold, damp, roaring sea--a giant giving light in agony,
+and warning ships not to approach, and, like old Pharos, fearful in
+his pride.
+
+There was a kind of daïs or higher range of seats and desks, at which
+sat only the young noblemen who were studying at the University, and
+among these was one who, to Flaxius--who was a marvellous reader of
+men, not only by metoposcopia, or physiognomy, but by all which was
+indicative of the soul?--seemed to be as far beyond all his fellows
+as an eagle would be amid the dullest, pettiest featherlings of a
+barnyard. Yet, though very quietly dignified, he was devoid of that
+arrogance of rank which displayed itself so conspicuously in every
+detail of dress, every gesture, and in the very intonation of every
+word of the aristocracy of that time; for he was truly too much above
+them to affect even their superiority--a thing in which the German
+noble of the present day hath still almost everything to learn,
+especially in Prussia. For even yet among these good folk, well nigh
+all the joy of life, and mental life itself, consists in the happy
+reflection that a majority of mankind are (by law, at least) their
+_inferiors_; which stupendous idea (it being generally their only
+possible one) they contemplate even as a Hindu saint contemplates God,
+to the exclusion of all other conception. This reflection has been
+concisely made into a law of ethical science by one of their number,
+an Austrian named Von Mannteufel, in the words, ‘_Humanity, properly
+speaking, begins with the rank of count._’
+
+This young nobleman was, indeed, so elevated in rank that he could
+well afford to dispense with vanity, since he was heir-apparent to
+the throne of Denmark. His name was Hamlet, and there was that in his
+appearance which would indicate--to even a less clairvoyant eye than
+that of Flaxius--an original character of the strongest type, devoid
+of the eccentricity which attracts comment, learned in philosophy
+without pedantry, endowed with a personal grace of manner suggesting
+natural courtesy and a marvellous observation by a quiet eye--all of
+which might be seen in him by all. But Flaxius noted in him something
+far deeper: a soul which, if not yet risen, was rapidly rising above
+the storm and whirl of all things in life and time, be they great or
+small, so as to behold in them all the mere passing show of a drama,
+yet feeling all the time that _in that drama_ there would be incidents
+which would wreck this mere mortal life and wrench his soul with agony.
+He who has this tremendous dual action to undergo in life--that of
+being a true philosopher, yet a great sufferer--will assuredly have
+a strange foreboding of it, and to such a mind the idea of Nero, as
+presented by Flaxius, in its similar doubleness, was a marvellous
+revelation. He had long suffered from that problem which a great poet
+has expressed by saying that--
+
+                ‘Not in that strife,
+  Wherefrom I take strange lore and read it deep,
+  Can I find reason why _I_ should be thus:
+  No--nowhere can unriddle, though I search
+  And pore on Nature’s universal scroll
+  Even to swooning, why Divinities,
+  The first born of all shaped and palpable gods,
+  Should cower beneath what, in comparison,
+  Is untremendous Might.’
+
+All of which Flaxius the immortal, who could read the soul in the
+glance, and who saw that he had before him one into whose essence
+Immortality had cast its brightest rays, deeply divined. So it came
+that he lectured to Hamlet alone, rising far beyond the rest of the
+audience. And, mindful of his man, who, he felt, was thirsting to
+think, he made good long pauses, which his auditors deemed were to give
+himself rests to make new bounds.
+
+The lecture was at an end, and Hamlet, by a sign, intimated to his
+friends that he would fain be left alone. When all were departed, he,
+with courtesy beyond the time, arose and approached the professor, and
+said:
+
+‘Learned master, thou hast touched with such unerring hand the
+harp-strings of my heart, and drawn from it such marvellous chords that
+I would gladly have them combined in more coherent melody. Even as a
+bee in a bewildered flight, driven by the wind, at chance may light
+upon----’
+
+‘A flower,’ said Flaxius, ‘which gives him rest.’
+
+‘And in which, too, he finds a honey-store, such as he never found in
+flight before,’ subjoined the prince gently.
+
+‘Yet around which some curling petals close somewhat too tightly for
+his eager search,’ added Flaxius, almost with a smile. ‘Truly to thee
+who art born to be a prince among more than mortals, I will gladly lend
+what aid I can to clear away the tangling, hindering leaves.’
+
+‘Learned master,’ replied the prince, ‘I would first deeply reflect on
+what I have heard, since I as yet toil slowly after you. And if it be
+your pleasure, I pray you seek me this evening in my library.’
+
+‘I will be there,’ said Flaxius, ‘with joy.’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Flaxius the Immortal, and the prince who was unconsciously an aspirant
+for immortality, sat at a table under antique, grotesquely carved
+arches, before them a flask of Rhenish, and the works of Hesiod
+and Homer. In the face of the Master there was the calm dignity of
+centuries; in that of Hamlet the quiet of a summer sea, beneath which
+tides are working which may break bounds in time of storm. They had
+long held deep discourse, and during the time Flaxius had penetrated
+more deeply with every utterance into the soul of the young man. At
+last, after a pause, the Master said:
+
+‘He who has risen so far as to find a reality in the tremendous action
+of the infinite in nature, and who has dwelt so long and earnestly on
+the change of dynasties of gods from Saturn to Jove, of old worlds
+into new, on man in his stormiest moods and the rabbit sporting in
+the thicket, birds and clouds and life still circling on, till all
+such thoughts are most habitual--has gone too far to retreat. He has
+advanced beyond his fellows. If he be weak and break down under the
+stupendous load he will go mad, and readily will men esteem him so, as
+they do all whom they cannot understand. If he succeed, they may deem
+him a poet or a god. But the imbroglio is sadly worse when the man is
+not a hermit, or one alone in life, who can battle freely with his
+destiny. If he be one who is enmeshed in some dire tragedy with others,
+which he, being human, must humanly endure and suffer, and yet is
+always having his wonted glimpses of the infinite, as prisoners catch
+glimpses of the sun, then he has before him such a battle and a strife
+as deserve to bend the decree of fate for very pity. Those who achieve
+victory over it all live for ever. Now know there are two lives beyond
+the grave: one the vital life which ever was, and can never pass away;
+the other the life of our great deeds, imperishable in the mind of man.’
+
+‘Ay,’ replied the prince, ‘and I feel in my deepest soul, great
+master, not only that thou speakest truth, but thou ne’er wouldst tell
+me this, didst thou not divine by some mystic power, all unknown to
+me, that I am destined to such warring woe? Worst of all is it for me
+that I have added into all of this the _weakness_ which must be truly
+overcome, a wax in the bronze which must be melted out, a love of sleep
+and ease and pleasant dreams.’
+
+‘Go on, thou hast more to say,’ replied Flaxius.
+
+‘Well, this remains,’ rejoined the prince, after a long pause, a
+draught of wine, and casting his glance briefly at the scrolls before
+him.... ‘In all these lives of mortals in the past, who rose by power
+to immortality, I find some golden glimpse vouchsafed to them of the
+supernatural, some comforting assurance of beings now invisible to
+me, of gods, guardian angels--“followers,” as my northern ancestors
+called them, or the beautiful _Fylgia_ who flit over the ocean after
+the heroes whom they protect. Truly, if I could only so much as see
+and talk once with moonlight fairies and merry elves, or a sprightly
+goblin, I, being only human, should have some strengthening assurance
+that life is not all a struggle with mere mortals and matter. Even in
+so little as what I ask, I should realise that I shall live. Do I speak
+wisely?’
+
+‘Yes,’ replied Flaxius, ‘there are men dying with hunger whom a crumb
+may save. This much may be granted to thee. ’Tis little enough. All
+over doth this outer life an inner life enfold, one of exquisite
+beauty and grace, as the rough seaweed and grim, ugly moss, and
+ragged madrepores, and hard crust envelop the exquisitely curved,
+snow-and-rose-bloom, blushing shell, the only thing on earth which is
+like in hues to a lovely maiden. Around and about us there circles ever
+in viewless beauty and undreamed perfume, moving to music all unheard
+by man, a thronging host of attendant beings; following sweet missions
+and holy biddings; talking in mystic tongues, of which echoes may be
+caught in the breeze, in the forest, and in tinkling springs or falling
+fountains. Truly, I forget myself when I abstract my mind an instant
+towards them from this our earthly sphere. Yes, ’tis but little for
+thee to ask, who hast before thee such a destiny, to live immortal in
+a poet’s verse! Yes, I will give it, and with all my heart, and thou
+shalt see the light invisible, and hear the music never meant for ears,
+to such degree as a beginner may. I see thee smile--well, be it when
+thou wilt; but, as thy wont is, thou requirest time to think on what
+I’ve said. Go, take an hour. There lies not far beyond the city gate,
+in a wild place among the lonely rocks, an old and crumbling castle,
+which all men shun as a haunted place; and in its hall fairies and
+goblins hold their revelry from midnight till the morning red is seen.
+Thither together we will wend our way.’
+
+‘It might seem marvellous to me,’ said Flaxius, as he, with Hamlet,
+walked forth in the summer night under the stars, ‘that thou, O
+Prince, who livest in the contemplation of greater marvels, who seest
+the miracle of the growth of flowers and the wonders of the circling
+universe which amaze even the spirits of earth and air, shouldst crave
+a mere glimpse of that which is after all only something new and
+unaccustomed, did I not know how deeply the desire of what is new to
+him is implanted in man. Yes, it is so deep that he who masters the
+problem treads on the verge of the Infinite. I myself----’
+
+But here he paused and said: ‘Yonder rises the tower, built, as
+tradition tells, by a sorcerer who, chanting a spell, with every word
+broke from the rock a stone, or conjured dust and air to solid blocks,
+and moved them into place. And ’tis no more than man himself will do
+in days to come; and none will deem the deed a miracle. Hence it is
+written in ancient chronicles, _in veterum libris observatum est hoc
+fieri_, that the building has ever been haunted, _nymphæis et fatis_,
+and by those strange spirits of the elements, whose homes being in the
+crimson gold of sun-dyed skies, or deep in earth, where marvellous gems
+and metals abound; or in forests; like the _Silvani_ and _Oreades_; or
+in streams like the _Naïades_, have by natural affinity a passionate
+love for poetry, and all that is rare and beautiful, wild or strange,
+be it in what form it may. For as nature is not only lovely and comely
+in her very self, becoming more so the deeper we penetrate her veriest
+being as _natura naturans_, so is she also in her freer actions often
+gaily contradictory, merrily and quaintly discordant; jingling bells to
+her sweetest music, and singing sweet _ritournelles_ of violets over
+grey and ancient graves. For every one of which freaks, be they as mad
+as they may, there is some echo of a goblin, Flibbertigibbet, fairy,
+implet, bogle, browny, pixie, urchin, Puck, Robin Goodfellow, ouphe or
+oaf, nixey or pixey, duergar or troll, sprite or pigwiggin, sylph or
+sea-girl, salamander or fire-maid, Heintzelmann or Waldmeister, Kobold
+or Bergmannlein as here called, siren, satyr, or faunus, lemur or
+lamia; yea, and thereunto as many more as this outer crust of creation
+hath manifestations, which in themselves are ideas and immortal types,
+with a life such as science hath not as yet apprehended, though it will
+also be clearly known in ages to come. For know, O Prince,’ continued
+Flaxius, with an air which had in it something of the poet and the
+god, ‘that in due time will dawn upon the world a science, of which
+some of the learned now have not the faintest scent or touch, which
+after denying and destroying the gods, goblins, and devils, _in toto
+corpore_, as now believed in, will end by showing them in matter and
+in truth, and that in a thousand times more marvellous form than any
+fairy-tale maker ever fashioned or felt. For little as he knows it,
+man, instead of leaving the marvellous behind him in remote ages,
+began, in truth, utterly without it, and is now advancing towards and
+into it, with giant footsteps. Ah, here we are at the gate of the
+elfin-castle,
+
+
+                “which men did raise
+         In the ancient giant and goblin days
+  When they sat with ghosts on the stormy shore,
+  And spake in a tongue they speak no more!”
+
+
+‘Now for a season be a child again.’
+
+As they stood at the gate of the silent pile, they heard, far, far away
+over many a hill and dale, the crowing of a cock, and the faint chimes
+of midnight from the town, and then the cry of a sentinel owl from
+the green-tapestried elfin-tower. To which Flaxius briefly replied
+in a strange utterance of some fairy kind, when the gate opened, and
+they found themselves in a scene, which would not have appeared quite
+unfamiliar to any child who has beheld a gorgeous and exceptionally
+tasteful _féerique_ in Paris, or an unusually marvellous Christmas
+pantomime in London, combining all the splendours of Aladdin’s palace
+with all the goblinries of Mother Goose, save that _this_ was a
+thousand times more splendid, more varied, more grotesque, and more
+amazing. And having entered, Prince Hamlet stood by the door rapt
+in utter admiration at the marvellous art which in ever-changing,
+never-resting beauty and quaintness, was displayed before him.
+
+‘The witches have their Sabbat in the Blocksberg,’ said Flaxius; ‘the
+fairies and all their kin hold their own grand merry-makings, but much
+oftener, being merrier folk, here and elsewhere. Witches and devils
+select scenery suited to their taste; fairies conjure up their bright
+magnificence and airy shows most gladly. In Germany they revel in
+ancient halls of castles such as this, in imitation of the mortals who
+preceded them, as is shown by the marvellous legend of the old Count
+von Hoya.’
+
+‘And _that_?’ said Hamlet.
+
+‘Was only this: that the fairies came to the old count and begged him
+to lend them his great hall for a ball for a single night, with the
+condition that he, the master, might be present, but that no other
+mortal eye should behold the revel. So at the midnight hour:
+
+
+  In they came tripping,
+  Fairy-maids, elfin-men,
+  Little and beautiful,
+  Golden, gem-glittering,
+  Two-fold or triple-fold,
+  Ten-fold and twenty-fold,
+  Till the great hall,
+  Splendidly lighted,
+  Looked like the crown,
+  Thickly bejewelled,
+  Of a great monarch.
+
+
+So they danced, as you see. And the jolly old Graf danced with them.
+
+
+  Small was the lady
+  Who was his partner;
+  Three inches high.
+  Often he lost her
+  In the gay multitude,
+  Seeking her, finding her;
+  Often he picked her up
+  Twixt thumb and finger,
+  By her small wings,
+  Even as children
+  In summer catch butterflies.
+
+
+When all at once there was a dead pause. The music ceased, the dancing
+stopped, while from above was heard an awful, scolding, human voice. It
+was that of the old Countess von Hoya, who having heard the music, she
+sleeping above, lifted a trap-door and looked down at the spectacle.
+Truly she was in a great rage to see such a festive scene to which she
+was not invited. It all died out like an extinguished taper. Tradition
+says that the queen of the fairies gave the count in reward for his
+kindness a miraculous sword, ring, and horn, which his family still
+preserve; but to punish the countess, laid a ban upon her descendants,
+that there should never be at one time more than one heir of the name,
+and it has ever been thus as predicted.’
+
+‘So in this life even spirits mimic man. A man confirms all things
+unto himself,’ replied Hamlet. ‘This is a brilliant scene, surpassing
+dreams,’ he continued, as the elfin guests came pouring in, ‘but I note
+that they are not all butterfly-minikins.’
+
+Which was quite true, for they were of all sizes, from that of smaller
+humanity or lesser youth, down to the tiniest sprites who hide in
+honeysuckles, and wear rose-leaves for cloaks. Among them all Hamlet
+and Flaxius towered like giants; nor did they seem out of place, since
+in the mien and eyes of both there was the expression of something not
+of earth or common life, which is never absent from such men, but which
+here, in the mysterious magic light which filled the hall, coming from
+no visible source, seemed to proclaim itself with tenfold power.
+
+At the further end of the apartment was a throne of unknown splendour
+and material, in which were intertwined thousands of strange
+characters, red and black like ruby and sable onyx. It seemed as if it
+might be a fairy antique, ancient of the ages, and on it sat, under
+exquisite rainbow drapery, a female form, of such ineffable loveliness
+that Hamlet murmured to Flaxius that he had found in it a new ideal
+for beauty--it so surpassed, yet was so different from all he had ever
+dreamed of woman’s charms. Thereupon the queen, for such she was--who
+heard and perceived all things--looking at them, smiled, and beckoned
+an approach, when all the small folk parted right and left, leaving
+a lane by which they went their way unto the throne. And bowing low
+before her, Flaxius, holding Hamlet by the hand, said in tones of
+marvellous melody, learned of yore in the magic schools of Etruria:
+
+
+  ‘To thee, All-Beautiful!
+  Type of all Loveliness!
+  Queen of the Elfin world!
+  Life of all Fairy Land!
+  I with all reverence
+  Bring a young mortal, Hamlet of Danamark,
+  One little witting
+  What immortality
+  He may inherit,
+  Shouldst thou bestow on him
+  Thy benediction!’
+
+
+To this the Fairy Queen, gazing on Hamlet as with intense interest, in
+which sympathy and deep pity were most perceptible, replied in tones
+which might have checked the torrent in its course or called the eagle,
+wooing him to hear:
+
+
+  ‘Well do I know thee,
+  Hamlet of Danamark!
+  Seldom was mortal,
+  Born to such sorrows
+  Never did mortal
+  Grapple more bravely
+  With a grim destiny
+  Than thou art fated
+  To find in the future.’
+
+
+Hamlet, in the same staff-rhyme, but in Danish skald-tone, which was
+his humble best, replied:
+
+
+  ‘As to the swimmer,
+  A sea-wolf before him;
+  As to the traveller,
+  Grimmest bear meeting;
+  Or as the wren,
+  With the owl over her,
+  Is the foreboding
+  Of a great Norna
+  Unto the fated.
+  But when the Norna
+  Is Queen of all Beauty,
+  Mingling iron destiny
+  With golden compassion,
+  Giving the bitter
+  In honey well-coated;
+  Gently and tenderly;
+  Little the fated one
+  Recks what may happen.
+         [Mishap and misfortune
+  Are meted to many,
+  Few among mortals
+  Ever escape them.]
+  If the All-Loveliest
+  Gives him her pity
+  He’s to be envied.’
+
+
+Now as Flaxius was the politest man at heart on the face of the earth,
+while the Fairy Queen was incarnate politeness itself, this lyric,
+which had such a charming accompaniment of courtesy as went beyond
+music, made the most favourable impression. And the Sage having, as
+court etiquette then required, uttered his first words in metre, now
+expressed himself plainly in prose, saying:
+
+‘Beautiful Spirit of the Strangely Beautiful, who alone givest to
+poetry the elfin-charm of _Romance_, well do I ween that this young
+Prince of Denmark is so entirely thy subject, and one so noble in
+truthfulness, and so true in his devotion to thy charm, that he has
+not uttered a word of flattery, in saying that the direst misfortune
+of life seems to him to be but a little thing, since he has gazed on
+thy face and felt thy sympathy. And truly, unto any on whom the Queen
+of Faerie and Romance has once really smiled, this world and all its
+woes need seem but a little thing, since it is perfect assurance of an
+immortal life beyond. But, I pray thee, make this clearer to him, that
+he may leave with a lighter heart and be the better able to endure his
+fate!’
+
+The queen, as if deeply reflecting and as deeply moved, replied in
+gravely measured, softly modulated voice:
+
+‘Nepenthe soothes the vulgar mind alone; to the higher soul unfading
+amaranth brings in time forgetfulness of pain endured, and bestows
+keenest enjoyment of the glory to come in the far future. Romance and
+poetry in purity and power can bend the decree of fate, and that boon I
+bestow on thee, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark! Listen, for I predict that
+thy life shall be a poem--and in days to come, long after thy earthly
+sufferings shall be to thee as naught, I will create my greatest work
+in the Greatest Poet of Romance whom the world will ever know. And he
+shall sing thy life in his greatest song, and wherever on earth true
+poetry is loved and known thou shalt be known and loved with it.
+This can be done and this I swear to do. Thine be the amaranth--I can
+no more. In proof whereof I place upon thy arm this golden ring of
+amaranthine form.’
+
+And as she spoke, all seemed to fade before his sight. Only to the last
+he felt deeply gazing into his soul with infinite love and sympathy the
+violet eyes of the Queen of Fairy-land and of Romance.
+
+When he awoke it was early morning. He lay on soft moss amid the
+crumbling ruins of the old castle--in sunlight, hearing bird-song all
+about him. By his side sat the Sage.
+
+
+  ‘He would have thought it all a dream,
+  Save that upon his arm
+  Was bound the gift of the Fairy Queen:
+  Titania’s wondrous charm.’
+
+
+‘_Tempus est abeundi_,’ quoth Flaxius. ‘’Tis time for us to go! But,
+_litera scripta manet_, what is written by fate will come to pass, O
+Hamlet, my son, and dear and gracious Prince. Breakfast awaits us, and
+I must think over what I am to say in my lecture on the Emperor Titus.’
+
+
+
+
+HOW FLAXIUS MADE THE FORTUNE OF EADWARD THE GRANDSON OF AEOLFRIC
+
+‘It is wise for youth to bow to age’s wisdom.’--_Norse Proverb._
+
+‘For truth is one and right is ever one.’--_Spenser’s Faerie Queene._
+
+
+IT was in the very old time of merry England. In the days when there
+was so much merriment among those who were above the line of safety,
+and so much misery for those who were below it as would have appalled
+a modern sociologist. When a man who was out of prison, and not
+positively starving to death, contrived to be happy. When, according to
+the testimony of all writers from Caedmon down very nearly to Chaucer,
+there was such suffering from all kinds of oppression among the poor as
+to make the heart sick to think of it. Out of which very time there has
+come to us such gay and festive song and chording of harps, twanging
+of citterns, ringing of goblets, gay hurrahing, archery, dancing round
+maypoles and valentining as to make one thrill with joy to think of it.
+For the only rule of life then was:
+
+
+  ‘Eat, drink, and be merry while ye can,
+  For to-morrow we’ll perish, be sure, my man;
+  Make the most of what fate will lend you,
+  Then go wherever the priest may send you!’
+
+
+And it was in the north, at a time when Anglo-Saxon and
+Danish-Icelandic were beginning to be English, and there was still
+much sound old heathenism in men’s hearts, and witches rode over the
+midnight sky, while fairies danced in moon-lit rings below--then it
+was, I say, that the immortal Flaxius paused one fair day on his
+pedestrian path in Northumberland.
+
+
+  ‘A tall spreading forest there he found,
+         With a woodman at work mid oak-trees near,
+  The strokes of his axe broke the silence round,
+         Till the traveller called aloud, “Come here!”’
+
+
+And he that was called came, and Flaxius looked at him steadily ere
+he spoke, but with evident approbation and interest. He was a young
+and lithe but strong and vigorous man, handsome, almost to beauty, in
+face, with a straight nose and a keen, dark eye, in which there was
+indeed naught repulsive, but something strange, such as one sees in
+the glances of uncanny folk who know things of which they do not speak
+to their neighbours. His dress was but little superior to that of the
+ordinary peasant, but there was something in the manner in which it was
+worn, as well as in the bold mien, and almost graceful bearing of the
+youth, which indicated rank or ‘birth.’
+
+‘God be with ye!’ said Flaxius to the woodman. ‘I would fain rest here
+a while and chop a few words with thee, so thou be not too busy with
+thy chopping of wood.’
+
+‘Nay,’ replied the youth, with a quaint pursing of the mouth, ‘many
+strokes fell great oaks, and many words bring merry jokes; while as for
+the resting never yet saw I the time when I would not pause to listen
+to those who are wiser than I am:
+
+
+“He who listeneth to eld,
+Himself shall be in honour held.”
+
+
+As my grandfather was wont to teach me with many a brave tale to prove
+it.’
+
+‘Thy grandfather,’ replied Flaxius, who had meanwhile studied his face
+more attentively, ‘was Aeolfric Adelwit, whom men called the learned
+and the traveller.’
+
+‘By Freia!--I mean the Holy Virgin!’--exclaimed the youth astonished
+and delighted, ‘thou art either a wizard or one who knew him, and it
+may be,’ he added, lowering his voice and looking round suspiciously,
+‘perhaps a bit of both, for my grandfather who is now, I trust,
+in Valhall among the heroes and sages--I mean in heaven among the
+saints--was called a sorcerer by the fools hereabouts.’
+
+Flaxius smiled. Each looked at the other with one eye closed; the
+Sage shutting the right, and the youth the left, which is the sign by
+which the initiated of all grades recognise one another, and the one
+generally used by Mahatmas and others in the Karma business--as it was
+by the augurs of yore--when there were true believers present or under
+discussion.
+
+‘I was even about to take my noon-day rest,’ said the woodman, ‘and
+if it please you to partake my poor meal--thin cider and bread and
+bacon--I would it were for your sake wine and a capon!’
+
+‘Knowest thou, O Eadward, grandson of Aeolfric,’ said Flaxius solemnly,
+‘that whoever made a wish in that moment past--at that special position
+of the planets--but unwittingly--obtained it. Behold!’
+
+And saying this he opened the basket which the youth had taken from
+under a thicket, and opening it drew forth a large cold roasted capon,
+a manchet of bread, and a mighty flask, with fruit.
+
+‘By the divine banquet of the boar _Sahrimnir_!--I mean the Holy
+Supper!’--cried the youth, ‘thou hast come in a lucky hour to get a
+snack, O blessed traveller!’
+
+‘Therefore,’ exclaimed Flaxius, producing a great silver goblet from
+his pack, which he filled from the flask, ‘therefore, O my son,
+_drink_!’ And just then the sunlight catching the stream awoke in it
+a wide-spreading, ruddy gleam, and his whole face, yea his very form,
+seemed to be bathed and steeped in ruby, ruddy light, as a piece of
+red glass in a cathedral window. And so he looked more like a glorious
+Bacchus, or merry Jupiter, transfigured and idealised into a gay
+glory in a sun-set sky, wherein the early stars were piping merrily a
+roundelay for vespers, and the clouds like fauns did cluster round to
+hear.
+
+‘I have seen my grandfather, by Saint Eadward!’ said the youth, for
+once getting in a Christian swear successfully, ‘draw good ale from
+a hole bored in a beech-tree, which was thought to be a wondrous
+sorcery--I meant miracle--by the folk hereabout. But he never managed
+such a tap as _this_,’ he exclaimed, as he took a pull, which might
+have half emptied the Gialahorn, and would have excited the envy of the
+_Hornbruderschaft_, or Hard-Drinking Brotherhood, founded by the great
+Bishop Johann von Manderscheit in the castle of Hoh-Barr.
+
+‘And by Odin who was fed on wine alone!’ (here he balanced the
+religious equation), ‘and like his holy cup, it refills itself!’
+
+‘I bestow it on thee, Eadward, grandson of Aeolfric, for thy
+grandsire’s sake,’ said Flaxius; ‘and it shall remain full, I swear,
+so long as thou remainest an honest man, a true kind heart, friendly to
+those in need, and a good, valiant, joyous drinker and _bon compagnon_.
+_Waes hael!_’ he added, taking a draught which was indeed _pari passu_
+with that of Eadward’s:
+
+
+  ‘Like and like do gladly greet,
+  Same with joy the same doth meet,
+  One good turn deserves another,
+  Therefore drink with me, O brother;
+  Even as in days of yore,
+  Commodus, Rome’s Emperor,
+  Drank his boon companions dumb:
+  _Exsuperantissimum_!’
+
+
+‘_Trinc hael!_’ replied Eadward, with a look of deep, steadfast, honest
+gratitude. ‘And as I cannot speak my thanks, O my greatest benefactor,
+therefore do I drink them!’
+
+Nor was the young Norse-Saxon, as he said this, far unlike a jolly
+troll or faun himself, for the glowing golden red of sun- and
+wine-light shone over him and glinted in his hair, which was like waves
+of topaz, hanging over his eyes and rolling down his shoulders like a
+tufted oriole or aureole.
+
+
+  ‘When autumn browneth wood on hill,
+  And the nights are growing chill,
+  Then upon ye wagon strong,
+  Ye see caskés borne along,
+  Black and foul without as sin,
+  Full of wine and ale within;
+  Red fire wine and golden ale,
+  Where from many drinken hale,
+  With merry song and minstrelsie:
+  As I do drink, all-heart, to thee!’
+
+
+And he who had peeped into that shady dell on that summer day and seen
+the pair, amid green leaves gay, with the wondrous wizard _aura_ or
+rich flood of wine-light all round them, as they caroused and sang,
+would have verily believed he saw two joyous pagan sylvan gods who,
+hidden well away behind the age, had met to live the gay old times
+again.
+
+‘And now tell me, Eadward,’ said Flaxius, ‘to a hair, how it goes with
+thee in life?’
+
+‘My grandfather, as thou knowest,’ replied the youth, ‘was learned,
+and had travelled in many lands. He went to Norway, whence he never
+returned. It was said that when King Olaf Tryggvason assembled all the
+wise men in the old heathen religion in a house to which he set fire,
+and in which they were burned alive, my grandsire also perished. And it
+was a cursed deed, whoever did it. Something of Latin and other lore I
+learned from my grandfather, who bade me keep it ever a secret, saying
+that “he is a fool who shows his lore to any save to his superiors
+therein.” But what land my grandsire left, my father lost, so that
+all I have now is a field and a wood and mine own arms. Yet with some
+wit, and selling and trading cattle, I keep my home, truly in no great
+style.’
+
+Flaxius mused and said, ‘I knew thy grandfather, and though he was not
+far advanced as a magian, yet he had fairy blood from distant strain,
+and he was, above all things, a good and honest man. And it is among us
+a duty to aid the descendants of all such men, when they are deserving.
+Now I will help thee to help thyself; but note well, Eadward, never in
+thy life didst thou so need every virtue as thou wilt need them now to
+succeed. For this is the usual secret of rising to Fortune. Some friend
+puts our feet on the first step of the ladder, or guides us to it, but
+we must climb the rest ourselves.’
+
+‘Something like this,’ said Eadward, ‘did I once hear from my
+grandfather:
+
+
+  ‘“Look well round thee with thine eyes,
+  Where’er thou art, if thou wouldst rise;
+  It is not by a single flight,
+  But step by step we gain the height.
+  So up the tree the emmet goes,
+  Even as Rolf the Giver rose.”’
+
+
+‘Well sung,’ quoth Flaxius, ‘and pass the cup! Now take this dried
+leaf.’ He gave to the youth a doubled strip of parchment, like a thin
+book, in which was indeed a leaf.
+
+‘To-night or to-morrow go, bathed and fasting, to bed. Then eat this
+leaf and note what thou shalt dream. Do exactly to a hair what thou
+mayst be told to do--nothing more nor less. After that all will depend
+on thy own good sense, courage, and kindness. And when one year shall
+have passed by thou wilt see me again, to render count of all that thou
+hast done.’
+
+So they parted with kind words, the youth to try his fortune, and
+Flaxius, like Odin, ever onwards to the North.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A year had passed, and the Immortal Sage sat in a wild and
+adventurous-looking place, deep buried amid lonely woods and cliffs,
+by a headlong torrent, before the Odin-stone, a strangely shaped rock,
+seeming like a Druidic megalith, through which there was a hole of a
+foot in diameter. It was a striking object, and Flaxius well knew it
+had a tale. For he had been there and then.
+
+He heard the trampling of a horse in the woods. He looked up and saw a
+magnificent steed, on which sat a knight in splendid attire. The rider
+dismounted; it was Eadward; and the two embraced.
+
+‘Yea, I have the flask, and it has never run dry,’ said the youth,
+producing it.
+
+‘That tells a good tale,’ replied Flaxius. So they filled and drank.
+‘And now let me hear the details.’
+
+‘Make spede is a good rede,’ replied the knight. ‘This is the story
+which I set before ye.
+
+‘As you bade, I ate the leaf, and went to bed. And in a dream there
+came to me a white lady or a _Norna_. Such beauty did I never see
+before. And she said, “Eadward, grandson of Aeolfric, go to-morrow to
+the Odin-stone, even where we now are, and watch for one hour. Then do
+as thou wilt.” Word no more spake she, but vanished, and I awoke.
+
+‘So I went with my cross-bow and knife to the stone. And here I watched
+for one hour, yet I saw nothing. Then, as I was about to go, I saw a
+strange thing. For there came creeping through the hole in the stone
+a fox. And such a fox I never saw before, for it was of a beautiful
+tawny, soft, golden colour; and on it was a large black cross. And
+though I was in awe, something--it seemed like a voice--bade me slay
+it. I did so, and skinned it, and wrapped the skin and put it in my
+bag, and went my way.
+
+‘Now there is--it may be half a day’s walk from here--a rock on which
+Ulf the Dane, in olden time after a great battle, had carved the image
+of a wolf, with runic knots and letters, very curious to behold, and
+there I paused a while to rest. And, anon, there came to me a man, an
+outlander, as I weened; but he pleased me, and we held discourse. He
+was not rich of apparel, but he had this horse here, and a better I
+never saw; for truly, by Sleipnir!--I mean by the White Steed of Death
+seen by Saint John!--there is not its like in all the land.
+
+‘So we talked, and I gave him of my wine. And we spake of elves and
+wizards and dreams. And then he said, “I will tell thee a strange tale;
+for indeed it was a dream which brought me hither, but, I fear, to
+little purpose and no good, as the troll said of the long talk which
+ended by his being turned to stone.
+
+‘“And this,” he said, “is sooth and truth.” And he sang:
+
+
+  ‘“Unto King Ulfbrand
+  Thus spake the wise man,
+  He the deep learned
+  Servant of Frey:
+  ‘Danger is over thee,
+  Wild screaming war eagle
+  On the moss-grown tree,
+  By the white cataract,
+  Calleth on death to thee!
+  And the claw of the bear
+  Has scratched runes on the beech-tree;
+  And thy realm will be lost
+  Unless thou winnest
+  The skin of a fox
+  Of colour pale golden,
+  With a black cross.’
+
+
+‘“Now the king was sore afraid, and offered his daughter to any of his
+nobles who could win him the prize. And I, with small hope, asked a
+witch, one whom I had greatly befriended--yea, saved her life and given
+her shelter. And she studied her spells seven days and nights with
+great pain, and then bid me obey my first dream. And I dreamed that I
+should trust in and abide by a wolf for three days. And coming here by
+chance I heard this rock called the Wolf; and so at hap-hazard here I
+have remained, but nothing has come of it, and I fear me that nothing
+will.”
+
+‘Then it came into my mind,’ said Eadward, ‘hearing this, that I myself
+should go to King Ulfbrand and win a great reward. And yet again that
+this would be foul play to the man before me, and that thou, Flaxius,
+didst bid me to be generous and true. So I prayed in my soul to all the
+gods.’
+
+(‘And a sweetly-mixed mythology thou hast, my dear boy!’ reflected
+Flaxius.)
+
+‘And then said to the man, taking the skin from my bag: “Is not this
+what thou seekest? Take it in God’s name, for I believe it should be
+thine.”
+
+‘Then he turned white and red for joy and amazement, and said:
+
+‘“I will not haggle and cheapen with thee like a pedler, for ill fate
+befalls the man who is mean in buying such things. All that I have in
+this world, save my land, is this horse and ten gold pieces and I give
+them to thee, and I would I had more.” So I took his horse, but I gave
+him two gold pieces for his journey as fare-gold, and so he went his
+way.
+
+‘But I rode on, unthinking and wondering whether I had done wisely, yet
+hoping hard as did Gautrek when he fought the bear. When, following
+a road, I came upon a horse which had been hard ridden, with bloody
+sides. It seemed to be dying, and yet anon, a furlong further in the
+woods, I found a noble knight, lying by a brook, who seemed in as evil
+case as the horse, for he was sore-bruised and could hardly move, and
+barely speak.
+
+‘Then I asked him what it meant and he replied in pain:
+
+‘“For two days I have fled before a band of foemen who will be here
+anon. And they seek my life.”
+
+‘Then I gave him to drink from thy flask, O master, and verily it was a
+marvellous thing to behold how it revived him. For he rose up and said:
+
+‘“Had I thy horse I might even yet escape. There are men who would
+fight thee for it, but thou hast, I think, saved me with thy wine and
+I will do naught in dishonour. But if thou lovest God and hast man’s
+faith in truth, I pray thee lend me thy steed, and it will be no loss
+to thee.”
+
+‘As he spoke I heard far away a sound as of a mountain brook, and I
+knew it was men riding at full speed, and as it became like a clatter
+of hail and wind, I cried:
+
+‘“Take another drink of wine and mount my horse in the names of Odin
+and Christ, and ride for thy life!”
+
+‘And he did, but paused to draw a ring from his finger and say:
+
+‘“Three days’ ride to the west lies the castle of my father the Earl of
+Ellaborne. If thou canst, carry to him what is in the mail on my horse.
+Show him this ring, and repeat the word Truth three times.”
+
+‘And with that he was off like an arrow and he had good cause to ride,
+for ere I could have counted a hundred, there came a band of riders
+fierce as wolves, who asked me if I had seen a knight pass that way.
+Now they had not seen the foundered horse, for they came by another
+path. And not being minded that they should slay the knight, I delayed
+them while I could, giving them to drink, and then showed them the
+wrong road, for between a lie and a die, or a man’s life, there’s short
+choice.
+
+‘Now when I returned to the horse, I, being somewhat learned in such
+matters, found him in better case than I deemed. And having poured wine
+down his throat, and cared for him, and given him rest, he was soon in
+good case to ride. And there was in the mails much gold, and certain
+parchments which I had lore enough to discern were great state matters
+for the king, and I saw that I had come into affairs of life and death
+for all the land.
+
+‘And minding the proverb: “He must be a thin blade who would slip
+between great stones,” I went by the loneliest ways, in dark valleys
+and woodlands wild, till I got to Ellaborne Castle. And there was
+mourning and all were in dire distress, weeping and heart-sunken,
+because the old lord had heard his son was slain. But when I arrived
+with the horse, which was known to all, there was mighty to-do, and
+great questioning, but I spoke word to none, till I was brought before
+the great earl, and it was pitiful to see how broken and sorrowful he
+seemed.
+
+‘“And thou hast come to prove to me that my son was truly slain, hast
+thou not,” he inquired, “since thou hast brought his horse?”
+
+‘“Nay,” I replied, “by Odin and Frey who brings fortune! I know he
+escaped alive and well, for when I last saw him he was galloping away
+on a safe road, mounted on the best steed in Northumbria, with his
+pursuers on the wrong track.
+
+‘“Man!” cried the earl, “if what thou sayest be sooth, and if thou
+didst aid him to escape, and saved his life, then, by God’s glory, thou
+shalt have castle and lands--if thou canst prove it.”
+
+‘“For the proof, O my lord,” I answered, “here are the papers and gold.”
+
+‘“Ah, the papers!” cried the earl. “By the splendour of the Virgin,
+though I love my son better than my own life, I had liefer he had
+died than that those papers had been found by the enemy. What is thy
+name?--Eadward--know that this day thou hast saved England!”
+
+“‘The proof, my lord,” I said, as I gave him the ring, “is this--and
+the words, _Truth, Truth, Truth_! And know of a truth, for I will swear
+it in any shrine, that I did not save thy son’s life for gold, or fee,
+or aught promised or hoped for, save the price of my horse, nor would I
+have stuck at that to keep a goodly knight from being murdered.”
+
+‘“True as gold art thou,” said the old lord, “and of good blood, for
+now I know thou art the grandson of Aeolfric, who was noble, but poor
+as he was learned.”
+
+‘Then he heard the whole tale from me and said:
+
+‘“Thou hast this day built up the fortune of thy house. And if the king
+do not raise thee to honour, I will.”
+
+‘But the king treated me nobly, and the end thereof was that I am a
+belted knight, and lord of castles and broad lands, for I went into the
+war, and fate favoured me, and now I have wealth and fame. And I have
+wedded a niece of the Earl of Ellaborne, whom I love better for herself
+than for her possessions. All of which, Master, I owe to thee; and
+thanks are all I can give to such a mighty master of fate as thou art,
+but if I could give thee my life I would.’
+
+‘I believe thee, my son,’ replied Flaxius. ‘But what became of the
+young earl?’
+
+‘He saved himself, and we are now as brothers. Yea,’ he continued
+with a smile, ‘to him alone have I confided the holy secret of the
+Miraculous Bottle.’
+
+‘God-a-mercy,’ exclaimed Flaxius; ‘’tis well there’s not a headache in
+a hogshead of it, else I trow ye had toped yourselves into Hela, or up
+to Valhall. To fancy two young Norse-Saxons with an unlimited well of
+wine is terrible!
+
+‘But, let us drink!’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘_Hæc fabula docet_--this fable teaches,’ annotated the master, ‘a
+marked moral lesson, which is greatly needed at this present day, and
+which no man has as yet taught. It befell about thirty years ago, when
+people began to doubt the ancient doctrine of so much pudding here on
+earth for so much piety, always punctually paid, that divers young
+scape-graces of the press, who wished to appear, as Verdant Greens
+always do, interestingly wicked and sceptical, began to write _comicas
+fabulas_ or merry tales, wherein the little good boys all came to
+grief; as, for instance, how Master Benjamin Benevolence gave his penny
+to an old nigger and earned a whipping from his mother for so doing.’
+
+These writers left out of sight the great fact, that, because there may
+not be a Moral Providence which keeps a book account to a farthing with
+all mortals, it still by no means follows that there is no decency,
+honour, or honesty, or moral retribution left among mankind, as their
+immensely funny tales would lead the heedless to believe. For, bad
+as this world may be, there are still gentlemen extant, in dealing
+with whom the current moral standards of Mark Lane, Houndsditch, Wall
+Street, the Stock Exchange, and similar dens of sharps and sharks may
+well be laid aside. There are still men who reciprocate generosity
+with generosity, and the ‘devilish shrewd’ fellow is to them a natural
+object of aversion. Because they know that he who cannot be _done_ will
+infallibly _do_ his best friend in the long run; and the man who is
+cheat-proof is a miraculous exception if he be not a cheat himself. In
+short, that it is more creditable to be taken in than to take others
+in, the which statement, when made by me to a young lady from Toronto,
+was received with the astonished remark, ‘Well, that _is_ a new idea!’
+
+Now it befell the young hero of this tale, or Eadward, to have to
+deal with only honest or honourable men, and he did exactly what was
+right under every circumstance, the result being that he was promptly
+rewarded, showing that virtue is not always punished, as current
+literature inculcates. And if there were one hundredth part of the
+pains taken to teach youth the vast superiority of honour to wealth,
+which there is to stimulate them to acquire the latter, then we should
+indeed find far more gentlemen in the world, and, in due proportion,
+due reward for decency. And there is many a millionaire who would give
+half his money to be a gentleman, a man of true honesty and nobility of
+soul; but there was never yet one who was truly of the latter who would
+exchange aught with the former. For whatever the vast multitude of
+howling cads may think, the gentleman is the superior in that in which
+he _ought_ to excel; and this superiority or moral mastery is better
+worth having than carriages, opera-box, and a fashionable family,--who
+wish you were dead for your money.
+
+And this lesson--that there may be circumstances in life when the sharp
+game is not the best, and when the very shrewdest would come to grief,
+unless guided by natural generosity and nobility--deserves to be deeply
+studied by the world in general, and sharp Americans in particular, to
+judge by my personal experiences of both.
+
+And I would that the novelist and literary man, and all who write
+for the public, would teach this thing in spirit and in truth, if
+they can with real sympathy, and not go on for ever as most--ay, the
+very utmost of the most do--preaching it in a formal, listless, ‘be
+virtuous and you will be happy’ way, while they depict the advantages
+of wealth and the merest mammon varnished with fashion and style,
+with all the gush and fire and power of art which they possess. But a
+book written with earnestness, setting forth _genially_ that _honneur
+passe richesse_, is as yet among the curiosities, yea, the _rariora_
+of literature. There is indeed no lack of authors who say this thing,
+and who think perhaps they mean it; but they do not send it home to the
+heart, nor prove it, nor illustrate it, so as to awaken in the mind of
+the reader a deep sympathy for honour as compared to wealth. No, not
+one, as they should and perhaps could do.
+
+For it does not occur to you, O dearly beloved, that all these infinite
+scenes of flirtation in Belgravia or Cameliadom, showing how She would,
+and then wouldn’t, and then was _incomprise_, and anon capricious or
+top-lofty-minded, or interesting and mysterious-miserable, and how He,
+_pauvre malheureux_! with his gnawed moustachios and dreadful devotion,
+are all nothing but the direct results of too much money and its
+consequent idleness or _ennui_. And the other ways of plot-making, and
+interesting the reader, are, with few exceptions indeed, all cakes from
+the same dough. Therefore am I reminded of the French author’s recipe
+for a novel: ‘_Commencez toujours avec un million_.’
+
+And as it seems to me that literature for the multitude can hardly sink
+lower than it has done into this swamp of wealth of late years, I have
+hope that it will ere long begin to rise.
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS AND ASMODEUS
+
+Out of mere mischief and mockery grew evil, even as Loki from playing
+boyish tricks became the devil. To do evil is one thing, to study and
+understand it is another, but in all ages men have confused the two.
+
+
+’TWAS on a Syrian summer afternoon, therefore a warm one, that Flaxius
+sat in the silent solitude of a ruined city of most ancient days, in
+Midian, a place wherein the satyr has not even yet met the English
+tourist, nor the Egipani, or demons of the lonely wildnesses, been
+called to stand and deliver statistics to the German _savant_.
+
+He sat on a wedge-inscripted stone, about a young bird’s flight from
+what had been of yore a purple-lined palace of sweet sin, but so
+tremendous in its majesty, even in decay and decency, that the sternest
+Puritan who ever iconoclasted a cathedral would have thought twice ere
+ravishing this House of Baal.
+
+‘Beauty,’ said Flaxius, ‘may be its own excuse for being--very
+naughty--but grandeur, even when touching in its old decay, is more
+than an excuse; it is a vindication for the sins, however great, of all
+who are possessed of it. And they were great in glory and splendour!
+How great the men were who dwelt here in the olden golden time! and how
+little idea has any man on earth in this age of small things, of what
+it was to live in greatness, though it were in great delusions.’
+
+As he said this--’twas in the first dimness of twilight--a breeze began
+to stir the palms and he heard the hoot of an owl, which was re-echoed
+far and far away by the monotonous and much more unmusical song of some
+Arab peasant at his plough.
+
+‘I would like to know,’ quoth Flaxius, ‘whether the song of the owl
+portends the death of that _peasant_ or the song of the peasant the
+death of the owl? Methinks the owl has the worst of it, for the
+ploughman hoots fifty per cent. more horribly. Now, of the nine
+thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine divinations invented by Kai
+Umarat, the first of the Magi, and first born of Adam, can I not find
+one here at hand to settle the weighty question?’
+
+As he said this, while idly digging in the sand with his staff, he
+struck something hard, which shining, seemed to be of bronze. The sage
+picked it up and found he had unearthed an axe of the richest and
+deepest green _patina_.
+
+‘Just the thing,’ thought Flaxius. ‘Thou comest, as Germans say, “unto
+the call.” It was by Axiomancy or the balanced axe that the ancients
+were wont to decide a question--halfpence to toss not having been
+then invented; and I can bear Pliny out in his assertion that the
+game was extremely fashionable. In neolithic days they drew a circle,
+bisected it with a line, put the _kelt_ in the middle, and made it
+spin, inferring from the way it pointed when at rest whether Yes or
+No had been vouchsafed. The thing still exists as a little game among
+American Red Indians. They spun on their axes, _unde nomen derivatur_.
+The Romans hung the hatchet with a cord; and if I remember aright,
+Francesco della Torre Biana[2] declares that the fall of Jerusalem was
+thus predicted. I wonder who predicted it?’
+
+Whether it was from the ground, or the tombs, or the ruins, or the
+great palm-tree was not apparent, but there was heard a hollow sound
+like no earthly voice, but a sound as of wings. There was a mocking
+tone in it which said:
+
+‘_I_, with that axe which thou holdest in thy hand.’
+
+‘And who in the name of Desolation art _thou_ who dwellest here in
+solitude?’ inquired Flaxius.
+
+And the voice replied:
+
+‘Aschmodai.’
+
+‘What! Asmodeus, the Devil on two Sticks! Well, old friend, I was a
+fool to put the question, for I now remember (and Wierus has said it)
+that thou art the demon of all games and gambling. I would fain see
+thee again. What ho, _Chammadai!_ _Sidonai!_ _Aschmodai_, appear! In
+the name of thy master Am-oimon!’
+
+‘Thou forgettest,’ replied the Voice, more mockingly than before, ‘that
+according to the _Pseudomonarchia Dæmonum_, he who invokes Asmodeus
+must stand firmly on his legs and call loudly.’
+
+‘Well,’ replied the Magian, ‘I am seated firmly _sur mon séant_, which
+will do just as well, _sans cérémonie_ among old friends, and since
+thou hearest me it is loud enough. Come forth, I say!’
+
+And, lo! there came forth from the doorway of the ruined temple an
+unearthly form, in appearance awful and appalling, but so strangely
+mingled with the grotesque, a demon with the laughing nightmare, that
+the wisdom of this our age, and all its art of pen or pencil would have
+failed to depict it.
+
+It paused in silence, seeming like a statue, and when the Magian
+himself spoke, it was not in words but with Thought to the arch-demon
+of delusion and of mockery:
+
+‘I see thee as thou art, O Spirit, who wert once mighty to impose on
+man in so many forms, O stupendous scarecrow of the past, and its
+jester withal, for the day is well-nigh gone by when mankind at large
+can grasp thy paradoxes! Yea, they are rapidly becoming a vexation, or
+a bore, or a trifle, as the idol of the past becomes the nursery toy of
+the present.
+
+‘Truly, there was a time when Dante and Milton and many more were,
+to every word, living truths for all who read them, and the form was
+animated with the idea. Now, the Inferno burns no more, Pandemonium
+and Theism and Satan are all mere senile fables. What remains is the
+art of the poet--nothing more--a beautiful, petrified figure--very
+beautiful--but--dead. And thy spirit, O Daemon, in its best meaning,
+still lives in Aristophanes and Shakespeare and Chaucer, and Rabelais
+and Villon; but the comprehension of it is dying--dying fast, O
+Daemon!--and ere long they too will be petrifactions, wearing indeed
+the outward semblance of what they were, but from them life will be
+gone. Men think that they still enjoy the poet in spirit and in truth,
+but what they really enjoy is only their own criticisms and sense of
+vain intelligence--and with _that_ the signs of death begin. For where
+intelligence and self-knowledge awaken, feeling for that which is
+without us ceases. It was never meant that man should enjoy at once the
+two extremes of pleasure--even as the Catholic moral casuist determined
+that man could not combine the extreme of passionate love with the holy
+sweetness of relationship. Yes, the humour and absurdity, and wild
+contrast which was the deepest problem in human nature, become before
+criticism a poor shadowy thing. And thus endeth the first lesson. Let
+me look a while longer into thy eyes, O Daemon, and find a second.’
+
+And yet anon to Flaxius, as he gazed on the form, it was as if he were
+looking through some wondrous arch into a Vanity fairy-land, and,
+advancing, saw at every step newer and stranger arches, richly and
+wildly adorned; through which, as in a marvellous vista, he beheld
+Infernos, Paradises, Fiddler’s Greens, Edens, Tom Tiddler’s grounds,
+convents. These he knew were lupanars, witch-burnings at which holy men
+sang hymns to God, martyrdoms for smoke, or the toss of a farthing,
+millions killed in battles for quarrels about things which had no
+existence, men and women tortured to death for not believing in nothing
+but a farce--ages following ages, all mad with lies against Nature.
+And busy in it all was the spirit Aschmodai or Asmodeus, whose business
+it is on earth to turn chance to mischief, to inspire all the manias
+and follies and delusions which make men fools in every way, and awaken
+in them vanity and error. And it was no wonder that, as he beheld him,
+something like a vision or a song swept through the soul of Flaxius.
+For this was He
+
+
+  ‘Who grappled once with mighty Solomon,
+  And cast him from his throne, and then in turn
+  Was fettered heavily and made to work
+  On the great temple of Jerusalem,
+  To which he gave its last magnificence
+  Beyond the monarch’s hope, yet jeered at all;
+  Yea, at his chains as at his victory;
+  And who, as he was borne in fetters thus,
+  When all men deemed him sunk in deep despair,
+  Burst out a-laughing. “Wherefore art thou glad?”
+  Inquired a sage. He answered, “Lo, I laughed,
+  Because I saw a conjurer in the street,
+  Who promised unto all his dupes to tell
+  Where buried treasure lay, yet never knew
+  That such a treasure lay beneath his feet,
+  Even as he spoke during his conjuring.”
+  He too it was of old who tempted Job:
+  Nay, there are Rabbis who maintain to-day
+  ’Twas he who as the Serpent tempted Eve,
+  Not out of evil but from mockery,
+  Deeming the Tree and all a mighty joke,
+  The farce primæval, out of which has grown
+  A thousand-farcèd series which men call
+  The History of Man--which were indeed
+  A mighty jest to devils, as the frogs
+  Were to the boys of old--and might be too
+  Unto the baratrachians, were not
+  The pebbles which are cast, so sharp and large,
+  Yes, in a thousand times ten thousand forms,
+  As mocking devil, or as god supreme,
+  Asmodeus is known unto the world.’
+
+
+‘Do not forget,’ said Asmodeus, ‘my last--albeit my weakest and most
+stagey and shallow incarnation--the Mephistopheles of Goethe. Yet he
+made me say one good thing, when I call myself, “_der Geist der stets
+verneint_.” Do you know what _verneint_ means?--for if you do, you know
+more than most folk.’
+
+‘I opine,’ said Flaxius, ‘that it means “denies.”’
+
+‘That, and something more,’ laughed Asmodeus. ‘_Verneinen_ meant,
+of yore, also to enchant, conjure, bewitch, or humbug. _C’est mon
+métier_, I cast a spell on every work of man, and make thereof in time
+a mockery--all mockery is denial in the end--denial is the bringing all
+to naught.’
+
+‘Truly, from thy point of view thou hast seen rare jests in thy time,
+Aschmodai,’ said Flaxius. ‘A history of the world, written by thee,
+with comments, would be amusing reading--as would the review thereof in
+the _Presbyterian_--and I could find it in my heart to wish a plague on
+ye both, did I not know that there are some grains of truth between ye.’
+
+‘Ay, I should catch it hot beyond a doubt,’ replied Asmodeus, ‘for the
+less intellect a man has the more he believes in it, and is therefore
+the more furious with those who mock the sublime wisdom in whose army
+he is a corporal. But what thinkest thou, Flaxius, of Thought?’
+
+‘I read not long ago,’ replied the Sage, ‘an essay by a
+she-philosopher, who said that as we ever deeper go into the subtlest
+mystery of things, the more impossible it still becomes _not_ to
+perceive an action as of mind, working co-relative with natural law.
+The good girl left out of sight the small fact that thought and natural
+law may be one in Nirvana. It is a marvellous, apparent law that man is
+not allowed to solve the problem as yet; could he do so he would settle
+down into superstition or atheism--both unprogressive.’
+
+‘Ay,’ quoth Asmodeus, ‘thought and natural law now carry one
+another alternately. See the boys in Florence when they play at
+_scaricabarile_. One boy, back to back with a rival, locks arms with
+him, and so they lift each other up and down.[3] ’Tis a game much
+resembling polemics, because in it both of the combatants--whether
+lifting or lifted--appear by turns ridiculous.’
+
+‘Ah, well,’ replied Flaxius, ‘it is a vigorous game, and developes
+muscle, as does all struggling. Out of peaceful parthenogenesis and
+idleness, starvation, and the struggle for life, evolve energy and male
+strength, intellect, and will. But, Aschmodai, what thinkest thou more
+of Thought.’
+
+‘Though I was one of the very first thoughts ever thought, if not the
+first itself, as many think,’ replied the Spirit, ‘the answer to that
+question is still unto me a mystery. Yet as we see that in life the
+crystal precedes the flower, or organic growth, monsters come before
+man, Egyptian pyramids before Greek and Gothic grace, barbarism before
+enlightenment, so do I deem that natural law preceded thought and
+involuntary action will, which was first, creatingness or a creator.
+With the first motion in matter came the first act, in the unorganic
+the organic was born;--but how this was it knew not, nor do we know,
+O my Flaxius, for truly there is an immense amount of things which it
+would be better for man to look after before he afflicts his small
+soul with the problem of the egg and the hen. But so long as man shall
+make a fool of himself, either as atheist, theist, or agnostic waiting
+to see how the fight will turn, so that he, the Mugwump of faith, may
+join the conqueror--even so long shall I, Aschmodai, live in glory and
+triumph. This trinity has been my very life, even as alchemy drew from
+the spirit of the three its _elixir vitæ_. And mighty have been the
+mockeries and many the jests which I have drawn from it, nor is the
+merriment as yet quite o’er--albeit I know that I am perishing--and
+passing with the Triad fast away. Oh, it was glorious to behold the
+Jew--the original inventor of man’s vilest vanity, Chauvinism or
+national pride, who first created religious oppression, and believed
+with Rabbi Jochanan that, “as the best of serpents deserves to have
+its head crushed, so the best of Gentiles ought to be killed”--’tis
+sweet, I say, to live to hear him raise the martyr’s cry, even as
+the Pope is now raising it--“the po-oo-r Pope”--as a prisoner in the
+Vatican! Then were the discoverers of the art of Martyrdom avenged
+by seeing the humblest among them made the gods of the oppressors;
+and so Men all rolled on into time, burning and torturing millions,
+especially old women, for the love of Him whose one great doctrine
+was mercy, charity, love, and sweetness. Then there were revolts of
+the oppressed, and peasants’ wars and gladiators’ revolts, and French
+Revolutions--alternate black and white--and in it all hell throve, and
+I laughed.’
+
+‘But thou art dying.’
+
+‘Well, my Flaxius, I have had a call. Thou rememberest the tale of the
+Three Warnings, or how Death promised a man that he should be signalled
+thrice ere called away. So he became lame and deaf and blind--these
+were the three.’
+
+‘And when was thy first warning?’
+
+‘When Christ preached unconditional altruism unto
+mankind--cosmopolitanism and equality. That lamed me.’
+
+‘And the second?’
+
+‘When a Hindu set up a religion on the word _Sikh_. It means, “seek!”
+What goes beyond faith, unbelief, or uncertainty is to inquire and
+search and seek for truth. So I was deafened by that awful cry.’
+
+‘And the third?’
+
+‘Aristotle, Friar Bacon, Francis Bacon, Darwin, Induction, Evolution.
+That will soon finish me. But the first blow was the worst, and I knew
+it. I bore up well, and made a gallant fight, but I am dying. _Vicisti,
+Galilæe!_’
+
+As he spoke, the full golden Syrian moon shone o’er their heads in an
+unclouded sky, a gentle breeze was wantoning in the palms, yet from
+afar there came a jackal’s cry, and then the booming of a lion’s roar.
+
+‘I shall pass away, my Flaxius, but I shall live again in some form;
+evil or good, my spirit cannot die. For there is a _good_ in me--a
+good of strength--and while matter casts a shadow, or contrasts and
+paradoxes exist, I shall be. All in a softened form I well previse. As
+the sun which set is followed by yonder moon, so shall I be softer, and
+yet as eternal. When God shall assume a higher form, I shall inherit
+the old throne and sceptre.’
+
+‘Yes,’ replied Flaxius, ‘it well may be. Shelley and sundry other
+inspired lunatics had that idea; ’twas known to the Greeks, not without
+thy aid, O Aschmodai! For thou hast always thrown doubt and a fine
+frenzy and confusion over all great truths.’
+
+‘_Rectè dixisti_, thou speakest truly,’ answered Aschmodai. ‘Had all
+been all at once, nothing had ever been.’ Son Flaxius, thou too art
+a moon, and thou art my son; but thou wouldst fain enjoy the paradox
+without the pain. As the old hard-griping peasant grows rich, unheeding
+of what misery he makes, while his cultured heir grows gentle and
+amiable, so wilt thou, and the world which has been enriched by the
+past, grow milder. _Le diable est mort--vive le diable!_
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘_Hæc fabula docet_,’ penned the sage, ‘that men, with all their
+wisdom, do not train their wondrous power of putting numbers together
+to make sums, or the faculty of deduction, by means of which stupendous
+results of prophecy may be attained. This might be increased to a
+degree which would seem to us miraculous. Edgar A. Poe had strange
+intuitions of what might be in his theory that he who observes all
+antecedents and possible combinations may surely foresee consequences.
+
+‘And, as his name reminds me, Poe mentions that at Palæchosi, in
+Sparta, there is existent on a stone an inscription L.A.S.M., which
+is probably a part of GELASMA or Laughter, indicating a shrine to the
+merry god. Apropos of which M. Marcel Schwob remarks that laughter is
+destined to die away with advancing culture. “It is,” he declares,
+“a mere _tic_, a gross physical manifestation of the perception of
+disharmony in the world, which will vanish before complete scepticism,
+absolute science, general pity, or intolerance of suffering and respect
+for all things.” This idea should assuredly please Anglo-Americans,
+among whom, while a sense of humour increases, the laugh diminishes,
+till we generally find in their greatest jesters men who never laugh at
+all.
+
+‘But M. Schwob errs in his _Essai de Paradoxe sur le Rire_, when
+he declares that this species of contraction of the zygomatic
+muscles is peculiar to man, it having been an indication of his
+feeble intelligence and the conviction of his own superiority. The
+Newfoundland dog laughs at times, and that with an expression which is
+completely human. I had heard of this several times before I witnessed
+it, and also heard that the expression, though droll, was so uncanny
+in a dog as to awaken something like awe, as I, indeed, experienced.
+These dogs have a keen sense of humour, entering with intelligence into
+the games and romps of boys. But the error of M. Schwob, as well as
+that of Matthew Arnold, is to believe that seriousness or mere gravity
+is essential to genius. The French writer is of opinion that laughter
+expresses only sneers, sarcasms, vanity, and short-witted scepticism.
+It means far more than this to greater minds. As the Schwobian view
+is diabolical, so is there, on the other hand, a divine humour, a
+sweet and sacred _gelasma_, which we only do not associate with sacred
+things and grandeur, simply because we know nothing about their true
+inner nature and are not at home there. There is a sweet laughter of
+innocence, purity and youth, in which a smile always irradiates the
+face, lighting it to higher beauty. Is not a smile divine? Is not
+all beauty as the smile of God in nature? And there is also a bitter
+smile--a sardonic laugh--the very life of Aschmodai, and the meaning
+of this chapter is that this laugh is vanishing in the world, and with
+it the brutal bray and idiotic ‘yawp’ and silly snigger of the vulgar
+mind; but that the merry musical laugh of the gentle heart, and the
+smile divine which thrills the heart of love like wine, will remain to
+man, after asinine seriousness shall have vanished for ever.
+
+’Tis a delicate thing to draw the lines which divide the gold from the
+dross, and show how the _harsh_ humour will be neglected in Shakespeare
+and Rabelais, as theology is dropped from our admiration of Dante, but
+all of them will live in so far as the angelic smile beams in them.
+
+Note that had this world been without variableness or the shadow of
+turning, darkness and light, or night and day, rise and fall, it had
+not been at all; and that, while there shall be change and contrast and
+evolution, or nature itself, there will be humour, which is the soul
+and life of laughter, and though it has been easily checked in this
+priggish _fin de siècle_ (when dolts have well-nigh got the upper hand,
+and dismal dulness shadows all the land) yet with the great coming
+Renaissance of Nature, which is just beginning to show under the aid
+of science, as the morning redness comes with the rising sun, men will
+laugh merrily once more, not in bitterness, but in love.
+
+
+[2] _Epistolæ delict, sive de Magia_, lib. i. cap. 24.
+
+[3] _Scaricabarili_, ‘unloading barrels.’ ‘Ludus est puerilis quil’a
+duobus tantum peragitur. Alter enim alteri terga vertunt, brachiisque
+mutuo implicatis, se alter alterum vicissim humo tollunt. Unde
+significare volentes duos alterum in alterum alicujus peccati culpam
+refundere dicimus: _E fanno a scaricabarili_. Inter hoc autem et
+illud de quo supra: _Fare a scaricalasino_, ea est differentia quod
+hoc significat alterum in alterum culpam suam rejicere; illud verò
+simpliciter alicujus criminis culpam a se dimovere.’--_Angeli Monosinii
+Floris Italicæ Linguæ Libri Novem_, A.D. 1604.
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS IN FLORENCE
+
+OR, THE GOBLIN OF THE TOWER DELLA TRINITÀ, BY THE PORTA SAN NICCOLO.
+
+‘They do not speak as mortals speak, Nor sing as others sing: Their
+words are gleams of starry light, Their songs the glow of sunset
+bright: Or meteors on the wing.’
+
+
+THE following story belongs to this book ‘in good faith of all sorts,’
+be it salted, pickled or sugared; since it was originally the first
+ever recorded of the great and good Flaxius. But as it was of Florence,
+Florentiny, so, following the saying, ‘first come, first served,’ and
+being engaged on _The Legends of Florence_[4]--in which book the lovers
+of romance and the occult will find many a rare treat, showing how all
+Florence is a charmingly haunted city--therefore did I first introduce
+the sage in it to the world.
+
+And in the introduction I said that the legend is of great antiquity,
+since there is a hint of it in an ancient Hebrew work by Rabbi ben
+Mozel-toff, or the learned Rev Gedauler Chamar, besides being found
+in poetic form in my own great work _The Music Lesson of Confucius_;
+also in a marvellous cabalistic manuscript which I bought in sight of
+Santa Maria Novella, which describes how the _Bathkol_, or Daughter of
+the Voice, may be caused to be heard within our soul, and teach us all
+kinds of magic.
+
+Money is the root of all evil, and Flaxius, who went to the root of
+everything, of course wanted it. How he often got it is set forth as
+follows:
+
+
+FLAXIUS AND THE ROSE
+
+Midnight was ringing from the cloister of San Miniato in Florence on
+the hill above, and Flaxius sat by the Arno down below, on the bank, by
+the square grey tower of other days, known as the Niccolò, or _Torre
+della Trinità_ because there are in it three arches....
+
+It was midnight in mid-winter and a full moon poured forth all its
+yellow light over Florence as if it would fain preserve it in oil--or
+amber--and over the olive groves till they looked in the distance like
+moss-agates in topaz.
+
+‘Or I,’ quoth Flaxius, to carry out the simile, ‘like a fly in hock!’
+
+Yes, it was a clear, cold Tuscan night, and as the last peal of bells
+went out into Eternity and faded in the Irrevocable, thousands of
+spirits of the departed began to appear, thronging like fire-flies in
+June, through the streets, visiting their ancient haunts and homes,
+shops and shades, greeting, gossiping or arranging their affairs just
+as the peasants do on Friday in the great place of the Signoria--as
+they have done for centuries.
+
+Flaxius looked at the rolling river which went rushing by at his feet,
+and said:
+
+‘_Arno mio!_ you are in a tremendous hurry to get to the sea, and
+all the more because you have just had an _accessit_, a remittance,
+of rain from the mountain-banks. _Buon pro vi faccia_, much good may
+it do you! So every mortal fain would rise and run. So every shopman
+hurries to become a great merchant when he gets some money, and every
+farmer a signore, and every signore a great lord, and every great lord
+a ruler at court and over all the land--_prorsum et sursum_. And when
+they _get there_, or when you get to the sea, then ye are all swallowed
+up in greater lives, interests and actions; and so the rivers run for
+ever on--longer yet ever seeming less unto yourselves. And so--_ad
+altiora tendunt omnes sic_--all to the Higher ever doth aspire, the
+flower-edged torrent and the Florentine.’....
+
+When he suddenly heard above his head a spirit-voice, clear, sweet and
+strange, singing not in words, or on the ear, but by tones of unearthly
+music, of which languages there are many among the unearthlies, each
+unto its ‘chaos,’ all being wordless songs or airs suggesting speech
+and yet conveying ideas more rapidly. It was the Goblin of the Tower to
+him of the tower next beyond on the further hill, and he said:
+
+‘How many ghosts there are abroad to-night!’
+
+‘Yes; it is a fine night for ghosting. Moonlight is mid-summer for
+them, poor souls! But I say, brother, who is yonder _Frate_, the dark
+monk-spectre, who always haunts your tower, lingering here and there
+about it? What is the spell upon that _spirito_?’
+
+‘He is one to be pitied,’ replied the goblin of the _Trinità_. ‘He was
+a good fellow while he lived, but a little too fond of money. He was
+afflicted with what the doctors called in Rome, when I was young, the
+_amor sceleratus_, or _sal aeratus habendi_. So it came to pass that he
+died, leaving a treasure, _mille aureos_, or a thousand gold crowns,
+buried in my tower, unknown to any one, and for that he must walk the
+earth until some one living wins the money. For money is as life to all
+men, and he who destroys it is, in a way, a murderer.’
+
+Flaxius pricked up his ears. He understood all that the goblins said,
+but they had no idea that the man in a scholar’s robe who sat below
+knew Goblinese.
+
+‘What must a mortal do to get the gold?’ inquired the second goblin.
+
+‘Truly he must do what is well-nigh impossible,’ replied the Elf of the
+Tower, ‘for he must, without the aid of magic--note that--bring to me
+here, in this month of January, a fresh, full-blown rose.’
+
+The voices were silent; a cloud passed over the face of the moon; the
+river rushed and roared on; Flaxius sat in a Vandyke-brown study,
+thinking how he could obtain peace and repose for the ghostly monk, and
+also get the _solatium_ or reward.
+
+‘Here is,’ he thought, ‘_aliquid laborare_, something to be worked
+out. Now is the time, and here is the chance, _ingirlandisi di lauro_,
+to win the laurel wreath. A rose in January! What a pity it is not
+four hundred years later, when people will have green-houses, and
+blue-nosed vagabonds will be selling red roses all the winter long in
+the Tornabuoni! Faith! it is sometimes inconvenient to be behind, or in
+advance of the age!
+
+‘_Eureka!_ I have it!’ he at last exclaimed, ‘have it by the neck and
+tail! I will _spogliar la tesoria_, rob the treasury and spoil the
+Egyptian. _Si non in errore versatus sum_, unless I am stupendously
+mistaken, monk, thy weird will soon be dreed, thy penance prophesied
+will soon be o’er!’
+
+Saying this he went into the city. And there the next day, going to a
+fair lady of his acquaintance who excelled all in Italy in ingenious
+needlework, he had made of silk a rose; and so deftly was it done, that
+had it been put on a bush you would have sworn that a nightingale would
+have sung to it, or a bee sought to ravish it.
+
+Then going to a Venetian perfumer’s in the Via Vacchereccia close by
+the Signoria, the wise Flaxius had his flower well scented with best
+attar of roses from Constantinople, and when midnight struck he was at
+the tower once more, where he called to the goblin.
+
+‘_Che vuoi!_ What dost thou seek?’ cried the elf.
+
+‘The treasure of the monk.’
+
+‘_Bene!_ Give me a rose?’
+
+‘_Ecco!_ There it is!’ replied Flaxius extending it.
+
+‘_Non facit_--it won’t do,’ answered the goblin in Latin, thinking
+Flaxius to be a monk. ‘It is a sham rose of silk, artificially
+coloured--_murice tincta est_.’
+
+‘Smell it,’ replied Flaxius calmly.
+
+‘The _smell_ is all right and sweet, I admit,’ answered the guardian of
+the gold. ‘The perfume is delicious’--here he sniffed at it seriously,
+being like all of his kind enraptured with perfume--‘and that much of
+it is, I grant, the real thing.’
+
+‘Then tell me truly,’ replied Flaxius, ‘and swear by thy great
+ancestress Diana, the mother of the Spirits of the Night, and her
+sister-daughter Herodias, and her Nine Cats, by the Moon and her
+eternal shadow Endamone, and the word which Bergoia whispered into
+the ear of the Ox, and the Nails of Nortia, and the Lamia whom thou
+lovest!--what is it makes a man? Is it his soul or his body?’
+
+‘Man of mystery and master of the old Etruscan hidden lore!’ replied
+the awe-struck goblin, ‘it is his soul.’
+
+‘And is not the perfume of the rose its _soul_, that which breathes its
+life, in which it speaks to fairies or to men? Is not the voice in song
+or sweetened words the perfume of the spirit ever true? Is not----’
+
+‘I give it up,’ replied the goblin. ‘The priest may turn in now for a
+long, long nap. Here, take his gold, and may you have a merry time with
+it; there is a great deal of good drinking in a thousand crowns, to
+say nothing of the eating! Do you ever play at dice, old man, _ludere
+latrunculis_? When you do, I promise you three sixes. By the way, I’ll
+just keep this rose to remember you by. _Addio, a rivederla!_ Good-bye
+and _au revoir_!’
+
+So the bedesman slept among his ashes cold, and Flaxius, who was
+a stout carl for the nonce, with a broad back and a great beard,
+returned, bearing a mighty sack of ancient gold, which stood him in
+good stead for many a day. And the goblin is still there in the tower.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘_Hæc fabula docet_,’ wrote Flaxius, as he revised the proof with a red
+pencil for which he had paid a penny at Ancora’s ancient stationery
+shop in the Via Condotti, ‘this tale teaches that in this life there
+is naught which hath not its ideal side or idol inner-soul, which may
+raise us to high reflection or great profit if we will but seek it.
+
+‘The lower the man the less he sees, and the lower he looks, but it is
+all to his loss.
+
+‘Now every chapter in this book, or in that of thy life, O my son, or
+daughter! may seem to thee to be only a rose of silk, yet do not stop
+at that, but try to find therein its perfume.
+
+‘For thou art thyself, I doubt not, such a rose, even if thy threads,
+as in most of us, be somewhat worn or torn or faded; and yet thou
+_hast_ a soul far better than many deem who see thee only from a
+distance. And this my book is written for the perfume, not the silk of
+my reader. And there is no person who is better in any way than what
+the world deems him or her to be who will not find in it comfort.’
+
+But, friend, how was it that it came to pass that I found out this
+veritably and authentically ancient legend of the Tower of the Triple
+Arches, which, when I wrote, rose opposite my window over the Arno? My
+dear reader, it was written down for me by a witch, in very truth, who
+had learned it of her strange kind and with it many more, which you
+might have collected as well as I, if you could have kept such company
+and wandered in such paths as I did. And know that the Sleepy Hollow
+of the Hudson is not more haunted by marvellous spirits of a bygone
+age, or more strangely shaded with legends of goblins and fair, quaint
+mysteries of the golden time than is this city which is named from
+Flowers, or it may be from Flora, _la belle Romaine_, the beautiful
+sorceress who bewitched all with love. Villon asked what became of her:
+
+
+  ‘Where is there left on earth a trace
+  Of Flora once the Roman fair?
+  Or Archipiada and Thais,
+  That bright and ever queenly pair?
+  Echo will fling the question back
+  O’er silent lake and streamlet lone,
+  All earthly beauty fades away,
+  Where have the snows of winter gone?’
+
+
+Here the old Roman enchantress yet lives as much as she ever did in
+fact in Rome,--for she was there only a world-old Indian myth of
+pleasure and beauty,--in the city of the Lily. And here indeed there
+is, according to legend, a goblin by every bridge, an elf in every
+tower and old palazzo, a fairy of the ancient Roman kind in form,
+changed to a later hue in colour, a witch _aura_ lingering in many a
+darkling corridor and chamber, a something between sweet perfume and
+the conjurer’s fumigations to raise spirits. I have learned that in my
+barber’s shop opposite the great column of Cosimo, San Zenobio once
+wrought a miracle, and in my café, a fair maid was bewitched into a cow.
+
+
+  ‘All over doth this modern life
+  An ancient life enfold.’
+
+
+These things you may read in full in many a story, as set forth in
+_The_ (aforesaid) _Legends of Florence_, which grew out of the first
+draft of the sketch of Flaxius.
+
+[4] _Legends of Florence_, 2 vols.: London, D. Nutt.
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS AND THE EMPEROR JULIAN
+
+‘The Emperor Julian in his _Cæsars_ gives the preference to Marcus
+Aurelius, who having been greatly honoured for his merits, replied
+modestly “that it had always been his care to imitate the gods.”’--_The
+Spectator_, No. 635.
+
+
+‘I SHOULD really like,’ said Flaxius to his attendant pocket-imp,
+Puttuli, ‘to see this grand young man, our Emperor Julian.’
+
+[‘_Grand jeune homme_’ was a term applied in later days to Mr. James G.
+Bennett, of the _New York Herald_ by the _Figaro_, but Flaxius was the
+inventor of it.’]
+
+‘Nothing easier,’ replied the goblin. ‘You give the _atriensis_, or
+janitor, a hundred _nummos_ or _sestertios_, or a ring, or any trifle,
+and so you may be admitted to a private-public view. For a _sestertium_
+he will manage an opportunity to speak to Cæsar. But you can have
+a good street view for nothing, and I think,’ added Puttuli as he
+critically eyed his master, ‘if he saw you he might speak to you; he
+isn’t at all particular as to his company.’
+
+‘_Gratias tibi ago_, thank you for the compliment,’ replied the sage,
+‘but as it concerns an emperor, we may as well do things genteelly.
+Assume a respectable form, if you know how----’
+
+(‘_Gratias tibi_, or _not_ tibi _ago_,’ murmured the imp.)
+
+‘----and hire a place _dans la première loge_. For a _sestertium_.’
+
+‘Would your excellency like to carry a _bouquet_?’ inquired Puttuli
+impudently.
+
+‘A good idea! Yes, order me one of rue, concordia and verbena.’
+
+‘Well, of all the nosegays that ever were nosed, that is the queerest,’
+answered the servant. ‘But, _fiat voluntas tua_, my lord’s will be
+done! A great deal of rue with plenty of concordia, and most of all
+verbena. I will go to the pretty herb-seller in the Suburra. She has
+the vegetables.’
+
+‘I must choose a lucky day,’ said Flaxius.
+
+‘To-morrow,’ answered Puttuli, ‘is the three hundred and sixty-fifth
+day of the year three hundred and sixty-five A.D.’
+
+So it came to pass that, twenty-four hours after, Flaxius stood in the
+grand hall of the imperial palace amid the row of suitors and courtiers
+and other great or wise, or otherwise, folk who awaited audience of
+Julian. He looked at the emperor with approbation.
+
+‘I knew the first Julian,’ he reflected; ‘the man who bought the
+empire at auction and resigned in sixty-six days. He was indeed a
+_caducus_,--a word which will live in later days as _cad_--an imperial
+snob. This is a horse of another colour.’
+
+Meanwhile the emperor who had the keenest eye in Rome for observing
+all sorts and conditions of men, and who, after sitting an hour in
+the amphitheatre, could describe the appearance of everybody present
+who was anybody, had not failed to note the tall and stately form of
+the philosopher, and his grandly flowing beard. Now Julian, having a
+very fine beard of his own, was deeply interested in this subject, as
+appears from his great work _Misopogon_, meaning ‘Enemy of the Beard,’
+that is to say of wisdom, to say nothing of his ‘Letters.’ And as
+Flaxius had a very beard of beards flowing and curling in indescribable
+magnificence, and as he wore the purely white, long-flowing robe which
+indicated the professional philosopher, a being dearer to the emperor
+than the prettiest woman living, he gazed at Flaxius with what became
+absolute approval or admiration.
+
+‘By Esculapius and Jupiter!’ he exclaimed, ‘that is a good-looking man.
+Something in my line, I think! Who is he?’
+
+‘Cæsar!’ replied Puttuli, who had assumed the form and voice of
+Bumbulbulus, the court factotum, ‘that is the great Flaxius, a sage
+who has travelled all over the world, and who is reported to know
+everything from the works of Moloch the Pismirist, up to those of God.’
+
+‘That is a large order,’ replied the emperor reflectively, ‘_magnum
+postulatum est_. But bring him here that I may measure him.’
+
+‘That will take more time, O Cæsar, than it would for him to measure
+you!’ thought Puttuli, as he departed. ‘He needs a long line who would
+sound such a sea as the Master. Come now! I think we are as good as
+established at court.’
+
+Now the emperor had for many years been devoted to magic and _occulta_,
+and observing the herb-bouquet which Flaxius bore, grasped its hidden
+meaning with great pleasure.
+
+‘_Salve_, Cæsar!’ said the sage.
+
+‘_Salve, adepte!_’ replied the monarch. ‘So thou hast mastered the lore
+of the Etruscan, as I read by the _Concordia_, “_Janus adorandus cum
+quo Concordia mitis_,” as Ovid saith; of Egypt, as the rue proclaims;
+“_cingebat rutæ quæ coma multicomæ_’; and of Persia, I see by the
+verbena, _Verbenasque adole pinguis et mascula thura_. Hem! Virgil!’
+
+‘I have heard, even in the remotest region of the earth,’ replied
+Flaxius, ‘that what Cæsar could not do in the way of apt quotation was
+not worth doing.’
+
+‘_Um!_ I flatter myself that I know a thing or two,’ replied the
+emperor--the very phrase occurs in his _Epistolæ_--‘but like Apicius
+with the British oysters, I am always ready for a few more. And I read
+it in thee, O Flaxius,’ he added, suddenly changing his whole mien
+and manner, and looking through his tangled locks with that strange,
+unearthly glare which so impressed his contemporary familiars, as if he
+had become another man, ‘that thou canst teach me much which I do _not_
+know, therefore I ask thee to sup with me to-night.’
+
+The emperor said this, turning away so abruptly, that all present
+who did not know his ways inwardly thanked God, according to their
+heathen or Christian faith, that they did not stand in the shoes of
+that philosopher with the flowing beard. But those who knew him better
+looked gravely, and said, ‘Cæsar hath found a new friend!’
+
+But Flaxius himself was deeply amazed when Julian, leading him to a
+table, by which stood a single Greek servant--there was no other soul
+present--showed him with some pride that the meal consisted only of a
+grilled fish and _garum_, with bread and olives, new cheese and fruit.
+
+‘There is your supper, Flaxius!’ he exclaimed, ‘and much good may it
+do you!’
+
+‘By the lance and laurel bough or olive of the god Honour, whose temple
+is by the Campidoglio!’ cried the sage, ‘what am _I_, O Cæsar! that
+thou shouldst treat me with such esteem!’
+
+‘_Non rectis oculis aspice_, never do you mind _that_,’ replied Julian.
+‘Truly if I were going to entertain a Bythnian prince or a sow-bellied
+contractor for the army, whom I hoped some day to crucify, I would
+have given him a hundred courses of ortolans stuffed with oysters, and
+galantine with truffles and pistachios, and all that sort of thing. But
+to a philosopher whom I wish to treat as a brother, I give just what I
+am accustomed to eat myself. One cannot be a slave at the same time to
+his brain and his belly--_non potes Tethidem simul et Galateam amare_,
+as Lucian says.’
+
+‘Now, I see,’ reflected Flaxius, ‘that when a man is a gentleman
+at heart, he can turn even his vanity to a kindness. A marvellous
+character is this Cæsar, and one who will do much to be misunderstood
+in history.’
+
+So they held wondrous discourse of great and glorious things in
+philosophy, over which the emperor quoted nearly all the Orphic
+sayings, with the Poemander of Hermes, and finally came to what he had
+been aiming at from the first, by bluntly asking:
+
+‘Knowest thou aught of magic?’
+
+‘O Cæsar! do not think I seek to quibble or raise a sophistical cloud
+between us,’ replied Flaxius, ‘if I ask thee what is the meaning of
+magic.’
+
+‘It is,’ replied the emperor--who had been there before--‘the violation
+of the laws of nature.’
+
+‘And what is nature?’ asked the Sage.
+
+‘H’m!--the eternal order of things--the action of laws, or _potentia
+quatenus in potentia_.’
+
+‘Rather vague, yet good so far as it goes. But, Cæsar, if there be
+but one substance, though you call it matter in one form and spirit
+in another, and one eternal law manifesting itself in infinite forms,
+there can be no violation of them. Miracle or magic is only _something
+which man cannot explain_, something which puzzles and astonishes him.
+_Si placet_--give me an example for a miracle!’
+
+‘I am devilish thirsty,’ replied Julian. ‘That _garum_ or fish-sauce
+is pungent enough to make a Nazarene drink a gallon of strong Sicilian
+wine. Now, if you could pour me any kind of wine which I may call for
+out of one and the same bottle----
+
+‘It may be done, O Cæsar! but remember that to do this one must invoke
+the invisible spirits or forces of nature, whom we call the gods, to
+aid in such mysteries.’
+
+After a long pause of reflection, the emperor slowly replied,
+‘Granted.’ He did not see that Puttuli, reduced to his natural stature
+of three inches, and who sat unseen behind him, advanced his thumb
+to his nose, and waved his fingers, making thereby an ancient and
+mysterious Egyptian sign used by the priests of Memphis when they
+initiated some great sage to their rites.
+
+Then Flaxius winked to Puttuli, who presently reappeared in the form of
+Bumbulbulus.
+
+‘Go to my rooms,’ said the sage, ‘and bring hither the ancient goblet
+of Bacchus!’
+
+The goblin obeyed, and returned with a very large bottle of black _cuir
+bouilli_ or moulded leather. It was of graceful shape, apparently of
+great antiquity, covered with exquisite silver relief, representing the
+deeds of Bacchus. Handling it with great reverence, Flaxius pronounced
+over it in a voice which was half-singing, such as one may hear to this
+day among witches in Italy when they chant the following:
+
+
+  INCANTATION TO BACCHUS
+
+  ‘Golden master of the earth!
+  King of joy and lord of mirth!
+  By thy mother the divine,
+  Of the ancient Cadmean line!
+  Semele of Earth the pride;
+  Who of Jove’s great splendour died!
+  By the Seasons, who in truth,
+  Nursed thee from thy early youth!
+  Or fair Ino, who they say,
+  Brought thee from Arabia!
+  By the lion’s form you wore
+  When gods and Titans fought of yore!
+  And by the holy miracle
+  Of which the morning poets tell;
+  When from Naxos thou didst sail
+  With a gentle, favouring gale,
+  And pirates sought to conquer thee
+  But fell into captivity:
+  By the hour when thou did’st go
+  To the darkling realms below,
+  And brought thy mother, “ever bright,”
+  To the upper world of light,
+  And all that Nonnus ever sung
+  Of thee with mystic, golden tongue!
+  I conjure thee--the all-divine--
+  To give me what I ask, of wine!’
+
+
+Saying this he took a small gold cup and said:
+
+‘Now, Cæsar, ask for what wine thou wilt.’
+
+‘Let it be Cæcuban,’ replied the emperor.
+
+Then Flaxius poured forth wine from the bottle into the cup, and
+extended it to Julian.
+
+‘Cæcuban it is, sure enough,’ replied the emperor when he had drunk to
+the last drop, which he poured _super naculum_ upon his thumb-nail.
+
+‘Wilt thou have another draught?’ inquired Flaxius. ‘If so--of what?’
+
+‘Falernian,’ answered the emperor.
+
+‘_Sit_,’ replied Flaxius. ‘Here you are. But, O Cæsar, I have not hung
+an ivy garland as yet round the cup, as the conjuration requires.’
+
+‘_Vino vendibili suspensâ hederâ nihil opus._ Good wine needs no bush,’
+answered Julian. ‘The miracle is wrought, and I wish that all were as
+agreeable. And now, Flaxius, since thou sayest that all miracles can
+be explained by natural causes, I pray thee to naturalise me this, for
+verily _ut turris super omnes_, it is a huckleberry above my persimmon,
+and I would like to know how it is done.’
+
+‘Easily enough, O Cæsar. The bottle is made from a certain flexible
+substance, and it contains many chambers or cells, in each of which
+there is a different kind of wine. When I press on any one of these it
+pours forth its content.’
+
+‘Then the incantation was all gammon?’ remarked Julian.
+
+‘Not so, O Cæsar. It made the miracle.’
+
+‘_Hum-um-um-ump!_’ replied the monarch. ‘And yet, Flaxius, it still
+seems to me that there are and must be miracles surpassing all human
+skill and knowledge, which the utmost wisdom cannot compass or explain,
+and _never_ will.’
+
+‘Can your Greatness give me an example?’ replied Flaxius.
+
+‘It is written in thine own ancient Etruscan chronicles,’ replied
+Julian, ‘that in the early time the mysterious nymph, Begoe or Bergoia,
+before the world, and in the Capitol, slew an ox by whispering in his
+ear a single word. Now, I believe, that had I tried, I might have
+worked out an explanation of thy Holy Bottle; but in the miracle of
+Bergoia I have reflected many a time and oft, without solving it,
+and therefore do I conclude that it _was_ a violation of the laws of
+Nature.’
+
+‘O Cæsar!’ replied Flaxius, ‘great is the man who can infallibly decide
+where human reason leaves off and Divinity begins, for, _nusquam est,
+qui ubique est_, that which is everywhere is nowhere, and this is true
+of miracle. But what if I perform for thee--openly before all thy
+court--and all Rome if thou wilt, that same miracle?’
+
+‘By Hercules!’ cried Julian, amazed and delighted beyond measure, his
+wild and mysterious eyes gleaming so as to make a very respectable
+miracle of their own if he had but known it, ‘thou art a man of gold,
+set with gems--the first real sage I ever found in the stuffing of
+this duck of a world. And you really will in good faith--_honestus
+Indicus_--slay the ox with a whisper!’
+
+‘Thou shalt see it, O Cæsar,’ replied Flaxius. ‘But it seems to me
+that the miracle would be improved on, if instead of an ox we were to
+substitute a man. For it might be said by the sceptical that we had
+poisoned the ox beforehand.’
+
+‘By Medea!’ exclaimed the emperor admiringly, ‘I never thought of that!’
+
+‘While if we take a man who declares himself to be in good health,
+there can be no suspicion. Now, Cæsar, thou hast, I doubt not, in thy
+prisons more than one unlucky wretch condemned to the torture and the
+crucifix, to whom a quick and painless death would be as a divine
+blessing and great joy?’
+
+‘_Depone!_ bet your head on it!’ cried Julian. ‘I sent one this morning
+to the Mamertine--hell would be too good for him--and I meant to give
+him a foretaste of it by means of preparation.’
+
+‘He will do,’ replied Flaxius.
+
+So on the following day, when the emperor and his court and all Rome
+assembled in the great amphitheatre, there was led in a ferocious,
+giant-like and bitterly wicked-looking Gaul, who, expecting to be
+tortured to death to make a Roman holiday, was on his best behaviour as
+regards defiance and dying game.
+
+‘Man, whence comest thou,’ asked Flaxius.
+
+‘From Lutetia,’ was the proud reply.
+
+‘_Ame de boue_,’ thought the sage in a language of the future, and then
+asked:
+
+‘And what is thy religion?’
+
+‘I worship the devil; it was the last fashion ere I left home.’
+
+‘You expect torture!’
+
+‘I do not fear it. It will pain me, but when dead, I shall be amply
+revenged on ye all, if hate and hell can do it.’
+
+‘If I could give thee out of pity a sudden painless death, wouldst thou
+declare that thou in all thy health and strength forgivest all men?’
+
+The Gaul glared at him stolidly and grimly and then uttered in a
+strange tongue which none understood.
+
+‘_Mais, nom d’une pipe, pourquoi pas? J’aurais bien de quoi m’amuser
+sans me soucier de ces b-là!_’ And then in rude Latin he said:
+
+‘I consent. Hurry along with your washing, and get the pigs in!’ And he
+made the declaration.
+
+Then Flaxius, who bore in his hand a long wand, as all the Magi were
+wont to do, touched him with it, while whispering a word in his ear.
+And the man fell dead at full length, while a thrill of awe and a
+murmur rose from all Rome, at sight of this mighty deed. And the great
+and wise and even the good, or such few of the latter as were present,
+_rari nantes_, thronged about him, and adored him.
+
+‘And now, Flaxius,’ said the emperor, as they sat in solemn concert
+over the Holy Bottle, which his highness was never tired of admiring,
+‘if thou canst explain to me on natural grounds how thou didst slay
+that Gaul, then “by Gaule!” as Julius Cæsar said to Vercingetorix, I
+will believe, or disbelieve, anything!’
+
+‘Yea, Cæsar, I will do it,’ replied the sage. ‘Now if thou wilt
+remember Begoe or Bergoia, her who slew the Ox with a single word, left
+to Rome a book on the _Ars Fulguritorum_ or the averting, that is to
+say, managing thunder and lightning, and this book, which is in the
+ancient Etruscan tongue, and hard to understand, for those who know the
+language, is even yet in the temple of the Palatine Apollo, where I
+read it. And it explains that the lightning is caused by an invisible
+but terrible secret force, which like heat pervades all things while
+seen by none, and this is the awful power of the Divinity to smite the
+earth, and it was by means of it that Bergoia slew the Ox. And know
+that there was in my wand a charge of condensed thunder and lightning,
+quite strong enough to knock a bull sky-high.’
+
+‘But the word?’ asked Julian who had not quite recovered from his
+ideas of miracle.
+
+‘Truly, Cæsar, the word was _Electricity_, which is as yet unknown, but
+which in ages to come will be the great heritage and power of mankind.
+For as when thou art done with a garment thou givest it to a servant,
+so the gods when they have somewhat worn out their attributes and
+glories, hand them over to men.’
+
+‘_Semper similem ducit Deus ad similem_, and so the gods lead ever like
+to like. Ah, it _is_ wonderful. And now, Flaxius, the light begins to
+shine in on me, and I see that there is indeed a higher and far more
+wonderful magic and miracle than the poor, thin Thaumaturgy which I
+sought for once. For true magic is the mastering the awful power and
+secrets of nature. Now I see that because thou mightest explain to me
+by natural means how Christ fed the multitude, or raised the dead or
+healed the sick, it would be none the less wonderful, for genius, even
+the genius to amaze and nothing more, is miraculous.’
+
+‘That will be better understood, O Cæsar, in times to come when science
+shall have risen to glory, by means of such stupendous genius that no
+man can help revering it.’
+
+‘Ah!’ said Julian with a deep sigh, ‘happy the age and happy mankind
+when there shall be but one faith, whatever it be! Thou wilt never
+know what I have suffered between the old faith in the Gods and
+Christianity. As Terence says, I think, somewhere in the _Andria_:
+
+
+  ‘“How happy could I be with either,
+  Were t’ other dear charmer away!”’
+
+
+‘Yes, Cæsar, yours is a hard case, and all the harder because you wish
+heart and soul to do what is right.’
+
+‘Orcus and hell, heathen and Christian, take me if I don’t!’ replied
+the emperor in a passion and looking as wild as a panther on the
+spring: he who had seen him then and there would have believed him to
+be some young god enraged. ‘What the devil _can_ they expect a man
+to do who has seen what _I_ have seen, and gone through what I have
+endured? Well, I began in good faith enough as a Christian, and in
+truth I was cut out for one as few young Roman gentlemen are. I was
+never sensual, cruel, nor over-selfish.’
+
+‘Right you are, O Cæsar,’ thought Flaxius, ‘and a very good Christian
+gentleman you’d have made, if your guardians had let well alone.’
+
+‘So I, with a deep love of ancient heathen beauty and art and poetry,
+was put into a cloister, where the meanest, monkish, shaveling spite
+made a sin and a shame of all that I loved. It was not belief in their
+own faith, but the bitterest hate of what they called heathenism, which
+chiefly inspired every one of them. That was their real religion--all
+the rest was mere form--the adaptation to their ritual of what I knew
+were old Oriental ceremonies. Then I began to think out, O Flaxius,
+what has ever since been the idea of my life: Why cannot man keep the
+old faith in Beauty, and all that was charming in the old religion, and
+unite with it the humanity and higher truth of Christianity.’
+
+‘There will perhaps be a time, in the dim and remote future,’ quoth
+Flaxius, prophetically quoting Gladstone, ‘when that idea will occur to
+others.’
+
+‘So I dreamed that I, as an Eclectic--having read something of Ammonius
+Saccas the Egyptian--would be the apostle of the new combined religion.
+Well! time passed, and after I had become Cæsar, it occurred to me
+to examine all the faiths into which Christianity had split, and a
+nice job it was! Pheugh! everything from Trinitarians, Arians, and
+Unitarians down to Cainites, who worship the flesh and sin and the
+devil, all hating the common enemy but hating one another worse, like
+the Jews who slew one another in the siege of Jerusalem while all
+fought Titus.
+
+‘O sage,’ he resumed, ‘when I think how beautiful and noble, how
+holy and perfect were the conceptions of Christ, and how it was His
+ideal that every man should commune directly with God, and when I see
+how each one of these sects steps in and proposes with saints and
+forms to do for you what you should do for yourself, I cannot wonder
+at the scarcity of Christians. Yet there is a stupendous truth in
+Christianity, the truth of human rights, which even they cannot crush.
+_Magna est veritas et prævalebit._’
+
+‘And the old religion?’ asked Flaxius.
+
+‘Well! it admitted the Beautiful and let a man philosophise freely,
+and did not make devils out of all the sweet and fair conceptions of
+poetry, of fauns and nymphs and Oreads and all; and so, as I believe
+that nature must prevail in the end with man, I went back to it. Yet
+the old religion is not humane. It admits slavery and inhumanity, it
+allows the grosser passions of cruelty and lust full play, evil nature
+as well as good, and it needs reform. I would fain be that reformer.’
+
+‘Now here is a great man,’ thought Flaxius, ‘who is either two hundred
+years behind his time, or a thousand or more in advance of it. He means
+well, but is out of the age.’ Then speaking aloud he said:
+
+‘Cæsar, there was once a king of Bithynia or Cappadocia or some such
+country, who had a mind to marry. Now the king next door had two
+daughters; both were beautiful, but one was as Venus and the other as
+Minerva. One was beautiful and voluptuous, witty and charming, while
+the other was wise and just, humane and ever careful that no one should
+be oppressed. Now which of these should he have married?’
+
+‘Had I been in his place, I would have married both,’ replied the
+emperor.
+
+‘But that was impossible.’
+
+‘H’m! Well, in that case I should have taken the wise one.’
+
+‘That,’ said Flaxius, ‘is what he did, and it is what the world will
+do: it will adopt the religion which, despite all the corruption with
+which man surrounds it, promises the greatest good to the greatest
+number.’
+
+‘I believe that thou art in the right, O sage!’ replied the emperor
+slowly. ‘However, _jacta est alea_, the die is cast, and I shall ever
+remain Julian the Apostate. But what will be the end of it all?’
+
+‘Thou wilt die nobly as a king should die--in battle for thy country.’
+
+‘Then,’ said Julian, ‘I am content.’
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS IN HADES
+
+SHOWING HOW FLAXIUS WENT DOWN INTO HELL, AND OF THE MARVELLOUS THINGS
+WHICH HE SAW AND LEARNED WHILE THERE
+
+‘To the Esthete who regards all Nature and Eternity as a mere paint-box
+for art, hell is a necessity, as is illustrated by Ruskin when he howls
+that “in the utmost solitudes of Nature the existence of hell seems to
+me as legibly declared by a thousand spiritual utterances as that of
+heaven.”’
+
+
+‘THEY manage these things,’ said Flaxius, ‘I verily believe, better in
+hell.’
+
+‘You have been in hell, I suppose,’ said the goblin-snob, with the most
+civilly impertinent air in the world, to the sage.
+
+‘Strange!’ reflected Flaxius, ‘that a place which may be readily
+reached in a minute, if we may believe the common exhortation of
+the vulgar, or even in an instant by the aid of electricity as
+they manage it in America--with I forget how many volts, but “in
+a demi-volt”--should be unknown to me. I must consult the Fairy.
+Decidedly, my education has been neglected. I have not yet made the
+grand tour.’
+
+Flaxius was living then near a town in the Austrian Tyrol, in a lonely,
+grey, and ancient ivied tower and small house, hidden away in the
+mountains; and there, with his usual disregard for appearances, he had
+installed a small gypsy family whom he had found camped in the woods,
+three chairs, a table, and a stupendous service of gold plate: this
+last not for luxury but because it was the first which, as a buried
+treasure near by, came to hand. The Goblin of the Tower had revealed
+to him its existence, and he used it because it saved him the trouble
+of going to town for crockery. His servants had instructions, whenever
+sent to buy anything, to steal one half the money, and then half of
+what they bought, under penalty of severe punishment, which had the
+natural result that whenever they could do so without detection, they
+never stole anything. Once, indeed, when his boy Lajos impudently
+brought him a manifestly superabundant supply of fruit for a half
+florin, or more than he expected, did Flaxius proceed, I cannot say
+to spoil the child, for the young devil was beyond all spoiling, but
+to break a rod on him. Whereupon he fell on his knees in tears, but
+was pardoned on promising never to be honest any more. Even Flaxius,
+great as he was, could not have his own way in everything, for things
+got to such a pitch at last, that these gypsies would tell the truth
+before his very face openly with the utmost impunity, and even without
+blushing.
+
+It was midnight, and Flaxius the Immortal sat alone in his baronial
+hall. True, it was only about twenty feet in length and fifteen
+in breadth, but it was a hall. The walls were rich, or, at least,
+ragged, with Roman-picturesque and very-much-battered stone carvings,
+representing a lettuce-like confusion of crockets and finials, in which
+were nestled angels as ugly as devils, and devils not much prettier
+than the angels, like crayfish, or _écrevisses_, in foliage, the whole
+resembling an early Christian or Pre-Raphaelite salad which would have
+enchanted a Gothiconolator.
+
+There was in the hall a large black Cat and an Owl, both of whom
+had come in uninvited from the Without, and joined the family, on
+speculation, from a desire for human sympathy and love, also for mice
+and any little edible odds and ends which might be obtainable. There
+was, too, a florid chimney-piece, so large that the hall seemed to be
+only a portion of it, or adjunct, just as the body and tail of the
+pricklefish seem to be only a part of his vast ogival jaw. In it blazed
+a fire, and by, or in that fire, sat the house goblin. His name was
+_Slangbrand_, and he was engaged in swallowing live coals, and then
+blowing out a storm of sparks from his nose, or _de retro_--as ye may
+see exemplified in Callot’s picture of Saint Anthony--anon swallowing
+the poker like a juggler, and then rising and falling on the smoke,
+up and down the chimney, like a ball in a fountain, to the great
+admiration of the Cat and the Owl, who constituted his audience.
+
+Then Flaxius himself took a coal from the fire, placed it on a small
+silver dish on the table, and sprinkled on it a powder which burned,
+emitting an intensely aromatic and most agreeable but strange perfume,
+the magian meanwhile murmuring an incantation. A beautiful, soft light
+diffused itself all over the room; ’twas like a delicate, rosy Aurora
+with a memory of moonlight, and not without stars, for in it shone
+two celestial eyes, and then anon the Fairy stood revealed to her
+worshipper.
+
+‘Joyful greeting to thee, Flaxius!’ said the _Fata_.
+
+‘Deepest reverence to thee, O loveliest in form as in spirit, of all
+thy kind!’ replied the magian in a tone of deep sincerity.
+
+‘And how goes the world with thee?’ inquired his queen.
+
+‘With the world ever something new, as of old. As for me, and it was
+for this that I summoned thee, I would fain go----’
+
+‘Go whither?’ inquired the fairy.
+
+‘Go to hell!’ replied Flaxius.
+
+‘Wherefore this unprovoked hostility?’ asked the spirit.
+
+‘It was not spoken in the vocative,’ replied Flaxius. ‘I did but
+indicate the route which I fain would take, not commend it to thee,
+though by the twelve gods!’ he added passionately, ‘happy indeed would
+he be who on such a journey could meet with such an Eurydice!’
+
+‘Flaxius,’ replied the fair one, ‘thou hadst ever so much modesty as to
+declare thyself unfit for heaven, and too much pride to allow that thou
+wert fit for the lower regions. Therefore didst thou elect to remain
+on earth to study and master its problems as thoroughly as it was in
+thee to do so, maintaining that of the few magians who like thyself had
+mastered immortality, too few prepared themselves, as they should do by
+studying the rudiments.’
+
+‘Ay,’ replied Flaxius with his worldly smile. ‘They are mostly like
+boys who would fain run straight from their school to their dinner, not
+tarrying just for a little wholesome exercise to give a better appetite
+and health. But the truth which forces itself on me more and more is
+that hell and earth are so nearly allied that it becomes more and more
+difficult every day to investigate the one without knowing the other,
+even as a knowledge of chemistry becomes essential to an astronomer.’
+
+‘You are quite right,’ replied the fairy. ‘_Sit tibi voluntas_, you
+shall have your wish. Fortunately it is extremely easy to get there,
+especially to obtain a place as permanent boarder, but even as a casual
+visitor I can assure you special honour. All the great geniuses of yore
+made a three days’ visit to the realm; it was a ceremony _de rigueur_,
+a kind of court presentation which no well-bred immortal could omit.
+I do not consider,’ she added reflectively, ‘that hell is exactly the
+place to which I would recommend parents to send their boys for an
+education, but for men of intelligence there are a great many valuable
+ideas to be picked up there. And when would you depart?’
+
+‘Now, if you please.’
+
+‘Said and done then,’ answered the spirit. ‘_Dicto citius_, as Virgil
+used to say to you--_in un batter d’occhio--in un balen--in un amen_!
+
+
+  ‘In a wink and in a flash,
+  In a snap, and at a dash,
+  While a priest “amen” could say!
+  From this earth now pass away
+  To the mystic world below,
+  Which all men dread yet none do know!’
+
+
+As she uttered this incantation, Flaxius sank back in his great
+arm-chair to a deep sleep. The fairy looked at him with a loving
+glance, evidently with earnest and sympathetic thought, kissed his
+forehead, and softly sighed:
+
+‘Ah well, Eternity is long!’
+
+And turning to the goblin she said:
+
+‘Slang, take heed that no mortal enters this house for three days
+and nights, and see that the master here be not disturbed! And do
+ye,’ she added to the Owl and Cat, ‘take care also that no noise be
+made hereabouts, and if ye do your work well, ye shall become witch
+and wizard in human form. Farewell!’ Saying this she winged her way
+heavenward:
+
+
+  ‘To the joyous realms afar,
+  Where the angel dwellers are.’
+
+
+Now of the four members of that happy family, it would have been
+difficult to say who was the most delighted. Flaxius surely, because he
+had been sent to hell; the Owl and Cat certainly because they hoped to
+rise to the most degraded state of humanity; or Slang assuredly, simply
+because he had been spoken to by a queen and charged with a commission.
+And the three latter solemnly swore among themselves that if a mouse or
+bird so much as ventured to cheep or chirp about the house, they would
+rend it limb from limb, and have it served up for supper. According
+to the Penal Code of the Goblins. V. CXXXIIIV, _libro alto, capitulo
+nullo, folio nigro_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As all the richest and most artistic or artful adornment of cathedrals
+or palaces, diamonded with panes of quaint device, ‘innumerable of
+stains and splendid dyes,’ and twilight saints and dim emblazonings,
+with half unearthly, holy, elfin shade, is all as trash and
+gingerbread, compared to the greenwood with its ineffable beauties of
+summer, and golden glory of autumn, so is all earthly music ever played
+mere scrannel-piping contrasted with that in which the soul of Flaxius
+seemed swept away, as he sank to sleep under the spell of the fairy.
+For he always loved music in every form, however made or by what mind
+composed; and that which now seemed to be life itself and waft him on,
+was what he would have had idealised for him, or that which he would
+have wanted had he known how to want it. This fulfilment of ideals
+in every form was the introduction to and the great moral lesson of
+Inferno. For therein lies such temptation as is mercifully spared to
+man on earth.
+
+‘By the glory of the gods!’ said Flaxius, rousing himself to strength,
+‘if the devil can bring art like this to bear on common mortals, who
+the devil can be saved? Truly it was high time for me to get out of the
+ruts of earth for a season, when there are such tremendous paradoxes as
+_this_ to solve outside it. And I thought that the problem and puzzle,
+and contrast, and anomaly were confined to life--_me stupide_! Verily,
+I say unto myself, Flaxius, that I foresee I shall find the very humour
+of humour in the mystery of hell, as this music intimates.’
+
+And the music dying away, yet not quite vanishing, for Flaxius while
+he was in Inferno always heard it--just as in a garden we scent
+perfume of some kind, rising or falling--he found himself on the
+summit of a marvellously pleasant hill amid rocks and trees, grass and
+wild-flowers, with a mossy bench under an arbour, such a place as of
+all others he loved. He sat down on the bench and saw that there was
+before him a tremendous, yawning mountain gulf or valley, miles deep,
+but what lay beyond he knew not, since it was all covered with a veil
+of rolling, purple cloud of richest hue, in which he saw eyes of light
+wander like stars....
+
+Then he perceived standing by his side, a very beautiful woman, young
+and lithe, holding a flask.
+
+‘Have I not known thee of yore, O sister?’ asked Flaxius in Etruscan.
+‘Art thou not of the _Lases_, who receive the spirits of the departed?’
+
+‘I am of the Lases, and I am Alpan, or Alban, the Fairy of the Dawn,
+and their chief,’ said the maiden gently, ‘and I am sent by the lord of
+this land, whom men know as Pluto, to welcome thee. But first--behold!’
+
+And as the music, sweet beyond dreams, again rose gently--as in a
+play or orchestra--the Lasa waved her hand and, the purple cloud
+vanishing, revealed to Flaxius such a vision of stupendous and
+beautiful palaces--all forming one--as he had never in all the
+splendour of the antique world seen the like of. He recalled Babylon,
+Memphis, Persepolis, Athens, Alexandria, Rome, the temples of Greece
+and of Egypt in all their massive mystery, the marvels of the Buddhist
+structures of Cambodia and India, the awful grotesques of America, the
+stately Lombard-Norman cathedrals of the West--the Gothic glory of
+Europe--and all seemed to be poor and wretched, yea, squalid, beside
+the grandeur, magnitude, and elaborate perfection of what was now
+before him.
+
+‘This must be,’--he said, but he could speak no more, so overwhelmed
+was he at the sight.
+
+‘Yes,’ added Albana, reading his thought. ‘It is--Pandemonium--the
+first structure ever erected.’
+
+‘Ay,’ replied Flaxius recovering, of course to make a reflection,
+‘and I see that architecture has step by step sunk, as man has risen.
+Another paradox! And this,’ he suddenly exclaimed, ‘is hell!’
+
+‘Yes, Flaxius,’ replied the fairy with a sad smile, ‘and be thankful
+that thou comest here as an immortal who will depart as soon as thou
+shalt have learned the mystery, for verily with thy love and knowledge
+of the beautiful in art it had also gone hard with thee.’
+
+‘Another paradox!’ thought Flaxius. ‘So, _tout lasse, tout passe, tout
+casse. En avant!_’
+
+‘And now,’ said Albana, ‘for new sights! But wait! Drink from this
+flask! All who enter this realm must do so!’
+
+‘I know it of old,’ said Flaxius. ‘It was the draught of the mysteries
+given me by the Fairy when I was made immortal. I drink to thee,’ he
+said, ‘O terrible ruler of this wondrous world! Yes, to thy realm and
+to thy mystic spouse! and with them to the angel of my dreams! and also
+thee, my fair, angelic guide!’
+
+As he said this, there came from the depth below an ebony car or boat,
+exquisitely inlaid with gold in richest profusion, which rose slowly,
+quivering with the music, to their feet. Then there was a far, soft
+sound as of melodious chimes of a thousand bells.
+
+‘Enter with me,’ said Albana. And having entered, they floated slowly
+over the gulf: they saw the city palace in new forms, while far beyond
+a landscape of marvellous beauty also developed itself, and in it
+too were other palaces, towns, towers, burgs, and villes or villas,
+castles, and immense ranges of crenellated, arched walls with glorious
+gates, and over the walls grew or hung masses of trees or clustering
+vines, bright with a mystic beauty of their own.
+
+They landed at the edge of an immense marble precipice, which was
+however richly carved far adown with quaint devices, the more beautiful
+for moss and grey lichen. There appeared to be nothing freshly new, yet
+nothing ruined in the whole land; all spoke of an old time for ever
+young.
+
+‘You see no escort,’ said Albana. ‘You are too great a visitor to be
+received with a cortège, or a procession, as we welcome the small great
+men of earth. It is long indeed since any one was received with such
+honour as this. You are deemed to be above ceremony.’
+
+‘Charming!’ thought Flaxius, ‘the greatest mark of attention which
+I ever received in my life is the most devoid of all semblance of
+politeness. Another paradox, but this I understand.’
+
+‘I think, beautiful Albana,’ he remarked, ‘that your company alone is
+here considered the highest compliment which can be paid to a guest.’
+
+‘His majesty the king has said so,’ replied Albana simply. Meanwhile
+they had been passing along streets and scenes of surpassing
+magnificence or beauty, and after traversing a garden of the gods came
+to an immense open portal which they entered. And so on and ever on
+through stupendous colonnaded corridors, and cloistered squares with
+innumerable groups of statuary and fountains like vast rivers trained
+to play, great as the Nile when freshets fill its flood, leaping on
+high a mile, then roaring down through arches strange and high, falling
+over thundering waterfalls, broad and deep as Niagara, by towers like
+that of glorious Babylon which met the clouds; and above and beyond and
+higher yet again, like stairs of mountains beyond mountains growing
+dim, were walls of citadels like snowy marble, with a coral blush in
+the sunset, and domes like diamond, and pearly spires, glinting with
+gold in every form of grace.
+
+When at last passing along a turquoise-walled and opal-paved arcade,
+to which unbroken divans of lapis lazuli, inlaid with silver, seemed
+more beautiful for inexhaustible masses of all shades and kinds of blue
+flowers hanging from vines, growing in vases of sapphire, so that the
+very air seemed to be of a dreamy azure hue, they came to a door and
+passed into a hall.
+
+Wherein sat, not on a throne, but in a throne-like, ebony, high chair,
+at a table, a man of god-like mien and marvellous dignity.
+
+So far beyond anything human in his awful beauty was he, that Flaxius
+was more deeply impressed by him than by all the wonders which he had
+thus far beheld. And truly, as Flaxius reflected, when a man has passed
+some scores of centuries in forming ideals of the beautiful and finds
+his ideal outdone, ’tis time to look about for _new powers_!
+
+The Olympian Jove with a shade of Lucifer, the Spirit of the serene
+heaven mingled with the darker yet still beautiful earth below, the two
+united as by a spirit in the eternal yet ever intermingling ocean of
+the eye. Such he appeared, and Flaxius recalled Goethe:
+
+
+  ‘The soul of man
+  Is like the water.
+  From heaven it cometh
+  To heaven it riseth,
+  And thence at once
+  It must back to earth
+  For ever changing.’
+
+
+Moreover there was in the wonderfully grand face something
+sympathetically human, and humanly chevaleresque, even touching in
+genial moods on the ‘devilish handsome fellow.’ ‘I have heard,’ thought
+Flaxius, ‘of a town in Western America, wherein appeared a married
+lady of such irresistible beauty that all the male inhabitants of
+the place, even unto the deacons, gave up the commandments, or more
+especially one of them, as a bad job. A few like his majesty, turned
+loose on London society, would convert Mayfair into a divorce court.’
+
+For he had at times a smile, a laugh which went like an electric
+flash of champagne to the heart of your heart, which is the reason
+why the inhabitants of a certain American State, with the exquisite
+poetry peculiar to their refined natures, call apple brandy ‘Jersey
+lightning,’ it being so potent that a taste thereof goes flashing and
+coruscating through the soul, suggesting Etna in full play on the great
+fourth of July Day of Judgment, when the _sæculum_, or _fin de siècle_,
+or the age, is to be dissolved in sparks, since having gone up like a
+rocket it is to come down--like the stick! This glance had Pluto, and
+Flaxius found it useful, because by means of it his majesty rendered
+clear, or, as one may say, coloured, like an artist, the outlines of
+his spoken arguments.
+
+‘You are truly welcome, Flaxius!’ said the Lord of the Underworld, ‘as
+are all immortal mortals who have raised themselves as types of ideas
+to such a power that they can pass my realm as tourists between heaven
+and earth without becoming mine. Ah! that is a very vulgar error on
+earth that I pass my time in trying to catch souls! Did men but know
+how I pass all my life in painful effort to get rid of them! Well, I
+have seen here in days of yore, each for his three days, Adonis--ah,
+_he_ stayed six months, by request of my wife! Orpheus--music--poor
+fellow!... Socrates, Buddha, Dante--you know the list--and so on down
+to Emanuel Swedenborg. And every one of them saw hell after his own
+fashion--and then raised it after his peculiar style to earth, and no
+one interfered with the seeing thereof....
+
+‘But, my Flaxius,’ resumed Pluto, with a genial smile, ‘is there any
+reason why we should not drink, although we are in hell?’
+
+‘_Raison de plus_, most men would surely think,’ replied Flaxius.
+
+And at the word there were before them two goblets creaming and
+streaming over; and Flaxius noticed that the infernal care of details
+was exquisitely carried out in this, that the _drops_ which are
+generally a great drawback to the over-brimming beaker, did not fall on
+his clothes and wet or stain them, but, becoming diamonds or pearls,
+rebounded dry.
+
+And the draught was transcendental--so cool, so piquant, so enlivening!
+Pluto smiled.
+
+‘Confess, Flaxius,’ he said, ‘that hell is not, as you find it, exactly
+what man imagines it to be?’
+
+‘True,’ said Flaxius emptying his goblet, which refilled itself; ‘and
+yet I imagine that I am as far as ever from knowing what it is!’
+
+‘And that distance,’ replied the monarch, drawing his own glass, ‘I
+will diminish for thee, O thou Sage of Sublime Common Sense, for thou
+shalt have a nearer perception of the truth and what Inferno is than
+any of thy predecessors.’
+
+Now, Flaxius, comfortably seated in a high-backed chair, with the
+towering, Jacqueline can, or goblet, foaming before him, listened,
+_arrectis auribus_, graving every word which he heard on the tablet of
+his soul, even as Alba seated on a Greek tabouret at a little distance
+was doing on a leaf of ivory with her stylus. [And here notes Flaxius
+in the margin: ‘It is a curious fact that Alban is depicted in Etruscan
+vases as holding a stylus or pen, and that the witches of Tuscany, who
+still know her as Bellaria, declare that she is the spirit of the Pen,
+and is the one to be invoked by all who would write, _i.e._ compose
+well. _Aurora Musis amica._]
+
+‘Know, my Flaxius,’ began his majesty, ‘that earth and all its trials,
+troubles, and torments, diseases, and miseries, ceases even for the
+worst and wickedest when they come here. We begin with them all _de
+novo_, on an entirely new system--the old body is gone and we are done
+with it. Physical torment ceases with the old life, for even the most
+earthly. Only ideas and earthly ideals remain, and to these is given
+full scope and free play. All begin here with unlimited freedom and
+indulgence.’
+
+‘If I may interrupt your majesty,’ said Flaxius, ‘I would remark
+that many people would suppose that you are, by inadvertent error,
+describing heaven.’
+
+‘Yes,’ replied Pluto, ‘that is indeed the heaven of every fool. But
+it is the surest way to come to grief in the long run. The ultimate
+extreme of hell or of punishment is for every man to be left utterly
+to himself, to have his own way, to follow his own fancies, to rule as
+he lists, and do uncontrolled just what he likes. Few and far between
+have those mortals ever been who, gifted with power, would not damn
+themselves on earth if left without guidance or control.
+
+‘Now this is _hell_, and if thou wouldst know what the word really
+means, I reply, “a place where every one can do just what he pleases,
+and have all that he wants.” Every one entering here is supplied
+with such a world as he desires, with corresponding scenes and
+companions--he himself unconsciously drawing them all from memory and
+imagination. But note--for it is an important point--that they believe
+it all to be real, and in a certain sense it is so, for they have given
+to them the power, which science will some day give to man on earth, of
+perfect synthesis by volition--that is of drawing out the elements by
+_will_ from the _prima materia_ or _materialising_ unseen elements, or
+conceptions.’
+
+‘I understand,’ said Flaxius. ‘Gods in a small way. Demiurguses. Make
+things!’
+
+‘They think so,’ laughed Pluto. ‘All here believe for a long time--as
+they believed like fools on earth--that all which they saw on earth or
+see here is real. What is real is unchangeable and eternal. Who lives
+in Evolution, as all do on earth or in matter, lives in the Transient.
+It is when they realise by mere satiety the unreality of things that
+their punishment comes--that of despair. Then after a season they begin
+to exert themselves to seek higher ideals or something new, which
+being attained, there comes again satiety, and then renewed effort,
+every new stage becoming easier, until at last man rises to the gods
+or God. The best experience disappointment and rebuffs; but they go
+on. The wise who on earth have shaped better ideals, the altruists and
+benevolent philosophers or Christians, and people who have not meddled
+with others, or lived entirely in the eyes and opinions of others, or
+revelled in notoriety, or been selfish and tyrannical in the small
+or great relations of life, these do not remain long in our world of
+shams. The honest poet or artist or man of letters is let off very
+easily, as indeed are all who have been kinder to mankind than mankind
+has been unto them.
+
+‘The world is ever advancing,’ continued Pluto, ‘and to satisfy the
+soul with what is for the time around it on earth, or to think of
+carrying it on for ever into the future, as _all_ creeds do’ added his
+majesty significantly, ‘is _to stop_. (Flaxius, my son, be thou not
+like to them, but keep that holy emblem the Cup going.’) They both
+drained, and the Lord of Hades resumed:
+
+‘The selfish nature thus gratified and satisfied with temporary forms
+does not lift its mind to, or progress with--Evolution.’
+
+‘Ha!’ quoth Flaxius, ‘light is coming fast; I do begin to feel I
+have indeed immortal longings in me! This then is the faith so long
+foretold--which is neither Buddhist nor Christian, nor Material.’
+
+‘Ay, Flaxius, it is the very truth, as it seems to me every one might
+surmise from the very infinity of creative forms in nature, from the
+ideals which they declare and the inexhaustibility of matter and force.
+All goes on, slowly it seems, but there is eternity to work in, and its
+great law is progress.
+
+‘Now Evolution is the creation of new laws from old, of new types
+from others exhausted, of new ideals, as new patterns are created _ad
+infinitum_ by a revolving kaleidoscope, a continual out-blossoming and
+ripening of flowers which were once small, wild blossoms and are now
+hundred-leaved _grandifloræ_. And these again will be raised to newer
+and more magnificent forms. And you need not ask what is to become of
+Man in all this, for, rely upon it, where all is progressing, all is
+well. He who is magnanimous, and who can grasp in its fulness all this
+scheme, will not be afraid to cast himself headlong into the foaming
+flood and trust to its bearing him safely on. Fortune favours the bold,
+and he who _is_ afraid, whimpering “What is to become of poor little
+_Me_?” will be carried away in time all the same. But that man never
+loved the beautiful or nature who feared death.
+
+‘Now we may consider all mankind on earth as a single man in
+hell--living in Evolution, yet ignorant of it, opposing it with his
+self-formed, conservative ideas--an old woman sweeping out the sea with
+a broom--and you have the key to the whole.’
+
+‘It appears to me,’ observed Flaxius, who had listened to these remarks
+with evident approbation--if the taking a drink ever and anon and
+sighing with content could be interpreted as ‘Hear! Hear!’ or ‘fervent
+applause’--‘that there is a marvellous spirit of romance and poetry
+and wild adventure in Evolution as you set it forth, and exquisite
+inspiration to a higher devotion, and a purer and far more vigorous
+religion than man has ever before dreamed of. For this faith in nature
+with her ever-unfolding ideals, and that of self, in “_What_ I know
+not, but in the best, _that_ I know!” is so bold and knightly that
+before it all that was ever presented to man seems poor and weak and
+dim. The Church and conventional cant, or modern life, have well-nigh
+crushed out in man every trace of daring or chivalry, and this religion
+has in it that which will revive such qualities on a far higher scale
+than was found in the Middle Ages.’
+
+‘Saving this, Flaxius,’ added his majesty, ‘that Evolution asks man
+to understand pure science as a basis and accept its deductions as to
+evolving ideals, and not rely entirely on tradition which is well-nigh
+folk-lore. And when the simple truth of anything has once been studied
+or accepted, the poetry and romance soon follow. _Crede experto
+Roberto!_’
+
+‘Ay, by the Father of the Fathers of Faith!’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘your
+majesty has had some experience. May I venture to inquire,’ he added,
+‘what part this ever “freshly fresh and newly new,” as the Hindus sing
+it, this ever-beautiful and good young lady whom I see here has in your
+tremendous _pension_, or boarding-school for eternity?’
+
+‘Eternity!’ said Pluto, with a smile. ‘Nay, you have not yet heard the
+last word. But as for Albana----’ Here he gave a glance of ineffably
+respectful, fond kindness at the subject of their discourse. ‘You have
+seen in life in many lands noble women who, as Sisters of Charity
+or slummers--go anywhere to do good. Albana ranges through hell,
+earth, and heaven. The pure soul is everywhere at home, and love hath
+no bounds. We are not so cruel in our punishment as to leave souls
+entirely to themselves in the task of rehabilitation. She and her
+sisters--love and love alone--suggest to the despairing new ideals of
+life.’
+
+‘Ay,’ cried Flaxius, ‘hell is the gate to heaven, that I see. A lesson
+which I should have learned on earth. Yet man has been there longer
+than I without learning it. It must be so--“Pluto, thou reasonest
+well,”’ he added. (And to himself, ‘I suppose the reviewers will light
+on _that_ as a typographical error.’)
+
+‘And now,’ said his majesty, ‘the lecture is over for to-day. Go with
+Albana as a Beatrice through my realm and visit the condemned in their
+homes.’
+
+‘And the _last word_ to which you alluded?’ inquired Flaxius.
+
+‘It is,’ said Pluto, with a smile, ‘that all which you have seen, or
+shall see here in Hades, as I have indeed plainly said already, is, to
+speak Sanscritically, only Maya, or Illusion. All smoke, but it rises
+from a real fire. _Ite!--missa est!_’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘And what did you think of the Lower World?’ inquired the Fairy of
+Flaxius.
+
+‘That it is misnamed, O Soul of the Violets!’ replied the Etruscan,
+‘since it appeared to me as being one degree higher than this. For in
+it the average Philistine and guinea-pig and sinful gossip are gently
+led or induced to find out that they are fools or evil-doers, and that
+he who gives himself most earnestly to life goes deepest into death.
+Now man is destined to slowly learn this lesson through the ages, and
+as he progresses in it, Science will, step by step, overcome death.
+So that as we become idealists, so shall we also advance into earthly
+immortality. That, your Fairyness, is what I conclude from what I
+beheld. In fact I am so smitten with admiration at the beautiful
+humanity of hell as I saw it, that I can only declare that if there is
+really no such place there _ought_ to be one!’
+
+‘It will do just as well if you write and publish an account of it,’
+replied the fairy. ‘The main thing is to teach mankind the great
+lesson that most men left to mere commonplace and earthly ideals must
+inevitably damn themselves.’
+
+‘Beyond this, O Loveliness,’ resumed Flaxius, ‘I was induced to
+reflect, that to avoid hell, satiety, and despair, it is necessary to
+have an iron _will_, and one formed on the strictest moral lines. And
+he who can make a perfect will unto himself, so as to make his whole
+soul or intellect obey his spirit or conscience or God-within, has won
+all that he needs in time or eternity. This, O Life of Endless Light!
+is the great lesson of Orcus.’
+
+‘It would have been well worth going there to learn that,’ said the
+fairy, ‘had it even been all fire and suffering. But haste and write it
+down, for many there be who need the lesson, which is the highest of
+all in true wisdom.
+
+
+‘He to whom the devil grants
+All he wishes, all he wants,
+However gaily time be passed
+Will catch the devil at the last.’
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS AND ADELINDÈ
+
+A LEGEND OF THE EARLY LOMBARD DAYS, BEING ONE OF THE VISIONS WHICH
+FLAXIUS HAD WHILE IN HELL
+
+  ‘Said Chider the immortal, the ever young:
+  “I passed by a city, a man stood near
+  Plucking fruit that in a fair garden hung.
+  I asked, “How long has the city been here?”
+  He said, as the clustering fruit he caught,
+  “There was always a city in this spot,
+  And so there will be till time is not.”
+  Five hundred years passed by as before:
+  I was standing upon that spot once more.”’
+
+
+WHILE the learned Flaxius repeated these lines with strange feeling,
+as if recalling to him missing memories, he looked intently at every
+object round as if he would wring from it some buried mystery or
+long-hidden secret. It was twilight-tide in the last golden-brown of
+a Carpoccio sky. Broad and wide in the rapidly dimming distance were
+undulating hills covered with vineyards and olives, like a waving sea
+topped with green foam; here and there were hamlets of white houses,
+and above them stately towered castles, like shepherds watching flocks
+of sheep at eve; long lines of stone walls, flowing with maiden-hair or
+helmeted with cactus--all softly fair and far away!
+
+It was a beautiful picture; but what interested the man of many years,
+and by-gone lives, was what lay close about him--the grey and mossy
+relics of an ancient ville--it may have been a quaint, small town of
+well-marked fortalices, or a brave and beautiful little city in Lombard
+times--now all abandoned in its solitude. Here and there a run of ivied
+wall and a square tower still held themselves up respectably, as if
+opposing a stout heart to bad fortune;--a fine thing to see in any
+ruin, be it of man or marble. There were hillocks--ruined arches--and
+now it was all a home for ghosts and owls, or else some shadowy
+night-hag wandering slow.
+
+And as Flaxius considered the masses of ferns and weeds, and saucy
+acanthus, and golden blossoms of many kinds, and arrogant asphodels,
+which seemed to crowd themselves into the ruins and say: ‘Poor things,
+_we_ will protect you and make everything look respectable,’ the sage
+reflected:
+
+‘’Tis all, as in every city--where _la génération qui vient se moque de
+la noblesse qui va_--golden blossoms or guinea-pigs--flaunting weeds,
+rotting while they cover that which is older and nobler!--_avanti!_
+Dandelions--_pisciacane_ in Italian--with your flowers like golden
+florins, and your dandy-lions of sons, begone!’
+
+As if in answer to him he heard a bell from some church cloister far
+away strike twelve, softly and slowly, as if the chimes had been
+transfused through the honey-golden summer air which lingered into
+night. And with the last note all the weeds and flowers vanished;
+the ruins revived, shooting up again into ancient glory; towers
+rose from the dust--façades en-niching many a form of forgotten
+saints--transfigured and idealised, and over all zig-zagging and
+working wildly into life-like, pictured dreams, innumerable arabesques
+of old Lombard vines and monsters, warriors fighting dragons whose
+tails ended in branching dragon-wort and dogs who were half dog-wood,
+chasing wolves who were three-quarters wolfsbane--puns in stone, for
+those who can read them.
+
+Stern and unmoved sat the man of many ages, looking at the wondrous
+transformation scene, as if at the opera. Like one who has had for
+years a season ticket, he keenly looked to see if it were well done,
+for he was a member of the Eternal Press which reports history, the
+great _Times_ of all time.
+
+And verily he who has mastered the course of the circling ages in
+chronicles, and feels their soul, and has learned their lesson, may sit
+like Mephistopheles before the Sphinx and put such mocking questions as
+he will, with all the might of all that man may dare.
+
+Then, one by one, and two by two, lights began to appear in the
+windows, and a great beacon fire, at first all violet, and anon waving
+into blended emerald and scarlet flame blazed out on the summit of the
+donjon-tower. And soon all the scene was translucent and fluent with
+a wondrous glow as if an Aurora had been suddenly born, or the Goddess
+of the Four Winds, amid blazing laurel and roses while the fairies sang
+a pæan of welcome (as a Romagna legend tells the tale). For with the
+out-bursting light, there rose a strange, sweet chorus of unearthly
+voices in the long-forgotten, Lombard-Gothic tongue; and Flaxius hummed
+softly to the air:
+
+
+‘Five hundred years have passed by as before:
+I am listening to the song once more.’
+
+
+Then shadowy forms were seen among the shades, as if born from them,
+and blending in them, and as the light grew, they too became beings of
+light and colour and beauty, lords and ladies of the olden time with
+their pages and maidens dressed in the Latin-Lombard style; in which
+as in its sculptures, a rude, Northern strength submitted to, and was
+blended with, Romano-Greek grace and ornament, even as Hercules was
+subdued by Omphalé.
+
+‘Five hundred years,’ hummed Flaxius, ‘that garb once more!’
+
+In step with the music, and as if moving with the waves of coloured
+light, gracefully and stately as swans in a dream, there came by a
+walking group of gentlemen and ladies, who, seeing Flaxius, paused
+while one from the latter said to him in old Italian:
+
+‘Mortal, since thou art here sleeping at midnight and in full
+moon-tide, thou hast won the power to behold us, and share our
+festivity. Join us and enter the castle.’
+
+Gravely and almost sadly answered the man of the ages in the old
+Lombard-Gothic tongue:
+
+‘I am as little mortal as ye are immortal, ye shadows of ghosts of days
+long passed away! But what ye offer me in courtesy, I do with thankful
+courtesy accept. My lord Agobard of the Amal race, I was by your side
+when you routed the Romans at Ravenna, and when you retreated, beaten
+yet glorious before the Huns in the Mark of Tuscany. Know that your
+name is still to be read in old chronicles. My Lady Chlodoviga, now
+Luisa, I am glad to see that your fire-sapphire eyes still flash as
+fiercely from under your golden hair as they did when we last met.’
+
+‘Knowest thou _me_?’ exclaimed a giant-like and ancient warrior, with a
+vast grey beard, yet who had all the fire of youth, and by whom stood
+a younger noble who was like the elder in all save age. ‘Am I still
+remembered on earth?’
+
+‘Well do I know thee, Master Hildebrand, and not I alone but all men
+living, where’er resounds the German tongue and German hymns to God are
+sung, for all men who can read it have read the Song of the Father and
+the Son, of thee and of my Lord Hahdubrand now by thy side, unto whom I
+offer greeting. While the Book of Heroes shall live ye will live in it.’
+
+‘And _thou_, great master, who hast the serpent tongue of Gunlaug?’
+
+‘Ask me not, but I am of the sorcerer race of the God Frey, and was ere
+thou wert born.’
+
+So in music and light they all gravely passed into the castle, through
+brilliant, buzzing groups, harpers and horn-players and _citharœdi_
+making music--threading the mazes of a torch-dance, till my Lord
+Hildebrand led Flaxius before a lady seated beneath a canopy on a
+double chair like a throne. The canopy was of light-brown silk from
+Sicily and on it were heavily embroidered dragons and leafy branches in
+black and gold, with many red and gold disks. The throne was of dark
+nut wood and ivory.
+
+She who sat on the throne was a queen of beauty, of a beauty long
+passed away with the chivalry and romance of the early Gothic time.
+For every age, as Flaxius said, has its own beauty, which busts or
+portraits never portray to those who come after, though they may have
+been perfect likenesses, any more than the dried flower retains its
+early perfume. For there was in the woman’s face a nameless, stern,
+firm will, an unfamiliarity with little things and small sentiments,
+the steady glow of a soul which knew only great aims and was used to
+great efforts, and such were all who were leaders in those days, and in
+each other they all read their like, which is a noble thing for noble
+minds. Yet there was in her eyes a glow and glory of beauty and of
+passion which betrayed unearthly blood and immortal longing, and as she
+looked with a smile of welcome at Flaxius, there flashed into his mind
+a feeling of joy which she little suspected, that he was not one who
+could be bewitched or silenced or bullied by any magic:
+
+‘Five hundred years have passed by as before, I gaze upon those eyes
+once more.’
+
+‘I present to your princely highness,’ said Lord Hildebrand, ‘a
+stranger of great wisdom, whom we found within the domain. Who he may
+be, Lady Adelindè, I cannot divine, but I warrant him well worthy a
+warm welcome.’
+
+‘It is given with a good will,’ replied Adelindè in a deep, sweet
+voice, which was as marvellous and strange as her eyes, and which
+seemed like their light changed to sound. ‘And be not alarmed or
+astonished, sir stranger, to find yourself in what is doubtless to you
+a marvellous scene of enchantment.’
+
+‘I am not,’ answered Flaxius simply, as he gazed at her. ‘There is
+nothing here so wonderful as thou art.’
+
+Now be she fairy or sorceress or ghost-devil of a peeress or diabolical
+princess, a woman is always a woman, and the Lady Adelindè, who was
+something of all of these at once, divined that Flaxius was no common
+mortal such as she had been accustomed to catch and cajole now and
+then, to turn out of doors that he might find himself Rip van Winkled
+or Barbarossa’d or Seven Sleepered and seven years older in the
+morning, lying with a rheumatism on a cold stone. The lightly-rosy snow
+of her fair cheeks flushed to richer red at the steady glance of the
+stern, grey-blue eyes of her grim guest, in whom she at once felt a
+power perhaps beyond her own--_chi sa?_--and it was with a tone into
+which she infused her very best sorcery--the kind formerly conserved
+for kings--that she invited Flaxius to rest himself beside her on the
+throne.
+
+‘You will join our banquet?’ she asked with another professional smile.
+
+‘I have had nothing to eat all day,’ replied Flaxius, in true old
+Lombardo-Roman tone. (Note that there was a great deal in this manner
+and tone, and the princess caught it.) ‘For we all require food,’ added
+Flaxius. ‘Mortals or spirits, all eat and drink.’
+
+‘_We!_’ reflected Adelindè. ‘The “mortals _and_ spirits” was an
+after-thought! I wonder who or what he is!’
+
+‘Even mortals,’ continued Flaxius, ‘require scent and taste in their
+food, else it would not nourish them. Mere spiritual beings live simply
+on taste and scent, while the still more refined, or divine, exist on
+perfume alone. You, fairest Adelindè, have, I doubt not, very often
+dined on a daisy, had the scent of a pink for an _entrée_, and a sniff
+of a rose for dessert, but that much you absolutely required. There
+were even mortal queens of yore who were thus refined. Chrimhilde was
+one. The chronicle does not mention it, but it is true that when our
+old friend Hildebrand, with hero Hagen, ravished her rose-garden, they
+destroyed her larder.’
+
+‘No, he is not a common mortal,’ flashed Adelindè through her mind, for
+she always thought in sheet-lightning ere she spoke. (And I pray you
+note that this metaphor is truthful enough, for a later Latin writer
+tells us that the voices of all unearthly beings are like thunder,
+there being even in their softest, dulcet tones--_si symphonia canere
+vel ad tibiam versus fundere_--even when they sing their sweetest
+in symphonies or pour forth their souls unto the witching flute, a
+softly murmuring undertone, or strange, dark suspicion of the grandeur
+of the Voice of God as it speaks in the stars.) And the spiritual
+sheet-lightning of Adelindè’s thought was materialised in her glances.
+
+Meanwhile the banquet, or revel, grew wild and bold. Flaxius ate
+like a mortal, or like three--(‘Decidedly he is only human,’ thought
+Adelindè)--and drank like four, five, or six. But there was no change
+in the grey-blue eyes, or in his voice.
+
+‘No, he is in-human,’ reflected the lady. ‘Mortal man could never drink
+like _that_!’
+
+Yet she had seen stout drinkers in her time, in the old
+Roman-Longobardi days. Yes, they drank like bricks, for, as ye know,
+a dry brick will absorb its own equivalent of fluid. Which the Latins
+rendered, _Ranas superat bibendo_, and the old Italians ‘like a German’
+or a cardinal--cardinal virtues being, alack, more like carnal vices in
+those days.
+
+Wilder pealed the music, louder laughed and roared the company. From
+a revel which would have maddened a mortal, it became a Sabbath of
+sorcerers and witches, a Pandemonium of passions, an Inferno broken
+loose. Even the figures in the marvellous mosaics on the vaulted
+ceiling above--saints and kings and queens and warriors brave, such
+as we still see at Ravenna--became animated and danced or embraced,
+trailing after them gorgeous and jewelled robes, so that as there had
+been over much decay and silence and death before in the ruin, even so
+there now seemed to be as much excess of life and tumult.... A reverend
+bishop reeled and tumbled down ... while saints too fondly fondled
+saintesses--a rosy wine-light seemed to tinge the air, as if the very
+hall itself were drunk, and all were swimming in a ruby sea. _Quasi
+vinis Græcis Neptunus suffudit mare!_
+
+The princess, wild as a mænad, wanton as a faun, had cast herself on
+the heart of her guest, while she seemed joyous as a mad panther,--the
+maddest of all things when gay,[5]--but she still realised to her
+unbounded awe, that she in all _deliria_ of delight had never for an
+instant cast a charm or fascination over her mystic guest.
+
+But what was to her astounding, well-nigh petrifying, a thing new
+to her since a thousand years, the princess felt a mighty thrilling
+influence in her heart, a new-born spirit speaking in her soul, that
+she herself was at last being won, instead of being the winner! But why
+this should have so fearfully struck and startled her, not without a
+joyous after-glow of hope, will appear anon.
+
+‘Great and marvellous man,’ she at length exclaimed, recovering her
+breath--then bursting into her true self and life,--’twas like a pale
+moon exploding into a noonday sun--‘tell me who or what art thou, now
+speaking our long-forgotten Lombard tongue, knowing all my court and
+me, inaccessible to my power, and oh, that I should ever dare to think
+and dream it! perhaps mastering me!’
+
+‘Dost thou desire it?’ asked Flaxius calmly.
+
+‘Does the lost soul desire to be freed from hell?’ cried the princess,
+in a long, wailing tone of a spirit in despair. ‘Does the prisoner
+on the rack wish the torture to cease? Man of mystery!’ she suddenly
+cried, ‘dost thou know my life and my doom?’
+
+‘Well do I know it,’ replied Flaxius, ‘and now look me well in the
+eyes, thou daughter of the old Lombard line of kings, and yet a
+spirit’s child, for thy fated hour has come at last. Yet ere I tell
+thee more, answer me, great soul, what has this life which thou didst
+take of thy own free choice--when thou hadst liberty to choose among
+all--what has this life become, which was, as thou didst once declare,
+the only heaven thou couldst understand?’
+
+‘It has become a hell,’ replied Adelindè, with an immortal shudder;
+‘a hell of weary, worn-out, oft-repeated imagery of splendour, a
+tiresomeness of idle power, with the real torment of the conscience
+that I was--a fool!’
+
+‘He or she is a long way advanced towards freedom or wisdom,’ quoth
+Flaxius, ‘who has found out that he--or she--is a fool. Well, lady,
+thus it was that centuries ago there lived on earth a beautiful
+princess of the Lombard line, who had a sorceress mother, and a fairy
+Amal-Alruna ancestress, and who, having been trained to all the
+mysteries and magic of the North, as well as of Rome, and of many
+races, attained to such power as had rarely been given to woman. Yet
+through it all she retained beauty and the love of power and pleasure,
+of magnificence, and the keen, fierce delight of preying on the hearts
+and lives of men, and of living, even as thou livest here now, Adelindè!
+
+‘And having gained great power, and on one occasion by mighty worship
+and great services to _Tinia_--the great ruling spirit of the Tuscan
+land--obtained full and free choice as to her future life for ever, she
+said: “What that life for saints may be I know not, but this I know,
+that the life which I now lead is all that heart can desire, and I
+would fain live it so long as a single fibre of my soul remains as it
+is.”
+
+‘Near and dear to her in those days was one who had lived in the
+ages, and been her teacher, and more, and had tried to win her from
+her worldly wont, and all in vain. So they went their ways, she to
+splendour and pageantry in life and after life, and he to study and
+observe in existences beyond her ken. And in her gaiety and luxury the
+ages rolled on, and as they rolled, there wore away the happiness of
+her elfin life, and torment set in, the torment ordained to every one
+on earth who succeeds in having to satiety and excess his own will.’
+
+‘Man, thou speakest true,’ wailed the princess, as the voices of
+revelry sank lower, and the figures fading began to pass away, and the
+lights grew dim. The music became softer in its modulations, and the
+mind of Flaxius ran insensibly into unspoken song, in accompaniment
+with the line:
+
+‘Five hundred years have passed by as before.’
+
+‘One by one,’ he resumed, ‘the enchanted princess lost her passions and
+longings. She had delirious desires, keen appetites, an immortal and
+beautiful thirst, an exquisite appreciation of all that is beautiful,
+dainty caprices, delicate and true. Wit, humour, whim, wild-will, and
+Attic salt were as life to her; she revelled in music and song and
+letters--as thou dost in this life, or as thou didst when in the body.’
+
+The poor princess grew tearful; the marble pallor of her fading cheek
+might have made sorrow in the hardest heart.
+
+‘Yes, it all wore into triteness and commonplace, even the being hungry
+and eating, desiring and realising the same things over and over
+again, for _she_ had a soul, and every soul is damned, as soon as it
+is clogged and stops working, like a bee that has wished itself into
+eternal honey.’
+
+Adelindè cried on.
+
+‘But one thing survived--it generally _is_ about the last thing to die
+out of any woman’s heart--and that was the desire to fascinate men, to
+win them, to impose on them, and to have her own way. She felt it in
+her head and heart like a curse; she knew it was the poison of her
+soul; everything else grew stale, but that kept fresh.
+
+‘And it had been decreed that if she could ever meet a man who could
+resist and conquer her, the spell would end; but, alas, she had wished
+for and won such a stupendous stock of enchanting charms that she was
+perfectly _irresistible_ and simply distracting, which is a thing that
+stands between many a woman and her salvation, in all ages. For it has
+kept more souls in the dark, and made more ugly fools, who might have
+become spiritually beautiful, than any cause on earth. So from such
+mothers many men are fools: an Agrippina has always a Nero for a son.’
+
+Crushed to naught, fair Adelindè wept, till, lifting her eyes to those
+of the guest, a sudden, tremendous convulsion, one of transcendent
+rapture, mingled with strangest amazement, thrilled over her. She bent
+on him a glance which might have split a stone.
+
+The music played on ever more softly, more sweetly to their words in
+perfect time.
+
+‘Now I know thee, Flaxius,’ she cried. ‘_Vicisti_, thou hast conquered!
+The last link of the chain which bound me for centuries to earth is
+broken. And even in the hour in which we meet, beloved master, and in
+the instant of our love, because it is our love, and I am conquered,
+I leave thee for the better life beyond! But, ah! to have remained
+with thee, I would have gladly endured this ghostly existence, which
+had become a torment. All this is ended. Now these walls will know
+me no more; the peasant benighted will no longer see strange lights
+flickering over the ancient ruin; the enchantment has departed, and
+the spell of golden glory and glamour will no longer shine at midnight
+in these halls. The wanderer may now safely sleep here; he will behold
+no longer the elfin array, or my Lombard lords and ladies of the olden
+times, nor be enchanted by their queen. Sound for the last time my
+fairy music--your sweet strains will never more be heard in the court
+of Adelindè! Farewell, O master, we shall meet again soon, and full
+often in a better life--such as thou hast chosen--a life not clogged by
+earthly desires or petty worldly aims.’
+
+As she said this, the princess cast herself in a last passionate
+embrace on the breast of Flaxius, and as she did so, he felt that her
+life and form were passing away to a purer, more idealised existence.
+The figure faded, the features, the face, last of all the ineffable
+splendour of the Sorceress’s eyes, in which there was the radiance of a
+divine, parting smile: she spoke no more, the music died away.
+
+‘O love, in thy glory go!’ said Flaxius. ‘Never yet passed into life
+eternal a sweeter soul, never yet was a fairer goblet of the ancient
+time remelted into a nobler form. O love, in thy glory go! Lovelier
+form did never fade, brighter rose was never broken. ’Tis but a brief
+minute since thou wert in thy inferno of despair, and now by one
+instant’s flash of love and humility, thy beautiful soul is passing
+through the golden-pearled portals, and through the halls of the
+heavenly unknown. Even I cannot tell, not in this short space, what
+sphere contains the fairy soul that hath forsook her mansion in this
+earthly nook. O love, in thy glory go!’
+
+Silent and alone sat Flaxius as the shades vanished one by one. Last of
+all there stood before him the giant forms of Hildebrand and his son
+Hahdubrand. The warrior pressed his hand and spoke no word, but Flaxius
+read in his eyes deep and full feeling--the knowledge of all that had
+passed, and a farewell.
+
+‘Yes, farewell, my brave old companion of ancient days,’ said Flaxius.
+‘Thou, too, mayst pass away to lands beyond. Thou didst battle for
+glory and fame, and hast learned from me that it has been truly won.
+_Du kannst zu Land ausreiten_--so, warrior, fare thee well!’
+
+So he sat there till all had passed away, the glitter and glamour of
+chivalry and a fairy court; till the high towers had become a low, grey
+ruin, and the spiders’ webs hung again in the palace halls, and there
+were vines on crumbling walls, and the stones, themselves to ruin grown
+like him, seemed death-like old. Then, as in waves, the weeds grew
+again up to where he sat; and as the rising sun cast its first ray on
+him, he started as if from a dream.
+
+‘_Comedia luget, scena est deserta_,’ he murmured. ‘Now if I wished
+to preach a new faith to mankind, Adelindè has given me the text. For
+I now see that hell _is_ the place where every mortal can have to his
+heart’s content his own desire, as Pluto declared. And this hell may be
+on earth, in life, and all may know it in their very hearts.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘_Hæc fabula docet_,’ wrote Flaxius on the revise, ‘two or three
+morals not mentioned in the conclusion. _Item_, the Spirit that is in
+the trees, the Being in green leaves among the groves, the rocks and
+waters, or the wanton weeds, reveals unto the poet wondrous things
+which, being written, are as real in truth, in beauty, and in goodness
+for the world, as aught that ever happened in the past. He who has
+mastered this in every sense lives in a fairyland while here on earth,
+yet they are few who ever master it.
+
+‘And yet again that great prosperity gives birth to a vanity which is
+often an intermittent weakness in men, and a steady madness in women,
+as may be clearly discerned in the memoirs or lives of all who have
+flourished in the atmosphere of courts, wherein, as in a hot-house,
+things worth no more than weeds in nature or in their proper state,
+are as exotics, nursed up into such condition by prosperity, that they
+despise every flower or plant which grows in the open air. For who,
+indeed, has not known some feeble-minded man or woman whose head has
+been so turned by having everything he or she wanted, that either is
+fain to scream as at some great inhuman injustice when a miracle is
+not wrought in some dire need--as in the want of “diamonds like the
+duke’s”!’
+
+‘Now it was in the instant when her vanity was humiliated for ever,
+and she realised that there was, indeed, a man who was too much for
+her, that Adelindè first saw herself in very truth as she was, like
+Hawthorne’s Man of Straw, and grasped the tremendous truth of Christian
+humility. Which is enough time for a great mind to be saved, just as
+one handful of powder will in an instant overthrow a lordly tower,
+while it may require a ton thereof, and a long time, to destroy a
+mud-bank.
+
+‘But every mortal, be he who he may, has learned a great lesson, and
+taken his first step to divinity, when he has learned in very truth
+that he is not a god.
+
+‘Finally, there are many who imagine that old age cannot attack a man
+while he has health, strength, and physical or worldly appetite. And so
+long as he is a brute or a fool, were it for a thousand years, he could
+indeed go on eating, drinking, and frolicking with his kind. But with
+experience there comes a soul, and to that soul in time a weariness
+of all that earth contains, be it what it may. Now it is a curious
+thing to observe that as the average growth of intellect in England
+has increased--I pray ye here put on your studying-caps--the average
+of life and the duration of vitality and intelligence has increased
+with it. When the great Duke of Marlborough pleaded extreme old age in
+asking for merciful indulgence--he was then sixty-three--no one thought
+it strange. ’Tis hardly worth the while to say, that now, few people
+would lend grace to such a plea, for life is lengthening, and ‘twill
+lengthen on slowly--it may be--surely, into wondrous Time.
+
+
+[5] The frolicsomeness of a panther suggests intoxication. In this it
+surpasses all other animals. Therefore the car of Bacchus is drawn by
+panthers.
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS AND THE WERE-WOLF
+
+THE WONDERFUL STORY TELLING HOW RANDOLPH OF UPSALA ATE THE SHEEP, AND
+HOW MR. RANDOLPH OF WALL STREET DEVOURED THE LAMBS.
+
+‘Now there are some people who think that those who believe they are
+Were-wolves only suffer from what is called by doctors _Lycanthropia_.
+But others hold that they are indeed changed to brutes, and this cannot
+be denied, and those who deny it are all infamous liars.’--_Peter
+Goldschmied_, _Hexen Advocat._ 1705.
+
+
+IT happened once in the days of sword-songs and sagas, runic sorcery
+and sea-dragons, that Flaxius found himself in Sweden on a summer
+eve, gazing at the town of Upsala. He sat upon the little hill before
+it, where, as tradition tells, Odin was buried. Ye may see his bones,
+to-day, in a paste-board box in a case in the Stockholm Museum, where
+I who write these lines was allowed to reverently touch them, which
+is indeed a favour only accorded to a pious few who still worship the
+gods, disguised as folk-lorists and archæologists--_quorum pars sum_.
+
+Now as Flaxius looked upon the strange city, and the old tower,
+with its eight arches typifying the eight rings or armlets of the
+All-Father, he observed here and there on the walls, swinging in the
+wind, the corpses of the strangers who were caught straying about the
+country, and were then sentenced to _sus per coll_, or be hanged, slung
+up, or hitched to swing, dangle, swaggle, and go bibbety-bob in the
+breezes, as a sacrifice to Odin.
+
+‘A somewhat severe custom,’ mused Flaxius gently, ‘yet doubtless
+not without its peculiar advantages. The stranger within our gates
+often seems to us well worthy of being gated, when he gets the entire
+government of cities into his hands, and runs the taxes--into his own
+pocket; as I with eye prophetic do foresee will be the case one day in
+Western lands, but late discovered by these valiant Norse.
+
+‘But for the Sacrificed on yonder walls. I remember how upon a time
+in Rome when Nero made full oft grim martyrdoms, that a disciple
+of Paulus asked--hearing me declare that there was humour in all
+things--if it could be found in the awful conception of a God dying
+as a criminal to show his humility and love for the world? And I can
+recall how Odin once coming as stranger, or in some disguise, into this
+very town, he being their god, was seized at once and hung on yonder
+wall, as a due sacrifice unto himself. Over which thing he merrily
+exults as if it were a wondrous racy joke, as we may read in the Edda:
+
+
+  ‘“For nine nights,
+  I hung on the wind-rocked tree
+  A sacrifice unto myself.”
+
+
+‘Truly the idea was too much for me, but not for the All-Father of
+the Northern gods, who found a grotesque humour in the conception
+of a Creator baffled by his own work. So he carried out the jest by
+being hung. Ah well! he lost the game after all, which shows that the
+Scandinavians were not good myth-makers. We managed these things much
+better in Etruria, Greece, and Rome. “There’s nothing sacred to a
+pioneer,” says a French proverb, and Odin was the _Sapeur_ and leader,
+and discoverer for all the North. The Norseman and Norman were his
+children. Od or Hud was his name as “the traveller,” and Henry Hudson
+was of the blood. Like an old traveller, Odin would have his joke.
+
+‘But as to this custom of stringing up, or scragging strangers, and
+making them dance upon nothing in honour of the Lord Odin, it behoves
+me to look to myself with care unless I too would wear a tight cravat,
+and I care not for such worldly vanities.’
+
+Saying this he wandered on and away, till he came to a lonely place
+amid rocks and trees by a headlong stream, where he paused. Suddenly
+his attention was caught by a cry, which he found came from a pit hard
+by. It was a deep and powerful voice. And to it Flaxius replied:
+
+‘Who calls?’
+
+The voice answered:
+
+‘I am one who has fallen into this pit, and have not the power to come
+forth.’ Then he sang in staff-rhyme:
+
+
+  ‘“To catch the Band-olf,
+  To take the Adelolf,
+  Bertolf, Eginolf,
+  Frekulf, Aistolf,
+  Hedenolf, Ingolf,
+  Kelolf and Kunolf,
+  Orkulf, Ordulf,
+  Ludolf and Rachulf,
+  Ralf and Ranulf,
+  Wolfram and Tackolf,
+  Theodolf, Unolf,
+  Wolfart and many a wolf,
+  Men with the sword,
+  Bearers of Lances,
+  Go forth to battle.
+  To catch the Were-wolf,
+  They dig the pit-fall,
+  With runes and sorcery,
+  Witch-rhyme and magic,
+  So well they guard it
+  That the wild wolf-man
+  Falling into it,
+  There must remain,
+  Starving, a prisoner,
+  Until a sorcerer,
+  Pitying, comes to him,
+  Breaking the witch-spell.”’
+
+
+‘Which means in prose,’ said Flaxius, ‘that a poor devil of a
+sheep-stealer, _alias_ a were-wolf, is here in the pit--more’s the
+pity! There is to my mind indeed--I know not why--something less of
+crime in stealing mutton and venison than some other things; in fact
+I remember that a great Etruscan dramatist, now forgotten, once made
+deer-poaching almost sacred. And I recall how a bold, brave man said
+to a judge in my hearing: “Jedge, I’m glad you punished that mizzable
+creeter so severely for stealing hens. Being naterally strong in the
+back, it _hes_ befel at times when the country was thinly settled, that
+I myself have now and then inadvertently stolen a sheep, but I allays
+had the moral grandeur to refrain from Hens. _Hens!_ O the low, poor,
+ornery, medium-minded cuss!--he orter to be _ashamed_ of himself!”’
+
+The man in the pit uttered an exclamation not over-pious.
+
+‘It would serve these Swedes right, for their hanging strangers at
+Upsala,’ pursued Flaxius, ‘if I were to pull this poor devil up into
+the light of day. Let us see how they have laid their hocus-pocus of
+runes and witch-knots! Why rubbish and trash!’ he exclaimed with a
+scornful laugh, ‘an old Roman witch who tells fortunes for a penny
+would undo this sorcery with a pin! Ahem, let me try:
+
+
+  ‘Aldebarantiphoscophornio!
+  Bombochidescluninstaridé sarchides!
+  Tarchun, Hinthial, Tara!
+
+
+There--the charm is broken! Were-wolf, my son, come forth!’
+
+And sure enough the pittite came forth. His appearance was _not_,
+to draw it mildly, as Flaxius observed unto himself, ‘absolutely
+prepossessing.’ _Punchius_, a celebrated Roman jester of the Lower
+Empire, once remarked of such an appearance, ‘that he would not be a
+nice customer to meet of a dark night in a lonely lane, on the loose.’
+For he was red all over, as if with excessive health, and awful in
+muscle, an over-done Hercules, like to the Cacus of Baccio or Bandinell
+in the Signoria of Florence. His arms hung out from his sides like
+a turtle’s fins, because the bulging biceps were so great. His hair
+was red and dishevelled, and his eyes glared from under it with
+unmitigated ferocity, like those of a wild cat staring from a pig-pen.
+He bore on his left arm a wolf’s skin.
+
+But suddenly, ere Flaxius could speak a word, the two found themselves
+surrounded by a crowd of furious rustics, who had evidently been
+ambushed on the watch, in the forest, about the pit. They rushed upon
+the pair with angry cries, accusing Flaxius of having delivered the
+Were-wolf, also of being a stranger, and ere they were aware, cast over
+them a net in which they were helpless.
+
+‘_Flagrante delicto_,’ thought Flaxius. ‘Misplaced humanity oft leads
+to woe. He who lets a rat out of a trap loses his cheese. What next?’
+
+The next was that the culprits found themselves imprisoned in the
+witch-tower. Its walls were about twenty-five feet in thickness; there
+was just room in it for two to sit on a bench, and there was one grated
+window to admit air.
+
+They looked at one another. Flaxius began to sing a song written some
+time after by the Trouvère, Marie de France:
+
+
+  ‘“When lays abound, ’twould ill beseem
+  Bisclaveret were not a theme;
+  Such is the name by Bretons sung,
+  And Gar-wal in the Norman tongue.”’
+
+
+‘_Gar-wal!_’ exclaimed the other prisoner. ‘That means me--a were-wolf.
+’Tis not our tongue, and yet I know the word.’
+
+‘So I suppose, my son, therefore I sang,’ rejoined Flaxius. ‘So now
+while we are resting a space, from our romantic adventure, ere we get
+out of this somewhat limited apartment, I pray you tell me all your
+story clearly ... in simple words, and few.’
+
+‘By Fenris!’ exclaimed the Were-wolf, ‘I will tell you the truth. Loki
+and Hela take me if I lie! I was a free, simple _bonde_, a plain small
+farmer, and I lived from a flock of sheep. It was my all, and hard was
+my life withal. Now I had a rich neighbour, and one year my pasture
+was ruined by flood and storm, and this man being crafty, and I as
+simple as a child, he persuaded me to pasture my sheep on his farm for
+half the lambs to come. But he so managed by head-craft and law-craft,
+as to take from me all I had; and when I followed my claim at the Thing
+or court, it went even worse with me, and I was cast into debt, and
+made a thrall or slave.
+
+‘Then I was mad with rage. Short words, master--I met a witch who
+gave me a spell, and I made myself a were-wolf. Then I slew all that
+man’s sheep ... one by one ... I set fire to his home--his family all
+perished in the flame--he escaped, lame and a beggar. And I was made a
+Wolf’s Head.’
+
+‘Truly a pretty tale!’ remarked Flaxius. ‘Apuleius might have made
+something of it. _Entre chien et loup_ in this twilight, my son--or
+_entre nous_--hast thou more to narrate?’
+
+‘Yes. I had taken from my foe’s house a goodly treasure of gold rings
+and coin, which I have concealed. Now, if any sorcerer would take the
+wolf-spell from me and change my face, I would buy me a ship and go
+a-pirating as a Viking, and so reform and lead an honest life.’
+
+‘Truly men’s ideas as to _honesty_,’ reflected Flaxius, ‘are indeed
+somewhat involved--or as we may say--conventional. But what dost thou
+think, my son,’ he said aloud, ‘as to our present prospects?’
+
+‘Simply, my lord, that we shall be burned alive to-morrow in honour of
+Odin.’
+
+‘All lost--except honour,’ quoth Flaxius. ‘But, my son, I have no fancy
+to figure as a _rôti_, albeit I propose to be a _pièce de résistance_.
+Let us for once in our harmless and innocent lives vary the monotony of
+moral goodness by evading the law. All novelty is pleasing.’
+
+‘And how shall we do it?’ asked the man amazed.
+
+‘Thou art a strong carl,’ replied Flaxius, ‘and I warrant me that thou
+couldst tear yon window grating out of its place. And I--’tis a mere
+trick, my son--can increase thy strength ten-fold. Only drink now and
+then from this flask. So, so! bully boy, to work! Work while I sing to
+thee a magic spell taught by the great Ir-Ving.
+
+
+  ‘“Hinculus dinculus trinculus!
+         Holy boly bum!
+  The Latin for chain is _Vinculus
+         Nunc inspiratus sum_!”’
+
+
+It was with intense awe that the Were-wolf listened to these words, and
+in full faith that he attacked the grating, which he pulled away as if
+it were straw.
+
+‘Now try a stone, my son!’ exclaimed Flaxius. ‘Nay--take a pull first
+from the flask. There is a spirit therein, unknown to thee--_spiritus
+vini Gallici, duæ unciæ, fiat potatio_!’
+
+Crash came a stone weighing a ton, then another, then a third. The
+Berserker rage was on the giant. Soon he had made a hole through which
+one could have driven a coach, but he kept on.
+
+‘Softly, softly, my dear boy!’ interposed Flaxius. ‘Thou art too good
+an actor, and wilt bring down the whole house about our ears. Now, if
+thou art ready, I see the new moon rising o’er yon trees. Ha! Hesperus!
+I give thee greeting fond! Come to the green wood; let us haste away!’
+
+It was a drop of twenty feet from the window, but the red man took
+it like a mountain goat, and then caught Flaxius in his arms, like a
+ball, albeit the latter was none of your light-weights, neither was he
+small. Now, as the Wolf was still _berserk-wode_, or half-mad with the
+tremendous magic potion, he gave a fearful yell, turning townwards,
+
+‘And shook his gauntlet at the towers,’
+
+when catching up Flaxius on his back, he ran with him, ‘as a fox might
+run with a goose,’ thought the passenger, at headlong speed, along the
+road and into the woods, crashing through boughs and thickets, over
+rocks leaping, through torrents splashing; a-down a force or waterfall
+here, up a hill there, while Flaxius sang:
+
+
+  ‘“Va petit postillon!
+  Va en avant, vite, vite!
+  Tu vas comme l’aquilon
+  Sur ta jument favorite?
+
+  Go on, my postillion!
+  Before thee lies the way!
+  And thou art like an eagle fleet
+  Upon thy gallant grey!”’
+
+
+Truly the similes were all a little mixed, but they were in a devil
+of a shaking, jumbling hurry, and there was no pause till they found
+themselves far away in a lonely land, where it seemed as if the cock
+never crew, the sun never shone, and the wind never blew. There the
+Berserker threw himself matt and flat on the ground, out of wind, and
+dead broke. And then Flaxius noticed that he had in his right hand a
+sheep, which he had caught up on the way as he ran.
+
+‘Truly there is a good soldier lost in this man,’ said Flaxius. ‘He
+can forage even during a retreat.’ So there was resting, cooking, and
+camping _au clair de la lune_; and the next day they went on, and so
+to the North for many days more. The wolf-man seemed to be bound for a
+certain place, and Flaxius followed to see what would come thereout.
+
+When on a time as they sat in a sunset on a headland overlooking a
+fiord, and far away from Upsala, the Wolf-man said:
+
+‘Master, wilt thou take from me the spell which forces me when the moon
+is full to don this skin and raven as a wolf? For, anon, I shall begin
+to feel fierce convulsions throbbing, and wild commotion in all my
+blood, and raging madness for murder in my whole soul, the time for it
+being nearly come, and then I spare neither beast nor human being. Now,
+if thou dost not care to work the charm, there lives near this place,
+a-down in yonder dale, a Finn who is a famed sorcerer, and to him will
+I go for relief.’
+
+Flaxius replied musingly, more to himself than to his follower:
+
+‘Yes, it is true. Long, long ago in Greece, I made research into the
+_Lycanthropia_, which is one of the oldest mysteries of mad humanity.
+And it was in happy, sunny Arcady--_et in Arcadia ego_--where all was
+like a proverb of sweet peace, that it first showed itself to the world.
+
+‘In that land, my son, was a wicked king named _Lycaon_. Once it
+happened that the great god, who was as the Odin and Frey of your faith
+in one, whose name was Zeus or Jupiter, and in Etruscan, Tinia, came
+in disguise to this Lycaon, who, to test the divinity or magic of his
+visitor, set before him human flesh cooked as mutton.’
+
+‘But that was a _great_ sin!’ exclaimed the Wolf-man, who was listening
+with round eyes and full belief. ‘To treat a _guest_, who should be
+sacred to the vilest of the vile, in such wise was _nidering_.’
+
+‘It was _très_ low-flung, my son,’ said Flaxius, who had a habit of
+prophetically borrowing phrases from vocabularies of the future. ‘Yes,
+_niederträchtig_, scandalous, ribald, scrubby, pitiful, vile, infamous
+conduct--_infra dignitatem regis_. And it was promptly punished, for
+Zeus, on the spot, turned the king and his sons, who had had a hand in
+the little game, all into wolves--the first wolves ever seen--and they
+ran howling away through the door into the darkness, like mad.’
+
+‘’Tis a fine tale,’ said the Wolf-man. ‘And so the first of us was a
+_king_, and if he was wicked, he was bold to dare such a deed.’
+
+‘But whence came this _mania_,’ continued Flaxius, talking to himself,
+‘since there is a scientific cause for all things? _H’m-h’m!_ the
+Arcadians were of the primæval race of the Pelasgi, who dwelt secluded
+from the mob of Asiatics, Egyptians, Levantines, and God knows what
+all, who fused into Greeks in time. In lonely valleys, deep in mountain
+dales, they pastured flocks, fought with the beasts of prey, and
+kept unchanged a mass of the wildest tales of sorcery and witchcraft
+in freshest faith. So they knew _fear_ in its strangest form--the
+_panicus terror_--which seizes on mobs of men or beasts, and the
+_deliria_ of spectres, as no other Greeks knew them. Out of such fear
+grew the bewildering _insania zoanthropica_, and the awful _insania
+metamorphosis_ of which Nebuchadnezzar was the prototype. Finally
+we get to the _dementia lycanthropia_, so interestingly exemplified
+in thee--O my son!’ he exclaimed, turning to the other, who had sat
+open-mouthed with wonder and admiration at the speech, of which he had
+not understood one word. ‘By the way, what is thy name, my son?’ he
+continued.
+
+‘Ranulf, the mad wolf, is what men call me,’ said the other proudly.
+
+‘_Mon fils, ce n’est pas l’instant pour la vanité humaine_,’ rejoined
+Flaxius mildly; ‘but as regards removing this disorder of thine, I
+would fain see how thy Finn will work it. I promise thee a cure in any
+case.’
+
+They went down and on, till they came to a large, low cottage, buried
+amid birch-trees and willows. At the door sat an old man weaving
+baskets, droning to himself an ancient lay, while by him crouched an
+immense cat of some wild kind. The Finn was dressed in furs and woven
+bast, or softened willow wood in strips; his face was withered, but
+his eye was keen as an eagle’s, and as his glance met Flaxius, the two
+understood one another,
+
+‘The curse of Ilmarin, or of Fenris, lies heavily on him,’ said the
+Finn, indicating Ranulf.
+
+‘He hath a double curse,’ replied Flaxius, ‘with him it is _at leysa
+or laedingi eda at drepa or droma_,--the wolf hath two fetters to
+break--for he is firstly mad, and secondly outlawed, so that he must be
+mentally cured, and then disguised so as to escape the law. And I would
+fain see, my brother, how thou workest thy spell.’
+
+‘By the Great Oak!’ exclaimed the sorcerer with a shrewd twinkle of his
+eye, ‘I doubt not that our methods are much alike. But if it please
+you, O wise lord from the far Out-gard, to see my simple work, I will
+most willingly do my best.’
+
+Saying this he took them into a room which was closed and windowless,
+but in which burned a large, rude Lapland lamp; and having made Ranulf
+drink of a certain potion, he rubbed him over with an ointment, in the
+smell of which Flaxius detected certain ingredients which were to him
+far from being unknown.
+
+‘Ahem!’ he reflected, ‘extract of mandragora, opium, henbane (order
+_solanaceæ_), sulphur, bitumen, verbena, _amico mio, dove diavolo avete
+pigliato tutte queste coglionerie_--where the devil didst rake up all
+this stuff? Yea, from the very ends of the earth do these Voodoos and
+conjurors correspond, and the Shaman of Kamtschatka sends the _Ammanita
+muscaria_ unto Timbuctoo for sorceries. Proceed, O friend, I pray thee
+with thy work!’
+
+The Finn laid the patient on a bed, lighted a pan, in which were
+strange fumigants, and bade the Were-wolf look him long and steadily in
+the eyes; which he did with ten owl-power till he began to blink like
+a judge after luncheon, and finally went into a deep sleep. Then the
+shaman, taking a kind of large, oval-shaped tambourine, covered with
+reindeer skin, on which were drawn many mysterious, rude figures, began
+to beat it gently, while he sang in strange and evidently carefully
+measured and elaborately trained tones, the following:
+
+
+  ‘By the soul of him the father!
+  By the mighty Wainamoinen!
+  By the sun and moon and planets,
+  And their light upon the water!
+  And the water all surrounding,
+  And the forest by the seashore,
+  And the bear within the forest!
+  And the runic mystery written
+  On his paw, and by the letters,
+  Which the lightning writes in darkness,
+  Only read by Ilmarinen!
+  By the One, Three, Five and Seven,
+  And the Four which causes growing,
+  Ever giving, life-begetting:
+  Wolf, I charge thee leave this mortal!
+
+
+  Fly along the running river,
+  Fly across the ferny mountains,
+  Fly into the pine-tree forest!
+  Flee across the birch-edged meadows!
+  Hasten to the oak-bound valley,
+  Or where slopes are dense with beeches,
+  Wade in haste through shallow water,
+  Where the fishes dart in terror!
+  By the rock on which the warriors
+  Cut of yore their strongest record,
+  With the mesh of interlaces,
+  Which avert the witches’ glances:
+  Wolf, I charge thee, leave this mortal!
+  Leave him so that when awaking,
+  He shall never more remember,
+  That he ever wore the wolf hide!’
+
+
+Thereupon was heard near by the sound of a wolf howling, and, as one
+would think, praying and expostulating with the shaman, who was,
+however, very firm, and when the Wolf was over bold, began to sing
+again:
+
+‘Fly along the running river!’
+
+Till at last the Wolf was heard at some distance, and then still
+further away; his voice ever less audible, until it seem to disappear
+amid rustling leaves, and mingle with the wind.
+
+‘Admirably played, my brother,’ exclaimed Flaxius; ‘Apollo never did
+the trick better. Hypnotized to perfection and cured--like a ham! Yes,
+the wolf will be no longer at his door. And, my dear doctor, I like
+your _mise en scène_, your drum and your poetry and perfumery. By the
+way I can give you a hint or two as to improving the narcotics in your
+ointment, and yet, who knows? perhaps for your rough folk you have the
+best _fiat lotio Cras mane sumendus_.’
+
+‘And if Ranulf would like to go a-Viking,’ said the shaman, ‘there is a
+rich man hard by who has a fine ship to sell cheap, with forty men all
+armed, and well.’
+
+‘Just like your provident kindness,’ responded Flaxius. ‘Always the
+same thoughtful old chap. And now for your fee--you won’t take it--ah
+yes, _inter doctores_, among us members of the Faculty, of course. But
+permit me,’ he said, producing from his pocket a second flask of the
+mystic alchemical, spagirical essence, ‘to present to you a medicine
+which is as yet unknown in the North. Taste it and try its virtue on
+yourself! _Jameson, Dublin._’
+
+Saying this he uncorked the bottle, presented it, and the Finnic
+sorcerer, as the saying is, ‘took a sight’; that is to say, the bottle
+ascended at an angle of forty-five degrees from his mouth, so that
+his vision glanced exactly in a line with the side, as if it were a
+pistol. He took very deliberate aim, was in no hurry, being evidently
+determined to make a line-shot, hit the bull’s eye and bring down the
+game, and then _clucked_. The shot had been fired. Then turning to
+Flaxius he spoke no word, but uttered a _wink_, and such a wink as
+Flaxius had never seen before in all his mighty experience. The charge
+had gone home, and he had brought down his racoon, killing him dead at
+a shot.[6]
+
+There was a Finnish shaman sorcerer who had a wondrous interview with
+Hibernian spirits all that night, and who was found next morning buried
+in a magic trance. And far out at sea there was a solitary Viking sail
+bearing southward, and from the oarsmen came the chorus of a song in
+Icelandic:
+
+
+‘Sing hey! sing ho! for the land of flowers!’
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ages had come and gone, and the cobwebs and dust had gathered three
+inches deep in crust on many an old bottle of wine in many an ancient
+cellar, when Flaxius found himself of a bright, crisp, autumn day in
+the city of New York, presenting a letter of introduction to a retired
+stockbroker, whose home was situated up the river, in the Catskills.
+This gentleman was named Randolph, and Flaxius was much pleased with
+him. He was a genial, jovial, merry-go-tumble man in a general way,
+with a quaint American _mot_ for every circumstance, and quick at
+filling the kettle whenever there was any fun to be boiled; but he
+had withal evidently a tremendous hard pan, or substratum, of what is
+called _horse-sense_, which is a sixth sense supplied by nature to her
+Western children. He was immensely powerful, in fact a perfect picture
+of excessive ruddy health, being one of those enviable muscular beasts
+who can bend a horse-shoe, or tear in two a pack of cards; and he had a
+tremendous shock of red hair.
+
+This ‘powerful party’ took a great liking in turn to Flaxius, forcing
+him to come at once, ‘to stay his time and plenty of it,’ at his villa
+on the Hudson; where, what between reed-bird, venison, soft shell crab,
+terrapin and snapper soup, Spanish mackerel and blue-fish banquets,
+pretty faces, festivities, drives, and gaieties, the guest drew
+comparisons with the pleasures of ancient Rome and Paris, not in all
+respects favourable to the latter.
+
+It is an invariable rule in life, that however powerful and reticent
+a nature like that of Randolph’s may be, it inevitably runs into
+intimate confidence when it meets with another of the kind of Flaxius.
+Mercury does not melt more surely into lead than the strong animal soul
+combines with a stronger intellectual power. And the end of it was, to
+abridge the tale, that one day Mr. Randolph told to his guest the story
+of his life.
+
+‘I was the son,’ he said, ‘of a farmer who lived in one of the eastern
+counties of Massachusetts, and who, being favoured by fortune,
+accumulated about one hundred thousand dollars. I was an only son; was
+sent to Harvard, graduated, and went to practise law in New York.
+
+‘Now with all these advantages, and some plain, hard-working common
+sense to boot, I still fell into the teeth and claws of a rascal. All
+that I can say in my own defence was that he took in and ruined many
+a far shrewder and more experienced man than I was. He was eminently
+pious, having what we here call ‘New Jersey piety,’ the kind which
+forms a part of every-day life, even as the skin does of the body. It
+is never laid aside, even by the thief in prison or by the keeper of
+the lowest den of iniquity, as was shown in the case of the Wickedest
+Man in New York, who was withal perfectly sincere in his piety and
+neither a Pharisee nor a hypocrite.
+
+‘This man was a stockbroker, and he induced me by a series of
+marvellously ingenious tricks and devices to intrust to him the
+whole of my property. He was one of those great ‘operators’ who are
+technically said to live by slaughtering sheep or lambs.’
+
+‘Ahem!’ interrupted Flaxius, ‘you said _lambs_, I think. So he got all
+your flock?’
+
+‘Every handful of wool, and left me as bare as the back of your hand.
+It was by a very simple swindle. He invested my money, or that of
+others, in stocks, which were manipulated or depreciated by tricks to
+far below their value. If a man is a thorough rascal it is easy in the
+immense range of insecurities to find something which can be thus run
+down, or up. So my broker, when they were _down_ bought them in for
+himself--it did not take him long to use up my hundred thousand. When
+all was gone, one of his clerks told me the whole story.
+
+‘I calmly and deliberately determined that I would devote my life and
+all its energies, without one qualm of conscience, to revenge. I swore
+I would hunt him, as a wolf.’
+
+‘Ah! I beg your pardon,’ exclaimed Flaxius. ‘But this is becoming
+extremely interesting.’
+
+‘As a wolf hunts a deer. So I went into Wall Street and worked as few
+have ever done to learn all its tricks and devices, and I had a great
+advantage, for while others worked for money, I only sought to learn
+how to work.
+
+‘Well, it came to pass in time that I knew that my enemy had invested
+a very large part of his means in a certain manufactory, which was in
+a remote district, several days away from New York, with which it had
+only a partial railroad communication. I managed long and well, till I
+contrived to have it telegraphed that the entire town had been utterly
+destroyed by fire, and then we cut the telegraph wire, and tore up the
+rail. For three days we had that stock down to nothing, and bought it
+right and left.’
+
+‘The wolf was loose,’ remarked Flaxius.
+
+‘You bet! And the best of it was that we ran it all over town that mine
+enemy had got up the whole thing himself to bear the stock! So be sure
+he was tee-totally ruined, but then he had _mis-cal-cu--lated_!’
+
+Mr. Randolph uttered this with an expression which was distinctly
+lupine, showing his teeth in a style which recalled to Flaxius an
+ancient witch-tower in Upsala, and corpses hanging on the walls in
+the evening sunlight, and a story about certain sheep and lambs, _et
+cetera_.
+
+‘Yes, it was a glorious, a noble operation,’ continued Mr. Randolph,
+‘and perfectly successful. I got my hundred thousand back again with
+interest, every _plunker_ of it. “Plunker” is Cambridge College for a
+dollar.’
+
+‘_Palanco_,’ interpolated Flaxius. ‘The Florentine for a two soldi
+piece. The same size.’
+
+‘And that was only the beginning of my luck,’ continued Mr. Randolph.
+‘For of course the truth oozed out, and it gave me a magnificent
+reputation, in Wall Street.’
+
+‘Truly enviable,’ remarked Flaxius. ‘Were there many, think you, among
+your--colleagues--who would have done the same?’
+
+‘No,’ replied Randolph proudly, ‘not a beggar of them. They hadn’t the
+nerve for it.’
+
+‘It seems to me,’ reflected Flaxius, ‘that the ideas of mankind as
+to honesty are somewhat conventional. _Où, diable, va l’orgueil se
+nicher?_’
+
+A few days after, Mr. Randolph invited Flaxius to take a sail in his
+yacht. And as they went along before the breeze, the host said:
+
+‘I don’t know why it is, but the being on board my craft and hearing
+the waves, makes me feel as if I were an old Norse _vikingir_. Strange,
+isn’t it? By the way, my family was of Swedish origin, and yet the name
+Randolph is _Virginian_.’
+
+‘H’m!’ replied Flaxius, ‘Ranolf is Norse enough. It means a raging
+wolf.’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘_Hæc fabula docet_,’ wrote Flaxius on the blank end of the revise,
+‘this fable teaches, that life is very much the same old dish over
+again: the solid beef or game of the dinner in the olden time re-cooked
+a little and laid lightly on toast for a more refined modern breakfast.
+And whether it was Thou and I indeed, or the Elements and Forces which
+make us, this much is certain, that _somehow_ and _somewhere_ we ever
+were, and as _something_ ever shall be still acting. This is as much
+of immortality as a wise man requires, and a deal more than most of us
+deserve. Let us pass on to another story.’
+
+[6] Mr. A. Savage Landor, in his very interesting book of travels among
+the Ainus makes mention of the marvellous power of expressive winking
+with which these northern savages are gifted, and I have observed the
+same among Red Indians. They learn it from their pow-wows or shamans.
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS AND BREITMANN
+
+‘It is told in ancient story how to the Flemish court,
+There came a knightly minstrel who made them royal sport,
+That was as brave a Recké as ever yet was seen,
+At fighting or at singing he won the prize I ween!
+So stately in the festal hall, he caught each lady’s eye.
+And when it came to revelling he drank the cellar dry.’
+
+
+WHILE swimming onwards down the stream of Time, it chanced all in the
+merry, golden hours of spring, when rivulets dance, and birds are on
+the wing:
+
+
+  ‘And a starry silver glory
+         Is at daybreak over all,
+  When the dews, like gems in story
+         On the queen like blossoms fall,’
+
+
+that Flaxius, when in Innspruck, sat one afternoon in a shady
+beer-garden by the rushing river, listening to two nightingales in a
+cage, which were singing duets or holding talk in nightingale tongue,
+with two wild ones outside. The latter were complaining bitterly of
+the hard time they had of it to pick up a living; while the imprisoned
+ones bewailed that their engagements to sing to select audiences did
+not allow them the least liberty, though they lived in luxury, being
+taken in whenever it rained and fed on ants’ eggs, _ad libitum_; which
+are the same to nightingales as Whitby oysters, caviare and _pâté aux
+truffes_ are to us.
+
+Flaxius observed that a broad-shouldered, big-bearded, tall, and
+knightly man, who seemed to be half soldier and as much minstrel,
+sitting at the next table, also listened to the bird-songs with a
+smile, as if he partly understood them. On a closer examination,
+Flaxius recognised in him the Ritter Hans Breitmann, whom he had met in
+earlier times,--the same Breitmann, having in a small and very quiet
+way a humble little sixpenny immortality, just as the odd fish in
+nature have been preserved from the earliest types, while better kinds,
+which shone more brightly in their day, have vanished.
+
+The sage bowed to the minstrel, the Breitmann waved his beer-mug to
+Flaxius, and the two drank politely, one to the other, and to old times.
+
+‘You seem to understand bird-language,’ remarked the other.
+
+‘_Nun_, yoost a liddle,’ replied the bard, who spoke all tongues in a
+curious patois. ‘Enough to get hints or dips for songs. All poets know
+someding of it, most of dem a crate deal petter as I. Yoost so de Gypsy
+Zigeuners play bird-songs--de whole orchestra--nefer twice alike, _ach
+ja! alles sehr schön_, peaudiful!’
+
+‘Could you sing me a song learned from the nightingales?’ asked Flaxius.
+
+‘Cerdainly,’ replied Breitmann, ‘mit bleasure,’ and, draining off his
+beer, he unslung the lute from his back, tuned two chords, hemmed, and
+then sang of--
+
+
+LONG, LONG AGO
+
+  ‘When de nightingale was singing,
+  All in de cool of eve,
+  To de pleasant breeze,
+  And de birds were flingin’
+  Perfume from de trees,
+         _Hei da, ri dé!
+         Hei da, ri do!_
+
+  I sat by my love so fair and gay,
+  As we had sat for many a day,
+  And _ach! wir warn so frô_,
+  Loving--as dere we lay!
+
+  Dame Nightingale, de wood bird small,
+  Sang to us a melody,
+  How love outliveth all
+  Whate’er on earth may pe;
+         _Hei da, ri dé!
+         Hei da, ri do!_
+  “Love passeth all both great and small,
+  So now sing afder me!”
+
+  We sang old songs togedder,
+  Songs of de merry time,
+  And light ash any fedder,
+  We maked full many a Rhyme,
+         _Hei da, ri dé!
+         Hei da, ri da
+         He da ri da Laun!_
+  Unto a lute we sang dis lay,
+  And so we passed de live-long day
+  Until de Sun went down.
+
+  We sang old songs togedder
+  Of loves long passed away,
+  All in de pleasant wedder
+  Ash in de grass we lay.
+         _Hei da, ri da
+         Hei da, ri dá!_
+  No more can I rememper, yet
+  What I recall I’ll ne’er forget
+  So long as life is gay!’
+
+
+And as the Breitmann sang and tinkled his lute, the nightingales who
+were present joined in--’twas like Jenny Lind and Parepa Rosa in a
+duet. I mention this, because in a later age the souls of the two caged
+nightingales did actually reappear in human form as J. L. and P. R.;
+even as vultures whom I could mention have reappeared on the Stock
+Exchange; and black-beetles as clergymen about town; and butterflies as
+professional beauties; and divers ducks as doctors; and an old owl as
+Premier. But to return.
+
+As they sat there at twilight tide, talking over old times when they
+had met at the court of brave King Roosevelt in Holland, there came the
+sound of a far-off bell ringing vespers, and Flaxius said:
+
+‘Ever since the earliest times men have believed that there was a holy
+influence in the sound of a bell. The old Etruscans and their children,
+the Romans, made them of bronze, and sometimes of silver, all to keep
+away witches and evil spirits. In fact, from the immense number which
+are found, it would seem as if there had been, at least, one to every
+human being.
+
+‘And dot was kept up py de Christians,’ added Breitmann, ‘who peliefed
+a great deal still more in dem, and to dis tay it is said dot witches
+are afraid of bells, witch is de reason de priests keep a ringing
+dem all the while. As you see py de woonderful story of der bell of
+Kaltern, here in Tyrol.’
+
+‘Tell it,’ replied Flaxius.
+
+‘I can sing it if you would care to hear it,’ answered Herr Breitmann.
+‘Dot comes easier to me.’
+
+‘All the better,’ quoth the sage.
+
+And Breitmann chanted:
+
+
+THE BELL OF KALTERN
+
+         ‘Oh the church bells at even,
+         How sweetly they ring!
+         Like angels in heaven,
+         They murmur and sing!
+         Where music can travel
+         Their echoes are found:
+         And naught that is evil
+         Can list to the sound:
+  So softly, so quaintly they chime in their play,
+  So gently, so faintly, then dying away,
+         Fading out, with the day.
+
+  Now no witch can hold out where the church _Glocke_ hang,
+  For the bells being blest they’re afraid of the clang:
+  At the very first sound when ’tis heard _they_ are lost,
+  And shrivel like roses when touched by a frost;
+  And the devil himself would be off on the wing
+  When the great bell of Kaltern began with its ring,
+  Ha, that “busted up” as a terror to see
+  In grand scatteration the whole company:
+  And good Christians, like us, aren’t more frightened of hell
+  Than the witches were scared by the sound of that bell.
+  Until at the last, when their patience was past,
+  And the very end-thread of the skein being spun,
+  They swore there must certainly something be done.
+  And something they did too at once in the cause:
+  And you soon will surmise what the handiwork was.
+
+         There’s a widow in Eppan
+         With glance like a dart,
+         A terrible weapon,
+         Which strikes every heart,
+         With the softest of laughter,
+         The sweetest of smiles,
+         Lord knows what comes after,
+         When once she beguiles!
+         And this lady of Eppan
+         Is charmingly dressed.
+         She feeds upon capon,
+         With wine of the best.
+  Though whence she derived all her food and the clothes,
+  Or how she got these things, or came to have those,
+  Is what she did never to any disclose,
+  Which kept people talking as all may suppose
+  Either “over the pumpkin”[7] or “under the rose!”
+
+  Now when people before them have always a curtain,
+  There’s something behind it, not right, _that_ is certain.
+  And all were assured that this beautiful widow
+  Hung out what the French call a very large _rideau_;
+         [In German Gardine; a kind of a pun;
+         Since in dialect, girl and a curtain are one.]
+                But Hermann von Valk,
+                A chivalric young blade,
+                Who was not of talk
+                Or of scandal afraid,
+                Was all the more taken,
+                Enchanted and shaken,
+                Enraptured and mashed,
+                Bèglamoured and smashed,
+  By the beautiful eyes and the wonderful mystery
+  That seemed to envelop this Lamia’s history.
+  And one day when in sport the fair widow would task him
+  He swore he would do anything she might ask him,
+  He cared not a straw, if ’twere that or were this,
+  If she only would give him one rapturous kiss!
+
+         With the winsomest smile,
+         That would fetch you a mile,
+         And a soft in her voice
+         That would give you no choice,
+  But to do as she wanted. “My dearest,” said she,
+  “I can only ask something chivalric of thee,
+  Such as noble young gentlemen ever perform
+  When their hearts and their heads are courageous and warm.
+  And that which I want, you can easily grant--
+  It isn’t a matter of shall I? or shan’t--
+  In fact ’tis as easy as jumping a hurdle.
+  Just climb a church-steeple while bearing this girdle,
+  The steeple of Kaltern--you know it full well--
+  And binding--you _shall_ turn this belt round the bell:
+  Bind it and wind it, when you have twined it--
+  When this is done and my love is returnéd, he
+  May kiss, if he like, to the end of Eternity.”
+
+         Now as you may have guessed,
+         This young Hermann von Valk
+         Was not--truly confessed--
+         A man easy to balk;
+  So as soon as the widow her yarn had spun
+  He jumped to his feet and cried eagerly--_done_!
+  “For such a reward I here swear, by my soul!
+  I’d belt all the bells in the land of Tyrol!
+  Give me the girdle! I’ll tell you what,
+  I’ll return this evening”--and off he shot.
+
+  Now though this Hermann had no scrupulosity,
+  Yet, as a German, he’d great curiosity,
+  Which thing is the mother of all suspicion,
+  So he turned it all over with great precision,
+  And he said to himself, “I wish I could tell
+  What it is that she means by a-belting the bell?
+  It’s very mysterious--hem!--let me see!
+  Suppose I first try it a bit on a tree!
+  There is nothing at all in the way to prevent
+  Such a little and harmless experiment.”
+  So half-unthinking and half in joke
+  He bound the girdle about an oak.
+
+  It was a grand tremendous tree,
+  As vast as man did ever see,
+  Standing alone so grave and solemn,
+  With trunk as tall as the highest column;
+  But scarce that girdle was brought around,
+  And scarce the belt on the bark was bound,
+  When a crash like a thousand thunders came,
+  And before his eyes all swam in flame,
+  As if hell had broke loose in very fact,
+  And from top to bottom the oak-tree cracked,
+  And the fragments flew afar and wide:
+  While Hermann von Valk lay stunned aside.
+
+  The bells, in time, had rung several tenses,
+  Before the young gentleman came to his senses,
+  And, when he got there--“My life!” said he:
+  “I am glad that I tried that belt on a tree,
+  For if I had bound it round the bell,
+  Which the witches all fear, like poison and hell----”
+
+  When having said this, he suddenly stopped
+  As if an _idea_ on his senses had dropped,
+  And he roared “_Donnerwetter mit Hagel und pitch!_
+  Now may I be shot! but the widow’s a witch!
+  _Es leuchtet mir ein!_ I behold it clear
+  As I see yon moon in her silver sphere;
+  That was a nice little task the “widder”
+  Gave me to do, now I come to consider!
+  Suppose instead of a tree, I had placed
+  That elegant article round my waist!
+  _That_ were a beautiful change of scene?
+  The devil take her--where would _I_ have been?
+  So sure as Bohemians drink _slivovitz_,
+  Burst to pieces and blown to bits,
+  So now I will go to my home, alone,
+  Beautiful Madame--with you I’ve done
+  I can stand a great deal,” he said with a sigh
+  “But not the devil--and so good-bye.”
+
+  By this adventure you plainly see,
+  That two of a trade can never agree,
+  What one had tolled, the other can’t tell,
+  And a belle, if a witch, is afraid of a bell!’
+
+
+‘Well sung, Herr Breitmann,’ exclaimed Flaxius. ‘And the tones were as
+sweet as the story is strange.’
+
+‘Vot do you really dink of it?’ inquired the singer with some interest.
+‘Can it pe true?’
+
+‘H’m! very likely. You must know, friend Breitmann, that from much
+strange but little thought of proof, I believe that from the Etruscan
+and Roman priesthood, the witches and wizards of a later time inherited
+much knowledge, and many strange secrets regarding electricity; and
+this granted, we can explain many of the most remarkable miracles
+attributed to them. Now, admitting that they were up to producing a
+spark by a small charge and making an explosive, the widow’s belt
+becomes intelligible. In fact, a few ounces of dynamite----’
+
+‘Vould pe a mighty crate power, when a woman wanted to plow a man oop,’
+laughed the minstrel. ‘And denn dere was poison, vitch dey understanded
+petter still. As is set fort in a pallad of de town of Munich.’
+
+‘I would like to hear it,’ replied Flaxius.
+
+‘_We_ would like to hear it,’ sopranoed the nightingales.
+
+‘_I_ would like to hear it,’ chirped a sparrow on the wall in
+_contralto_.
+
+‘And we also,’ cooed the baritone spirits of the evening breeze, as
+they stole through the dense foliage, rustling overhead.
+
+The Breitmann tuned his lute, and sang the ballad of
+
+
+NARR HANS’L[8]
+
+  ‘Oh! Munich is a merry town, ’tis writ by many a pen,
+  And all its city counsellors are wondrous merry men,
+  And when they meet for banqueting, to revel or to sing,
+  From the Rathshaus to the Frauenkirch you hear the music ring.
+
+  And every master hath a squire that on his lord must wait,
+  To fill his goblet up with wine or change or fill his plate,
+  And it always was expected, like the chorus to a song,
+  He must laugh at all his master’s jokes and help the fun along.
+
+  Now one of these attendants was an odd fantastic wight--
+  You could see it in his features that something wasn’t right--
+  An anxious, solemn countenance with sorrow interwrought,
+  Like one who knows that he is mad, and trembles at the thought!
+
+  And if cruel people vexed him when his heart was stirred with drink,
+  He would rave and cry the maddest things that any one could think,
+  And scream and weep and beg them all for mercy in his pain,
+  Which made them roar with laughter and begin to tease again.
+
+  They called him the Narr Hans’l, that is Jack Lunatic.
+  And all the lords resolved one day to play this man a trick.
+  So they made him eat a herring till he almost died with thirst;
+  And then gave him wine to quench it, but that was not the worst.
+
+  For the wine had all been mingled with pepper for a trick,
+  And a subtle drug or medicine, which made him sadly sick,
+  So that he ran about in pain, with many a mad grimace:
+  It made the noble gentlemen all roar to see his face.
+
+  Well, well! the fun was over and the jest was half forgot:
+  When again there was a banquet in that ever merry spot,
+  And since Narr Hans’l made such sport for every guest--to dine,
+  They chose him for the Kellner, or Master of the Wine.
+
+  The music pealed so merrily, there all was _Saus und Braus_,
+  Till the chairman gave the word “Schenk’ein!” and then the sign “Trink aus!”
+  And this was at the Ending, when every gentleman
+  Must drink the _Supernaculum_--drain to the last his can.
+
+  To a drop upon the thumb-nail, nor leave behind a “rest.”
+  And the wine for this last drinking was of the very best;
+  Every cupful cost a florin--of that there was no doubt,
+  It glowed like golden sunlight when Hans’l poured it out.
+
+  Ha! What can be the matter with the noble President,
+  That he looks as pale as ashes and extremely discontent?
+  And now he’s falling backwards in deadly agony:
+  And now--O Lord! the others are all as ill as he!
+
+  Ha! What can be the matter with Narr Hans’l through it all?
+  He is laughing, he is screaming, he is dancing in the hall.
+  He is changed into a devil--he gave a comic sigh,
+  And played upon his _Cithern_ as he saw the _Herren_ die!
+
+  There are four-and-twenty dead men a-lying in the room,
+  The tapers burning lowly, all fading into gloom;
+  The waiters with the music have all in terror fled:
+  There sits alone Narr Hans’l, a-singing to the Dead!
+
+  A-singing wailing ditties, all in the saddest strain:
+  How they poisoned him with pepper, and he poisoned them again.
+  Till he screams: “It all is over--and the wine is of the best!”
+  He drank a flowing goblet, and is lying with the rest.’
+
+
+‘It is a sad song!’ murmured Breitmann, as he struck the last chorus.
+
+‘Very sad,’ replied the nightingales.
+
+‘It makes me cry,’ chirped the sparrow.
+
+‘Mournful, indeed,’ sang the evening breeze.
+
+‘Well, away! There’s a lesson in it for all,’ concluded Flaxius.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Comment by the Editor._--If there are any readers who would prefer
+these ballads of Hans Breitmann in the original German English, he
+or she may find them, and many more quite as good or better--or even
+worse--in a little book entitled _Hans Breitmann in Germany_, published
+by T. Fisher Unwin. Of which book, several critics remarked that there
+was so much German in it as to render it unintelligible, which, as
+elsewhere remarked, was much like declaring that there is too much
+Latin in the poems of Virgil or Horace, or, in truth, of Merlinus
+Coccaius, or the bard who sang the Polemo-Middiana. So reflecting on
+him who proposed to make a translation of Carlyle’s _Sartor Resartus_
+into English, the editor has ventured to clothe these two Breitmann
+ballads in so much of our current tongue as his humble means permitted.
+
+Which reminds him of a little story.
+
+There was once a French artist who found a picturesque old beggar on
+the Pont Neuf.
+
+The beggar was striking.
+
+_Il sautait aux yeux_, he leapt to your eyes.
+
+He was seventy years of age.
+
+He had a long white beard.
+
+He was clad in a long, picturesque, ragged gabardine.
+
+A gabardine is a dressing-gown.
+
+For ladies it is a _peignoir_.
+
+Short sentences make long copy.
+
+Copy is paid for by the page.
+
+To return to our sheep.
+
+The beggar held a long, rude staff.
+
+Like Esculapius.
+
+Or a Chinese barber.
+
+The artist was charmed with his appearance.
+
+He asked the beggar to come next day to his studio.
+
+The beggar assented.
+
+Now as he had never had his portrait taken before,
+
+The beggar supposed that he must come in his best.
+
+That is to say _endimanché_, that is to say in Sunday togs.
+
+So he removed his beard,
+
+And appeared in a shabby steel-pen or tail-coat.
+
+With a cane with a glass head,
+
+And his shoes blacked,
+
+And a red waistcoat.
+
+When the artist beheld him,
+
+He exclaimed with horror,
+
+‘_Oh, mon Dieu!_
+
+You are spoiled, you are spoiled!’
+
+Now if this artist had been a Leonardo da Vinci, who could make a
+beautiful Madonna out of an old man as a model, he would have copied
+the beggar all the same, seeing the Reality which was in him.
+
+But he did not see it.
+
+[7] ‘Over the pumpkin’ (also the sun-flower) _i.e._ openly, these being
+very visible objects.
+
+[8] Jack-fool.
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS IN INDIA
+
+THE STORY OF SAKHARA AND ARJUN, WITH THE WONDERFUL TRANSMIGRATIONS OF
+DSCHIM CROW.
+
+‘Gli Indiani e i Persiani e in generale tutti gli Orientali ammettevano
+la Metempsicosi come un dogma particolare al quale erano molto
+affezionati.’
+
+_Gran Dizionario Infernale da Francesco Pique._
+
+
+NOW it befel once in the golden time, meaning the good-olden or
+aureate age, which Hesiod and other poets write of, that Flaxius
+having seen the dragon world, with all its thousand brazen eyes of
+glittering cities, and looked bravely at them, and read their meaning,
+found himself in north-western India, in a then famous city called
+Chotahazripoora. As for the date, it was somewhere the other side
+of the year One, which is tolerably accurate chronology for Indian
+records, which were not very well kept by the Sanskrit Civil Service
+about that time, or any other, with all their wisdom.
+
+And in this particular _poora_, which is in Greek and Gypsy _foros_,
+whence _forum_, so called from its great wealth, Flaxius became a great
+man at court, because he despised riches and was a sage, being, of
+course, greatly honoured and admired and coloured up as an incongruity,
+and inexpensive at that. And at last the king consulted with him on
+all matters, social, familiar, or financial, from taxing a province
+down to buying a new bayadere. In all of which the Immortal displayed
+singular sagacity and exquisite good taste.
+
+This monarch had, of course, three sons, by which ye may know that
+I have started on a fairy tale, the head of which is, as usual, the
+part which comes last, or the youngest. This third became very dear to
+Flaxius, because he was a brave, frank, innocent, clever youth, worth
+looking after and loving. And his name was Arjūn.
+
+Now in the gust and whirlwind, and flit and flow of hailstones and
+rain-drops which make the pelting incidents of court-life, there being
+little rest or peace in it, Flaxius began to note that a cloud was
+coming over the soul of Arjūn, and from this ante-chamber of the dream,
+he soon passed to the bright hall of perception, that his pupil or
+friend was in love. And ere long the expected confidence came in these
+words:
+
+‘Thou knowest, O wise among men, that I have never set my heart on
+love of woman. For the article in its best quality has ever been so
+exceeding cheap and abundant about our court, and I have had so freely
+my pick and choice of _primeurs_, that it was unto me only as my meals.
+Moreover, all the books which I have studied have taught me that the
+preferring one girl to another is mere idle fancy, even as tastes in
+food are simply the result of caprice and custom, and that female
+nature is all, in fact, folly. This I did steadfastly believe, till it
+chanced that one day in the woods far beyond the city I met with a maid
+of exceeding beauty, who, as I found by conversation, was so witty and
+wise, original and good, that it soon appeared to me that I had all
+along been in ignorance and error as to what Woman might be. And, in
+short, all my philosophy went to the Seven Hells, where it may remain
+for ever for all I care, being in love through and through--dyed in the
+grain.
+
+‘And this girl, Sakhára, is the daughter of a Brahmin of kingly race,
+but exceeding poor. So when I told my father of my love----’
+
+‘Why then,’ interposed Flaxius,
+
+
+  ‘“Fire flashed from the monarch’s eyes,
+  And high his wrath began to rise.”’
+
+
+‘Yea,’ replied Arjūn, ‘and, in short, he swore by the Cow that I should
+never marry her unless it were shown to be the special will of the
+gods.’
+
+‘H’m!’ observed Flaxius, ‘I have noticed that the special will of the
+gods is generally manifest in anything to which we agree, and could
+the king be brought to assent to this, in any way, the divine sanction
+would soon be perceptible. Therefore, my son, fret not thy soul, but go
+and amuse thyself, for in love-troubles, as in all others, he who is
+least uneasy comes the soonest to ease. I will see what can be done.’
+
+It came to pass that the next day, Flaxius, while walking in the
+forest and listening to the chattering of the holy monkeys in the
+trees o’erhead--whose conversation was, however, of a most frivolous
+and unholy character--met with a man who was evidently a poor devil on
+general principles, but who appeared to be a decidedly superior person,
+when one investigated the particulars, for he had a very intelligent
+face of dark hue, a keen, shrewd eye, and a goodly mien. He was clad in
+black.
+
+‘I beg you, great sir,’ he said to Flaxius, ‘to take heed how you speak
+to me or even look at me or let my shadow fall on you, else you will
+find yourself in for hell or a long penance, for I am a pariah, and my
+name is Dschim Crow.’
+
+‘And I,’ replied Flaxius, ‘not being a fool, and having travelled in
+many lands, and seen the vanity of all things human, would probably be
+ranked with you, could the Brahmins read my soul.’
+
+‘Ay,’ answered the outcast, ‘’tis one of the precepts of our
+philosophy, that mankind are all divisible into the found-out and the
+not-found-out.’
+
+‘A good saying,’ replied Flaxius. ‘Have ye then a philosophy?’
+
+‘We are the only true philosophers,’ answered the Pariah, ‘for ours is
+the sole system that teaches the error of excess of wisdom, law, and
+goodness. As is shown by our literature, which comprises every work of
+true humour ever written in India.’
+
+‘Better and better,’ said Flaxius; ‘and I believe you the more, because
+such a literature is the natural result of such a principle. And what
+are some of the works to which you refer?’
+
+‘There is, firstly,’ answered the outlaw, ‘the story of “Vikram and
+the Vampire,” in which the _Baital_ teaches the sage in a series of
+twenty-five lessons how to show himself a fool just two dozen times, by
+being over wise.
+
+‘Secondly, the “Life of the Gūrū Simple,” by which we may learn that a
+good man may be a great goose.
+
+‘Thirdly, the “Marvellous Tale,” showing how Boorum-bunder Pop, the
+Buddhist, broke open a poultry-house and stole all the fowls, by virtue
+of the holy fourteen formulas of Sakhya Mūni.
+
+‘Fourthly, how Ah-Sin the Chinese sage, who had been converted to the
+true religion, and came to the Gate of Nirvana, descended to earth, and
+meeting Brahma on a pilgrimage in human form, cheated him out of all
+his money at cards.
+
+‘Fifthly, how the holy Brahmin, Baro Chor, pilfered from the divine cow
+of Waschischta a pint of the milk of experience, from which he churned
+the butter of wisdom, which is in twenty thousand _slokas_ or verses.
+
+‘_Parraco tute_,’ replied Flaxius in Prakrit, ‘I had rather thou
+wouldst read it than I. Any more?’
+
+‘There is the divine legend how Krishna, the chastest of the gods, made
+love, in extreme, to twenty thousand milk-maids all at once, with the
+moral of “Be virtuous and you will be happy.” After which he was always
+blue in the face.’
+
+‘Truly, I do not wonder at it,’ remarked Flaxius. ‘I have seen a man
+look blue for less than that. Any more?’
+
+‘Well there is the Thieves’ Bible teaching the divine worship of Kàli,
+which they study devoutly in spirit and in truth, all the more because
+it teaches them how to commit burglary, personal theft, and murder.
+
+‘And with this the _Bāro Lil_, or Scripture of the Trablūs Dom, who
+call themselves the Rom or Romany, teaching the sanctity of stealing
+shirts from clothes-lines, the piety of pilfering hens, the holy art
+of passing off bad horses for good, and the divineness of telling
+fortunes.’
+
+‘A goodly library!’ remarked Flaxius. ‘Dost thou know aught of magic?’
+
+‘I have picked up a few tricks,’ replied the Pariah, ‘which I learned
+from a Mahatma, such as the three card game, thimble-rig, floating in
+the air, putting cigarettes under cushions, and sending letters from a
+distance. My one great game is, however, to turn a girl into a tree, or
+the reverse. But with all my fine accomplishments I could never conjure
+up my wife or a dinner, and I need a meal now, most deucedly.’
+
+‘Friend,’ said Flaxius, ‘I will conjure thee up a good dinner and teach
+thee the art of doing it, if thou wilt impart to me those tricks of
+thine.’
+
+‘By Yamen!’ cried the jovial Bohemian, ‘thou art generous, for I deem
+thy secret worth forty of mine any day. He who hath a woman may have
+nothing to eat, but devil the place was I ever in where, if I had a
+bountiful dinner, I could not get a girl to share it with me. By the
+way,’ he inquired, ‘does this dinner of yours embrace drink--not water,
+you know, but _tátto pani_ or spirits?’
+
+‘Also that,’ said Flaxius with a smile. ‘Behold!’
+
+There was not far from them a large earthenware pot, left by some
+traveller. Flaxius bade the Outcast dig a hole in the ground. In this
+the pot, upside down, was half-buried. Then he chanted in a mystic
+ancient Indian tongue:
+
+
+  ‘Baro duvel dikkamì,
+  Kūshto hāben, well avri!
+  O choro Rom se bokalo,
+  Kekno māss, kek kokalo;
+  Kekno kil, ne kel pā mui:
+  Bitcha leste sari dui,
+  Te tatto pani kater Rom,
+  Om mani padmi hom!’[9]
+  ‘Mighty spirit, look on me!
+  Let a dinner come from thee!
+  Outcast hungers here alone,
+  Hath no meat and ne’er a bone.
+  Cheese nor butter for his mouth,
+  Send to him, I pray thee, both!
+  Also spirits in this hour,
+  O Jewel in the lotus flower!’
+
+
+And this done, the feast began, for on removing the pot there appeared
+beneath it a rice curry, surmounted with a fine piece of roast beef,
+garnished with chillies, two chupattis or wheat-cakes, jaggree sugar
+and a great flask.
+
+‘Now by the thousand years in hell, which I am to catch for eating that
+beef,’ exclaimed the Outcast, ‘I call that a good meal. Thank the devil
+and your lordship--if ye be not one and the same--and for what I am
+about to devour, make us truly thankful,’ as the tiger said when he ate
+up the Buddha. _Yeck lav se tacho sā desh_:
+
+
+  ‘One word’s as good as ten,
+  Leather away--Amen!’
+
+
+‘And _toddy_--by all the goblins!’ he exclaimed as he sampled the
+bottle, ‘strong and abundant enough to demoralise an elephant. Verily I
+can now be clear through to the further end of my ideal of bliss, for,
+as your lordship knows, _that_ man is a _bachtalo beng_ or lucky devil
+who knows when he is well off, or as the great Sanskrit poet, Jan Kitz,
+sings:
+
+
+                ‘“It is a flaw,
+  In happiness to see beyond our bourne,
+  It forces us in summer skies to mourn,
+  And spoils the singing of the nightingale.”
+
+
+‘Therefore let us _not_ see beyond our bourne--at least not till we get
+there; which, as our great ancestor Cain says in his precepts, is more
+than most men manage to do.’
+
+‘Was Cain thy ancestor?’ inquired Flaxius. ‘I would fain hear the
+legend if one there be?’
+
+‘Thou shalt hear it in spirit and in truth,’ replied the Outcast. ‘In
+the spirit of toddy, and on the truth of a gypsy, know then, what is
+known to everybody of every language, and in every land, that in the
+beginning were Cainos and Abelos. And unto them was a sister. And
+Cainos slew his brother and took his sister to wife. But she, being
+told that it was wrong, fled from him, and took refuge in the sun,
+where she dwells to this day. Then Cainos for all his sins was sent to
+live in the moon, and because it is cold, there he is always bearing
+thorns to feed the fire. And longing for his sister, he, in the moon,
+ever pursues her. But others say that when the sun has set and ere the
+moon has risen, then they meet, which accounts for their love lasting
+so long, since they do not see too much of one another. But however
+it be, they are gods of all us wanderers, because they are always
+wandering over the heavens. And we are their descendants, and therefore
+under a curse, for which indeed we do not care a curse--when we can get
+toddy!
+
+
+  ‘“When the evening fire is burning,
+  And the women return from town;
+  And the crows to their nests returning,
+  We will drink till the moon goes down:
+
+  And merrily sing and prattle,
+  While music rings over the plain;
+  And if there’s enough in the bottle,
+  We’ll drink till she rises again.”
+
+
+‘Now the sun is called in our tongue Kam or Kàn, and the moon Tchen or
+Zen, even as tongues turn it, hence we their children are the Zen-kan
+or Zingan. And this is the true story of our race, whence ye may see
+what a fine lot we are.
+
+‘And now, your Illustriousness, since it takes two to make a bargain,
+or as a bargain requires a pair, which must consist of a couple,
+and as duality demands separate units, or a double of singles, and a
+duplicate repeated units, and twins bi-fold births, and as according to
+the Vedas there are needed twice-five fingers to make a hand-shake, and
+the Shastras assert that if one parent be wanting there can be no child
+born--
+
+‘Heaven-a-mercy, man!’ cried Flaxius, ‘what the devil art thou driving
+at?’
+
+‘Only this, O heaven born! that as thou hast kept thy word and given
+me the dinner without an end, and the flask inexhaustible, I will
+forthwith repay, reciprocate, discharge, settle, acquit bequests with,
+strike a balance, clear off old scores, liquidate, poney up my dues
+to the tune of “On the nail,” and show myself a man of honour and a
+gentleman by telling thee how to turn a tree into a girl or a girl into
+a tree, albeit I do not guarantee the quality of the timber. But by
+their fruit shall ye know them.’
+
+‘’Tis well,’ answered Flaxius. ‘Proceed with thy process.’
+
+And the Outcast proceeded. But here I must draw the veil of secrecy
+over the mirror of curiosity. I did not mind, O reader, letting thee
+know how to raise a dinner by means of sorcery, but I draw the line at
+girls. For there are, as it is, rather too many girls in the world if
+we may believe the Census, and too few trees, if we are to put faith
+in agricultural newspapers, and therefore I think it just as well that
+this metamorphosis be not added to those of Daphne and the Dryads.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Flaxius returned to the _Ruppeny-gav_ or Silver City of
+Chotahazripoora, he went straight to the golden palace or _Sonafilisin_
+and entered the _Tatcho-bar Kamora_ or Diamond Chamber, where he found
+the king shadowing the day time of his lordly soul in the dark void of
+night with sleepless woe, which is to say that he was in a gloomy fit
+of the blues and bored to death.
+
+‘_Sarshān_, your majesty. How art thou?’ inquired Flaxius in the court
+tongue.
+
+‘_Sarshān yer kokero, puro!_ How are you yourself, O ancient?’ replied
+the mighty monarch. ‘As for me, I am in trouble. I have, as thou
+knowest, more than a thousand mothers-in-law in my family?’
+
+‘Yea,’ replied Flaxius, ‘and I have known a man ere now to be always in
+hot water with only one.’
+
+‘And they are all nagging me to get first of all my three sons married,
+and then the daughters. Canst thou see a way out of it?’ he added
+anxiously.
+
+Flaxius reflected a long time, in order not to make his wisdom too
+cheap, nor yet ‘to set himself by flippancy too light, too high above
+the level of his king,’ and then replied:
+
+‘Thou knowest, O sublime Superiority, that I have deeply studied the
+science of dreams, and can command them. Therefore will I somnambulate
+in sleep, and draw conclusion from its imagery.
+
+
+  ‘“The figments and conceits, the myths and fads,
+  The grey chimeras and the visions blue;
+  The phantasms and shadows of the soul,
+  The whims and vagaries and rhapsodies,
+  Extravaganzas of the booming soul,
+  The hum-bugs which go sailing in the dark,
+  The air-drawn dodgers and the bug-bears wild,
+  The Flying Dutchmen in the sea of sleep,
+  The castles in the air and homes i’ the moon,
+  Utopias and fair Atlantises,
+  The happy valleys of the bards of yore,
+  The fairy lands and the Millenia
+  Of Prester John and of Micomicon,
+  Wherein Alnaschar found _le pot au lait_,
+  And where the fay Morgana rules supreme,
+  Shall be explored down to their deepest dream,
+  And the last shadow of their last ideal,
+  And the last fairy coin struck in their mint
+  Be studied deeply in the minutest case,
+  To answer well thy question, O my King!”’
+
+
+‘_S’e pmi duvel!_ As my Spirit may help me!’ cried the monarch in
+admiration. ‘I will say this for thee, Flaxius, that beside thee as a
+bard Kalidasa is nowhere, and that what thou canst not do in poetry is
+not worth a-doing. Therefore, let us drink!’
+
+And they drank.
+
+When Flaxius appeared the next morning before his majesty, it was with
+the grand and important air of a man who has been dreaming on a royal
+order, and filled up every detail in first class style. The courtiers
+looked at him with awe, and even his Highness regarded him with a
+kind of fearful respect, as if apprehending that he might go off, or
+explode, or burst in some mysterious way. He was manifestly relieved
+when an attendant maiden brought to the sage a golden goblet of Soma,
+or India pale ale; and when the wise man had drained off about a pint
+thereof, he sighed as if all danger of a conflagration was for the time
+extinguished. So great a thing is it to be known to be possessed of a
+secret.
+
+‘By your majesty’s royal command!’ said Flaxius--and all around became
+as still as the mice-stars in heaven before the cat-moon--‘By your
+majesty’s royal command I dreamed and I found myself in a far isle of
+light holding a trumpet shell of pearly hue, which Glendoveers do blow
+whene’er they meet. Then from a bowery strand just opposite--an island
+of the sea--there came enchantment with the shifting wind that did both
+drown and keep alive my ears. And as I listened all my sense was filled
+with that new blissful golden melody; a living death was in each gust
+of sounds; each family of rapturous, hurried notes, aunts, cousins,
+nieces, daughters, all most beautiful, fell one after one, yet all at
+once, like pearl beads dropping sudden from their strings.’
+
+‘Ahem!’ muttered the Outcast, who had in the daring disguise of a
+respectable person found his way into the assembly. ‘It seems to me
+that I have heard something like that before!’
+
+‘Then,’ continued Flaxius, ‘there rose amid wild clouds incarnadine,
+the form of Siva with his glory on. He bore in one hand the _Triçula_
+or trident; and without speaking, he pointed impressively at its three
+points.’
+
+All present were in breathless awe.
+
+‘Then he disappeared, and I beheld the terrible Vishnu. He held up his
+three fingers and vanished in turn.
+
+‘And anon from the cloud there came an awful Rakhshi or demon. And he
+held up three arrows--winked at me and nodded, and disappeared in a
+clap of thunder!
+
+‘From which I learned, O king, that thou must gather together all the
+most beautiful princesses who are eligible. Then turn all the people in
+the town out of their houses for one day, and put a princess into every
+house.’
+
+The excitement was at its height.
+
+‘Then, O king, let thy three sons, armed with bows and arrows, send
+each a shaft at random into the city. And where it hits, there will
+each bride be found.’
+
+‘What thou hast said, O Flaxius, shall be done,’ replied the king.
+
+And it was done, _secundum artem_, in the proper way. Each prince
+took his place at the great window, and let fly an arrow. The eldest
+and the second-best son, one after the other, hit a house. It was
+considered a great miracle that both of them were perfectly delighted
+with the success which attended their aim, but Flaxius, observing a
+wink in the eye of the Outcast, elicited from him the fact that both
+of the princes, who were excellent archers, had been previously and
+respectively in love with these very girls, and that there had been, in
+fact, a little arrangement made by the help of the gypsy. For as Rum
+Kove, the poet, sang in Zend:
+
+
+  Full many a shaft at random sent
+  Hits mark the archer surely meant.
+
+
+Now it happened that Arjūn, the youngest, could pull the long bow
+better than any of them; in fact, he had been heard to say that he
+could split a hair at a hundred yards, or hit a thunderbolt with a
+bolt head as it passed whizzing by. And there was in the armoury of
+the palace a mighty bow which no one else on earth could bend, which
+he chose for this occasion, but by the secret suggestion of Flaxius
+he aimed over the town. And when he discharged the arrow, he gave the
+bow and it, at the instant, a peculiar impulse, which skilled archers
+understand, so that the shaft flew miles away far into the forest.
+
+Then messengers were sent to trace its course, which they did; and
+on returning repeated that they had found it sticking in the top of
+a tamarind-tree, in the foliage, like a hairpin passed through the
+chignon or gathered hair of a maiden.
+
+So the king summoned Flaxius and all the learned men to know what
+should be done. And it was unanimously agreed that Arjūn must marry the
+tree; there being many precedents to prove that trees were a kind of
+human beings, only that they grew with their heads in the ground, their
+forked branches being legs. Also, that according to legends of many
+lands, men have descended from them.
+
+[On which subject the Outcast expressed his assent, _sotto voce_, to
+Flaxius, but added that he believed the said men had first ascended
+them to steal fruit.]
+
+So there was a procession formed; and going to the tamarind-tree, the
+king and prince and all concerned bowed before it, expressing hopes
+that it was in good health; and finally proposed the marriage. When at
+that instant came a charming breeze, before which the tree bowed its
+head as if in assent, and the match was concluded. Then rich gifts were
+laid before the bride and left there with a guard, and the king and his
+cortège returned home.
+
+When lo! the next day there were found spread on a table in the grand
+hall of the palace, other gifts, exceeding rich, with a purple scroll,
+on which was inscribed in letters of silver:
+
+
+  ‘The Tamarind herself commends,
+  And to the prince these presents sends,
+  And humbly begs of him that he
+  Will seek the forest speedily;
+  Unto the spot where she doth bide,
+  And bear away his loving bride.’
+
+
+So they all went once more. And when they were before the tree, they
+saw it slowly shrink to smaller space, its foliage turning into curling
+hair, till in its place there stood a maiden fair.
+
+And this was, of course, the fair Sakhara, who being found to be of
+royal blood, was duly wedded to Arjūn--the king sagely observing that
+‘it was manifestly the will of the gods.’ And here endeth the story of
+her and of Arjūn.
+
+Now by the powerful influence of Flaxius there was a special
+investigation of the case of the Outcast, by the entire College
+of Brahmins, with a view to his rehabilitation, since there were
+precedents for it. And it was found that in a previous existence,
+a million of years before, he had been a Crow. And of him the most
+learned of the Brahmins discovered the following history of his Jatakas
+in an ancient Sanscrit scroll:
+
+
+THE HISTORY OF BHUSANDA
+
+Contemplate steadfastly the divine glory, cast thy soul into the
+sparkling depths of the infinite sea, whose fishes are gods, whose
+waves are the ages!
+
+It is written in the Ramayana, it was told of yore by the Rishis. Once
+there was a man named Bhusanda, who was the Crow that related to the
+eagle Garuda, the bird of Vishnu, the deeds of Rama to convince him
+that the latter was greater than Shiva and Vishnu.
+
+Nor was Bhusanda utterly evil, neither was he bad, but the spirit of
+mockery was in him, for, ever doing good deeds, he wanted reverence; he
+was as a silver bell with a flaw.
+
+And when a youth, Bhusanda was worshipping Shiva in the temple, there
+entered the holy Gūrū, his teacher. And Bhusanda, seeing him enter, for
+a jest, being also mightily exalted with ideas of his own wisdom, did
+not greet or notice his Gūrū. Which thing the teacher, in his extreme
+humility and mildness, would have passed unnoted. But the God above,
+in his rage at this insolence, thundered from heaven at Bhusanda the
+awful doom of eternal damnation.
+
+Then the Gūrū who knew not revenge or anger, flung himself on his face
+before the God and prayed for a remission of the sentence. And the God,
+relenting, said:
+
+‘He shall pass through one thousand transformations, in all of them
+shall he be poor, but crafty and wise. He shall adore Vishnu, yet ever
+call aloud my name!’
+
+Then after his death, he became a serpent, and so passed through a
+thousand forms, and at last became a Brahmin again. Yet was he still,
+as erst, incorrigible; and the devilry of quizzing and satire would not
+leave his heart, despite his goodness. Among men, gods, and devils, no
+one dared so much as he for a joke.
+
+Now there are ten sons of Brahma, even the ten Rishis, and these are:
+Daksha, Pulastya, Agni, Washishta, Brigu, Atri, Maritshi, Narada,
+Pulagen, Kratū. Each of them--all of them--truly an awful _gooroo_! And
+one day when one of these was lecturing on the attributes of God, his
+own father, Bhusanda, ventured to differ with him in opinion, yea even
+to contradict him. Whereupon the Rishi, in a rage at such stupendous
+impudence, condemned him in his next life to become a crow; which he
+did, but took it all so cheerfully, and continued to say so many good
+things, that the Rishi, to soften the sentence, taught him to call the
+name of _Rama_. [Whom the Romi or Gypsies worship, and from whom they
+take their name, the crow being among the Brahmins the symbol of the
+sun, who is the mother of the Romany.]
+
+Now when Rama was born, the Crow flew unto him, and accompanied him in
+all his childhood; and as the god performed his great deeds, Bhusanda,
+every morning, on the top of the Blue Mountain, narrated them to all
+the birds assembled, who spread them over all the world. And so in
+due time it was written that he should become a man again, named
+Dschim Crow, and turn up some day or other at the court of the city of
+Chotahazripoora in company with a great and marvellous sage named F----.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here the manuscript ended abruptly, and it seemed to one or two experts
+present that these last lines were in a somewhat different ink from the
+rest, and looked like a later addition. But these profitably held their
+peace. And as it was a tremendous feather in the caps of the assembled
+Brahmins to have discovered the long lost Crow, they made the most of
+him.
+
+Whereupon the Crow fell into a trance, which lasted many hours. And
+when he recovered, he narrated how Rama had appeared unto him in a
+vision, and assured him that every one of the Brahmins there present
+was destined to become a number-one god in the next generation, and
+to keep on rising for nine hundred and ninety-four million _Kalpacs_,
+and then attain Nirvana; also that the whole party, including himself,
+while here on earth, would be deemed incapable of committing any sin
+or crime. He had indeed received, as a first instalment of plenary
+indulgence, a special dispensation and injunction to drink _aràk_
+toddy in honour of Rama, to be supplied to him by the Sacred College.
+Whereupon he was invested with the yellow thread, and declared to be a
+saint.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was midnight, and Flaxius and Dschim Crow sat on either side of a
+pearl-inlaid table, on seats set with gems, and between them was the
+Holy Bottle with gold cups.
+
+‘_Well!_’ observed Flaxius, ‘of all the in-fer-nal, lying, cold-frozen,
+brazen, impudent, cheeky humbugs whom I ever encountered on earth,
+thou, my son, dost take the cake! But yesterday a Pariah, and to-day
+directing all the Brahmins as their chief!’
+
+‘_Que veux-tu, mon vieux?_’ replied the Holy Crow, who in his new
+capacity of divine of course divined all the languages of the future:
+
+
+  ‘Surely ’tis not by modesty
+  That gods attain to what they be:
+  For face, and cheek, since time began,
+  Were aye the noblest part of man,
+  And he who hath but impudence
+  To all things hath sublime pretence.
+
+
+For the very essence of the most orthodox religion is that man is to be
+saved by faith alone, good works being only manifestations of faith;
+and of all faith ever roasted or toasted, stewed or brewed in the
+kitchen of theology, there is none like a holy faith in one’s own self,
+pious auto-reliance, devout assurance, divine audacity, and sanctified
+looking-down on everybody, which latter is the true secret of all
+ecclesiastical supremacy and influence, as we saints well know.
+
+‘And note you, that this full faith and belief in oneself is neither
+egoism nor egotism, but only religion _directed inward_, devotion
+which has gone to the heart instead of striking outward into
+Pharisaical displays of modesty, wherewith the world is more deluded
+and gulled than by all the good honest boldness ever obtruded on it.
+For he who believes in his lucky star brings to the battle of life
+nine-tenths of victory. Therefore, O illustrious patron, I pray you
+believe that this which you call Cheek in me is indeed no vanity or
+idle desire to be admired by the world, for which I verily do not care
+three straws, esteeming its praise or blame as all stuff and taradiddle:
+
+
+  ‘Trumpery, trash, rubbish and hum,
+  _Fatras_, frippery, bubble and scum,
+  Leather-prunella, drugs and chaff,
+  Refuse, sweepings, sediment, raff,
+  Trifling, paltry, petty or small;
+  Frivolous stuff worth nothing at all,
+  Hardly anything, no great shakes;
+  _Peu de chose_ and as farthing stakes,
+  Gimcracks, whim-whams, gammon and sells,
+  Fiddlestick, fudge and bagatelles,
+  Paltry, pitiful two-penny flams,
+  Fribbling, beggarly, pitiful crams;
+  Not worth mentioning, nor a rush,
+  Stuff and nonsense, humbug and tush!
+
+
+‘For verily at _that_, and nothing more, do I esteem vanity and
+the notice of the world or personal notoriety, or puffs, while, to
+my taste, all applause, homage, hero-worship, clapping, hosannahs,
+glorification and acclamation, raw or cooked, save so far that there
+is _Fun_ in it all, may go to the devil and shake itself! But he who
+is what you may call self-superstitious, or guided in all things,
+as he thinks, by a _dæmon_ or star, or fairy, or fate, or strange
+omens, by occult desires, and coincidences, always becomes strangely
+self-confident, and yet not _vain_ or egoistic, because he feels as if
+he were a wheelbarrow trundled by his god--
+
+
+  ‘Or a top spun by a boy,
+  Or clay in the potter’s hands,
+  Or dough being kneaded,
+  Or a horse in harness,
+  Or paper under the pen,
+  Or a maid taken by force,
+  Or potatoes being mashed,
+  Or type being set,
+  Or a garment being shaped,
+  Or a rocket set fire to,
+  Or a fiddle being played,
+  Or an arrow shot from a bow,
+  Or a cake being mixed,
+  Or a twine in cat’s-cradle,
+  Or a sermon being preached,
+  Or a puppet being played,
+  Or a pig driven to market,
+  Or a football in a game,
+  Or a top being spun,
+  Or a boat being steered,
+
+
+or anything or anybody under external direction. Now the egoist
+believes himself to be, and the vain man is sure that he is, the actor
+and the thing acted on, all in one, but the blind believer in self is
+only confident that he is well-directed. _Eccomi!_’
+
+‘A subtle distinction,’ said Flaxius, ‘and not without truth.’
+
+‘Moreover, and this should be noted,’ resumed the Holy Crow, ‘he who
+is by God’s grace even a little of a Humourist is above all men most
+likely to be misunderstood in this matter. For verily, I swear by this
+Holy Bottle, that when _I_ took no notice of the Gūrū, for which Shiva
+wished to send me to hell, ’twas not from vanity of great wisdom, (as
+those lying old devils the Brahmins declared), but just to see what
+sort of a rum face he would cut; and when I disputed with the son of
+Brahma as to the divine attributes of his father, I hope I may be
+split, salted and dried in hell like a fish, if it was that I pretended
+to know more about the Governor than he did, devil a bit! Nay, it
+was only that the fiend of Fun inspired me to a stupendous, palpable
+absurdity, which, rightly understood, was an act of the deepest
+reverence. But the Rishi was a fool, even as the Brahmins and old Vish
+himself were also, and Shiv into the bargain.’
+
+‘I believe thee, O Crow,’ replied Flaxius, ‘and it is true that the
+dull world often attributes to self-conceit that which is truly an
+artistic or humorously inspired conception. Many a creator and artist
+have I seen carried away by pride or faith in his inspiration, who had,
+God wot! little pride in himself. But, O Dschim Crow, he had, as thou
+ever hast, the sublime enjoyment of the joke, or idea, albeit gods and
+men missed the point!’
+
+‘Amen,’ quoth the Crow. ‘Let us drink!’
+
+‘And now,’ quoth Flaxius, ‘that the sun shines, thou wilt, I suppose,
+begin to make hay, or lay up money for the rainy days.’
+
+‘By the Wheel of Heaven, not I!’ exclaimed the Crow. ‘He that saves up
+money keeps it from circulating, which is a great crime, yea, a robbery
+of the widow and the orphan. Albeit, should such a chance occur of
+saving up money at another man’s expense, as once befell me, I will not
+say that I will utterly reject it. One ought to have cash in hand for
+holy charities and small treats.’
+
+‘I pray thee, tell me the tale,’ answered Flaxius.
+
+‘That will I,’ exclaimed the Crow, after a drink. ‘Once upon a time,
+when Bramadatta was reigning in Benares in Kasi, it befell that I
+was born, and when I grew up I had a small place under the treasurer,
+Bunder Shroff Kash.
+
+‘One day I bewailed that I was poor, and the treasurer, overhearing me,
+told it to the king at his elbow; and the king, calling me, said:
+
+‘“Excellent young man, it is very easy to get rich. Remember that _a
+penny saved is a penny earned_. Now to encourage, I will give thee an
+order on the treasury, commanding that when thou shalt have saved a
+penny it shall be doubled.”
+
+‘“May your glory endure for ever, O Life of the World!” I replied; “but
+while you are about it, make it _pence_.”
+
+‘He did so, and the order was written. But the king forgot to limit the
+payment! He thought I would only draw once, or a penny at a time, but I
+knew a trick worth two of that. I went with my penny and drew another.
+
+‘The next day I came and said, “I have saved twopence, pray pay the
+equivalent.” The next day I brought fourpence, and the next eight; and
+so it went on, till ere long the treasurer begged for credit. Now I
+paid the treasurer a handsome percentage to keep quiet--and he quieted.
+But at last the thing got beyond all bounds, and the treasurer one day
+informed the king that he was bankrupt, and owed more than the whole
+kingdom was worth, and all the world with it. For the sum due me was:
+_Lakhs of Rupees_ 972,687,265,390,221.
+
+‘Then the king got into a fine rage, and would fain have had me put to
+death. But the treasurer said, “Your majesty, it would be better to
+compromise with such a brilliant financier, and employ him to collect
+the taxes”; which was done.
+
+‘When this lesson was ended, the Supreme Deity, the All-Knowing One
+himself, repeated this stanza:
+
+
+  ‘“With humblest start on a trifling capital
+  A shrewd and able man will rise to wealth,
+  E’en as his breath can nurse a tiny flame.”
+
+
+‘And there are many tables and fables in which something like this is
+to be found, or will be, as, for instance, _The Jātakas from the Pali_,
+edited by Professor E. B. Cowell, who will in a future age be known as
+a great, good, wise, illustrious, and learned Sanskritist, and in the
+Parables of _Buddhagosha and Dhammapady_ (or the Accused Irishman), and
+the _Divyāvadāna_, and the _Kathā Sārit Sāgara_. But mine, note ye,
+is the Original Jacobs, and the first true prototype, model, pattern,
+precedent, protoplast, mould, ensample, matrix, and paradigm of them
+all. All the rest of them being mere re-echoes, shadows, reflexes,
+apographs, and adumbrations of mine. _Selah!_’
+
+‘And how long dost thou expect to remain here in clover, O Incarnation
+of Bhusanda, and favourite of Rama?’ inquired Flaxius.
+
+‘I hope to run the machine of the Sacred College,’ replied the Crow,
+critically eyeing his liquor, ‘till a spring breaks, or a screw comes
+loose--or, what is quite as likely, till I find the affair is slow and
+the fun giving out--when I will start as a _yoghi_ on a pilgrimage, or
+a Banjari or Nāt--_jeckno covva miri hai_----’
+
+
+         ‘’Tis all one to me,
+         Where on earth I be;
+  So I only pass the time in jollity,
+         Where the girls abound,
+         And good drink is found,
+  And a changing round of life I ever see.
+         With a tol-diddle,
+         And a rol-diddle,
+  And a tol-de-rol-de-rol-de diddle dee!
+
+
+‘All-so, _camarado, buona sera_! Meet me again in life when life seems
+dull!’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘_Hæc fabula docet_,’ wrote Flaxius, ‘that in this life we should not
+be too much guided by appearances. For, firstly, the Tale of Sakhara
+and Arjun as it occurs in the _Asiatic Journal_ of 1829, whence it
+was transferred by Grimm to his work on _Women’s Names derived from
+Plants_, might seem to many to have been the original source, whereas
+it is only a mutilated and abridged version, as appears from the fact
+that I, who had so much to do with the plot, am not mentioned in it,
+nor does Dschim Crow once occur in the story. Neither are there in it
+those beautiful specimens of Indian poetry in the original Romany, or
+Romanyana, dialect (allied to Sanskrit) which prove the fidelity of my
+text.
+
+‘Secondly, that the king did not surmise that there was any “working of
+the oracle,” as regarded the shooting of the three arrows, or that the
+will of the gods is sometimes managed even by such characters as the
+Crow. For it was the Crow, indeed, who pulled all the wires, wrote the
+lady’s letter, and told all the needful lies on this occasion.
+
+‘Thirdly, that it came not to the surface, neither did it appear to
+man, that Dschim Crow, who was an expert penman, added that little
+postscript to the old manuscript.
+
+‘Fourthly, that it is most probable that the vast majority of my
+readers will fondly believe that I am the author of the old MS.
+_History of Bhusanda_, whereas it is really given in the _Ramayana_,
+and extracted therefrom by Nork in his _Symbolisches-mythologisches
+Real-Wörterbuch_, vol. i. p. 259.
+
+‘Fifthly, that Brahma, Siva, Vishnu and Co., including all the saints,
+were utterly mistaken in the true character of the Crow [even as a
+reviewer sometimes is at the present day when he adventures into
+literature]. Now, this showing how the Hindoo Trinity made a fool
+of itself firstly, by putting Pantagruelism into a Crow, and then
+expecting to ever get it out, is, I am sure, one of those subtle
+sarcasms of the Pariah literature, which worked its way into the
+regular Scriptures, somewhat in the same way as the erotic, or
+erratic, melodrama of the Song of Solomon was insinuated (probably by
+some Hebrew joker) into the Old Testament.
+
+‘Sixthly, that as there are substances, which to the vulgar sense
+seem to be one and the same, yet which chemistry shows are radically
+different elements, so there are natures like that of the Crow, which
+do not care twopence for applause, or what the world thinks of them,
+and yet are called _egoistic_ when their inspiration consists in
+yielding to influences which, had they guided them, might indeed have
+caused them to be called vain.
+
+‘Seventhly, that the Crow, being incorrigible and incurable, will
+continue to manifest himself as a poor devil, and be considered as “a
+comic fella, doncher know,” and as nothing but a swell jester--until
+gods and saints get more sense.’
+
+[9] This exquisitely beautiful incantation poem will be readily
+intelligible to every Sanskritist, with the exception perhaps of the
+last line, which is in a later vulgar dialect. It means, accurately
+translated: ‘I am a gypsy foot-traveller.’ In common dialect it would
+be, ‘_Ro-mani pat-engro shom_.’ _Omani_ for ‘Romany’ occurs in _The
+English Gypsies and their Language_.
+
+
+
+
+THE WONDERFUL STORY OF MISS JESABELLE ROCKHARD
+
+WITH A SERIOUS VINDICATION OF HER PROTOTYPES
+
+OR FLAXIUS IN ENGLAND
+
+  ‘And thus outspoke ye Oracle:
+  A very truth to thee I tell:
+  If thou canst a woman finde,
+  With such an earth-subduing minde
+  And with soule so stern and deepe,
+  That she can a secret keepe.
+  Then know of verie truth that she
+  A great Enchauntresse soon will be,
+  A queen in soothe or faery.’
+
+
+IT was five o’clock tea at Lady Puddlebrooke’s--a somewhat famous
+weekly rendezvous, which many called ‘The Meet,’ because there
+assembled on the occasion so many gallant hunters of gossip, and
+harriers of character, who were soon let slip in full cry of the
+_chronique scandaleuse_ of the day. The which chronicle, be it
+remarked, by the way, is by far the most wonderful flying leaf, as such
+journals were once called, which was ever compiled, since every soul
+implicitly believes that there is in it the name of Everybody else, and
+that all which is said of others in it is true, while their own names
+are never there--or, if there, invariably attached to falsehoods, and
+out of place.
+
+Now, while all the good Christians, philanthropists, nobly honest
+agnostics, angelic virgins who had been presented, dignified and
+ferocious matrons, clergymen, positivists, and other seekers after
+truth, were--as a nasty, cynical journalist who was present,
+remarked--‘ravening and battening on their garbage,’ which meant
+repeating what they had read in the society papers, or preparing what
+would soon appear in them, Flaxius had withdrawn to a quiet corner
+and an easy sofa, where he was joined by Miss Jesabelle Rockhard, a
+lady of whom all her friends said: ‘It certainly cannot be denied that
+she is good-looking’; others limiting this praise to ‘_distinguée_,’
+while some reduced it to ‘striking,’ which she certainly was, being a
+hard hitter in conversation, and not above fibbing when it came to a
+scratch. That she was ‘highly intelligent’ and an _esprit fort_, gifted
+with the unscrupulousness which she herself graced with the name of
+Will, was manifested at a glance, and impressively set forth by the
+first utterance of her voice to any reader of the human heart.
+
+She was between afternoon and twilight as regarded age, and of very
+limited means; facts which she stated with the utmost candour to
+everybody. Nor was she devoid of a certain intuition or clairvoyance
+as regarded ability in others, as she had creditably shown by divining
+that Flaxius was a character. She determined that she would draw him
+out to the last hair, and completely ascertain all there was in him.
+In forming this resolution she had, as the Americans express it,
+unconsciously, ‘taken out a mighty big contract,’ which was the further
+impeded by the fact that the party of the other part knew exactly how
+much stock she held, and what was her capital, while she--poor little
+soul--knew nothing at all as to the resources of the adversary.
+
+But she came up to the assault gallantly. There was something in her
+very smile with its pinch in the lips, and in the ring of her keen
+voice, which seemed to say: ‘I’m arch and airy, with the gay, sarcastic
+tone of society; you must accept all my stings with a delighted
+air--and you’ll be in bad form if you don’t. Beware! beware!’
+
+‘Ah, Mr. Flaxius, just as one would expect--withdrawn from the
+gossiping, frivolous crowd. You set up to be intellectual, I believe.’
+
+There are certain very common and very silly speeches of this kind
+current, which tease sensible people, because they are hard to answer.
+So true is it that a fool can roll a stone into a well which fifty wise
+men cannot get out. But Flaxius replied with divine suavity:
+
+‘If being out of the swim is a sign of setting up to be intellectual,
+then, I suppose, as you are here, that you also advance the same claim,
+and would fain remind me of it.’ Here the smile was beautifully genial,
+as if to say: ‘’Tis all my fun.’
+
+‘Confound his cheeky impudence!’ thought Miss Jesabelle. And she
+promptly countered.
+
+‘So you _do_ set up to be intellectual, then? Oh, you needn’t deny
+it--you’ve admitted it.’
+
+‘True,’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘and I have heard from other people
+the same of you. And yet I am not sure,’ he added, in so dreamy,
+meditative a manner, that he seemed to be thinking of anything except
+Miss Rockhard, ‘that ’tis not better to be able to set oneself up
+independently--though ever so little--than to have to rely on others to
+do it for us!’
+
+And looking at Miss Jesabelle with a smile that was child-like and
+bland, he added:
+
+‘Ask me some more of those hard questions, please!’
+
+‘I really believe,’ answered the lady with some acerbity (‘Aha!’
+thought Flaxius, ‘the first blood drawn!’)--‘that you must have
+belonged to the Disagreeable Club, whose members make a practice of
+irritating and retorting, like cabmen.’
+
+‘Ah!’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘if I had not, I should have been indeed
+ill-qualified for conversation with an advanced young lady of the _fin
+de siècle_. How often she reminds me of a Spanish fairy-tale. May I
+tell it?’ he asked, like a little boy.
+
+‘Oh, certainly, if it amuses you,’ replied the young lady in a tone
+half-contemptuously vexed, yet half interested in this extraordinary
+stranger.
+
+‘Once upon a time,’ said Flaxius, ‘there were three brothers, and the
+two elder were a pair of awful blackguards.’
+
+‘Truly, it begins beautifully!’ remarked Miss Rockhard scornfully.
+
+‘Doesn’t it?’ quoth Flaxius gleefully. ‘And it’s nothing to what’s
+a-coming. Well, there was a king of the country, and he had a beautiful
+daughter--at least she was _distinguée_, or what you might call
+_stunning_, for she was awful at being disagreeable, and could shut up
+any man in chaff, or worse--not to draw it too fine. And if anybody
+dared to answer her--oh, then she became angry!
+
+‘Now the king, finding that his daughter kept his court all the time
+in an uproar, issued a proclamation, saying that whoever could beat the
+princess in abuse should have her to wife, and welcome. Then the two
+elder brothers rejoiced, each being sure that he would win the prize.
+But the younger, who was a sort of Saint Johnny, with no great gift of
+the gab, went and sat sorrowfully in the woods, weeping to think he had
+no chance to win the princess, and wishing he had passed his boyhood in
+playing chuck-farthing, and hanging about the docks with other little
+guttersnipes, and had not wasted it in going to school and church and
+penny-readings.
+
+‘And while he sat there weeping, and eating a great slice of
+water-melon, mingling his tears with the seeds, there came by an Irish
+fairy of his acquaintance.
+
+‘“An’ what is it yees wape-in an’ bodderin’ about, _alanna_?” she asked
+kindly.
+
+‘Then the youth told her his trouble, and how he would like to win the
+princess, but wanted that _copia verborum_, or elegant “fluency of
+sass,” as it is called in America, which was necessary to secure it.
+
+‘“Och, _monoma diaoul!_ and tear and agers!” exclaimed the fairy,
+“sure, if it’s nothin’ but blay-gairdin’ is naded, it’s mesilf that’ll
+tache ye how to bate thim all intoirely. Pattherin’ an’ cantin’ is it!
+and me here that blissed the great Daniel O’Connell in his cradle, an’
+gave him the illigant spache that shut up all the sass in Parliamint.
+
+
+‘“Great O’Connell, the Libherather,
+An’ salvathor of Oireland’s oisle!
+
+
+‘“Whoop! _Fa-na-ballah_, and Erin-go-braugh!” cried the fairy as she
+danced in a ring, brandishing her broom. “And now, ye divil, sit down
+till I give yees a lisson in polite litherature.”
+
+‘I forbear for certain reasons to give you the conversation which
+occurred between the princess and the two brothers, in which they
+were utterly silenced. Then, turning to the youngest, she exclaimed
+scornfully:
+
+‘“And I suppose you, with your white egg-fruit face of an idiotic
+scallawag, set up for being intellectual--intellectual enough to smash
+_me_--that is, if you know what the word means, you Number Three
+Mackerel with the head gone!”
+
+‘“It is just like your ante-penultimate superfluitancy to mundivagate
+anent my candicancy,’ replied the youth indignantly. ‘Thou tramontarian
+tomboy-trollope and trull-cat, thou quadruplicate quean, mopsy minx,
+and metaphrastic harridame--reintegrated in thy deligration even to
+conquassentiality--thou mere projectile of an eolipile--nay, I go so
+far as to call thee a true ultimatum of the fourth effusion--dug up
+by a divarication of conduplicated metatarsity--thou art all this as
+thy conscience deterrates ... yea and thou art moreover addicted to
+_lipothymy_ and all such enormities and vices!”
+
+‘Thereupon the princess gave it to him back, with all that there is
+in Grose’s _Slang Dictionary_, and Romany to boot--which was pretty
+bad; but when he retorted with a passage from Browning’s _Sordello_,
+she gave it up, and fell into a fit of rage, foaming at the mouth. And
+having recovered, she married him, and they lived like the devil ever
+after.’
+
+Now Flaxius had the gift of voice, and with it that of the
+story-teller, to the degree of well-nigh transcending language itself;
+for one could read the full meaning of every word in his intonation,
+and eyes and gestures; these latter were never extravagant, but
+strangely significant, as they well might be, since he knew as only the
+priests of old knew the wonderful Sign Language which men have found of
+late years on every Etruscan vase--much of which is still found even
+among the peasant-children of Italy. And as a small group of guests had
+gathered round to hear the legend, there were roars of final laughter,
+in which Miss Jesabelle herself joined with a good-will, for she had
+begun to realise that there was a lion in this man, and as the story
+had been told for _her_, she shrewdly made the very best of it.
+
+‘You tell a fairy-tale so well,’ she said to Flaxius, when they were
+again together, and no one near, ‘as to make one regret that there are
+no more fairies or magic, or rather that such fancies never were.’
+
+‘And if there were,’ replied the sage, ‘you and the world would still
+necessarily remain in ignorance of them.’
+
+‘Permit me,’ replied Miss Rockhard, ‘to differ with you. I _presume_,’
+she added, with a slightly sarcastic expression, ‘that I am _quite_ as
+likely as you are to be acquainted, or possibly familiar, with all that
+has been investigated by science--the London Library and British Museum
+being open to all--and I can assure you that despite Madame Blavatsky
+and Mr. Sinnett and Colonel Olcott--very nice men they are--not the
+slightest scientific proof of the existence of fairies or magic has
+ever been detected.’
+
+‘Very true,’ rejoined Flaxius imperturbably. ‘I did not say that
+they existed. I only assert that, from the very nature of things,
+if they do, they _must_ be concealed from man as he now is. The more
+indubitable proof of such occult matters would bring about a premature
+confusion in humanity which would have disastrous results.’
+
+‘_I_ presume _not_, in certain minds at least,’ said Miss Rockhard,
+with an expression which denoted that she considered herself to be one
+of this favoured few. ‘How can you explain however,’ she added, ‘that
+few, if any, know the mysteries?’
+
+‘Simply because there are so few people living who can keep a secret
+or hold their tongues. The one great or tremendous task of the ancient
+priesthoods, as of the modern Jesuits, was not to get great ideas, but
+to train men to keep quiet, and not to tell tales out of school.’
+
+‘There again you are _quite_ wrong,’ remarked the lady. ‘If mere
+firm reticence would attract revelation, _I_, certainly, would be
+among the favoured. On that subject you need not speak further, for
+it simply does not admit discussion. I have kept,’ she added, ‘in my
+time a secret of vast importance, on which the fate of a great family
+depended, for many months, till it all blew over.’
+
+‘And then,’ reflected Flaxius, ‘came the great blow-up in consequence
+of her blowing, or letting it out. I remember it all. Truly she
+deserves a lesson for all this. Do you know,’ he added amiably, ‘I
+think, Miss Rockhard, that this matter may possibly be tested. There is
+an ugly little old story about certain nuns who wanted a Pope to make
+female confessors, and he promised to do so if they would keep a box
+unopened for a day. They all swore on their salvation to do so; but
+the Pope was hardly out of the convent before they all ran to the box
+and lifted the lid, when out flew a bird, which vanished through the
+window.’
+
+‘If you think that a silly and slanderous old tale, which is only
+disgraceful to one who tells it, is an _argument_,’ said the lady, ‘I
+have no more to say.’
+
+‘But I have this to suggest,’ replied Flaxius. ‘I have heard--for I do
+not assert it--that there is even now in London a person who is endowed
+with such strangely supernatural gifts that she may be ranked with the
+witches or fairies.’
+
+‘At a guinea a visit, I presume,’ remarked Miss Rockhard with her
+sarcastic smile more fully developed than ever. ‘_Merci_, my means do
+not permit of such expensive researches into occult philosophy.’
+
+‘Ah, that is the most remarkable part of it all,’ replied Flaxius.
+‘She takes nothing; nay, she invariably makes very valuable gifts; but
+on the strictest conditions of secrecy--and she is to the last degree
+exacting in this respect--as also that those whom she favours shall be
+gifted with superior intellects--not led by mere curiosity.’
+
+‘And you expect me to believe this?’
+
+‘Certainly not. I never said a word as to belief. I only say that _I_
+believe you will incur no kind of risk or cost if you seek her.’
+
+‘And you will obtain access for me to your witch?’
+
+‘She is not _my_ witch, and I have no desire whatever to send you to
+her. I only say that if you will promise on your honour to observe
+sacred secrecy even as to knowing of her existence, I will give you her
+address.’
+
+‘Very well, I swear!’
+
+‘She lives in Devonshire Street, near Regent’s Park. There is her card.
+But I give you every warning. What you seek will require great truth,
+secrecy, and self-command. And remember’--here the face of Flaxius
+assumed an expression which Miss Rockhard had not seen before, and
+under which she for an instant quailed, it was so marvellously strange
+and dignified, as if he had forgotten himself into grandeur--‘remember
+that if you succeed, I shall expect no thanks, and if you fail, yours
+alone is the responsibility.’
+
+‘Oh, I accept it,’ replied Miss Rockhard, recovering her flippancy.
+‘Thanks awfully. I accept the _entire_ responsibility. What fun!’
+
+And so with all her grace and vanity she swept away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At four o’clock on the following afternoon--or ‘morning,’ as it
+is called by those who probably look for midnight at fourteen
+o’clock--Miss Rockhard found herself in Devonshire Street, seeking
+the dwelling of the witch-fairy. And it was very naturally with an
+intensely sarcastic smile that she finally discovered on a door a small
+silver plate bearing the words:
+
+
+MISS ALBAN,
+
+DRESSMAKER.
+
+
+‘I might have expected it would be some humbug of the kind!’ thought
+the fair Jesabelle. ‘I wonder whether the fairy drops her h’s. But let
+us enter all the same into this Egyptian Hall and take a miracle or
+two.’
+
+She rang, and was admitted by a very pretty maid to a hall which was
+somewhat singularly, but most artistically, decorated with antique
+objects, the real meaning of which was, however, hardly apparent; and
+was then conducted up a broad old staircase to a large _salon_, in
+which the visitor detected a most extraordinary and original taste,
+as regards furniture, without the least obtrusive sign of expenditure
+or cost. There was not a thing in the room which looked as if it
+had been the ‘gem’ of a bric-a-brac shop, or worthy a place in the
+great Rothschild pawnbroker collection of Frankfort, or bought at a
+Demiduffer sale, and many of the antiques would not have been valued
+at twopence by the Jew; but even Miss Rockhard, albeit her archæology
+was of the slenderest, save on Chippendale, lace, Japaneseries,
+Chineseries, crockeries, glass, Sèvres, and rococery in general, or
+trash in particular, could not help admitting that there was a hidden
+depth of knowledge and artistic taste in what she saw, which had
+nothing in common with bargains, fashion or the shop.
+
+Suddenly looking up, Miss Rockhard saw before her a lady who, though
+beautiful, was not to be lightly described as ‘a beauty,’ considering
+the usual vulgar associations with the word. There was a depth of
+expression and moral truth, allied to strength of character, in her
+face which would have shamed into oblivion the charm of a Helen, who
+was (according to Flaxius) only a professional beauty of the popular
+kind after all. ‘And such,’ adds Flaxius, ‘I have invariably found all
+fashionable belles of the season (“whom every one is talking about”) to
+be.’
+
+‘I am Miss Alban,’ said the lady to the visitor, ‘and I shall be
+pleased to aid you in the object of your call. You desire indubitable
+proof of the existence of supernatural or magical influences or beings,
+and I can supply it.’
+
+‘You are, ahem! I believe, a--dressmaker,’ said Miss Rockhard, with
+considerable sarcasm. For she felt with every word and glance that
+Miss Alban was immeasurably her superior in exactly that in which she
+would have liked to be great herself: or in calm self-possession,
+penetration, and the terrible art of influencing others, and being
+invulnerable. Therefore it was with something like suppressed
+exasperation, wrapped up in a smile, that she exclaimed: ‘A dressmaker!’
+
+‘I appear to every one,’ replied Miss Alban, looking the other clearly
+in the eyes, ‘as the ideal ministrant of what they most desire in life.
+What _you_ prize above everything is simply to appear well before
+everybody, be it in good looks or clothes as regards the body, and
+accomplishments and setting people down and “besting” them as regards
+the mind, which all amounts to mere show or dress, and therefore I
+appear to you as a _modiste_.’
+
+‘I confess,’ declared Miss Rockhard, who had always, with all her
+failings, a substratum of frank courage as regarded her poverty and
+unavoidable defects, being therein no snob, ‘that as I have only one
+decent evening-dress in the world, and am getting to the end of my
+twenties, or to a time when dress becomes more needful, and as I live
+for society, I _do_ regard externals with love and envy. But as for the
+proof of enchantment----’
+
+‘I promise,’ replied Miss Alban, ‘to fully and perfectly convince and
+satisfy you before you leave this room, that there is such a thing
+as magic, by which I mean simply to show you something absolutely
+inexplicable by _your_ knowledge of science.’
+
+‘I ask no more than _that_ as regards your sorcery,’ said Miss Rockhard
+with a complacent smile.
+
+‘While as to dress, I promise that you shall be at no expense, and for
+life, the best dressed woman in London, or even in New York or Paris.
+But on one condition.’
+
+‘I know--absolute secrecy. That for me is a mere trifle.’
+
+‘It is no “mere trifle,” as you will find, but, especially for you, a
+terribly difficult and onerous task. For know that the secrecy must
+be without speck or flaw. You are not to say that you have _heard_
+of fairy dressmakers or jest with people who ask you whence you had
+your garments, in such a way as to cause surmises as to the truth; and
+if you fail you must not say, “_I thought_ this or that,” as people
+of weak minds always do. There is to be no allowance for thought, or
+prevarication, or independence, or misfortune or excuses. If you can
+persevere in merely keeping a secret to your own advantage, I promise
+you that dress shall not be the limit of my favours, and you shall lead
+a long and happy and highly-honoured life. But if you fail, that is, if
+by the _least_ inadvertency, or even accident, you betray the secret,
+you will incur a terrible disgrace, and a suffering and humiliated
+life. Consider well, and do not let your vanity lead you to ruin.’
+
+‘I think,’ said Miss Rockhard, with the same old contemptuous smile,
+‘that we may proceed to the proof. As I happen to know my own mind a
+little better than you probably do, I am better aware of my capacity
+for secrecy. I accept your conditions.’
+
+‘The proof is very easy,’ replied Miss Alban, taking from a drawer in
+a cabinet what seemed to be a large walnut. ‘Did you ever hear of the
+famous wardrobe walnuts of the witch tree of Benevento? Legend says
+that a prince once filled a palace with the splendid garments in
+cloth of gold, ermine, velvet and pearls, which he drew from this one
+nut.[10] Now, are you ready?’
+
+‘Certainly,’ replied the visitor.
+
+‘And should I perform this miracle, you will, unconditionally once and
+for all accept it on your honour as a proof of magic power? If not, we
+will try something else.’
+
+‘No,’ answered Jesabelle, who was thinking more of being beautifully
+attired than of all the miracles or oaths ever heard of. ‘The dress
+will be proof enough in all conscience.’
+
+As she spoke, her outer garment fell off, and she stepped out of it,
+while Miss Alban, opening the walnut, drew from it what seemed at
+first to be a mere cobweb, which she shook and shook out into greater
+fulness, till she placed it on Miss Jesabelle who, to do her justice,
+had really a fine little figure, just made to be very well dressed,
+with the one drawback of large feet and hands.
+
+‘Now tell me,’ said the dressmaker, ‘what colour or material or style
+would you prefer?’
+
+‘Nothing extravagant as regards expense,’ replied Miss Rockhard, ‘no
+cloth of gold or pearl-embroideries or anything to make people wonder
+where the money came from, when all the world knows how poor I am. Grey
+silk will do; but as elegant, original, and beautiful in fit and fold
+as a robe can be.’
+
+‘_C’est fait_,’ said Miss Alban. ‘Rise and look into yonder glass!’
+
+Then Miss Rockhard looked and could hardly believe her own eyes, such
+a vision of beauty was before her. For, as has been already intimated,
+she was really very ‘good-looking,’ with a fine figure, both being of
+the kind which are incredibly improved by tasteful dress, so that she
+came out (like fireworks) in a grand ball, or at a fête, when fortune
+favoured her.
+
+But never before, under the most benign influence of a grand cheque
+from her benevolent aunt, had she bloomed out like this. It was more
+than a fit, more than modelling to the form, more than artistic
+folds after any painting, for there was in the fluent grace and easy
+elegance of that skirt and bust an æsthetic apocalypse. ‘Which is,’
+pencils Flaxius, ‘a big word for a man, but not too much, under the
+circumstances, for a woman.’
+
+Even the fairy smiled, being feminine, at the success, and said:
+
+‘There is still a trifle or two wanting.’ She took from the drawer a
+wisp of straw, a coarse cord, or circle of clothes-line, and a simply
+_horrid_ brooch of brass and glass, or of agate, which seemed, from
+afar off, to have been bought in a common toy shop in the Burlington
+Arcade, or under the cliff in Brighton, for threepence. She fastened
+the wisp of straw round the wrist of Jesabelle, and lo! it became a
+massy bracelet of gold in old Etruscan style, which would have maddened
+Castellani, and sent a whole ball-room into convulsions of envy. The
+brooch turned to a brilliant bouquet of diamonds, while the rope, with
+eccentric, yet pretty, taste, remained exactly as it was, but in pure
+gold, and, being tied in a bow-knot with folding ends, formed a very
+original and elegant head-dress.
+
+The world hears a great deal about the tact of women, but there is a
+great deal to be said on the subject--for and against. For while she
+believed she had the keenest insight into everything, Miss Rockhard,
+like all of her class and kind, had no more tact than an oyster, or
+a hedge-hog, when it behoved her to suppress her needless pleonasms,
+sarcasms, and little spasms of ‘pure cussedness.’ And over and above
+all this, petty scepticism had so worked into all her being that as
+soon as she had got over the first flush of admiration at her dress,
+the old devil whispered in her ear not to show too much astonishment
+or gratitude, ‘which means,’ he said, ‘that she has been too much
+for you.’ Therefore, with exquisite good taste and characteristic
+refinement, she said:
+
+‘Well, it’s an awfully clever bit of hanky-panky, I must say. I wonder
+how on earth you do it!’
+
+The fairy looked at her gravely, and replied:
+
+‘You said seriously, before I showed you this marvel, that if I could
+effect it you would accept it once and for all as a proof of my power,
+and your first words are an utter denial of it. You are neither
+spontaneously grateful at heart, nor graceful nor polite in words.
+Society and petty persiflage and small sneering and flippant sarcasm
+have killed in you every noble quality. But I will give you another
+proof which will defy doubt. Observe! Though your figure is good you
+have undeniably immense hands, and your shoes, as you are aware, really
+look like badly built gondolas. It is a great pity and it cuts you to
+the very soul. Now, if I reduce these extremities of yours to something
+like smallness and harmony with the rest, will you believe?’
+
+What the reader may very well believe is that this speech was as gall,
+worm-wood, coloquintida, nux-vomica, rue, quassia, extract of aloes,
+acetic acid, verjuice, vitriol, and strychnine to the palate of Miss
+Rockhard, but the end thereof made her forget all these amaritudes, and
+she gasped out:
+
+‘Yes.’
+
+‘And I am to hear nothing more about “hanky-panky,” or “how it is
+done”?’
+
+‘No.’
+
+‘Then be it done!’ The fairy bade her be seated and took one of her
+hands in her own, and began to sing a spell in a tongue which sounded
+softly but strangely:
+
+
+  ‘Tāni-rani, sove a lay!
+  Chovihani chivs apré!
+  Tiri waster, tiri piri,
+  Boro dukkerin mi-deary!
+  Me bitchava lende sā,
+  Tinkni-bitti, vel ajā!
+
+  Little lady, go to sleep!
+  Witch lays spell upon thee deep!
+  On thy hands and on thy feet,
+  Let the charm be strong and fleet!
+  So I order one and all
+  To become both neat and small!’
+
+
+So Miss Rockhard did indeed go to sleep, and on awaking found herself
+in her own home, lying on the sofa in her own room.
+
+
+  ‘She would have thought it all a dream,
+  Save that round her form
+  Was still the dress of the fairy queen,
+  Which fitted her “like a charm”;
+  And her hands and feet were extremely neat,
+  And become intensely small;
+  “’Tis well, ’tis well,” said Jesabelle,
+  “For now I shall beat them all.”’
+
+
+It was not long before Miss Jesabelle Rockhard found that the fairy was
+right in declaring that it was not such an easy matter to keep a secret
+when its results are brilliantly paraded before society. Therefore the
+successful alchemists of the olden time were said to live so plainly,
+and to go in disguise, dodging about the world, as did Thomas Vaughan,
+to escape observation. And as even they found it a fearful task,
+it may be supposed that Miss Rockhard, who had a ten times harder
+secret to keep than theirs, with not one-tenth part of their sense or
+experience to keep it on, began to wonder anon whether she had not
+spoken over-hastily when she commended her own powers of discretion as
+a subject not open to discussion.
+
+‘The female sex,’ writes Flaxius in his great Analysis, ‘differs from
+the male mostly in this, that it never takes naturally or instinctively
+to rum or tobacco, neither does it ever feel conscience or remorse.
+Fear of discovery it does indeed experience, and very sincere regret
+or sorrow at incurring punishment, but whether any one woman since Eve
+ever _regretted_ anything on principle, or _per se_, is as yet among
+the unfound-outs.
+
+‘Wherein I discover,’ he observes, ‘a great and wise provision of
+nature. For when we consider what a vast quantity there is of confused
+conscience and misplaced remorse in man, we cannot be too thankful
+that woman is _not_ afflicted with the same calamity; it being very
+evident that if she were, humanity must needs take a fresh start on new
+principles. Therefore do I opine,’ he adds, ‘that “Things,” as Germans
+call the evolution of humanity, are going on best as they are, although
+I did have a tin of spoiled caviare brought to me this morning for
+breakfast.’
+
+As regards the dress and jewellery of Miss Rockhard, it was a
+complete--or, as the French say, an insane--success. Her friends and
+the public admired it with an envy which, as she often perceived,
+amounted to agony; and there were peeresses who suffered the tortures
+of the damned, and with them millionairesses who panted like harts
+for the water-brook, with desire to learn the secret of those
+transcendental toilets; which was all like nectar and ambrosia to her
+small soul. And as she had the thin good sense and cautious taste to
+rarely use expensive fabrics, and was very chary with diamonds and the
+like; and being clever, soon acquired a stock of evasive phrases and
+satirical retorts for the most direct questions, she might have long
+escaped detection.
+
+The first error which she committed was the very common one for all
+her kind, of ingratitude. For as regarded Flaxius, the very fact of
+her success irritated her, when she reflected that he had entirely
+established all his assertions, and completely got the better of
+her--after all her assumption of superior intelligence--and as she
+recalled him, every time she donned a dress, with renewed vexation,
+the feeling grew in time to tormenting hatred, there being no
+vindictiveness like that for benefits received. Nor was she any better
+disposed towards the fairy, since every time she was teased by
+questioners she said to herself: ‘Pest take the creature! why couldn’t
+she just as well have given me the clothes without any condition. ’Tis
+ever the way with these mysterious snobs, they always do everything by
+halves in a petty way, so as to render gratitude impossible. I believe
+that vulgar teasing is a part of their low nature.’
+
+Now when the moral obligation to keep a secret is gone, and the
+buttresses are, so to speak, knocked away, it generally requires but
+a little push to overthrow the whole building. And this push came ere
+long from an unexpected quarter.
+
+Miss Jesabelle Rockhard was born, and lived, in undeniably good
+society, but had never had more than very scanty sniffs of ‘the purer
+atmosphere of _Dukedom_.’ As the melancholy Jacques, with refined wit,
+remarks, even the word is ‘a spell to call fools together,’ albeit
+printers have spoiled his spelling. Now it befell that a duchess of
+twenty-four carats, a dame of irrepressible power, stronger at every
+point than poor Miss Jesabelle, and one whose _flamberg_ or six-feet
+two-handed sword was not to be lightly turned by the latter’s fencing
+foil--fenced she never so wisely--had set her whole soul on learning
+the secret of the exquisite toilets. Hitherto Miss Rockhard had only
+gentler breezes to resist, but now there was a cyclone brewing, before
+which, had she been wise, she would have fled unto the uttermost parts
+of the earth.
+
+The duchess soon learned--indeed ’twas common talk--that the now famous
+Miss Rockhard guarded with great care the secret of her dresses.
+She made adroit, special, long-continued inquiry--who would not be
+detective for a duchess?--and the more she was confirmed in the report,
+the more obstinately was she determined to penetrate the mystery.
+
+‘O thou poor Jesabelle,’ writes Flaxius, ‘whom I did greatly love with
+all thy faults--since devil a one was there of them thine own--all
+being drawn from good society--how gladly would I have averted from
+thee the fate which I saw gathering over thy graceful head; how gladly
+would I have clucked unto thee, as the cock clucketh unto the hen to
+come to him when he has found a grain, albeit he often swallows it ere
+she gets there!--or done anything in reason, to _paratonnerre_ away the
+crash and flash in the dark gathering cloud--it could not be! All that
+we _could_ do was to await the explosion, pick up the pieces, glue them
+together as well as possible and so, _en avant_!
+
+‘It is written in the Babylonian chronicle of the great Rabbi Ganef Ben
+Nofgur, that “even as a monkey will, in doing mischief, manifest as
+much mind as would make him the equal of man, so a woman, to find out
+a secret which is none of her business, will show the genius of seven
+devils. For ten measures of intermeddling were sent down by Aschmodai
+upon earth, and the daughters of Israel got nine of them.”’
+
+From which ye may understand that the duchess, finding that the
+treasure was deeply buried, and craftily enchanted, took great
+precaution and pains to disinter it. Firstly, she was merely affable
+to Miss Rockhard in the winsome way which shows that any one has
+taken a special, an _unconscious_ liking--which is a particular form
+of humbug treated more fully by Patrick Mac Iavel in his Treatise
+on the Art of Blarneying. She set on to Jesabelle an artless niece
+who Jesabelle thought was a fool, and who ended by fooling her--Miss
+Rockhard--completely. Then the duchess began a series of fondlings,
+pettings, little intimacies, and careful confidences, invitations
+to dinner and the opera--sending her carriage freely for her on all
+occasions. In a word, she wound round the victim such an insidious
+mesh of obligations that at last she judged that the roast was done to
+a turn, and ready to be served, carved and eaten.
+
+So one night at a reception at the ducal palace, to which Jesabelle had
+come in consequence of most ingenious and urgent desire--in the utmost
+magnificence which she dared--her jewellery on this occasion being
+rather seriously splendid and dangerous--the hostess struck her _coup_
+by displaying the most passionate admiration of her guest’s attire.
+Then with great adroitness she led the conversation to the fondness she
+had for Jesabelle, which subtly trained towards the obligations and
+kindnesses, which had by this time run up to an alarming sum. And then,
+suddenly recurring to the dress, she said:
+
+‘If you are, indeed, as you say, deeply grateful to me for anything,
+and are sincere as I am in friendship, my dear, then acquit it all by a
+mere trifle, and tell me truly, without any equivocation, the secret of
+your marvellous dresses....’
+
+Miss Rockhard would very much have preferred seeing an insane anarchist
+flourishing a bomb, and a carving-knife come dancing into her
+drawing-room, to this simple question from her dearest friend. And the
+agitation of her features showed it--almost fearfully. The duchess was
+delighted. ‘Now for an adroit _coup_,’ she thought, ‘and I have it.’
+
+‘I dare say, my dear,’ she added with sweet persuasion, ‘that there
+is really no great mystery in it after all. You girls are so fond of
+making up romances. Perhaps I can even aid you with it, if perfect
+secrecy, experience, and love can aid. But it will not be confiding a
+secret, you know, for we two are one, and ’twill be as if you told it
+to yourself.’
+
+When one feels a secret like an intolerable burden, or a pack of coals
+on one’s back--heavy as sin, and burning as remorse--the bearer catches
+at any excuse for betraying it. Nor was Jesabelle a little piqued by
+the artful hint: ‘I dare say there is really no great mystery in it
+after all.’ And, perhaps, the duchess, with her vast knowledge of life
+and invincible _prestige_, _could_ solve the mystery, so that no harm
+or loss could come of it; and driven to the wall as she was, and at
+her wits’ end, for a rupture with her Grace meant social ruin, she
+actually caught at the last straw--‘it will not be telling a secret,
+since we are one’--as if it had been a rope thrown by a life-buoyant
+philanthropist.
+
+‘You will not say,’ remarked the duchess, somewhat sarcastically, ‘that
+it is a fairy-gift.’
+
+At that word, Jesabelle in despair and anger exclaimed--’twas as if the
+very devil spoke for her and used her tongue:
+
+‘It _is_ a fairy gift!’
+
+The duchess uttered an appalled scream; there was a chorus of
+‘Ha’s--ho’s--oh dear me’s!’ through all the gamut heard from those
+around--_Tableau_!
+
+‘What is the matter?’ cried Jesabelle terrified.
+
+‘_Look in the glass!_’ cried the duchess, pointing to a twenty-foot
+mirror opposite.
+
+Miss Rockhard looked, and saw an awful sight. It was herself, arrayed
+in nothing but her under-garments, with a wisp of straw on her wrist,
+a piece of clothes-line rope about her head, and on her bosom a great
+threepenny brass and glass brooch. And amid her surroundings this
+costume looked ten times worse than it had done in Devonshire Street.
+
+‘A lunatic! a mad woman! Wonder how she got in! Hope she won’t attack
+us! Wonder if she’s got a pistol? We shall all be killed! Run for the
+police!’ was heard on all sides. Miss Rockhard fainted. Some mysterious
+friend--she knew not who--stepped forward, wrapped her in a cloak, and
+conveyed her in a carriage to her home. Yet heavily as the blow fell
+on her, it struck the duchess at once almost as severely. For after
+all her pains, and after driving poor Jesabelle to the wall, and to
+insanity, all that she had got was, ‘It is a fairy-gift,’ at which even
+a child would laugh. She might well have exclaimed, ‘I have brought my
+pig to a fine market, to be sure!’ as the Princess Iona Mic Flanagan
+remarked, after she had driven a swine from Dublin to Cork, where it
+was eaten by a wolf; the incident was sung in Tara’s Psaltery, and
+recorded in the _Leabhair Ruad_, or Red-Book of the Nine Masters, in
+_Shelta_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Jesabelle came to herself in the morning, a brief half-hour of
+deadly, sickening despair was succeeded by a good healthy reaction of
+rage at the duchess, the fairy, Flaxius, and all mankind. Even as the
+hero Hans Breitmann ungratefully wished that his teacher, Professor
+Schmitzerl, ‘vas in hell’ for teaching him how to ride on a bicycle,
+did Miss Rockhard wish that all those whose favours, gifts, and
+applause she had once so anxiously sought were all at the bottom of
+Inferno, and the devil dancing on them, because they had given her in
+fullest measure what she most ardently desired, yea, perjured herself
+to obtain!
+
+I have here arrived, _O lector benevole_, thou _best_ of readers, at
+what is to us, I trust, the most interesting point, that is to say the
+crisis in this eventful history. It happened once during the American
+War that after the Confederates had been defeated in a battle, certain
+gallant Southern ‘chivs’ or chivalric officers, attempted to account
+for the failure: one attributing it to a sudden rise in the river, and
+another to a division not coming up in time; till at last one startled
+them all by asking, ‘If they didn’t think the Yankees had something to
+do with it?’
+
+Even so, after making out that everybody had been against her, and
+shown themselves a pack of contemptible wretches, did it occur to Miss
+Rockhard that she Herself had counted for something in the game, and
+had something to Do with It. And being now, as it were, thrown into
+solitude, and having a fine, vigorous mind, and being withdrawn from
+the society which had so fearfully warped it; she began, so to speak,
+to straighten out again morally, and recuperate. She felt no remorse
+at all, but she began to study that which had made her err: a society,
+with its ideals of the most adroit slander; knowledge of all that is
+none of our business, ostentation, wealth, rank, and birth, though ever
+so evilly sustained, or disgraced or dishonoured; the adroitness of
+shallow sarcasm and silly flippancy; and the real meaning of vogue and
+fashion; and finally the awkward, blundering manner in which even these
+wretched fancies were carried out by nine-tenths of their devotees,
+real and accomplished men and women of the world,--the true article
+being a great rarity even in Belgravia.
+
+Her self-examination was long and searching, sparing herself no pang,
+being as pitiless to the Me as to the Them. Having no other on whom
+to exercise her sarcasms, she turned them all on her own follies--not
+raving in despair, and calling herself a fool, but, as she indeed
+always did, finding out what was in the object thus illuminated and
+shown up. And it did her an immense amount of good. She had an awful
+crust of old dead shells, and a fearful lot of foul sea-weed to scrape
+away from the ship, ere it would sail well; but she _did_ it!
+
+For to do Jesabelle Rockhard justice, she had pluck and bottom, grit
+and endurance, and was not the kind of girl to throw up the game of
+life because she had lost a fairy wardrobe, or even the favour of
+a duchess; and not being French, but right valiant English of good
+fighting stock, she resolved to show fight, and put a good face on a
+bad game.
+
+All at once it occurred to her that the long and earnest reflection
+which she had given to herself and to society had developed the serious
+and sustained analysis of character which forms the real power of the
+novelist, and that which elevates him above the story-teller. She was
+seated at Brighton in the shingle on a fine day at noon, under an
+umbrella, when it came into her mind that as a novelist she could enter
+on a new life. It was like a great revelation, for with her clear,
+vigorous, well-informed mind, she grasped all the possibilities of such
+a career, and its tremendous power.
+
+Once in history, when women came a-cropper in any earthly way, they
+went into a convent; now they go into a publisher’s--that is to say,
+they write or re-write a novel.
+
+All geniuses are white-washed.
+
+A woman of genius may pawn her reputation when an obscurity dare not
+look over the fence.
+
+Make yourself a celebrity, and society will do the rest.
+
+Nine-tenths of notoriety consists not of what people know, but what
+they say about anybody.
+
+If you have sinned, there are two ways to be forgiven. Either repent
+your evil deeds or describe those of others.
+
+The most certain way to make two thousand a year by writing novels is
+to tell all your friends in confidence that you earn one thousand.
+
+Understandest thou this--or what?
+
+A gypsy woman of her acquaintance from whom she bought bouquets, and
+whose shrewd observations had often amused her, came up and gave her
+what is called in tramp slang a _lyover_, in Romany a _ruzhia_, and in
+English a flower.
+
+‘Tell me, Amalthea Cooper,’ she inquired, ‘what do you understand by
+society? Give me a sixpence worth of information!’
+
+‘When any kind of a lot of people gets together anyhow,’ replied
+Amalthea, after a grave pause, ‘it’s a mob. When there’s a-many that
+generally assembles, such as three or four _tans_ or families, it’s
+what we calls in our language the _Sweti_, or our world. But when they
+are of the same kind of folk, and are invited to a drop of tea or beer,
+or to have something and a talk--and one, may be, plays a tune on a
+fiddle--why, that’s society.’
+
+‘And what do they talk about?’ inquired Jesabelle.
+
+‘Well,’ answered the gypsy with a smile, ‘mostly about how one has been
+sent to _staripen_, or prison, for stealin’--and what a fool he was to
+let himself be took--and how other folks has run off with one another
+wives, and the like um-moralitys, and how some larrups their _romis_,
+or _morts_, which is wives and missuses, and all such little _rakapen_
+or gossip--and that’s what I calls society.’
+
+‘_C’est tout comme chez nous_,’ remarked Miss Rockhard. ‘Here is your
+sixpence, Amalthea. Decidedly I will take to novelling.’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a magnificent success, as great as the toilets had been, and to
+Miss Jesabelle in her new mind infinitely more gratifying. She didn’t
+deserve it, good people may say, but somehow Jesabelle _did_ write
+brilliant books, and rose to the top of the wave. Even the incident of
+the evening at the duchess’s was now narrated as an eccentricity of
+genius, and when it was mentioned men in the clubs said: ‘Ah, my dear
+fellow, excuse me, you haven’t got the right rendering of that story.’
+Finally it settled into two versions: one of the sporting world, which
+found its way into the _Blue ‘Un_, that ‘Jes’ had done it for a wager,
+which was in a way true; and the other more humane legend, that it was
+at the request of the duchess, who had begged her to sing the ‘Lunatic
+Bar-Maid’ in character.
+
+And her novels were stinging, I warrant you. As she became amiable
+personally she grew savage in literature. She gave it to society and
+fashion _à la_ aquafortis; and as society did not see itself but only
+its friends in her scathing speeches, it was perfectly delighted. She
+did not touch lightly and gently and pityingly, as I have done, on its
+poor little imperfections; she ripped them up as with a scalper in the
+hands of a Red Indian, or a familiar tormentor of the Inquisition at a
+five o’clock tea. I never could learn that it did any good, for even
+the victims felt pride at being shown up in good company as worthy of
+note; but her books sold, and she was famous.
+
+‘Heaven help their souls, they’d rather be’ _et cetera_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was more than a year after the events here narrated had taken place,
+and Miss Rockhard had greatly improved on her celebrity by a ‘stunning
+second,’ or another novel, that she found herself again at Brighton,
+seated as before under a white umbrella. She was reading proofs, which
+is of itself a bliss to a young writer, as strong minds as hers love
+to speak of ‘_my_ publisher,’ and this was mingled with a mild, vague
+impression of children digging with wooden spades, negro minstrels,
+ballad-singers, flower-girls, bathing-machines, the flow of a thousand
+voices, the broad-spreading, blue ocean, and ships far off and out at
+sea, with the sun upon their sails.
+
+When lifting her eyes they encountered the gaze of another pair, which
+for an instant half prolonged her dreamy mood in dim conjecture, till
+she recognised in the other the somewhat remarkable character who had,
+indirectly, had such a wondrous influence on her fate. It was indeed
+the Great and Wise Flaxius, _in propria persona_, who had taken unto
+himself a pennyworth of chair at a little distance, which distance he
+promptly proceeded to diminish when he perceived that the lady had not
+forgotten him.
+
+‘It is a long time since we first met,’ said Miss Rockhard. ‘Nearly two
+years.’
+
+‘Nearly two thousand years,’ replied Flaxius in a strangely solemn
+voice, _wie Glocketon und Orgelklang_. ‘Yes, quite two thousand, though
+learned critics of the _Kethubim_ differ as to the date, and Jochanan
+and Ben Hillel think--but never mind! ’Tis so.’
+
+‘And who was I then?’ inquired Miss Rockhard, entering, as she thought,
+into the spirit of one of Flaxius’s strange jests.
+
+‘Truly a _femme incomprise_, and one who died, in fact, misunderstood,
+just as you might have done had you made your exit some two years ago,
+since at that time you did not really understand yourself.’
+
+‘I think,’ replied the dear young lady, ‘that is strictly true of the
+whole silly sisterhood.’ She said it with a deep blush, though not a
+blusher in a general way, for she recalled the last interview, much in
+sorrow, not at all in wrath. ‘But who was I, two millennia gone by?’
+
+‘The wife of King Ahab of the Jews, the very much distinguished
+Jezebel.’
+
+Truly this was a shake for Miss Rockhard, and the blush came up as a
+flush somewhat heightened; yet she said with a smile:
+
+‘I regret that you only remember me as the greatest iniquity of the Old
+Testament. I am curious to know if you admired me very much in that
+character?’
+
+‘Not in that character, but in your true one, which, I declare
+sincerely and without paradox, has been most cruelly misrepresented.’
+
+‘As it is a personal matter,’ rejoined Miss Rockhard, ‘I need not say
+that I am all expectancy and attention.’
+
+‘Very well. Who is it that describes Jezebel for us? A personal enemy
+of extreme bitterness, and one of a race approving death and murder in
+any form, when any one of the _Goyim_, or Gentiles, is concerned.’
+
+‘I never thought of that,’ said Jesabelle reflectively. ‘And religious
+antipathy must have been stronger among the Hebrews than in any other
+race, for they were strong-minded.’
+
+‘Yes,’ replied Flaxius, ‘it is too generally lost sight of in Church
+histories that those who make the best martyrs are also best martyring
+others. But to return to Jezebel. The first and chief crime with which
+she is charged is remaining steadfast to that polytheistic Syrian
+religion in which she was brought up, and to which she was in duty
+bound to be attached, since her father was King of Zidon, and in a
+sense its head. The King of the Jews married her, and was fascinated
+by the charms of that splendid and sensual system which seemed so
+attractive, compared to the grim, Hebrew, ascetic monotheism, which
+gave no joyousness to this life, neither did it promise a future as did
+the Syrian, so that it came to pass that the greatest and wisest men
+among the Hebrews often adopted it, and it more than once happened that
+nearly all Israel went over to it.
+
+‘Now bear in mind, my friend,’ said Flaxius with a smile, ‘that in
+reading the Book of Kings we generally go as in a torrent of headlong
+agreement with the writer, who assumes, as a matter of course, that
+everybody who is not a Hebrew monotheist, and an implicit believer in
+all that the prophets are _said to have said_, and all that is told
+about them, is utterly wicked beyond all sinners, and deserving death.’
+
+‘That is true,’ assented Miss Rockhard.
+
+‘The prophet whom Jezebel threatened in a rage because he had put to
+death the priests of her own religion, who were probably her intimate
+friends and relations, is Elijah--Elia--who with the masculine
+termination appears in Greek as Helios, the sun, who, like the latter,
+goes up to, or over, the heaven in a chariot of fire, after performing
+the preliminary Moses-miracle of dividing the water of a stream. I
+think that we may set aside Jezebel’s sins as regarded this very
+mythical character as dubiously inconsiderable. And when we reflect
+that the Hebrews slew one hundred thousand Syrians in one day, as we
+read in the twenty-ninth verse of the twentieth chapter of Kings,
+simply for differences of religious opinion, the whole war being
+stimulated by prophets and priests, the slaughter of a few prophets
+ascribed to Jezebel may well pass as an incident of war. These great
+bands of one hundred and fifty prophets seem to have been identical
+with the roaming _Darweesh_ of the Arabs, whose business it is to stir
+up war. We are accustomed to feel awe at the prophets, because they
+usually appear singly in their majesty, like God, but these bands of
+one hundred and fifty, all prophesying _en masse_, rather detract from
+the dignity of the profession.
+
+‘Now, as regards Naboth’s vineyard, it was unquestionably a wicked
+deed. Ahab had offered Naboth, the Jezreelite, a _better_ vineyard for
+his own, or its worth in money, and Ahab was the king. The refusal was
+a bitter blow before all the world; so bitter that the king became ill,
+and seemed to be dying, because he had been, as he conceived, insulted.
+
+‘Now there is no proof that Jezebel cared two-pence for the vineyard,
+but she was passionately fond of her family and husband. She had
+been born and brought up to familiarity with excess of bloodshed for
+trifles; she had seen all the priests whom she revered, and _one
+hundred thousand_ of her own people killed for adhering to their own
+religion, and as she preferred the life of Ahab to that of Naboth, and
+being an unquestionably clever and vigorous woman, she easily contrived
+to have the latter put out of the way. One _evil deed_ does not excuse
+another, but it is worth observing that pious King David was guilty
+of a very similar, but far viler and more nefarious transaction, as
+regarded Uriah’s wife, for which _he_ was indeed only vicariously
+punished, while Jezebel was made to suffer not only by loss of husband
+and son, but most cruelly _in person_.
+
+‘Now we come to the end of the tragedy. Jehu, after having murdered
+Jehoram in a cowardly and treacherous manner, returned to Jerusalem.
+And here the narrator by a most ingenious little touch of art has
+contrived to say something of Jezebel which has done more to make her
+appear infamous by her biographer than every thing else accusative--if
+indeed he meant it--which may be doubtful. It is the simple statement
+that, “When Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she
+_painted her face_ and tired her head, and looked out at a window.”
+From which has come the popular saying of “painted Jezebels,”
+suggesting vile women covered with rouge.’
+
+‘And even rouge is not quite a sin; if it be, God help Belgravia!’
+remarked Miss Rockhard.
+
+‘And yet she was not even rouged,’ added Flaxius, for the Hebrew
+original says, “put her eyes in painting,” which means that she drew
+lines with _Kohl_ or antimony powder under her eyelashes, as was the
+usual custom with _all_ women, good or bad, all over the East, where
+it is common to this day. It amounted to no more than putting on a
+bonnet or drawing on a pair of gloves. As for “tiring her head,”’
+added Flaxius solemnly, and almost sadly, ‘when I think how Isaiah and
+Jeremiah must have tired the heads and hearts of all Israel with their
+lamentations, I can pass over Jezebel’s work. It was her own business.
+
+‘And when the brutal and cowardly assassin Jehu entered, she addressed
+him as only an injured wife and mother and a woman of marvellous wit
+and deep feeling could have done, with the cleverest, keenest, and most
+succinct sarcasm or reproach ever uttered. It was simply, “Had Zimri
+peace who slew his master?” Few at the present day realise how stinging
+this question was. To an extremely superstitious and brutal man like
+Jehu, fearful of omens, and uneasy as to the crimes of regicide, it was
+maddening. But the woman never existed who wouldn’t have said it, if
+she could have thought of it.’
+
+‘I am sure that _I_ should, under the circumstances,’ replied the young
+lady, ‘though I knew that all the vengeance in the hand of man was to
+follow.’
+
+‘So she was thrown out of the window, and Jehu killed her, stamping the
+bruised woman under his own feet in his frenzied rage, so that, as it
+is written, “some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the
+horses,” showing how high it must have jetted up, and how savagely she
+was trampled on by the infuriated Jew.
+
+‘Even the eating of Jezebel by dogs is told in such a manner as to
+convey an impression of infamy and guilt on her part. But if Jehu, or
+any other Jew or Gentile, or anything eatable, were thrown to the dogs
+in Jerusalem to-day, they would soon finish it. When the soul is gone,
+it matters little how the poor shell of humanity is treated. But I
+find something very degrading and disgraceful in the manner in which
+the writer dwells upon and exults in the fact that the ‘carcase’ of
+Jezebel was insulted, and that dogs ate her flesh. It would have been
+more creditable to Elijah, and to all concerned, if they had given her
+burial as became a king’s daughter. For she was queenly, and showed no
+fear in her last moment, and when she knew that death was at hand, she
+calmly made her toilet, as a lady would, to appear well, like Queen
+Catherine, to the last, and greeted her foe with a richly deserved
+reproof, and not with prayers for mercy. Yes, she died like one of
+royal race.’
+
+‘Mr. Flaxius,’ said Miss Jesabelle, ‘do you know that if I should ever
+come into court, as defendant, in anything from pitch and toss up to
+murder, anarchy, or high treason, I should like to have you for my
+counsel. I believe that you would make me out an angel, even to my own
+conviction.’
+
+‘The usual formula of polite society would be,’ replied Flaxius, ‘to
+say that I have always been convinced myself of the fact. But as I have
+not, and would be very much puzzled to know how to dispose of any such
+feathered anomaly, all I can say is that if you were no more guilty
+than I believe Jezebel to have been, I would accept the case with
+alacrity, and clear you, if there be such a thing as justice in the
+land.’
+
+‘Since you have defended Jezebel so well,’ replied the lady, ‘perhaps
+you could say a word for Herodias. I always understood that the
+_Advocatus diaboli_ was the prosecuting attorney, but in this case he
+appears for the defence.’
+
+‘Herodias,’ said the sage, ‘was a bird of a very different colour,
+but, like all the rest, she was a _femme incomprise_. And to begin
+with, the original of the name, who is to this very day recognised
+among the older witches in Italy as their queen, jointly with Diana,
+was of remote Oriental origin, or the same as Lilith of the Jews. She
+was eminently the fair demon of fascination who was “simply killing,”
+and you must bear it in mind that something of all this devilry was in
+the mind of the good Christians who wrote about the lady of the New
+Testament who danced Herod off his head and the head off Saint John.
+And the original Herodias was as certainly the goddess of dancing,
+which was a serious and terrible means of bewitchment in the olden
+time.[11]
+
+‘In regard to the transaction described in the later Scripture, it is
+marvellous that no writer has ever treated it from a modern-society,
+Christian, five-o’clock-tea, practical point of view. Suppose a
+lady--an intelligent, accomplished widow who has had a pleasant life
+as wife of the governor of Paryobberee, or Cathay. The governor dies,
+his brother succeeds to the appointment, and marries the widow, as was
+strictly commanded in the Old Testament; from which book sundry moderns
+derive the command that a man is not to marry his wife’s sister.’
+
+‘Consistency, thou art a jewel!’ interpolated Miss Rockhard.
+
+‘Well he marries the widow, or, it may be, the fraternal divorced wife.
+Then uprises a clergyman of a new sect, with what were considered
+eccentric new views, who has tremendous influence among the people,
+and informs the governor that his marriage is illegal. And _then_,
+fancy the feelings of Herodias! On one hand divorce and perhaps death
+or poverty, with a charming daughter just coming out; on the other a
+prophet of the wildest description. And it was considered to be such a
+remarkably natural, trifling, and commonplace thing in those days to
+put anybody to death who was in your way, if you had the power to do
+it; just as good John Calvin did with Servetus when the latter got in
+_his_ way, or as some millions of heretics were disposed of, mostly
+with antecedent torture, by “meek, merciful, all-Christlike Mother
+Church.” And so Herodias did what the grand majority of worldly-minded,
+High or Low Church, Christian matrons and mammas would do to-day, under
+the same circumstances--if they could--and put Saint John out of the
+way.
+
+‘This is the legend of Herodias.’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There was a long silence, when Flaxius said:
+
+‘Now tell me, if under the same conditions of secrecy as before, and
+with all your recent experience and newly acquired wisdom, would you
+accept the marvellous wardrobe of the fairy Alban once more, for if you
+will take it you shall have it, forthwith?’
+
+Miss Rockhard had for months reflected on and studied this very
+question to its very lees. But she took a minute--two minutes--to her
+reply, and when she spoke it was with emotion close to tears, but with
+firm voice:
+
+‘Oh, I thank you from my very heart, for I feel deeply that this offer
+_now_ is a thousand times kinder than was the first. But I have had
+my lesson, and I hope I do not need another--when I _do_, you will, I
+hope,’--here she looked up with a sad, sweet smile.
+
+(‘She is immensely prettier than she used to be,’ thought Flaxius.)
+
+‘You will I hope not spare me. But as for the wardrobe, it is best
+where it is--in fairy hands. Nor would I know anything more of magic or
+_occulta_ or mysteries, for I have learned what few know, that no human
+nature, unless perhaps it be gifted as few are, and has had years of
+training, can keep, or is fit to know, such secrets. It will be time to
+attend to them when we shall have exhausted science.’
+
+‘Yes,’ replied Flaxius, ‘when you exhaust science a little more, you
+will indeed find that magic is beginning in earnest.’
+
+‘And so,’ added Jesabelle with a smile, as they rose to depart--I dare
+say it was in the direction of Mutton’s, to lunch--‘we learn from past
+trials and bitter storms how in future to keep under shelter, and seek
+only the sunny way.
+
+‘“For all experience is an arch where through Gleams that untravelled
+world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever as we roam.”’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Haec fabula docet,_ ‘ye morale of whych lytil historie,’ pens Flaxius
+as usual on the galley, ‘is that we should, firstly, not believe the
+worst of anybody, be it derived from their own manner, and demeanour,
+or from oral or written report, and above all have patience with them,
+and try to help them to a better state. For, verily, this Miss Rockhard
+was a hard nut to crack, and enough to daunt the devil, or any decent
+man as I first met her, and a hard time I had with her, yet did she
+come out ‘all right as a trivet,’ a _trivet_ being, as ye know, dearly
+beloved, a _tripod_, and the reference ‘all right’ to the infallible
+accuracy of the Delphic oracle, which is, however, a fact not generally
+known. For of all things a three-legged stool stands most securely.
+
+As for the manner in which any evil report may be cruelly and
+undeservedly attached to a name, there is still a word to be said for
+belle Jezebel of Hebrew history. When I of late defended her character,
+I was rebuffed with the remark that there was in the Book of Kings a
+distinct assertion that she was a--ahem!--social evil--and a witch:
+this being the speech of Jehu, Kings II. 9, v. 22.
+
+Now be it observed that the expression here employed is to be found
+over and over again in the Old Testament, and in almost every instance
+is used not to signify any adultery or individual immorality, but to
+discredit the Syrian religion. It was a very nasty and unmanly form
+of abuse which the Hebrew prophets, and Saint John, used far too
+freely, on _all_ occasions, to characterise everything theological
+which displeased them; just as sailors and the like use ‘bloody,’ _et
+cetera_, very often with no meaning whatever, or as the gentlemen and
+ladies of Houndsditch cry out _noffgur_ and _ben-noffgur_, and so
+forth, far too freely to all offenders. This speech of Jehu’s was, it
+is true, used not in the Pickwickian sense, but most certainly in the
+theological, which is the next thing to it. For the first impulse of
+the _odium theologicum_ is, to be ‘nasty.’
+
+Now a good tough nature like Jesabelle’s, when really honest, is
+all the better and cleaner for a good mangling. As was beautifully
+expressed by the ancients as follows--
+
+[Illustration]
+
+that is, three V’s, meaning _Virtus virtute virescit_, Virtue
+flourishes by virtue, signifying that like the chamomile it grows the
+more for being trampled on. To the present day this sign is often to
+be seen on the walls of Florence, scratched in chalk or charcoal, and
+prefixed to the names of popular favourites. It is generally believed
+to be a monogram of _Evviva_!
+
+[10] Vide _Etruscan-Roman Remains_, by Charles Godfrey Leland: London,
+Fisher Unwin.
+
+[11] Here the chronicler of Flaxius would fain get in a little
+_réclame_, by mentioning that Herodias and Diana have a small book to
+themselves in _Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches_, by Charles Godfrey
+Leland. London: D. Nutt.
+
+
+
+
+HOW FLAXIUS SAT AS JUDGE WITH A JURY OF TWELVE DEVILS
+
+‘Sono demoni chi rappresentano il popolaccio del inferno, mentre che i
+diavoli ne sono i principi e i gran signori.’
+
+‘There are demons who represent the populace of hell, while the devils
+are its nobility and great gentlemen; and some of these have left a
+name, such as it is, in books on strange subjects.--_Del Diavolo, a
+Treatise_, 1870.
+
+
+THE Sun had drowned himself in the sea, and his widow, the Sky, after
+dissipating the evening gold which he had left, was contracting a
+second marriage with Night, who brought her as settlement the silver
+moon and the whole heavenly sack of stars, when Flaxius wandered along
+alone by the wild, wailing waves, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling,
+and hearing the sweet-salt, vapoury ocean breeze. So he went on--it was
+a lonely coast--till he encountered a shepherd established in a hut of
+stones and turf; a tenement so small as to bear to its inhabitant the
+relation a shell bears to a tortoise.
+
+‘Is there any place hereabout,’ asked Flaxius, ‘where I could lodge for
+the night?’
+
+‘None for near a five mile,’ answered the herd, removing the slender
+pipe of clay from his lips; ‘leastwise none where yer could get _hin_.
+That is, ’cept the Devil’s Den, a hold ouse, furder on, and _there_,’
+he added emphatically, ‘I reckon yer’d only be too glad to get _hout_.’
+
+‘Why?’ inquired Flaxius.
+
+‘’Cos it’s ruined--wuss than Jane Shoree hever wus by the royal
+_rep-ro-bate_,’ replied the herd, who appeared to have some tincture of
+letters.
+
+‘Is it roofed?’
+
+‘Roofed and water-proofed,’ was the reply. ‘’Taint _there_ that the
+affliction commences. I mean ruined in reppertation and char-ac-ter.
+It’s mellincolly and hin bad sperits--leastways bad sperits is in
+hit--an’ always were--since the smugglers left hoff usin’ hof hit. Hits
+‘osts his ghosts.’
+
+Flaxius gave the man a deeply pensive look, and a small silver coin.
+The herd replied with a six-pence-ive smile of gratitude. ‘Sir,’ he
+exclaimed, ‘“you are a good Lot,” as the lady said to her ’usband
+before she turned to a piller hof salt.’
+
+‘How can I be a lot, being but one?’ inquired Flaxius.
+
+‘Hi call a cove good com-peny when a penny come to me from ’im,’
+replied the shepherd. ‘You stand six hof ’em. You’re more’n a cove,
+you’re a whole covey hof birds, a multitood o’ virtues, a ‘arf dozener.’
+
+The sage went on from pile to pile of pebbles, or earth, marked with
+whitewash to serve the coast-guards as guides in darkness, till he
+beheld before him the shelter which he sought. It was a dilapidated
+stone house of the Jacobean time and style; not unpicturesque,
+gracefully draped with ivy, and as it stood in the light of a full
+moon on a rising rocky platform, with a sea-view circling round, there
+was in it something which irresistibly recalled scenes in theatres and
+novels, smugglers, witches, Guy Mannering, and Anne the uncanny of
+Geierstein.
+
+But what gave it specially this appearance to Flaxius was the gleam
+from within of a light, which he knew at once was lit by no mortal
+match and fed by no earthly oil or fuel. It rose and fell, quivering
+and thrilling like a Northern light, sometimes causing the building to
+appear as if in flame, and then shrinking to an arrowy ray, or a mere
+needle, changing to many hues in which, however, a sulphur blue ever
+predominated. And with its changes there rang in time and measure, high
+or low, unearthly laughter, strange shouts or ululations, sinking to
+stranger humming or buzzing, and passing to a dreamy melody in softened
+shade, all at once broken up by a startling blare and flare and wild
+vociferation in strange tongues.
+
+It required little reflection for the Magian to conjecture the nature
+of the company from whom such sounds proceeded, nor was he astonished,
+after opening the door, entering the hall, and uttering the wizard
+greeting, which proclaimed his nature, to see the sight which met his
+eyes.
+
+Round about a great block of sandstone, which served for a table,
+and on which stood two open cases of gin, several loose bottles, a
+ten-gallon demijohn of whisky, a raisin box full of Perique, or _favori
+du diable_ tobacco, and an ancient, much-thumbed manuscript bound
+in sheet-iron, sat lolling and sprawling in all the extravagance of
+unconventional ease, on divans or seats, also of stone, twelve demons,
+or spirits of that kind whose mission it is in life to busy themselves
+especially with all that is mischievous, reckless, stirring, wild,
+eccentric, or subversive. That is to say, they are always occupied
+with what they call ‘whooping it up’; aiding and encouraging youth to
+paint towns red, inspiring Celtic politics, whether French or Irish,
+organising riots, editing society newspapers, evoking up divorces,
+anarchising, and filling police courts with cases. They were all
+smoking and drinking, and seemed to be earnestly occupied with some
+extremely interesting subject of debate; the intensity or moderation of
+which was manifested in the _crescendo_, or _diminuendo_, of a flame
+rising from a great terra-cotta vase, and by the tones of their voices.
+
+‘Hallo, old Flax, is that you?’ cried the only one of this precious
+company with whom the Sage had ever before made acquaintance. This was
+Slang--not by any means the worst of them, since his mission merely was
+to corrupt language, and invent all kinds of new, grotesque forms of
+speech. ‘_Mozeltoff!_ luck to you, old cove, _sās tute a kairin tiro
+kokero_?’ he continued in the tongue generally spoken among devils and
+goblins, ‘how have you been doing since they let you out?’
+
+‘_Kūshti adosta_, well enough,’ replied Flaxius in the same tone and
+tongue, for there never was man on earth who could so adapt himself
+gracefully to the most varied society or ‘all shorts and editions’ of
+life. ‘May I venture to ask for what purpose you gentlemen are here
+assembled?’
+
+‘_Lel a swägler an’ a cutter a mūl-tatto-pani_, take a pipe and a drop
+of brandy before we get to _biz_,’ exclaimed Slang, dusting a seat
+obsequiously as he spoke; and indeed it was quite evident, despite
+their swaggering impudence and their feet on the tables, that the whole
+party of demons were deeply sensible of the honour of entertaining such
+a distinguished guest. Flaxius accepted the refreshment, and sat down.
+
+‘What you behold,’ said Moloch, the _diavolo_ of Pessimism, ‘is a
+sad spectacle and a melancholy instance of diabolical deterioration,
+showing how even natures which have received every blessing of hell
+and all infernal advantages from the devil himself can become depraved
+to mere _inertia_. We are now a jury here assembled to try one of our
+number for his reputation. You, sir, though happily exempted from all
+such mutations, are aware that the limit of moral existence is one
+thousand years for a member of our order, unless he by progressive
+energy or genius advances himself, in which case he receives a renewal
+of his social lease. Now there is one of our number known as _Sneak_,
+who during all his snivelling millennium has never got beyond where he
+begun--or vulgarity and idle folly--including carrying and retailing
+petty gossip, teaching foolish old club-men and ladies how to twaddle
+about divorces and marriages, elopements, and relationships, gleaning
+trash and mean slander from low servants, and sticking _just there_.
+Such an existence, we hold, is too contemptible for even the meanest
+devil in Inferno; hence this jury, to decide whether the creature shall
+exist among us any longer; and as our judge has failed to put in an
+appearance we respectfully request your Wisdom to take his place as
+referee.’
+
+‘I consent with pleasure,’ said Flaxius. ‘Produce the culprit!’
+
+A truculent-looking demon named Dobble, whose department was
+quarrelling, the prize-ring, rencounters, and rows, here arose, went
+to a corner, put a box under his arm, brought it to the table, opened
+it, and took from it a form pressed flat like a pair of trousers in
+a trunk. This he unfolded--blew it up like a bladder by means of the
+stem of his clay-pipe--and gave it a drink of whisky, when lo! the form
+assumed some semblance of, if not humanity, at least demonity. It was
+a wretched-looking phantom, something in it recalling a battered Punch
+or tattered Ally Sloper, a Paul Pry, a thing without a conscience or
+moral sense, yet not without prying inquisitiveness or petty cunning--a
+poor _simulacrum_ of a popular, paltry jest. It sat up and grinned, and
+leered, without a trace of fear, as if--all its function finished--it
+had nothing else to do but to die game, as vulgar, second-hand
+tradition enjoined its kind to do.
+
+‘I appear here,’ said Moloch, not without dignity, ‘as _advocatus
+diaboli_, or public prosecutor. The entire life and actions of this
+sneak, whom I will not honour with the name of devil, or even imp, are
+so well known to all here present as to render a formal indictment a
+work of supererogation. Yet that all due formalities may be properly
+fulfilled, I ask the accused if he demands that any accusation be made?’
+
+To which the culprit replied by casting up his head, and saying, in a
+tone which would have elicited roars of applause in a music hall:
+
+‘_Ya-ap!_ Who’re _you_? Shut up!’
+
+‘An indictment is therefore needless. Let me here remark, gentlemen,’
+said Moloch, with great impressiveness, ‘that though we may all be
+demons, and even the humblest of our order, our mission is _not_, as is
+vulgarly supposed, to do evil. It is simply agitation and action.’
+
+‘To keep things a-bilin’,’ interposed Slang.
+
+‘Quite true. The honourable gentleman who has just interrupted me is,
+for example, often accused of mere vulgarity, but unjustly. He may be
+a rude poet, but he invents new similes and vigorous racy words which
+are often wanting. I myself--in many ways--by introducing Pessimism
+to society, and by raising the question as to whether life is worth
+living, caused a discussion which rendered me worthy of receiving a
+renewal of my lease of life. The pugnacity of my colleague Dobble has
+its silver lining--it provokes resistance, argument, and conclusion. We
+may all be a rough lot with a hard bark, but there is _wood_ in us. But
+the accused is all rotten bark and no bite, and _hollow_. Vulgarity,
+twaddle, gossip, and small-talk are all one and the same thing; and
+the mind devoted to them alone stagnates and putrefies. The spirit of
+it dies very slowly, gentlemen; but if nothing better can be said of
+this _fin de siècle_, it must be at least admitted that this century
+has witnessed no advance in vulgarity and the pettiness which kills for
+everything. Gentlemen, I await your verdict?’
+
+‘GUILTY, in large capitals,’ cried Slang, who seemed to be foreman.
+‘We’re all agreed like a rope of inyons.’
+
+‘Prisoner,’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘have you anything to say why sentence
+of non-renewal of existence should not be passed on you.’
+
+‘Oh, a’nt I just?’ screamed Sneak in a Punch tone. ‘Call _me_ vulgar
+do yer, yer vaggabones--me that moves in the highest circles among the
+biggest suckers! Listen to _this_!’ And with that, he drew from his
+pocket a fashionable weekly newspaper, well known on every stand, and
+proceeded to read from it such a mass of drivelling silliness relating
+to the pettiest acts or tastes of the upper classes, including that
+of royalty itself, and all that constituted what _it_ regarded as
+‘Society,’ that even Flaxius was fain to drink another glass of brandy,
+and light a cigar to enable him to sustain the infliction. At last it
+came to an end.
+
+‘There!’ exclaimed Sneak triumphantly. ‘That’s what Erbamala, the great
+_noveliste_, and I call human nature. The best art is the depicting
+that--it pays best--and I’m the spirit who inspires it all. There I
+rest my defence.’
+
+‘The defence,’ said Flaxius, ‘has aggravated the offence.’
+
+‘Well, my time is not out, and you’ll find that I shall drag on awhile
+longer.’
+
+‘True,’ observed Flaxius, ‘but observe that there _was_ a time when you
+had a place, such as it was, among those who are here present. Now it
+is lost; even the demons of the present day disown you. Therefore I
+pronounce you dead _de facto_, for those for whom you now live among
+mortals have no intellects. Begone!’
+
+The foreman opened a window, and the living dead whisked out of it,
+like a great carrion blue-bottle with a buzz.
+
+‘Did the deceased leave any property on which to administer?’ asked
+Boodle, the modern incarnation of Mammon.
+
+‘Yes, he left ME,’ piped a small voice. And a sharp little imp, two
+inches in height, sprang on the table. ‘I’m _Puttuli_.’
+
+‘Immortalised by Musæus,’ said Moloch. ‘You were used to go about to
+people’s pockets and report what you found therein to your master.’
+
+‘Yes, but I can do more than that,’ replied Puttuli. ‘I can observe and
+report anything.’
+
+‘Well, none of us want you,’ cried Slang, ‘you little, sneaking,
+spying villain. So be off with you by the first boat--quicker than
+immediately, if not sooner.’
+
+‘Nay,’ said Flaxius, ‘he may be useful if properly employed. With your
+permission, gentlemen, I will take him.’
+
+And as there was no dissenting voice, the wise Flaxius departed
+with Puttuli in his pocket. And he soon found that he had indeed a
+pocket-companion, and voluble--if not valuable--_vade-mecum_, for
+the diminutive imp was what a distinguished American writer calls an
+‘amoosin’ little cuss,’ and ‘especially good at beguiling off the odd
+corners of the weary hours.’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘_Haec fabula docet_,’ wrote Flaxius, ‘or its moral is--not what too
+many satirists so sadly wail--that Sneak actually represents the spirit
+of this bottom of the century, but its very dregs, which are, however,
+stirred up too much by the spoons of small writers into what would be,
+but for them, a clear, exhilarating beverage. The very devils, whose
+agitation in a certain way leads ever to something that is good, find
+their work hindered by this imp of pettiness. Prosperity and peace,
+or its stagnation, engender the birth of such mosquitoes. A roaring
+torrent of even dirty water is better, for it will wash itself clean
+ere long, but a standing pool only creates vile insects and malaria.
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS AND THE BOOKSELLER
+
+  ‘“L’amour des livres est plus utile que vous ne croyez,” dit le
+  capitaine, “car je trouve dans mes études un calme qui vous manque.
+  Vous ne soupçonnez pas tout ce qu’une manie a de précieux, docteur!
+  Elle occupe comme une passion, et n’a aucun de ses tourments.
+  Croyez-moi, puisque la vie n’est après tout qu’une voiture mal
+  suspendue qui nous conduit à la mort, les sages sont ceux qui baissent
+  les stores, sans songer au but ni aux cahots.”’
+
+  _Souvenirs d’un Bas Breton, par Émile Souvestre._
+
+
+  ‘Few are the men who know what lives do hide,
+  Or dream what demons lurk, or fairies flit,
+  In places which to them seem dull and tame,
+  Even as a drop of water to the eye
+  Appears to it like naught; but take to it a glass,
+  And lo it is a sea with monsters filled,
+  Devouring, making love, or raging wild--
+  Full many a heart is like that water drop.’
+
+
+THE day had been grim and ill-tempered--flitting fitfully through all
+the phases of bad weather--promising at times, like a deceitful child,
+to be good, when it would clear a little into curling mists, through
+which there came a doubtful ray of light--when straight anon there fell
+a dismal fog, then wild rain, maddened by the roaring of the wind--for
+’tis terrible mourning when any one cries aloud and weeps at the same
+time--_laut aufweinend_--as the Germans say.
+
+Oh, I warrant you that the rusty weather-cocks, as they whirled round
+and round, and screamed as if crowing to the _Wilde Jäger_, in the old
+town of Nuremberg, and the wind low-waving like the deep baying of his
+hounds made a fine witches’-chorus that night--yea, the very gutters in
+their unwonted joy at becoming bounding brooks sang gurgling songs as
+they hurried along to leap into the Pegnitz....
+
+‘’Tis a _Sauwetter_--yea, a _Hundeswetter_--a swine and dog weather,’
+exclaimed the little old man to Flaxius, as the latter refuged himself
+just long enough to turn his umbrella, which had been reversed into
+a great goblet by a sudden squall, under an arch. This arch was over
+the projecting doorway of a shop; ’twas immensely massive from the
+old, bold time, and I warrant you that Albert Dürer and Willibald
+Pirckheimer and Hans Sachs and all of ’em had passed under it often.
+
+‘I could make better weather,’ added the old man, ‘with only a rusty
+tea-kettle and a pint of----’
+
+Flaxius looked up. There was a little, half-obliterated sign over the
+ancient door, which had once proclaimed to the world that here was a
+_Buchhandlung_ or book-shop, but like an ancient warrior, with stress
+of time and battling with the elements, it had forgotten most of its
+letters.
+
+‘You sell books?’ replied Flaxius.
+
+‘How do you know _that_?’ asked the little man, with a quick,
+suspicious glance, as if a secret which he wished to keep hidden had
+been revealed.
+
+‘And you have for sale a fine copy of the _Emblemata_ of Iselburg
+in old German rhyme, published in Nuremberg in Fifteen Hundred and
+Seventeen ... and a superbly bound exemplar of the _Altdeutsche Wälder_
+of Grimm.’
+
+‘Not for sale--not for sale--oh, no!’ exclaimed the little old man
+eagerly. ‘They belong to my private library.’
+
+‘Also the _Mascarades Monastiques_ of Rabelli,’ pursued Flaxius
+pitilessly.
+
+‘’Tis sold,’ cried the Bookseller, as if alarmed.
+
+‘It isn’t; but never mind, I don’t want to buy them, yet I would like
+to see your collection.’
+
+‘_A--ch, so!_’ responded the ancient, visibly relieved. ‘_Komm herein,
+du lieber Gast, wenn du nichts im Beutel hast._
+
+
+  ‘“Enter as a welcome guest,
+  If thou really nothing hast,
+  If thou’rt poor then sit thee down
+  If thou’st money, get thee gone!”’
+
+
+And with this invitation, he led the way into a marvellous old German
+interior, which looked as if it had been painted by some artist who
+was, as I once heard a French artist say, ‘mad on the Middle Age and
+earlier time.’ For it was heavily arched, and looked like the crypt
+of a cathedral, or the _Stube_ of the Giant Tavern in the Hof-Gasse
+of Innsbruck, which is, indeed, lovely to behold, and far away finer
+than the Auerbach Keller of Leipzig. All around were books: books of
+tarnished gold in old ivory-parchment bindings; books in tremendous
+plank covers of old oak, knobbed with bronze or iron, like castle
+doors; books in marvellous cut-vellum, with rich Gothic grotesques,
+and silver clasps of extravagant richness; books on shelves and heaped
+up in piles like rubbish; everywhere books--and _such_ books! ’Twas a
+vision, a dream, an endless promise of a bibliomaniac’s paradise!
+
+And there the two sat for hours turning over the black letter of the
+olden time, like two wizards evoking the spirits of the dead, which,
+indeed, the scholar always does when he reads reverently in such books,
+which were made, and once studied, by the departed. For it is in his
+thoughts that the writer lives in after ages, and he is ever with us as
+we read.
+
+The dealer was enchanted also with his guest, hearing the wondrous
+words and ponderous stories, strange, which were uttered in calm,
+solemn tone; and a rapt shuddering stole over him as they turned some
+old and legend-leaved book, mysterious to behold, while he learned
+priceless secrets enhancing the value even of what he most esteemed.
+
+Flaxius took up an old work--_Das Schachzabel-spiel_ of Jacob Manuel of
+1536.
+
+‘There seems to be something in the binding,’ he said. ‘Perhaps some
+old paper. May I examine it?’
+
+He bent back with care the thin parchment, and drew out a manuscript of
+perhaps twenty leaves, which had been put in to stiffen the binding, as
+waste-paper.
+
+‘This is indeed a find,’ he solemnly remarked. ‘A great discovery.’
+
+‘What is it?’
+
+‘A manuscript play as yet unknown, by Hans Sachs, entitled _Die Weisse
+Rabe_, or, _The White Raven_, with the motto from the _Renner_ of
+Trimberg:
+
+
+  ‘“Selten wir gesehen haben
+  Swarze Swanen und weisse Raben.
+
+  Seldom have we ever seen
+  Black swans or ravens white I ween.”
+
+
+It bears the signature of the author: _Hans Sachs_.’
+
+‘Blessed be the storm which drove thee to my gate; blessed be this day
+and hour, and the mother who bore thee, and all and everything dear
+unto thee!’ cried the Bookseller. ‘Lo, it has been the dream of my life
+to find that play--I have seen it in visions, I have prayed for it; I
+would have given a finger, an eye, yea, my choicest book to even behold
+it.’
+
+‘And now it is thine,’ replied Flaxius gently. ‘And indeed it was--_de
+facto_--thine own discovery, since thou didst lead me here, and it was
+in thy possession.’
+
+The old man clasped the manuscript to his heart, and kissed it
+reverently; there was silence, save for the pattering of the rain, and
+anon a thunder peal, which seemed like a joyous _salvo_ fired off in
+honour of the event. The Bookseller rose with tottering steps.
+
+‘I will return anon,’ he said.
+
+He came back, bearing two ancient bottles covered with dust and
+cobwebs, and two tall, magnificent old glass goblets.
+
+‘There is no better wine, and none so old in Nuremberg,’ he exclaimed.
+‘I would not have offered it to the emperor; but, verily, we will
+carouse therewith--_vinum bonum et suave lætificat_.’
+
+‘_Gurgle, gluck, gluck!_’ sang the Wine as it came forth again into the
+world after a century of slumber.
+
+‘Hearest thou?’ cried the old man. ‘_Gluck, gluck!_ They are words of
+good omen. This day I have had good luck.’
+
+And he drank solemnly--_feierlich_--to his guest.
+
+‘The wine,’ said Flaxius, as he touched his glass to his host’s--it
+was like the ringing of cow-bells heard afar on a mountain side in
+the Tyrol--‘is like a butterfly long imprisoned as a chrysalis under
+earth, which now comes forth to shine in light for a brief space--the
+butterfly gladdens the child, and wine gladdens man.’
+
+‘And poetry like that gladdens everybody,’ cried the host; ‘albeit I
+confess that I love it best when it is printed in a rare old book.’
+
+‘What is this?’ said Flaxius, taking up a little manuscript.
+
+‘Truly a quaint thing, a fourteenth-century transcript, or translation
+of a far older work of earliest German times, the _Vision of Baldemar_,
+now lost. It is unique. I pray you accept it as a gift.’
+
+Flaxius would have declined the offer, but the old man, who had
+inquired the name of his visitor, took a pen and wrote therein in
+a very ancient, but distinct, hand, which seemed to be uniform and
+contemporary with the writing of the manuscript itself:
+
+
+  _To the Moſt Learned and Very Honourable
+         DOMINO FLAXIO_
+
+  _This Work is preſented with humbleſt Regards as a trifling
+         Teſtimonial of inexpreſſible Gratitude from his
+                Moſt Devoted Servant_
+
+                _BUCHERWURM SCHMOKER._
+
+  ~‘Hast mir geschassen großes Glück;~
+  ~Doch wenig geb’ ich Dir zurück:~
+         ~Giebst Du mir Was,~
+         ~Schenk’ ich Dir Das.’~
+
+  ‘_Great pleasure hast thou made for me
+  But little I return thee.
+         Thou giv’st a lot,
+         I but a jot._’
+
+
+‘What a thing,’ thought Flaxius, ‘it is for man in this life to set
+his mind on something, and when so setting to make a dead set, cooking
+all his victuals, as the gypsies say, “_adré yeck Kekavi_,” in one
+pot. For they hold by tradition--the Romany cook-book being as yet
+unpublished--that when all conceivable food is thus boiled it acquires,
+like Mississippi punch, an additional agreeable flavour with every
+new ingredient, eggs, carrots, ham, butter, chickens, bread, turnips,
+honey, hedgehogs, snails, oatcake, rice, herrings, a sucking-pig,
+mutton-chops, raisins, bacon, cold plum-pudding, cabbage and anything
+else edible being welcomed to the _mixtum-compositum_; which is
+declared to be so palatable that the author of _Rookwood_ assures us
+that when Dick Turpin the highwayman first tasted it he actually shed
+tears of delight.
+
+‘So hath it been with the venerable Bucherwurm Schmoker who hath
+cast into the one passion of antique literature all the emotions and
+feelings, hopes and affections of life. I have heard that among the
+Five Thousand Commandments which were appended by the devil and Society
+to those of Moses--the which I do propose some day to publish--there is
+one which says, “Put not all thy eggs into one basket.” But there is
+great pleasure in breaking commandments, especially when one desires,
+like the French lady, to make with them an _omelette aux confitures_;
+and there is also great delight in concentrating our feelings, as the
+devil observed when he saw that the mystics united the excess of piety
+with that of earthly pleasure. “_Cela suffit_”--quotha.
+
+‘This venerable Schmoker seems to me like the thorn-bush of the poet,
+of which it would be hard to say how it could ever have been young, it
+looks so old and grey, like rock or stone all overgrown with lichens to
+the very top, or thoughts of some primeval time which fain would give
+it all the grime which they have gathered up. Yet underneath this aged
+thorn there is a lovely hill of moss, wherein are exquisite curling
+lines and scarlet-orange-tawny-sable-ivory flowers, which, seen with
+a glass, do to perfection resemble the enlacements and tracery and
+fancied flowers of an illuminated manuscript; and therein and therefore
+do the fairies love to dwell and sit love-making of a moon-lit night.
+
+‘And if I think thereon I needs must laugh, remembering that all the
+world thinks that such an erudite old Dryasdust leads the most arid,
+infestive, humdrum, prosy life, given to old and long-forgotten things,
+buried in the rust of antiquity, palætiology, archæology, which all,
+like the Dismal Grove in Tieck’s wondrous tale, do but conceal a sunny
+elfin-land of quaint caprice and merry, wanton joy. As every antiquary
+and folk-lorist who is anything better than a mechanical maker of
+tables, and a clipper and collector of variants, well knows.
+
+_Serious_, indeed! Now, an’ I had time, good people, I would tackle
+Calvin, Knox, and Chalmers, and Young of the _Night Thoughts_, and show
+you what Mephistopheli, what humbugs, what subtle deceivers of self or
+others, and what mad humorists they all were, and in what Hampton Court
+mazes they led their followers. For, meaning it or not, it came to
+that; and ye who cannot perceive it, think that the partition six feet
+high, over which ye cannot peep, is the top of heaven’s wall. Yea, I
+repeat: For, meaning it or not, it comes to that!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘_Vale, Corcule!_ Good-night, old Parable, for there is in thee a
+deeper meaning than men divine. Sleep well, O mirror of ten thousand
+books, whom I have made happy by adding unto them “one volume more!” as
+Dibdin sweetly sang.’
+
+When Flaxius opened the door, it was a bright, full-moon-lit night;
+clear and fresh, and gently breezy, gauzy cloudlets flitting now and
+then before the stars, like transparent veils blowing away or waving
+before the eyes of Eastern girls. So he went to his dwelling, and
+the night being young, sat down to read the little book, which ran as
+follows:
+
+
+BALDEMAR’S TROUME
+
+  THE VISION OF BALDEMAR
+
+  As in slumber once I lay
+  In a wood one summer day,
+  All beneath an oaken tree,
+  With green leaf-curtain, fair to see;
+  Flowers peeped upward from below
+  To the sun as he did go,
+  And the drops fresh from the showers
+  Looked lovingly upon the flowers,
+  Like bright eyes as clear as glass,
+  Or diamonds glittering in the grass;
+  And all around from many a bloom
+  There came a pleasant, fresh perfume,
+  While in the forest all day long,
+  Dame Nightingale did tell her song.[12]
+
+  By me ran a spring full clear,
+  And it sounded to my ear,
+  With its steady murmuring,
+  Like children who a lesson sing,
+  Or as one who reads alone
+  To himself in single tone;
+  While the wind in harmony
+  Rustled sweet in every tree.
+  Flies and bees the measure kept
+  All in chorus--so I slept.
+
+  Now whether I from sleep awoke
+  To life again beneath the oak,
+  Or whether I did deeper sink,
+  In dreams, I know not what to think,
+  Yet this I know that I was there,
+  Where I had been, but in the air;
+  And all around there was a change,
+  Unto another life and strange,
+  As if one should sleep in spring
+  When all is green and burgeoning;
+  Then wake in autumn to behold
+  The trees all clad in red and gold;
+  For other sounds I seemed to hear,
+  Other scents were in the air,
+  Elfin light shone all around,
+  And new herbage on the ground,
+  There full silently had come,
+  As strangers move into a home.
+
+  There I sat but had not known,
+  It was on the Wildè Stone[13]
+  That I had fallen into sleep,
+  Since there the elves their watches keep,
+  And he who sitteth there an hour
+  For all that week is in their power.
+  But this secret well I knew,
+  And now lived to find it true,
+  That the man who passes well
+  Into the spirit of the spell,
+  Meets with nothing to alarm,
+  Nor will come to any harm;
+  Many marvels he may learn,
+  Many wondrous things discern,
+  If he sleep an hour alone
+  In faith upon the Wildè Stone.
+
+  As in silence still I sat,
+  Marvelling in amaze thereat,
+  I soon heard a sudden sound,
+  As of a footstep on the ground,
+  And looking up, there in the wood,
+  A vision fair before me stood:
+  When all at once the forest rang,
+  In chorus all the birdés sang,
+  And wondrous flowers in bright array,
+  Came shooting to the light of day,[14]
+  And in all her beauty’s sheen
+  Before me stood the fairy queen.
+
+  Thus she spoke: ‘O minstrel dear!
+  Long have I longed to see thee here!
+  For it is in our destiny
+  That if not placed in poetry,
+  Although we live in lordly state,
+  With wealth and power and titles great,
+  We’ll pass unto oblivion’s shame
+  Unless some poet notes our name.
+  There is more life in one small song
+  Than in a century ‘mid the throng,
+  With all their work, and war and strife;
+  Song only is eternal life.
+  ‘Mid all great deeds--too great to last--
+  Men seek the poems of the past,
+  And one sweet lay, as all may see,
+  May make an Immortality.
+  It may full long forgotten lie,
+  Yea sleep for many a century,
+  Hidden away in darkling nook,
+  Yet be revived in many a book:
+  For though states fade and tongues may die,
+  There is no death for poetry,
+  Since unto it we well may say:
+  “A thousand years are as a day,”
+  ’Tis God’s own voice which, when it spoke,
+  In poetry the silence broke:
+  To inspiration doth belong,
+  And it alone, the power of song.
+
+  Even we who are of fairy kind
+  Are least of all unto it blind,
+  Since all the life which we receive,
+  Legends or lays unto us give.
+  For all of our appointed time
+  Is measured by the poet’s rhyme,
+  Unless we’re sung we soon are not,
+  And even our name would be forgot:
+  Therefore to me, O Baldemere!
+  Thou art indeed of men most dear.
+  Long I have lived in hope to be
+  But mentioned in thy minstrelsy:
+  Even in one line be’t low or high,
+  For then I know I ne’er can die.’
+
+  All had grown silent as she spoke,
+  No sound the forest stillness woke:
+  The nightingales had ceased to sing,
+  The brook had stopped its murmuring,
+  A sudden peace had come to pass
+  Over the wrangling flowers and grass,[15]
+  For well I noted all had been
+  Listening with joy unto their queen,
+  With some sweet hope that they might be
+  Included in the poetry:
+  And this I did with love recall,
+  That fairy life is in them all.
+
+  Her voice again the silence broke,
+  And wavering with the sunshine spoke:
+  As it came flickering through the leaves:
+  As broideress her pattern weaves,
+  Singing meanwhile a melody
+  With her design in harmony,
+  And thus she said: ‘O come with me
+  And thou a wondrous sight shalt see
+  Fit for a song, my Baldemere,
+  If thou canst read its meaning clear,
+  For we must go.’ I naught could say,
+  So followed as she showed the way.
+
+  Right wild and rugged was the road,
+  Through passes strange, which long we trode:
+  Great rocks above us darkly hung,
+  While peaks like towers o’er them sprung,
+  And grim and griesly was the way,
+  Scaping so oft the light of day,
+  We did not seem to climb a steep
+  But rather down in earth to creep,
+  Wherein we heard and time again
+  The sough of winds, the rush of rain,
+  Then wended from a passage cold
+  Into a forest grey and old
+  Where every tree seemed all alone,
+  For they had changed long since to stone;
+  Every leaf and twig was there,
+  As if they had been carven fair,
+  And all y-wrought in imagery
+  As men do work in ivory,
+  Making for brides their caskets rare:
+  Anon we came unto a stair;
+  Each step whereof was wondrous broad,
+  And strangely high. It was with awe
+  I asked its meaning, and was told,
+  ’Twas made by giant hands of old.
+  Yet up we went, nor did we stop,
+  Till we had gained the mountain top,
+  Where in the twilight golden brown
+  Upon a bench we sate adown.
+
+  Long it was ere I could speak,
+  For both my soul and tongue were weak
+  With all the wonderful surprise
+  At what was spread before my eyes;
+  For never yet in dream or scroll
+  Came such a picture to my soul,
+  Nor yet in visions told of eld,
+  Compared to what I there beheld.
+
+  Straight from our feet like any wall,
+  An awful precipice did fall,
+  Ne’er had I thought of one so steep
+  It seemed ten thousand fathoms deep,
+  While down below a valleyed bay
+  Spread beyond vision far away,
+  And the wild waters of that sea
+  Showed all that in eternity,
+  Since earth hath been or Time began,
+  Was ever seen by living man.
+  Rising from darkness into light,
+  Then fading into sheen more bright,
+  A life which was a sparkling spring,
+  And then anon evanishing,
+  For there were forms of women fair,
+  Like ivory--then lost in air,
+  Or buried in the billow-caves,
+  As goblins vanish into graves,
+  Strong warriors with stretching arms
+  Pursuing still those wondrous forms,
+
+  Or revelling as at glorious feasts:
+  With all were mingled fearful beasts,
+  Up-leaping, roaring, rioting,
+  Withal full many an idle thing,
+  As minstrels carolling their lays,
+  And forms of long-forgotten days,
+  And dwarfs who dwell in mossy stone,
+  And spectres flitting all alone,
+  And dead men floating in their shrouds,
+  With dragons breathing fiery clouds,
+  Blinding all round with ruddy light,
+  And then in darkness lost to sight:
+  There too were castles, halls, and bowers,
+  With wondrous battlements and towers,
+  Beyond them others rising high,
+  And others still unto the sky,
+  With gardens broad and forests fair,
+  Yet ever fading into air,
+  And fields with fountains interlaid,
+  Where troops of merry children played,
+  With gentle deer and snow-white lambs,
+  And nuns a-singing even-psalms;
+  Fading anon with all the rest,
+  Like sun-set clouds into the West:
+  On earth there is no thing I ween
+  Which in that sea could not be seen,
+  All that is common, all that’s rare,
+  All that is humble or is fair
+  With every known or unknown thing,
+  Coming to life and vanishing,
+  All blending, tending into one,
+  As vapours fade before the sun:
+  Chasing, embracing, or anon
+  In deadly strife, and then agone:
+  Therein I felt all that can be
+  In Life to all Eternity.
+
+  Long at that wondrous sea I gazed,
+  As one half pleased but more amazed,
+  Till step by step upon my soul
+  There came the feeling of the whole,
+  And then a strange and boundless awe
+  As I conceivéd what I saw,
+  Until the thought which seized me there
+  Became too terrible to bear,
+  For what surpasses poetry,
+  I ween is far too much for me:
+  Life hath its limits, and this strife
+  Is far too great for mortal life:
+  A shudder seemed in me to rise,
+  And, over-borne, I closed my eyes
+  When a soft whisper in my ear
+  Said, ‘’Tis enough, O Baldemere!’
+  And as the fairy to me spoke,
+  I started at the word and woke.
+
+  I lay upon the Wildè-Stone,
+  All in the forest and alone,
+  Deep-thinking on the things I’d seen,
+  And then I sang, ‘O Fairy Queen!
+  Thou shalt in deed recorded be
+  By Baldemere in poetry:
+  God grant that this my humble lay,
+  May live in truth for many a day.
+  Would I could give it grace divine!
+  Not for my honour, but for thine!’
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘_Haec fabula docet_,’ wrote the master, ‘firstly, that there is no
+earthly immortality like that of Song. Now it is to be noted that in
+their day and time men give little real heed to any save a very few
+of the greatest living poets, treating minor bards with a neglect
+which history clearly shows is most undeserved. For the _vitality_ of
+even fourth-class poetry is marvellous. It is recovered and reprinted
+centuries after it has been forgotten by all. What scholar is there who
+when raking over piles of fifteenth-century, theological, legal, and
+even historical rubbish, which will only sell for waste-paper, has not
+been charmed at finding in it--O happy man!--a book of ballads, or even
+of poetry of _any_ kind? ’Tis little thought upon, this life of song.
+There’s not one poet of the present day, however small his art and weak
+his lay, who hath not better chance to live for aye, and speak at times
+to some congenial soul than any other fancied famous man.
+
+‘There is many a small being--ay, more than any dream--who will live
+like a fly in amber, merely because he has known, conversed with, and
+thereby identified himself with some poet, so small that even the fly
+did not know that the other had ever rhymed at all. It is little to
+the credit of any civilised country that it can excessively honour and
+envy and glorify an Upper Ten, or Twenty Thousand in Great Britain,
+or a Four Hundred in America, and not include in the number more than
+a dozen poets. If people cared more for poetry they would enlarge the
+number, for there are in very truth some hundreds cruelly ignored--all
+sneering critics to the contrary.
+
+He is an evil being, to me, who would belittle, crush, or condemn
+almost any poetry whatever. For even in the very mediocre, where there
+has been inspiration and love, there is a gleam as of something divine,
+which I must needs reverence. Truly, indeed, the muse may have been
+only a very small fairy, elf, or goblin, or even a witch, but it has a
+spark of the supernatural or occult; treat it tenderly therefore, as
+something born with mystic powers!
+
+And there is also a lesson in the Bookseller himself, which, rightly
+read and widely understood, would do good in the world. There are
+thousands of people who would fain travel into foreign lands and see
+strange people, when there are all around them in life men far more
+marvellous than Turks or Indians, or beings well-nigh as queer as
+goblins. They go about silently like shadows in a kind of twilight of
+society, living in a fourth dimension, enjoying senses all unknown to
+us, hearing sounds which never reach our ears, lit by a light which
+never cheered our eyes. Such are the collectors and readers, like this
+old man, who steep their very hearts of hearts in the feelings of
+the past, and give to every thought that chiaroscuro of the romance
+of age which is the final beauty of art. It is one of the sarcasms
+of truth that such a Dryasdust, who has become among fools the very
+type and symbol of common-place dulness, is in reality all the time
+in a fairyland too fine for the Philistine with his great horny eyes
+to even perceive; for he in a blackletter book feels with exquisite
+sympathy all that romance which was in all life in an earlier age,
+feels it directly and _in itself_, while another only gets a coarse
+burlesque or imitation of it from novels, plays, and Lord-Mayor-Shows
+of poems.
+
+There are very few in this world who feel or even understand in
+reality this spirit in which the Bookseller has his being, more’s the
+pity!--for it brings a great deal of happiness to the possessor. Hand
+in hand with it, like a twin, goes the fairy of Collecting. This spirit
+too is far misunderstood. He who, having got together more money than
+he can spend, ridicules the collector of postage-stamps or buttons is
+like the lunatic in Hogarth’s picture, laughing at his like. They are
+all, one or the other, inspired by what the gambler-scholar Pascasius
+Justus called the _insatiabilis habendi libido, similis ventriculi
+magnæ voracitatis_, the unsatiable desire of possession, which is
+like a gnawing, ceaseless hunger, the which, as he adds, may do no
+harm if it be properly supplied with good food. The delight of the
+collector is in renewing certain pleasant feelings which he experienced
+before, which some think is nine-tenths of the pleasure of love, or of
+intoxication, or anything else; and that in very truth man is _man_
+because he has more memory and passion than any other animal, and more
+ganglion. Nay, there have been rakes and Don Juans who found their
+chief pleasure, not in pleasure, but in accumulating conquests, that
+is, by collecting, by adding to the list which some pitiful Leporello
+bears.
+
+Now, as Collecting is a human-animal instinct (as is shown by the
+raven, magpie, and other creatures), and love and religion and art were
+nothing more in their beginnings, it may be that as we improve, it too
+may be developed to a holy thing or a great institution; for in it lies
+the secret of history and of folk-lore and of preservation of relics;
+which will be clear to ye all when ye read my great work on the science
+of collecting in all its branches.
+
+[12]
+
+  ‘Vor dem Walde was sîn ganc,
+  Dâ diu naktegale sanc.’
+
+  _Walther von der Vogelweide._
+
+[13]
+
+  ‘Der arme Grêgôrius,
+  Nü beleip er alsus;
+  Uf dem Wilden Steine,
+  Aller gnāden eine.’
+
+  _Hartmann von der Aue._ 1320. _Gregorius._
+
+
+[14]
+
+  ‘Bluomen springent,
+  Vogellên singent,
+  Wünneclîchen schal.’
+
+  _Leutold von Seven._ A.D. 1230.
+
+[15]
+
+  ‘Alsô stritents ûf dem Anger
+  Bluomen un de Klë.’
+
+  _Leutold von Seven._ (_Maienwunder._)
+
+
+
+
+FLAXIUS IN THE FUTURE
+
+  ‘What I was is passèd by,
+  What I am away doth fly,
+  What I shall be none do see,
+  Yet in that my beauties be.’--_Old Epitaph._
+
+
+I KNOW not to what land or region strange the immortal Magian betook
+himself, after this century had reached its end and tumbled over
+Time’s great precipice. All that I know is this, that it was in some
+realm within the realm of shadowed sense, where he forgot the stars,
+the moon, and sun; where he forgot the blue above the trees; where
+he forgot the dells where water runs; where he forgot the chilly
+autumn breeze; where he forgot there had been newspapers or stocks or
+pigeon-shoots at Hurlingham, or wondrous things at the Aquarium, or
+Piccadilly or the Savile Club--yea, all of earth and what there is of
+life--most useful, beautiful, æsthetical--all this had vanished like
+the lightest dream.
+
+Now whether he had dipped a while in Dîs, to talk with Pluto, whom he
+much admired, or sailed to some celestial violet star, to exercise
+strange senses here unknown, expanding in the fourth di-men-si-on, this
+is certain, that it was about the time when the Twentieth century had
+attained its majority of two thousand, Flaxius found himself again on
+earth, suddenly dropped from some supernal height or upward shot from
+the great world below.
+
+... Seated on a very comfortable bench under the lee of the Great Wall
+of China in a remote corner of Manchuria, he was not there a minute ere
+he realised that remarkable, not to say radical, changes had swept over
+the face of the whole world since his evanishment.
+
+For he observed, firstly, that the Great Wall, which he had last
+seen in a most dilapidated, eroded, crumbled, and top-worn state
+of oxidation and moss-grown rustiness, was now, so far as he could
+behold--and it wound like a serpent up and down rolling hills, and over
+tremendous rocks for half a century of miles, till it vanished in an
+invisible, grey thread--completely restored as if by contract, all its
+ancient towers being likewise correctly renewed, as if by some Chinese
+Gilbert Scott. At its base, at the rate of about one to the acre, were
+bungalows of graceful construction, but all without chimneys,[16] rising
+from tufted groves and gardened plains, in whose architecture the old
+Chinese style seemed curiously mingled with other influences. A very
+striking feature indeed was that of many colossal towers, about a mile
+one from the other; every one, as Flaxius estimated, being about one
+thousand feet in height.
+
+Hearing a rustling sound hard by, he, looking up, perceived a man
+alighting from what he at once understood was a flying-machine. It had
+come unseen and noiselessly as an owl, whence, as Flaxius divined, it
+had proceeded with incredible speed. The new-comer, who seemed to be
+about thirty years of age, was a man of attractive countenance, manly,
+and evidently intelligent, altogether the right sort of man for the
+right sort to meet. He was clad in a graceful, but extremely practical
+garb of some material new even to the Sage. As for nationality, he was
+certainly European, and probably English, but his first greeting to the
+Immortal was in a singular jargon, which appeared to be based upon the
+Pidgin, once dear to Flaxius in bygone years.
+
+‘_Come sta_, my flin? What one-piecey man you be? My no savvy you--_no
+hè te jamas visto_--never look-see you before one-time, allo my life-o!’
+
+‘I understand you,’ replied Flaxius; ‘but I also speak English.’
+
+‘Oh, of course,’ replied the stranger with a genial smile, ‘only a
+fellow gets so into the habit of pidgining; it comes from flying
+about----’
+
+‘Naturally,’ observed Flaxius.
+
+The stranger darted at him a quick glance, and then looked about
+anxiously, as if fearful that some one had overheard them, observing in
+a hurried, low tone:
+
+‘I say, don’t do that again. Joking’s against the law, you know.’
+
+‘I did not know it,’ replied Flaxius. ‘But why are you so much
+astonished at not knowing me?’
+
+‘Because,’ replied the stranger, ‘I cannot recall ever meeting anybody
+in all my life whom I had not seen before. You know how it is nowadays,
+when everybody goes flying about, and all the world is acquainted. And
+as you are evidently a superior sort of person, I am indeed _utterly_
+amazed at not knowing you, because I would have sworn that from China
+to Peru there was not one gentleman with whom I was not, I may say,
+intimate.’
+
+‘But you must count your acquaintances by _millions_,’ replied Flaxius.
+
+‘Certainly,’ answered the stranger gravely. ‘I know nine hundred and
+eighty-four million, seven hundred and fifty-eight thousand, four
+hundred and twenty-eight men and women by face and name. Since the new
+system of accretive memorising has come in, and the whole world has got
+mixed up, and keeps mixing, everybody knows everybody.’
+
+‘And does everybody now know everything?’ inquired Flaxius, as nearly
+astonished as he had ever been during the whole course of his long and
+well-spent life.
+
+‘Well, among all the whiter people of age, I think it may be fairly
+asserted that every grown-up person knows all that man has ever known.
+Of course, only the most advanced scientists and deducers are really
+well acquainted with the knowledge of the future. But who, in the
+name of the Prima Materia, are you, who put such incomprehensibly odd
+questions?’
+
+‘I have been,’ replied Flaxius, ‘out of the world for a century, and am
+utterly ignorant of all that has taken place during that time.’
+
+The stranger did not seem to doubt the assertion, nor to be much
+astonished, as he merely remarked:
+
+‘I have heard there were a few of the very far advanced who could do
+that, and you look like one of them. And I suppose, of course, they
+keep it a secret. So if you wish it, I will say nothing to anybody. Now
+to know what has been doing since you left, is a long story. Do you
+know where to lodge to-night?’
+
+‘No,’ replied Flaxius, ‘unless it be _à la belle étoile_.’
+
+‘We can sleep in any of these bungalows,’ replied the stranger. ‘I have
+_coupons_ entitling us to rooms and food, and medical attendance, and
+social attentions, anywhere in the world.’
+
+‘I have plenty of gold money,’ observed Flaxius.
+
+‘_Money!_’ exclaimed the stranger, as if astonished. ‘Well, certainly,
+money can be exchanged for coupons, and coins are rising rapidly in
+value for collections and museums. But coupons, issued in all cities,
+pass current all the world over at par. But let us get to our quarters
+and I will tell you the rest!’
+
+He invited Flaxius to enter the machine, in which there was room for
+two, and a trunk, with some comfortable wrappings. Then as he turned a
+handle they shot off, upward and onward like the wind. As they flew,
+they overtook two other _aerevolantes_ like their own, when Flaxius’s
+friend, exclaiming, ‘Good fellows, good luck!’ ignited several
+small coloured squibs or minute rockets--it had by this time grown
+dark--which were responded to by a single red spark from each.
+
+‘I invited them to meet an interesting stranger whom I have just
+discovered,’ remarked the stranger with a laugh. ‘My name is Oakford,’
+he added, ‘and it is Pidgined into Oakforto. _Yours?_--Flaxius. That
+will become Flasio or Flaso. Ah! here we are!’
+
+He stopped at a large and somewhat singular, though pretty house,
+before which sat in a garden at tables several well-dressed ladies and
+gentlemen, of a somewhat Eurasian appearance. An elderly woman examined
+the coupons which Oakford presented.
+
+‘Take double,’ he remarked. ‘I want extra food. This is a distinguished
+man of science.’
+
+Hearing this, the landlady and all the rest present rose and bowed low
+to Flaxius. But with all their politeness it was evident that they were
+utterly amazed, which Oakford explained by saying:
+
+‘They have all travelled so much that they never saw a stranger before
+in all their lives.’
+
+‘Now, for a paradox I call that a good one,’ reflected Flaxius. ‘That
+at least remains in the world.’
+
+‘May I mention the fact that you have been absent from the world for a
+century?’ inquired Oakford of the Sage. ‘These are all gentlemen and
+ladies--that is, well-educated and of strict principles.’
+
+‘Certainly,’ replied Flaxius.
+
+‘This, my dear friends,’ then resumed Oakford, ‘is a scientist and
+philosopher of the very highest rank, since he has been absent from
+the world for more than a century. As you are all aware, only one among
+many millions ever achieves such extraordinary power, and from it you
+can draw your own conclusions.’
+
+The party, which had been augmented by the arrival of two additional
+gentlemen with ladies, all gazed at Flaxius with an expression of such
+sympathetic intelligence as he had rarely met among mortals in the
+earlier time, and then, approaching him very reverently, bowed and
+worshipped, each addressing him a short prayer, after which the sage,
+perceiving that a benediction was hoped for, gave it with impressive
+feeling, to their very great satisfaction.
+
+‘You must understand,’ explained Oakford, ‘that the religion which now
+prevails is, that the Creative Force manifests itself in the ascending
+series of ideals, and most perfectly in Man; therefore we worship him
+in one another, but chiefly in the advanced scientist, since it is to
+the power in him that we are chiefly indebted for inventions, and all
+that does us any good.’
+
+‘Ah!’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘you have somewhat changed religion as it was
+a century ago. Then, men chiefly worshipped, firstly, themselves, and,
+secondly, Politicians, who, instead of doing any good to anybody, made
+all the devil’s own mischief they could in every way, and were all the
+more admired for it.’
+
+‘You speak of the Devil,’ remarked Oakford. ‘It must have been curious
+to live in the world when people believed in such a being, and thought
+they saw his influence manifest in all things.’
+
+‘H’m!’ quoth the sage. ‘If you have succeeded in getting the devil
+entirely out of everything, and removed all traces of his existence,
+I will say this for you, that you have more than realised my greatest
+expectations and fondest hopes.’
+
+‘Nay, we have only got rid of the initial D; but that is the first
+step. By scientifically supplying natural wants and discouraging the
+development of needless ones, we have very much extinguished the worst
+forms of selfishness.’
+
+‘Ah, that initial D!’ said Flaxius. ‘The Dee----!
+
+
+  ‘“There was a jolly miller
+  Lived by the river Dee,
+  Who sang, As I care for nobody,
+  Then nobody cares for me!”’
+
+
+‘I grant that _evil_ still remains in many a form,’ resumed Oakford;
+‘but science and philanthropy have combined to a degree which would
+once have been deemed incredible (being supplied with all the power
+which mankind could contribute, to investigate and extinguish it).
+The vast interest which all mankind took a century ago in the idle
+squabbling of windy politicians, that is in mere factional, silly
+quarrels about nothing, or human cock-fighting in oratory, has been
+supplanted, owing to the ascendency of the man of science, by a general
+and serious interest in what really concerns our earthly welfare.
+Perhaps we have _not_ accomplished so much as you may have anticipated,
+but to this we have really come: increased liberalism has so far
+diminished prejudices, that the world has pretty well agreed as to what
+it really wants, first of all.’
+
+‘A tremendous progress,’ interpolated Flaxius. ‘It is nine-tenths of
+the battle won. To know what we want is almost equivalent to having all
+we need.’
+
+‘Well, let us toilette and then refresh!’ said Oakford. ‘Here is your
+room. If you want anything, press the button, and speak.’
+
+‘And then the servant will come to receive orders?’
+
+‘No; for you must first form in your own mind an image, by volitional
+pseudophia--that is depicting by will--and this image is, with your
+voice, conveyed to the chambermaid. Thus you want two silk towels, you
+close your eyes, form their image, and order. The maid touches the
+button, closes her eyes, beholds two silk towels, and brings them. Some
+men of science--in fact, I can do it myself, to a certain extent--make
+the towels for themselves at once out of the atmosphere, by a peculiar
+mental, physiological process, but the less expert prefer the maid.’
+
+‘H’m!’ quoth Flaxius, as a very lady-like, pretty damsel appeared.
+‘I should think, indeed, that with many travellers the volitional
+physiological effort would be chiefly exerted in that direction.’
+
+‘The position of servant in a house specially frequented by men of
+science,’ pursued Oakford, ‘is regarded as a great honour, and only
+conferred on highly-educated and deserving persons. This young lady,’
+he continued, ‘is the only daughter of the celebrated Kien-Long-na,
+who first converted rose-leaves into butterflies, he being, indeed,
+a leader among the mighty minds who broke away the barrier between
+organic or inorganic creative chemistry, and proved that living
+creatures could be made in the laboratory. It is even said that he has
+actually succeeded in making a human child, but as regards that, his
+daughter, here, can give you better information.
+
+This was said with the utmost gravity, and the lady chambermaid
+responded quite as seriously, but with interest.
+
+‘Yes; it is true, he has established the fact beyond all question that
+it _can_ be done, by sub-etherising protoplasm, even in the fourth
+grade, but I must admit that the specimens of work which he has thus
+far produced are not remarkably creditable to his skill, nor very
+attractive.’
+
+‘Now, if I had heard that a century ago,’ mused Flaxius, ‘I should
+have taken the liberty to deny it, but I suppose that science has
+even extinguished Frenchmen by this time. By Nemesis! I would like to
+know what this chambermaid thinks when she turns over--if she ever
+does--specimens of what constituted nine-tenths of the reading of young
+ladies at the end of the last century; or what she thinks, if she
+indeed stoops to think, of those who revelled in it, or supplied it!
+Holy Science! thou hast indeed taken a great deal of fun out of life,
+but thou hast outbalanced the loss with abundant, honest decency!’
+
+‘I must explain to you, also,’ said Oakford, ‘though you doubtless
+surmise it, that such positions are in request, because it is only in
+a comparatively few great families, or establishments, that servants
+are kept at all, since scientific appliances now enable people to do
+everything for themselves. Waiting has become a refined and elegant
+accomplishment, which can only be properly filled by ladies of superior
+education. In fact, it is very mortifying to a girl to have it said
+of her that she is always seen as a guest, and never as a waiter. It
+enables a young lady to see society and the world, and become more
+intimately acquainted with people of intellect.’
+
+The supper, or evening refreshment, did not surprise Flaxius as a
+novelty, because it was precisely the same as that which he had
+enjoyed during his visit to the God of Ancient Days, and on other
+transcendental occasions. It consisted simply of a cake to each guest
+with a bottle of what--for want of a better term--I may call wine.
+Both, however, were the very perfection of food and drink.
+
+Turning to the assembled company, Oakford said:
+
+‘I propose, my friends, to give to our distinguished guest some account
+of what changes have taken place in the world as regards food, since he
+last honoured this planet by residing in it, and will be pleased if you
+would kindly aid me in so doing. To begin with, I think I may broadly
+state that chemistry, as the word was understood, completed its first
+stage, or that of Analysis, about a hundred years ago, and then began
+to attempt Synthesis, or the combination of the elements.’
+
+‘It was at the same time,’ remarked the waiting-maid, ‘that the
+elements were reduced to one.’
+
+‘Quite right. One of the first results of Synthesis was to make not
+only metals but all kinds of substances, including every variety of
+food. For a long time men persisted--as many of the less educated still
+do--in liking only imitations of what they had preferred in earlier
+ages, such as meat and fish, or certain vegetables and fruits. I myself
+have several times eaten mutton-chops, and once a roasted chicken, and,
+I think, I once ate a pea.’
+
+‘History repeats itself,’ mused Flaxius.
+
+‘But in a very short time good palatable food was produced so cheaply,
+and in such immense quantities, that finally every human being was
+supplied for nothing with a daily ration; it being now the fundamental
+law that all who are born are entitled to food, lodging, clothes, and
+facilities for mental improvement and recreation.’
+
+‘Did not this have the effect of creating a vast mass of idlers?’
+inquired Flaxius.
+
+‘My dear Master,’ remarked one of those present, ‘you will probably
+have conjectured that during the past century history has been made
+more rapidly, and the world has passed through more important changes
+than it had during all its earlier period of warfare and theology, with
+incoherent, spasmodic, or despairing struggles. We have had terrible
+trials, and as yet are only beginning to realise what we have still to
+do. In fact I often think that we have thus far done almost next to
+nothing, with all our science, and that the one great glory of this our
+century is that we have reduced a chaos to something like order, and
+have produced a mere beginning from which those who are to succeed us
+may proceed with something like union and mutual intelligence.’
+
+There was a general murmur of approbation at these words, when Oakford
+again spoke:
+
+‘There was much idleness and more discontent than ever, more
+complaining over dainty food, than there ever had been during famines
+wherein thousands died of starvation; the reason being that those who
+were the most intelligent and industrious could still earn more than
+others and feed better. But man is really after all a working animal,
+and as the grosser and more intolerable kinds of labour were relieved
+by mechanical invention, and agriculture and raising animals gave way
+to artificial food, and education and culture advanced, great changes
+and improvements came about. And though, as I truly said, we are far
+from being out of all these social troubles, we think we see our way
+out, and have in the main succeeded in conquering those horrible pests
+of poverty, dirt, disease and social discontent, which once raged so
+terribly when you were formerly in the world. Even at the end of the
+Nineteenth century, when there was such a sad period of pessimism and
+doubt and despair, and such warring elements of labour and capital and
+religion and politics, men had done great and good work, it would seem
+as if by mere instinct to do good. Ay, it brought forth Evolution.
+
+‘And Evolution, which had been conceived and born, as one may say, by
+the _Natur-philosophie_ of Germany, was warmed to new life or re-born
+in England by the genius of Darwin, Wallace and their supporters. From
+the beginning, it in turn developed science, and science, technical
+art. One of the first great inventions which followed the era of
+synthesis in chemistry was this production of artificial food in vast
+quantities at a very cheap rate. When attention was drawn to this,
+chemists soon found out how to vary its texture or substance.’
+
+‘That is to say,’ remarked one present, ‘that it was made like meat
+or bread or vegetables to suit association of tastes. After a time
+this association greatly diminished; but it was discarded with great
+difficulty. People are so conservative as regards food and taste,
+and so convinced that what _they_ are not accustomed to is unnatural
+and vile, that it rose to the magnitude of a great national, or
+rather world, question. But after a while the artificial food became
+so palpably superior to the natural, both as to taste and uniform
+wholesomeness, that the former had to give way. Now the poorest man
+has by legal right a daily ration of food, such as a king would have
+relished in the old time.
+
+‘Then came another invention, which was simple enough, yet which had
+great results. It was the production of cloth fabrics of all kinds, in
+incredible quantity, very rapidly and at a very trifling cost.’
+
+‘That sounds to me,’ replied Flaxius, ‘like what Tennyson called “a
+fairy tale of science.” There was a story in the olden time in Florence
+that a brownie or household goblin once served in a family, where he
+did all the work--swept the rooms, cooked the dinner and played with
+the children--for nothing.’
+
+‘That I suppose,’ remarked the waiting-maid, illustrates the earlier or
+theistic stage of society, and a Divine Providence.’
+
+‘Ahem!’ coughed Flaxius. ‘Well, the goblin was greatly loved by the
+eldest boy, Marco, who, observing that his elfin friend had only a red
+cap and a tattered and very scanty shirt for apparel, had made and gave
+to him a full suit of red velvet. Whereupon the goblin declared that as
+he was now a fine gentleman, and had dreed his weird or served his time
+out, he would work no more.’
+
+‘I see,’ quoth the chambermaid. ‘That was the Church after it had
+attained to violet robes and gold croziers with jewelled mitres, and
+ceased to be useful.’
+
+‘_Um!_ Well, the goblin ere departing gave Marco a stick, assuring
+him that whenever he would say to it, “Stick, turn, _risvolge_!” or
+“Unroll!” it would unroll cloth, velvet, lace, or any stuff, to any
+extent. And by means of it, Marco fulfilled a government contract, and
+supplied all the clothing for the Papal army in less than a quarter of
+an hour, besides dressing up all his friends in purple and fine linen,
+_ad infinitum_.’
+
+There was a laugh at this, and Oakford said:
+
+‘That story would not astonish any child of this generation, for we can
+really roll out cloth with as great rapidity. What is to me utterly
+incomprehensible, is that people who knew enough to make even such
+simple toys as steam-engines and telephones, did not begin long before
+by making cheap cloth. In fact I am astonished that the man who had the
+wit to make that tale had not the sense to learn from it how it could
+be done. Why, the very roller suggests the whole. For even then men
+knew how to make paper by the mile, and also felt, and the step from
+these to fibrous and cloth-like stuffs was extremely simple. However it
+really required the great discovery of making _fibrine_, which followed
+immediately after that of the nature, identity and relative conditions
+of inorganic and organic substance. After that, people spun all kinds
+of fibre out of anything. Now clothing, like food, is supplied from the
+government manufactory gratis to everybody; the result having been to
+destroy the vanity of dress or ostentation of mere clothing, for now
+that gold and diamonds are cheap, and everything can be made, we have
+very different ambitions.
+
+‘Perhaps the greatest factor in producing our present state of society
+has been _Aerostation_ by flying-machines. The first were so rudely
+constructed that it is said that every other man who used one lost
+his life by it. This proved to be such an extraordinary attraction to
+Americans that they all went in like lunatics for flying. They flew
+races, and fought duels in the air, and roamed all over the earth in
+machines, in which no man now living would dare to go a rod. We have
+specimens of them in our museums, and I have seen bold aeronauts stand
+before them almost mute with horror. Even so Columbus ventured over the
+Atlantic in a crazy little craft. Ah, Master Flaxius, you must have
+seen awful deeds in your time, and marvellously bold men who had no
+fear of death or suffering.
+
+‘Yet pray observe, friend,’ he continued, ‘that we do not travel so
+much to behold scenery or man as men did of old. For now, he who sits
+in his study can see all things on earth and hear all distant sounds by
+telegraph; in which art we are making every day new discoveries, even
+to dispensing with wires, and seeing all the world while we sit still.’
+
+‘I can hardly believe,’ remarked a lady present, ‘that there ever were
+people who dared to travel night and day in steamboats, much more
+in locomotive-trains. My blood almost curdles when I think of such
+reckless, fiendish courage! But, I dare say,’ she added after a pause,
+‘it was only the madly-brave, like the Berserkers of an early age, who
+really did such things out of bravado. Master,’ she suddenly exclaimed,
+‘did you ever _see_ a locomotive?’
+
+‘Truly,’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘I travelled in my time during nearly a
+century many thousands of miles in such trains, with ladies as gentle
+as yourself, to say nothing of innumerable maids and children, but
+none of us ever imagined that we were doing anything remarkably brave.
+But I believe,’ he added, ‘that any of my companions would have been
+terrified at the idea of flying through the air like sky-rockets as you
+do.’
+
+‘Ah!’ exclaimed the waiting-maid, ‘but _that_ is a very different
+thing.’
+
+‘Ah, h’m!’ mused Flaxius. ‘Women with all their science still retain
+certain traces of their primeval savage logic--or nature.’
+
+‘After the first stages,’ resumed Oakford, ‘when the flying-machine
+was very much improved, and made very cheap, it was at first terribly
+abused. Thieves pounced down like hawks on property, and with the
+vehicle to carry two or three, an era of abduction and elopements
+with women began. Then there was organised a grand World Detective
+Flying Association, which pursued thieves into the very depths of
+Greenland, or Thibet, or anywhere else; the result being that in the
+end the dangerous classes were almost extirpated. For when they became
+dangerous to everybody, instead of to a few, there was a general war on
+them.’
+
+‘And the abductions and elopements?’ inquired the Sage.
+
+‘Well, Society found itself obliged to compromise a little on _that_
+question, which I must freely admit is in rather a dubious condition
+even at the present day. While the rights of persons and things to
+immunity from attack are more strictly observed than ever, it has
+in due proportion been discovered that conventional and sentimental
+rights or wrongs disappear with great rapidity among cosmopolites, and
+that the emancipated woman claims the same privileges as man. Still,
+on the whole, from all that I have learned in books, we get on far
+more peaceably and pleasantly than you did in the days of duels and
+divorce-courts, and all that. When people have nothing to do but fly
+away like birds in order to part, divorce becomes too easy, and so
+they end by pairing like birds. Those who have a turn for a kind of
+domestic life and families--and they are in a great majority--follow
+it; and those who have not, do pretty much as they like, and are left
+alone unnoticed. Society gladly takes care of all the foundlings--very
+good care indeed--and it is a fact that while there was at first a very
+great increase in the number of such children they are now diminishing
+very rapidly.’
+
+‘About ten per cent. per annum,’ remarked a lady.
+
+‘And last year nine and four-sevenths diminution,’ added the
+waiting-girl.
+
+‘As you have observed,’ said Oakford, ‘the flying-machine has led to an
+universal lingua-franca or pidgin English; and this has induced perhaps
+millions to speak good English. The old nations are breaking up and
+diminishing so rapidly that millions really belong nowhere. If a man is
+too warm any day anywhere he mounts his _flyer_, and can in most cases
+be, in an hour, on a mountain or by the sea, or _vice versa_. Whatever
+his calling is, he can find employment enough to pay his bill in any
+city. There is no mountain so high, no valley so deep, that you will
+not find some house of entertainment or shelter there. War is unknown,
+armies and navies have vanished before cosmopolitanism; the Frenchman
+has found to his amazement that he is not precisely the leader, type,
+and ideal of all culture, intellect, and intelligence on earth; the
+American no longer passes most of his time in informing every one how
+much grander, more beautiful, and in every way superior, everything
+is in Amùraca or Amáraca to everything everywhere else--in fact, he
+has ceased to talk about himself and his country altogether, because
+everybody has been there. In like manner, the English, the German
+officers and nobility, the Spanish, the provincial gentry of Italy, the
+niggers of Barbadoes and Sierra Leone, the Jews, and Irish have all
+slowly abandoned the opinion that they are God’s special favourites and
+the _fine fleur_ of creation, put into this world solely to convince
+everybody else how degraded they are in comparison with themselves.
+There is no use in nations annexing other countries--nobody cares where
+he belongs; the only binding laws are those of society, or mutual
+agreement, and as the latter grow in force, those of nations and creeds
+and circles vanish. Even the home does not exist for millions.
+
+
+  ‘“And now our dream of science is to pass
+  In mental vision over all the world,
+  Seeing and knowing all, for we have found
+  New senses in mankind which still reveal
+  New qualities, conditions, and ideas,
+  And myriad beings who inhabit space,
+  Whom men of old divined in feverish dreams.
+  And as we are, there is no spot on earth
+  Unknown unto its humblest habitant,
+  While lenses quite perfected now reveal
+  The smallest secrets of the starry world;
+  And yet we deem that we have little won,
+  But in bold hope keep ever pushing on.”’
+
+
+‘You will probably be very much struck,’ remarked another of the
+company, ‘with two very general facts as you come to see the world as
+it is. Firstly, the great improvement which has resulted from advanced
+hygiene, sanitary laws, and physical culture. Even a century ago men
+had begun to discover that cleanliness meant life and health, and that
+at the end of the reign of Queen Victoria the average of life was more
+than one-third greater than it had been a century before. Now, the
+death-rate in the most unhealthy parts of Europe is only three in a
+thousand, and there is great complaint as to that.’
+
+‘It is to be noted,’ added Oakford, ‘that it was not till about 1920
+that the great question arose as to whether politics, or action on
+public questions, should be a mere matter of faction, like Guelf
+against Ghibelline, Red _versus_ Green, Big Endian _contra_ Little
+Endian, in which people sacrificed everything to see their public men
+take the place of the ancient prize-fighters and quarrel. People began
+to weary of Grand Old Gladiators, controversialists, co-rivals, and
+champions of all kinds, and said it was time that measures took the
+place of men. In fine, the principle became a party with the motto,
+“A plague o’ both your houses,” and the end was the substitution of
+questions of practical utility for “politics,” diplomacy, foreign
+quarrels, and court-intrigues.
+
+‘When this principle was once adopted, it became a burning question,
+and was acted on with great energy. When people awoke to the fact that
+they had really been fooling themselves more than they had been fooled
+by their leaders, and that they themselves were really the government,
+if they did but know it, men of science and of action, yes, men of
+great, vigorous, and practical minds, nurtured in evolution and true
+principles of history and sociology, sprung up like a race of giants
+and extinguished the talking politicians and mere scholars. It was
+perhaps the turning-point in History itself, and to us it ranks even
+above the Reformation in Germany and the Emancipation in America, for
+it was the substitution of the practical human interests of all for the
+idle power and ostentation of a few.
+
+‘Then it was that the accumulations of capital made by a few, or by
+syndicates and trusts, were transferred to governments for the use of
+the people, so that it seemed providential that they had acted as they
+did.
+
+‘It is wonderful that at the end of the nineteenth century when these
+and a hundred other causes had clearly begun to work, so few foresaw to
+what they would lead. Men did not note that the immense accumulation of
+capital and rapidly increasing ease of making money would inevitably
+transfer it all to government and revolutionise society. “It will not
+come in _our_ time,” was the cry. They did not realise, either, the
+great law that population diminishes and improves in proportion to
+culture, and least of all did they comprehend the unity and tendency of
+all this with improved sanitary reforms, education, transit by air, and
+free food and clothing, with less hard work, or gross labour. Indeed,
+until these advances had been made, they could not be co-ordinated, yet
+it is in that that the very life of society and progress lies.
+
+‘Among the first great public measures which took the place of mere
+words, such as Conservative and Liberal or Republican and Democratic,
+was that of health and cleanliness, which at once led to gentler
+humanity and abhorrence of cruelty, both as regarded men and animals.
+Men became at first intolerant as regarded seeing others suffer from
+poverty, and finally detested pain in every form. I dare say that you
+can recall much which would now seem incredible to the greatest brute
+now living.’
+
+‘Truly, I can,’ replied Flaxius. ‘There was a very good sort of man
+named Alexis of Piedmont, who wrote a book of quaint odds and ends of
+amusement, in which he gave a recipe how a goose could be roasted
+alive. It was very ingenious indeed, but cruel to the last degree of
+torture, and it ended with these words, “Then take it from the fire
+and serve it up, and though roasted it will still be living, and will
+cry out loud while it is being carved, which is a very merry thing to
+behold.” It was republished in many books for generations after. And
+in fact there was a great deal of amusement at the very end of the
+nineteenth century, much patronised by the very _élite_ of society
+which was very little worse than this. Bulls were literally tortured to
+death in Paris in imitation of Spanish sport, gentlemen were present at
+prize fights, ladies at pigeon shooting; and, perhaps, no day passed
+in which some magistrate did not let some wretch guilty of horrible
+and infamous cruelty to children or women escape with ten shillings’
+fine, or a few days’ imprisonment. Even a man guilty of cruelties, very
+far surpassing anything ever told of Red Indians or inquisitors, or
+torturers of the Middle Ages--I say this advisedly--cruelties wickeder
+than a thousand murders, was after public trial only sentenced to ten
+years’ imprisonment! And the general manner in which such things were
+treated was to smile complacently and say, “Ah, yes, but a little
+roughness and knocking about makes us manly.” Under the same impression
+there survived in society, among the most refined people, a vast
+amount of covert satire, innuendo, vexation by assuming superiority,
+sneers--in short, the vileness of building self up on the abasement
+of others, as one may see in half the humorous pictures setting forth
+the coarse fun of the time. Torture by the _peine forte et dure_ was
+not abolished by law in England till the year 1823 or thereabout. Yet
+all this did not make people braver or more manly. It crushed and
+frightened the weak, or the majority; it developed bullying, and it
+drove the would-be dignified into reserve, _hauteur_ and coldness,
+which was all in fact only a masque for mean cowardice and vanity.
+Yet there were with all this certain curious antitheses, not without
+great beauty, which I apprehend you have now quite lost. There was, in
+the cruellest ages, the Madonna-like saintly meekness and innocence,
+yea, purity, which I apprehend has now taken very different form--or
+vanished. There was a romance and personal character in it all, which,
+I suppose, is now unknown to you.’
+
+‘It is true that we have lost immensely since we have been guided
+solely by science and common-sense and utility,’ remarked an elderly
+man who had not before spoken. ‘We have lost much of domestic life
+or home-feeling, and as I infer from what I heard from old people in
+my youth, and extensive study of ancient books, we have no longer
+the sweet and genial ideals or inspirations of art and faith, poetry
+and humour, which once fired the world. They have all sunk to the
+level of very inferior races and children, who, indeed, are rapidly
+growing ashamed of them. But then we have gained what compensates for
+it all a thousand-fold. We are no longer sentimental or despairing or
+pessimistic, nor is the poison of soft sorrow in our every cup, and
+in every kiss. In fact, if a man of a hundred years ago were among
+us now he would probably decide that we do not know what love is;
+and to judge from the poems and novels of the olden time, I should
+say that it is decidedly lucky that we do not; for such a mass of
+misery, philandering, caprices, quarrels, tears, and agonies, as men
+anciently went through with, according to their romances, before they
+could accomplish the extremely simple and prosaic end of marriage--or
+similar union--passes all comprehension, suggesting a mixture of hell
+and lunacy. Add to this, that, with all their “beautiful poetry” and
+genial humour, every biography of the time shows us lives steeped in a
+deep consciousness of woe and suffering, with so little mitigation of
+it, according to their own deepest convictions, that one must needs see
+very plainly that they paid a fearful price for all their delightful,
+domestic affections and devoted loves of one fond heart, for their
+home circles and piety and fine art of all sorts. Yes, an awful price,
+not worth the whistle. We at least do not wail and howl, and sing and
+pray. When anything is wrong with us we go to the doctor, and if he
+says we are all right, we get on the flying-machine, and skim over the
+seas, and mountains. When we are not busied with science, or practical
+matters, we are engaged in taking our recreation, and between the two
+we have really no time for sentiment of any kind.’
+
+‘I observe,’ replied Flaxius, ‘that you are rapidly losing, or have
+entirely lost, home-ties, domestic feelings, the warm attachment to
+a native land, or patriotism, devotion to a church or religion, with
+all the ancient form or spirit of art and poetry--in fact nearly all
+that once was supposed to form all that a man ought to live for,
+including the ideal of self or character. But with it you have lost
+their terrible sorrows; and you have gained stupendously more than you
+have lost in a grand philanthropy which the men of the past regarded
+as mere moonshine, or Utopian. Everything in its time. Every man is
+your friend now--no one your enemy--quarrelling is bad form, for it is
+unscientific. I see in you the beginning of an entirely new race of
+beings. You are neither happy nor unhappy, as those words were once
+understood--in short you would have been utterly incomprehensible to
+everybody a hundred years ago. But they would in the end have feared
+you like giants, and vanished before you as the Red Indian is crushed
+morally by the white man. Therefore you are great, and I, a man of
+the ages, tremble to think what awful, what stupendous, power you are
+destined to attain. You will master every law of nature, and conquer
+death and the grave, space and time. What were the greatest glories of
+art and the highest flights of poetry or genius are already beginning
+to appear to you as frivolous and rococo, because they were founded on
+false or vanished unrealities, while you are pressing forward into such
+a realisation of the real in all its immensity as it never entered into
+the heart of man to conceive. Ye are already dreaming of doing--nay, ye
+have in part done--what Homer of old would not have dared attribute to
+the gods. Ye take unto yourselves wings, and are in the earliest rosy
+dawn, even in the depths of ocean ye are there. Ye spin forth gold or
+pearl or diamond from the air, as ye will, when ye will, or will soon
+do so. It is as easy now to create and combine atoms as to breathe; to
+build a towered castle is easier and cheaper than it was to construct
+a cottage of yore. And it is all but the beginning of the beginnings
+of the very rudiments compared to what is to come. You will read with
+perfected lenses the minutest secrets of all the stars, discover new
+senses, and through them new orders of existence not now perceptible
+to man. And with every new discovery will come ten more daring dreams
+of others, far, far beyond it, and they will also be realised. In
+such illimitable achievements man must pass so far beyond all old
+conceptions of every kind that all will shrivel up and vanish. Terribly
+grand wilt thou be, O Humanity of the future!’
+
+There was a pause, when the eldest one again spoke.
+
+‘Thou hast understood us. Humanity has hitherto been in its boyhood,
+pleased with its pretty toys and fancies, indulging in passion or
+despair at every trifle. Now it is advancing to eternal manhood, and
+growing serious, which means more truly happy. It is leaving the
+paternal home, and all petty ties and beliefs, and going out into the
+world to do and dare. In the past lay the fabled, infinite power of the
+gods; in the future lies the illimitable might of man. What man has
+_never_ done, man can do, is the motto of the future.’
+
+Then the waiting-maid spoke more gaily:
+
+‘But to prove to our guest that art has not as yet quite left
+the world, and that we still retain some trace of old-fashioned
+entertainment, I propose that Master Oakford, who is an expert in
+hypnotising, give us all a pleasant drama, with magnificent scenery and
+dresses, so that we may all have something cheerful in our memories
+before we retire to rest.’
+
+This proposal met with general approbation, and Master Oakford
+explained it to Flaxius as follows:
+
+‘You must know that we now have spectacles, theatrical entertainments,
+operas, and exhibitions of the most varied description, for all the
+world, at no expense whatever. In every family there is some one who is
+the special hypnotiser, and in larger assemblies masters on a greater
+scale. These masters--of whom I am one--store their memories with all
+that can conduce to entertainment. Then we keep by us, or, indeed,
+generally find in every house, an infinite amount of music, songs,
+speeches, or dialogues, such as were once recorded on tinfoil, but
+which are now kept imperishable on a new and better material.
+
+‘When the performance begins, I hypnotise all present; impressing it
+on their minds that they are about to see a certain _spectacle_, and
+that they are to vividly behold certain scenery or persons. By this
+method, and the aid of phonographs and monologue, I give them a very
+perfect entertainment. Pray note two things: one is, that I _will_ them
+to vividly remember all that they have seen, when they awake; secondly,
+that the art of understanding, and of enjoying such plays, is very much
+improved with practice.’
+
+‘Much of this,’ remarked Flaxius, ‘was known to the Egyptian, Chaldæan
+and Etruscan priests of yore, and it perished with them, or lingered in
+broken fragments among witches and sorcerers. I know so much of it that
+you need not hypnotise me, who am, indeed, master of the art, but I
+will most gladly enter into sympathetic perception with both the actor
+and the audience.’
+
+Those present sat in a semi-circle, and by unanimous request, Oakford
+was requested to give Shakespeare’s play of _Macbeth_. It was only
+necessary for Flaxius to take the hand of one of the auditors in
+his own--it chanced to be that of the pretty waiting-maid--to close
+his eyes, and bring his perception into mutual sympathy with hers,
+which is a peculiarly delicate, cerebral, voltaic, volitional, vital
+act, and the condition for enjoying the play was complete. Then the
+pretty waiting-maid--who, as has been already intimated, was also a
+distinguished chemico-physiolobiologiste--retired within her inner
+consciousness, but with one hand--so to speak--on the door of that
+department of her memory which was labelled Macbeth (Shakespeare,
+English), ready to let out the imprisoned images. That is, she went
+into hypnotic sleep, to see the things which eye could not behold.
+
+All present were apparently insensible. Soon Flaxius heard the softest,
+strangest sound, which rose to a grand peal of exquisite music; and
+then, trembling, sunk and quivered into a strange, half-fearful,
+half-fantastic, witch melody, like a forest through which flitted at
+intervals--ever and anon inaudible or lost--a wild, yet exquisite
+waltz--a butterfly in a thunder-cloud. Meanwhile, there was perceptible
+all around a gradually developing, rising, and spreading scenery
+of barren moors, with encircling rocks and mountains, vast trees
+waving in the wailing wind--a torrent. And with it all there was an
+indescribable, mental, general impression, apart from what was seen or
+heard, as of another mighty wind, or spiritual opium, disposing the
+beholder unto _fascination_.
+
+‘I have beheld many a magnificent _mise en scène_,’ reflected Flaxius,
+‘but never anything like this. It would have been an art-wonder of the
+world a century ago, and it is only a mere family-charade and a game of
+puss-in-the-corner or proverb, for people now. They have mastered art
+beyond our wildest dreams--only to despise it!’
+
+Then the play went on, improving at every pace, as Oakford became
+inspired, rising in grandeur and beauty, impressiveness, and the
+subtle sorcery of more than mere skill. The music became a marvellous
+opera of accompaniment in no excess, yet mighty in effect, while the
+scenery was that of nature in her grandest or most enchanting moods.
+Best of all was the acting, in which the auditor seemed unto himself
+to be the one who spoke--and so it rolled on to an end. With a final
+finely accentuated, biological-cardiac pressure of the hand--such as
+in earlier ages would have ignorantly described as a fond squeeze--the
+pretty waiting-maid awoke.
+
+‘You are a great artist,’ said Flaxius to Oakford.
+
+‘So, so. I am far from being first or even great. Nor is it considered
+any great accomplishment among educated people nowadays to give such
+games in such style. It is only our child’s play, O Master, just as
+the performances of Thespius sank in later ages to the level of the
+mob, though they had improved in quality. And you now understand, that
+while we understand and practise art a hundred times better than our
+ancestors did, we do not esteem it at one hundredth the part of its
+ancient value.’
+
+‘I understand,’ said Flaxius.
+
+‘Go to Rome or Greece,’ pursued Oakford, ‘and you will see the
+Colosseum, and Forum and Parthenon, and all the most celebrated
+buildings of antiquity restored in all their beauty, but even the
+school-children now regard them as mere curiosities, illustrations of
+a barbarous past--pretty enough in their small, naïve way--but mere
+savage trifles compared to the works of science; why, we could now
+do in a week all that Egypt built or unbuilt in six thousand years.
+And we have the fullest, deepest secret of their art, too--the very
+spirit of its spirit--and don’t think so very much of it either. Ah!
+you nineteenth century men wrote an awful lot of rubbish, which they
+called Criticism. After it died out, art began again--travelling a long
+way after science, it is true--but ages in advance of where it had
+gone before. All of the Ruskins and Taines of the last century look
+to us like ants toiling over lumps of sugar, which they believed were
+mountains. Very industrious ants they were, and good judges of white
+sugar, too; but not of real Alps or Himalayas of eternal snow.’
+
+‘Truly,’ observed Flaxius, ‘there were a few even in their own time
+who began to suspect that human genius was not quite exhausted in the
+Renaissance, and also that there was better nutriment for man than the
+confectionery of pictures, or the iced-cake of a Milan Cathedral. All
+very fine, very fine indeed for weddings and Christmas-trees, _tempi
+passati_. Well, as nature is an artist, I suspect that art after all
+has only begun afresh, on a grander scale than ever.’
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘_Haec fabula docet_,’ wrote Flaxius, as usual on the proof, ‘that all
+mankind are pretty generally mistaken in believing that certain habits,
+prejudices, customs, usages, modes, and ideas, in or according to which
+they and their fathers grew up, are eternal and innate laws of human
+nature never to be removed. For all things may be taken out of us, even
+conceit, by the cork-screw of time or the air-pump of science; and it
+is the most marvellous manifestation of the age that none foresee what
+a tremendous pop and what a stupendous out-flowing of the champagne of
+genius there will be when the stopple shall be drawn from the final end
+or mouth of this century bottle!
+
+‘“It will not come in my time,” said a young _savant_ to me in the
+last generation when I told him that ere long cities would be lit by
+gas. “’Tis all very fine, and perhaps possible, but we shall not live
+to see it.” And within five years after, the city wherein he spake was
+illuminated as I had predicted. Friends, the child is born unto whom,
+ere death, naught which I have here written will seem strange, for he
+will have seen the better part, or enough to make a proof, with his
+own eyes. Ye may more safely say that a piece of wax can _never_ be
+moulded into a certain form than declare what man or society will never
+be; but what is most wondrous of all in that which I predict, is that
+the spirit of the change is coming _soon_--even as a French Revolution
+comes so suddenly upon those in power, and who are the most learned in
+the signs of the times, that they have not time to move their office
+furniture. For the salts are all in solution, the liquid will hold no
+more, and ere long a voice or a book will precipitate the vast and
+brilliant crystals by sound or shock.
+
+‘For that is to be for which Jesus Christ most ardently longed, and
+which is the one great theme of the New Testament, that a time will
+come when patriotism, the tenderest ties of home, the form and letter
+of formalised religion, the great distinctions between poverty and
+wealth, yea, every harsher, oppressive, conventional law which is _per
+se_ useless shall disappear in a grand cosmopolitan altruism, at the
+very name of which time-serving, petty fools now jibe and titter, even
+as they sneered in ancient Rome at the new Christianity, which is now
+coming again in the dazzling, all-glorious, white cloud of science. Let
+them laugh that will, and exalt their old idols, crying that there is
+this and that which man will never do. “_Upharsin_ is writ on the wall.”
+
+‘Woe unto the false prophets who give tips for races, be they on horses
+or politicians or religion--’tis all one--for both the horse and the
+demagogue are doomed to pass away.
+
+‘Woe unto those who live in the trash and rot and folly of gossip and
+fashion, for their memory will stink in the ages to come.
+
+‘Woe unto the Jew and the Yankee, the Greek and Parsee, the Englishman
+and Dutchman, the great former of trusts and syndicates, yea, the
+promoter and swindler, be he who he may, for in the great future
+history of iniquity his name will not be forgotten.
+
+‘Woe unto you who shall struggle in the last hour to maintain your
+cracked and decayed old creeds and worn-out fads, screaming that “they
+all agree perfectly with science, which was sent to support and prove
+them.”
+
+‘Yea, woe to the old Jerusalem which stoned the prophets, for
+there shall not be left one stone upon another of all her ancient
+temples, gambling-dens, policy-offices, stock-exchanges, lupanars or
+society-newspapers, in human form or literal.
+
+‘Woe unto Jerusalem; and, finally, woe unto myself! For I, too, with
+all my small writing will be whirled away with the rest, down the back
+entry of Time into the gutter of semi-forgetfulness, to be carried
+away into the River of Oblivion. And rightly too; for how would any of
+us of the present day seem among the glorious ones who are to come?
+Verily, as a great divine once said of sinners or dissenters in heaven,
+we should “look like pigs in a parlour.” Therefore let us all go in
+peace--and be thankful that there will be far better than we are to
+succeed us!
+
+‘But, “if not impossible it is only possible, at least it will not come
+in our time,” cries all the world, when science foretells these reforms
+of the future. Here I am reminded of what was once written by Paul
+Féval, a muddled romanticist, who, however, in his dunghill of rubbish
+had at times a pearl, and he said, when speaking of steam as applied to
+boats and railway trains:
+
+‘“It took many years before that learned and illustrious body, the
+Admiralty--_la marine de l’état_--took into consideration that force
+which repelled the wind, and laughed at the strength of currents. It
+is true that at the same time the Academy professed the opinion that a
+velocity of ten leagues an hour on a railroad would stifle respiration
+in a man and kill all who would risk it. Yet it would be foolish to
+blame our marine or our academics for this--for _le monde est ainsi
+fait_--such is the world. Every progress afflicts some interest or
+irritates some vanity.
+
+‘“Ancient wisdom said, ‘If you doubt, consider carefully.’ Modern
+wisdom cries, ‘If you do not understand, then _hinder_!’ Can we ever
+enumerate the men and ideas put to death in the name of the idiotic
+phantom whom sages call IMPROBABILITY?
+
+‘“Horace said that the man must have had a heart triply clad with
+bronze who first on a frail plank dared all the terrors of a raging
+stream. It is admirably true. Add to it that the sages of his time
+would have abused that man with all their might.
+
+‘“And yet in every age those men so wise still cast themselves in vain
+before the path on which humanity was bound to pass, for spite their
+spite humanity marched on. Improbability, grotesque scarecrow as it
+was, recoiled with its fogs before the light. Miracles, once declared
+impossible, are now seen undisturbed in every street. It was only forty
+years ago, and now you may find men living on their ‘shares’ whose
+hands once tried to stop the march of steam.... And if another marvel
+should arise they would laugh at and abuse it, crying, _Cela ne se peut
+pas_, it is impossible.... To say now that anything is impossible, a
+man should have not only a heart shielded by triple bronze, but the
+tenfold skin of a jackass.”
+
+‘And we should consider all this when any one now dreams of the
+future, for the true age of ease has only just begun. Certain chemical
+discoveries made of late years have drawn from all intelligent men of
+science the opinion that we are advancing very rapidly indeed to a
+cheap, wholesale production of all scents and flavours in perfection.
+This means very cheap food of every taste to suit, or the enjoyment
+of all delicacies--mere imagination or association being set aside.
+Herein--all consequences being considered--is something stupendous,
+since enjoyment of taste in food is one of the greatest factors in
+life, and a great stimulant to industry. When this shall be somewhat
+relieved, industry will be more at leisure and liberty to devote itself
+to higher things. “It may be that the Chinaman of the future will run
+the machines which the Aryan will invent.”’
+
+[16] Since this chapter was written I have observed that a great
+prophet, W. W. Astor, the author of _Looking Backwards_, noticed this
+same want of chimneys in the future.
+
+
+
+
+THE EVANISHMENT OF FLAXIUS
+
+  ‘She came in her beauty bright as day,
+  To where in his sleep her true knight lay.
+  She held in her small and light-bright hand
+  A plaything, a brilliant moon-gold band;
+  She wound it about his hair and her own,
+  Still singing the while, “We two are one.”
+  All round them the world lay poor and dim,
+  Aloft in her glory she rose with him.
+  They stood in a garden fair and bright,
+  The angels do call it “Land of Light.”’
+
+  _Aslauga’s Knight_, by _La Motte Fouqué_.
+
+
+WHEN time had worn away long centuries, and a sweet spirit, more
+subdued and soft, had breathed a deeper love and gentleness into the
+heart of man, as culture grew, and ruder errors had been cast aside
+among traditions of the suffering ages, Flaxius sat alone before
+the rocky palace, far away in the remotest recesses of the Northern
+Apennines. It was a blest and fairy-hallowed spot, where, in the
+stillness of the golden eve, amid the rustling leaves and dewy grass,
+he heard the solo or the chorus sweet of airy voices locked in unison,
+faint, far-off, near, deep, solemn, gay or sweet, as if serenading the
+rising stars, as they came one by one to the windows of heaven.
+
+But it nowise disturbed his reverie, for he was reviewing, as he
+had seldom done, all his life. He had a stupendous memory, and an
+all-embracing perception, with an immense power of concentration of
+mental force, such as will some day be taught in schools, when men
+shall be wise enough to examine and seek into truths set before them,
+instead of manifesting their petty vanity by ridicule. As with the
+spirit of a recent dream, while all its forms still freshly haunt
+the soul, the great life-pageant swept before his eyes: dark forms,
+forgotten for long centuries to man, nor seen in art nor sketched in
+song, a living stream of shadows strange and fair, and images of great
+world-ruling men, and sages who had made deep laws of life, and sent
+their power like an endless thrill, beyond them--far--into eternity!
+
+‘It was to be, yet it is wonderful,’ thought the Sage, ‘and, perhaps,
+to me the more in wonder sweet, since these fair forms that in long
+order glide, still growing fairer as the world goes on, were dimly and
+yet long ago foreseen. True, inductive prophecy began with science;
+evolution first taught man how to evolve by a deeper logic than had
+e’er been known to schoolmen, or the mere psychologist, what _was_ to
+come. None the less wonderful to one who sees how a blind force with
+time has worked itself into a wondrous thinking Deity!’
+
+‘And the Deity, Flaxius?’ said a sweet voice, in which there was the
+echo of a smile.
+
+The Fairy Albinia was beside him.
+
+‘And the Deity? How dost thou behold it?’
+
+‘What it will be is far beyond my view. I know it was--not even what it
+is. God grows with all that God may greater be, and awful is the mighty
+law of growth. I _know not_ why it is that all _must_ grow, because it
+is a law unto itself, and slow, indeed, our growth is unto it.’
+
+‘But in what form dost thou behold it now?’
+
+‘I see it now in man and in what science shows--how man will see it in
+the time to come is now full surely all unknown to man.’
+
+‘And how didst thou discover God in man?’
+
+‘Even as Plato saw it in the ideal, which is the very soul and
+counterpart of the most real science. May I speak?’
+
+‘Yes, speak; I feel my soul now speaks in thine.’
+
+‘All nature types,’ said Flaxius, ‘in ideals. None ever yet beheld a
+perfect rose, yet seeing many roses, we infer what a true rose may be.
+So in all things, for nature never took a single form, be it beautiful
+or base, which had not an ideal never won. And of all things, there
+never was a form which in itself united the ideals as we behold them in
+the higher Man.
+
+‘For, indeed, in the rose or in all flowers, or in aught else, there is
+no colour so beautiful as the living hue of a fair human being. Apart
+from sentiment of love, the artist knows that that is the hardest of
+all hues to win. And again, as regards form, no animal or plant, or
+aught that lives, combines such perfect outline, strength and grace,
+converging ever into an ideal. No wonder that many have committed the
+error of looking to art more than to nature, when we reflect how the
+artist feels this marvellous truth.’
+
+‘And, therefore, it was well in its time, Flaxius, that men worshipped
+art, since it made them work unconsciously to a great end.’
+
+‘Yes, it was well and glorious _in its time_,’ replied Flaxius. ‘Now it
+is rising to a higher aim. But to resume. There is no sound so sweet,
+no power of modulation in all conceivable variety as is found in the
+human voice, for it can breathe all passions, fears, and every phase of
+thought. I say even thought, though men class music with emotion only.
+But to a higher sense all utterance is music given in a million forms.
+Yes, man is the ideal of all ideals combined, and ever tends to unite
+them in himself, even by the common law which forms them all.’
+
+‘This, then, my Flaxius,’ the Fairy said, ‘forms a new law, that man
+shall gradually draw towards man as he perceives this truth. What is
+religion?’
+
+‘Religion,’ replied Flaxius, ‘is the sense of a higher Power on which
+we must rely, even as the child looks to the parent, who is its ideal
+of all protection and authority. To this is added _wont_ or habit
+fixed, which runs to second nature; therefore man forms his tradition,
+and adheres to it long after he has learned that other men are greater
+than the parents; and this is the history of every creed on earth.’
+
+‘And so the form still takes the place of truth, yet still a form is
+indispensable.’
+
+‘Yes, it must be, because in forms we live,’ said Flaxius slowly. ‘A
+wondrous truth which leads to constant war. Strange is the history of
+the ancient forms which one by one the world has cast aside. Therefore
+the Egyptians typified the Holy Ghost, or the all-pervading Spirit of
+Life, as a serpent which annually casts its skin, and is renewed in
+brighter hues.’
+
+‘And man must have a form to worship or incarnate the Power which he
+adores.’
+
+‘Ay, and it is to that which I would come. The Hebrews worshipped God
+in a fixed law, sternly expressed, a law immutable, and this they had
+incarnate in a Book. This was their form from which they jealously
+excluded every trace of human shape. Because ’twas written that no
+living man could ever see the real form of God, they worshipped God’s
+great voice; that is to say, the echo of it as expressed in law.
+Therefore when prophets spoke no more on earth they still retained a
+kind of fairy faith that the _Bath Kol_ or echo of the Voice was heard
+at times in a consecrated arch--I think ’twas in the Temple. Now ’tis
+still. It was all the conception of Hebrew nature incarnate in an ideal
+man whom they called Jehovah.
+
+‘Then came the Greeks who personified nature in all her forms, and
+represented every passion or feeling as a deity. They saw God in
+statues, and felt religion in art ideals. Something they lost in
+vigorous, early strength, but gained a thousandfold in thought and
+grace. They made a progress toward ideal man.’
+
+‘And out of all a new religion grew,’ replied the Fairy in her sweetest
+voice, ‘which was as far beyond the Greek ideal as that had been beyond
+the Hebrew law.’
+
+‘Yes,’ answered Flaxius in earnest tone, ‘and could the real spirit of
+Christianity, as Christ meant it, have been combined with Greek art
+and perception of natural beauty--as the poor young Emperor Julian
+desired--have been realised, the world might have seen a wonderful
+religion. But ’twas all for the best, as now I truly see. As fast as
+islands raised their sunny peaks above the blue sea, and grew green
+and beautiful, there came the barbarians in multitudes to settle on
+them--in early times the Hun and Visigoth, in later days the negro and
+Chinese--struggling on, struggling ever, sweeping on; and yet true
+culture gained upon it all.’
+
+‘And thou see’st also, Flaxius,’ said the Fairy, ‘that had the Julian
+religion triumphed, man might have lived so long in sweet content of
+art and love and pure humility, and all the softness of his gentleness,
+that vigour might have died and strength been gone. Progress needs
+strife.’
+
+‘Ay, and more than that,’ added Flaxius. ‘Those barbarian struggles
+gave the strength to man which was needed to create science, which
+in due time raised up a higher art, and then revived the Christian
+dream of love in altruism fed with greater force. It all led to nobler
+ideals.’
+
+‘And religion?’
+
+‘Religion from awe and fear became love mingled with
+reverence--reverence before the mighty Mystery of Power hidden in Man
+himself. After the Greek worship of statues came the picture-worship of
+the Renaissance, and then another age of confusion, and the warring of
+new elements and the death of the old art.
+
+‘Now the ideal is in Man himself; and the world, instead of books or
+statues or pictures, cultivates humanity, and sees Divinity in itself
+in a new ideal. This is the most advanced exponent of the Mystery of
+Power. Even of old, when any man loved, he began by making the utmost
+of the loved one, or the pair did so mutually; it is touching to read
+in every fond romance, and every poem of the ancient times, in myriads
+of novels and letters, how they all began with the _elements_ of true
+worship. Each hoped to find in the other something which would ennoble,
+transfigure them to another or a higher life; and they were in the
+right, and in all cases it _might_ have been, had they known how to
+persevere in it; but outer influences were too strong, while their
+perception of the truth was weak.
+
+‘What is the power of the vast Unknown which circles through all space
+and gives us life, or how it lives in us or what it is--a spirit or a
+force which gives itself unto itself, a consciousness in us--is a great
+mystery beyond our ken. But this we have learned after long centuries,
+that he who _wills_ can win so much of it by ever striving unto pure
+ideals, and pressing steadfastly unto the great, that he can win
+himself tremendous power, aided therein by love and mutual will.’
+
+‘Now art thou coming to the highest truth.’
+
+‘Ay, such a truth as hath no counterpart: for if two people love in
+very truth, seeing in one another the highest ideal of the will or the
+possible power of becoming what they will, and each strives in all
+things to be perfect to the other--then will they worship God in very
+truth. For if thou canst maintain in me high self-respect and I in
+thee, we make a wondrous power in ourselves, which well maintained may
+rise to miracle. For this I do believe in very truth, that love alone
+can make our souls divine, and when we do believe in very truth, that
+we are the ideal form of God or holy pictures of the highest power,
+or living laws or Bibles, and if we do carry out the laws therein
+expressed, it is in us to win such wondrous might as magic claimed in
+ages long gone by. For this we need no other higher aid than mutual
+love and _will_, which well maintained will raise us ever to a nobler
+life.
+
+All men who _love_ live in a fairyland, and all who _will_ may aye
+remain in it, if they will make their love the law of life, believing
+truly that they are divine, or growing in divinity and hope.
+
+‘And they who believe in very truth and faith, that each is holy--that
+the Almighty Power, though but a spark, dwells in them, and that it may
+grow into a flame, and hold to this as they perhaps have held to some
+old creed or tattered form which never held a truth--will know what
+’tis to be divine.
+
+‘Yet now and then we all have transient views when standing by the
+rushing flood of life, that there is in it _force_ and light unknown;
+“those eddying balls of foam, those arrowy gleams, that o’er the
+pavement of the surging streams welter and flash” are glimpses of the
+truth which, understood, might give new life to thee.
+
+‘I do not say that this can only be between a man and a woman when they
+love, because if we believe that all mankind do form the arch-ideals
+of the world--that is by more or less as they are formed--then I can
+see how step by step all men will become links in this true golden
+chain--the _aurea catena_ of which of yore Pythagoras once dreamed, the
+chain which binds the highest with the lowest all in one.
+
+‘So have I loved thee, O my golden one, since the old days of the
+Etruscan age, so shall I love thee through eternity; while different,
+we were yet ever one in truth, and ever nearing as the time went on.
+
+‘And now my heart is filled with earth, and I have seen it to its
+glorious heritage and know ’twill soon be heaven; therefore I, my
+mission ended and my task complete, will join thee in thy life and
+never part. I know that heaven is in love and thee.’
+
+And as he said this word the Fairy smiled and wound her arms about him,
+and a light as of a rainbow of the brightest hues, blended with music,
+quaint and wildly sweet--the spirit of the dream of olden time--came
+over them and hid them from my sight; but when it vanished both of them
+were gone, and Flaxius was seen on earth no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+‘But what of God?’ asked the Fairy as they sat in Elf Elysium amid
+shadows of perfumed foliage, by dancing rivulets, where all was like
+the best and most beautiful on earth, rising to higher and more
+glorious form. For thou hast shown how by love and finding ideals
+in one another, we can refine and exalt our nature; yet that is not
+religion.’
+
+‘I will tell thee what I believed on earth,’ answered the Sage, ‘and I
+think I shall not change my faith, though I rise far beyond this life
+of beauty.
+
+‘When men believed in spirit and matter, as separate, all was confusion
+and void; and the wisest went unwittingly wandering about from error to
+error like lost souls, seeking in eternal darkness one mocking _ignis
+fatuus_ after the other. Then after years of study I perceived that all
+must be matter alone, visible to my senses it is true, but also refined
+in infinite forms beyond all human, sensual or sensitive perception.
+For all that poets and supernaturalists have ever imagined spirit to
+be, is outdone in fineness by what science is boldly suggesting and
+proving.
+
+‘As there are in nature extraordinary or extravagant exaggerations of
+the powers of the senses, as is seen in vultures, which can perceive a
+small object a hundred miles away, so there are as likely other senses
+not known to man, other dimensions which he cannot understand, and
+forms of matter which he cannot perceive by “sense.” This is no idle
+conjecture. Every new experiment in a laboratory, every discovery,
+makes it more probable. A few years ago, or within sixty years, man
+seemed to be in blind ignorance, comparing what he then knew with what
+he has learned. This is even more evident from the revelations of
+hitherto unknown forces, the fact that light is not _per se_, but the
+impression made on us. Therefore there may be worlds unseen in infinite
+number and series, and existences or intelligences of incalculable or
+infinite power. There may be a God, whose existence has a reason for
+being, according to Materialism, but none whatever in a spiritual _a
+priori_ faith, founded on and supported only by mere tradition.
+
+‘But what does man know in full or in truth? If we take the simplest
+problem in nature--the sprouting of a bean. All the wisdom of all
+time cannot explain why it is that it grows up a bean-vine through
+the ages, ever renewing itself. To suppose that there are _infinite_
+millions of concentrated vines or germs in every bean is absurd, or, if
+true, it only increases the marvel. Therefore, an idea or subject once
+formed must be the coalescence of certain forms of matter with certain
+laws, according to which certain material is attracted or thrown off
+for ever, like being drawn to like. But oh, how infinitely beyond
+human knowledge or perception is the fulness of this least of natural
+problems!
+
+‘And there are millions of creations, deeper and deeper, all calling
+forth in every phase admiration for the infinite ingenuity and
+adaptation which are revealed in every creation. Observe the ant,
+which by instinct alone, as we call it, can execute tasks and problems
+in architecture a thousand times more difficult than any which man
+has ever achieved. What it all means is this: that beyond and out of
+_our_ small mental system, with its distinctions between understanding
+and reason and self-consciousness and “I am”--which is all much more
+mechanical and akin to atavism and mere instinct than we imagine--there
+is a stupendous power of creation, with an infinite amount of what _we_
+gladly call thought or mind, when _we_ develop a similar ingenuity.
+And, in fact, it is amusing, that men who consider that a very little
+discovery of the laws of nature is the greatest proof of their having
+intellect, should doubt that intellect, of a kind unknown to us, is the
+creator of it all.
+
+‘Now what exists in the realms unknown to sense no one can say, but
+that there are intelligences who exert ingenuity and power in creation
+is palpable enough, as the bean proves; therefore a series of beings
+and gods, or a God, is an inevitable deduction.
+
+‘It is also proved by science, that the human _will_ can be so
+_incredibly_ developed by a certain training and discipline, within
+the reach of all, and very easy, that we may control our tempers, our
+desires, or increase our determination, to a miraculous extent.[16]
+This, too, is all a result of modern physical science, or “mere
+materialism,” and it has done more to establish pure morality and a
+well-based belief in God than all that psychology ever imagined. For
+like the rational faith in God, it is a direct result of evolution.
+
+‘The result of the two deductions is, that directing the developed will
+towards God with all our heart, or towards love, in sincerity and zeal,
+we arrive at all true religion and possible happiness. For the pure
+will, independent and free, and marvellous in power, must co-exist with
+_Altruism_, which is the kernel of Christianity. Love God and man. For
+to be _free_, we must co-ordinate with moral law, and what this is, we
+learn by the experience of life, every man according to his measure and
+allowance. We should all do well enough, if we all did as well as we
+could, never minding the quibbles of would-be law-givers.
+
+‘All magic, and what man regards as spiritual or transcendental
+learning and theosophy and soul-wisdom, is embraced in perfect belief
+in and reliance on God, and action of our developed will. All that
+mystics and theosophists have written amounts to no more than this:
+_Believe in God and in thine own will, aided by God_.
+
+‘“God helps those who help themselves” is a great truth to be ever
+borne in mind; nay, so true, that nearly all prayer is mere idle
+ceremony, and of small avail, however fervent it may be, if there be
+no _will_ exerted, no energetic effort to be and do good by those who
+are capable of effort. For the Creator Himself is ever working by
+Evolution. Who shall say that even Omnipotence, like Thor, does not do
+battle with, ere it conquer, the stupendous Jötuns or barbarous giants
+of brute forces in nature, or the “downward-borne elements of God,” as
+Hermes Trismegistus called them.
+
+‘As Creation is the will of God realised in action, so the will of man
+vigorously exerted is responded to by the divine Demiurgus. Therefore
+prayer should be will, and will, prayer, which may be fully apparent in
+time, though, perhaps, not at first.
+
+‘What is most to be considered, above all earthly interests and
+desires, or human wants or ideas, is the illimitable, stupendous, and
+glorious power and nature of God. Here Evolution has lifted man far
+above all that the most inspired prophets or bards of Judæa or Egypt
+or India ever conceived. For they were limited to what was apparent to
+the senses, and, indeed, to this world, as the only one. But to him
+who actually understands that there are twenty million suns with solar
+systems, and so on for ever, and that it is probable, as Paracelsus so
+strangely guessed, that there are races and worlds to us invisible and
+intangible, living as it were through, and in, this life, the Creator
+must be more than He ever was, even to Moses.
+
+‘Now the more the stupendous, original, creative power of God is felt,
+the more capable do we become of realising--that is, rising to and
+drawing near unto Him. By so doing shall we understand that all was
+made in and by and for Him, as the only one, and not for us. Before
+this awful and glorious truth all other considerations should vanish,
+for His Will should be all--He is the Master and the Lord for ever.
+
+‘All who believe this, will desire to do good work for its own sake,
+and create that which shall in the future be developed into greater
+good, rather than seek for pay or reward, which latter may be left to
+God or unseen divine agents, who know better than we do what we need,
+and who _do_ aid the true servitors of God.
+
+‘The true servitor is the one who _lives_ in the infinite power,
+goodness, and glory of God, who exerts his own will and strength
+or effort to the utmost to do, and to be, good, and whose devotion
+consists not so much in mere praying or begging for alms, instead of
+trying to earn wages, as of recognition of His Omnipotence.
+
+‘Yes, if it be God’s will that I should pass away into nothingness,
+then would I prefer it to the most blissful immortality without His
+desire, for what am I before Him, save His creation from nothing, born
+to obey? And so far from thinking that such want of a future releases
+man from moral obligations, I hold that such a faith is the highest
+stimulus to do our best while we live, and avoid all sin.
+
+‘Therefore, O man, trouble not thyself, as to a future, so that thou
+lovest and obeyest God, and treatest man as another self, and livest
+thy utmost mental life in will and prayer. For unto him whose prayer is
+will and will is prayer, all may be granted.
+
+‘And remember that there is nothing taught more explicitly in the New
+Testament, than that man should commune _directly_ with God without aid
+or intervention, chiefly by worship, and by using his will in every way
+to that end.
+
+‘In very truth--_Vicisti, Galilæe!_ Thou hast conquered, O Christ!’
+
+[17] Vide _Have you a Strong Will, etc._, by Charles Godfrey Leland.
+London: Philip Wellby.
+
+
+
+
+BREITMANN’S LAST BALLAD
+
+
+THERE was once an American hodge-podge, comic melodrama of a kind now
+passed away--in which there was heard from time to time ‘one warning
+trumpet blown’ behind the scenes, for no assignable reason ‘save to
+heighten the effect.’ This it invariably did, and especially after the
+curtain had fallen, when the clarion notes were heard as an Encore.
+Even so has it been with Breitmann in this book, and so at the end
+doth he sound Farewell as follows speaking from his very heart as to
+the war:
+
+
+BREITMANN ON THE BOERS
+
+  Dot I war born a Deutscher is fery blain to see,
+  Yet dere are dings in vitch I tont fall in mit Germany,
+  Bein’ rader too cosmopolite--and hafe peen all along--
+  To dink a man should always go pro patria--right or wrong.
+
+  Usque ad aras an honest man may tramp,
+  But if folk would take him furder he hat petter shoot de camp;
+  Und I shtops right off my warblin’--of dot you may pe sure,
+  If asked to sing in chorus mit any kind of Boer.
+
+  Somedimes, when in queer circles, dis ding is fery true,
+  I hafe found mineself compulsioned to heurler avec les loups;
+  Dot is to howlen mid de wolfs, but nefer yet, py jigs!
+  Did I get to such abasement as to grüntsel mid de pigs!
+
+  You may read in der Zoölogie, or Natur Historie,
+  Dot pigs are de most tyronical of all de peasts dot pe,
+  For dey drives or stinks all oders away from where dey feed,
+  Und dis is vot de Boers tried in Africa, indeed!
+
+
+  Und ash dey are most tyronical whene’er dey get a chance,
+  So Fate is most ironical in endin’ deir romance,
+  For dey’ve gone from pad to worser, and are endin’ de debates
+  Mit all de world, in sympathie--excep’ de ’Nited States.
+
+  Und, exceptin’ yet again in dot, all dose who had been booted,
+  Or sent away from Europe--id est, been ‘persecuted,’
+  Und who, as is but natural, did von and all agree,
+  To persecute de nigger, wherefer he might pe!
+
+  Ash dere were books were printed two hundred years a-back,
+  Of de horrors and de torments inflicted on der Black,
+  By de Boers in far Sout’ Africa, among de slaves dey got,
+  De Bushmen und de Kaffirs, likevise der Hottentot.
+
+  Now he who will beat a nigger, as I often heard dem say,
+  Will torment a white man, if he dare, when von comed in his way;
+  So de Boers in Sout’ Africa in monner most forbidst,
+  Ottempted to compose oopon de English in deir midst.
+
+  Und dere dey all slopp’t ofer, forgettin’ dey might catch
+  A chap mit bigger boots and soles, when in a kickin’ match.
+  Yet dey kept der game agoin’ like der fery teufels at play,
+  Und efen in a gorner some are kickin’ yet to-day.
+
+  So de Boern getten from Germans uncommon sympathie,
+  Likevise from efery Frencher and de whole of Italy;
+  Pecause dey are ‘few in numper,’ and likevise ‘fery prave,’
+  Which mit dem excuses eferything, howefer a man behave!
+
+  Now if your house vas burgled, I’ll bet upon my life,
+  If der burgular should shoot your son, likevise pesides your wife,
+  Dough he fought like der fery teufel, you hardly would fergive
+  Der feller for all his pravery, and hope dot he might live!
+
+  But de cent in de molasses barrel, or de secret hid away
+  Is dis--dot de Germans wantet for demselfs Sout’ Africa;
+  Dey hat hopes dot a dime was comin’ when ofer all de land
+  Dere wouldt rise a schmell of sauer kraut to der Medit’ranean.
+
+  Yoost as Fra Benevento, in his elegie sublime,
+  Did hope der schmell of incense wouldt rise in efery clime,
+  From blesset Roman Churches, so de Deutschers von and all
+  Did dink dis blesset nonsense wouldt cerdainly pefal!
+
+  As for de liddle Fräntshmen, it is as plain as sin,
+  Dey wanted Jean Boule out of Egypt, likewise demselfs darein’;
+  Dough vot dey’d do if dey got dere is not fery blain to see:
+  Dot is to judge by deir sookcess in any colonie.
+
+  Keep up dy heart, O England; maintain dy glorious pluck!
+  Der von who bears most poundin’ is der von who gets de luck!
+  For it is of ancient story und splendid as de stars:
+  It is efer de freest people who endure de bitterest wars!
+
+  Keep up dy heart, O Britain, despite de envious jeers
+  Of German, French or Dago, of suffering and tears;
+  Whatefer fools have said to thee of errors in the past,
+  Thou art Gott’s best civiliser, and wilt conquer at the last!
+
+
+
+
+Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, (late) Printers to Her Majesty at the
+Edinburgh University Press
+
+
+
+
+  TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+  - An em-dash was added to the epigraph in “Flaxius in India.”
+
+  - In “Flaxius and the Bookseller,” there is blockquote with long
+  s (ſ). These have been retained since they seem to be an intended
+  artistic decision.
+
+  - Some clear misspellings and wrong capitalizations were changed.
+  Other inconsistent spelling and usage of diacritical marks in the
+  original text have been preserved.
+
+  - Text between _underscores_ represents italics. Text between ~tilde
+  symbols~ represent Blackletter.
+
+  - Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of their
+  sections.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77376 ***