it is possible that among my readers there may be a few not unacquainted with an old-book shop, existing some years since in the neighbourhood of covent garden; i say a few, for certainly there was little enough to attract the many in those precious volumes which the labour of a life had accumulated on the dusty shelves of my old friend d—. there were to be found no popular treatises, no entertaining romances, no histories, no travels, no “library for the people,” no “amusement for the million.” but there, perhaps, throughout all europe, the curious might discover the most notable collection, ever amassed by an enthusiast, of the works of alchemist, cabalist, and astrologer. the owner had lavished a fortune in the purchase of unsalable treasures. but old d— did not desire to sell. it absolutely went to his heart when a customer entered his shop: he watched the movements of the presumptuous intruder with a vindictive glare; he fluttered around him with uneasy vigilance,— he frowned, he groaned, when profane hands dislodged his idols from their niches. if it were one of the favourite sultanas of his wizard harem that attracted you, and the price named were not sufficiently enormous, he would not unfrequently double the sum. demur, and in brisk delight he snatched the venerable charmer from your hands; accede, and he became the picture of despair,— nor unfrequently, at the dead of night, would he knock at your door, and entreat you to sell him back, at your own terms, what you had so egregiously bought at his. a believer himself in his averroes and paracelsus, he was as loth as the philosophers he studied to communicate to the profane the learning he had collected.
it so chanced that some years ago, in my younger days, whether of authorship or life, i felt a desire to make myself acquainted with the true origin and tenets of the singular sect known by the name of rosicrucians. dissatisfied with the scanty and superficial accounts to be found in the works usually referred to on the subject, it struck me as possible that mr. d—‘s collection, which was rich, not only in black-letter, but in manuscripts, might contain some more accurate and authentic records of that famous brotherhood,— written, who knows? by one of their own order, and confirming by authority and detail the pretensions to wisdom and to virtue which bringaret had arrogated to the successors of the chaldean and gymnosophist. accordingly i repaired to what, doubtless, i ought to be ashamed to confess, was once one of my favourite haunts. but are there no errors and no fallacies, in the chronicles of our own day, as absurd as those of the alchemists of old? our very newspapers may seem to our posterity as full of delusions as the books of the alchemists do to us; not but what the press is the air we breathe,— and uncommonly foggy the air is too!
on entering the shop, i was struck by the venerable appearance of a customer whom i had never seen there before. i was struck yet more by the respect with which he was treated by the disdainful collector. “sir,” cried the last, emphatically, as i was turning over the leaves of the catalogue,—“sir, you are the only man i have met, in five-and-forty years that i have spent in these researches, who is worthy to be my customer. how — where, in this frivolous age, could you have acquired a knowledge so profound? and this august fraternity, whose doctrines, hinted at by the earliest philosophers, are still a mystery to the latest; tell me if there really exists upon the earth any book, any manuscript, in which their discoveries, their tenets, are to be learned?”
at the words, “august fraternity,” i need scarcely say that my attention had been at once aroused, and i listened eagerly for the stranger’s reply.
“i do not think,” said the old gentleman, “that the masters of the school have ever consigned, except by obscure hint and mystical parable, their real doctrines to the world. and i do not blame them for their discretion.”
here he paused, and seemed about to retire, when i said, somewhat abruptly, to the collector, “i see nothing, mr. d—, in this catalogue which relates to the rosicrucians!”
“the rosicrucians!” repeated the old gentleman, and in his turn he surveyed me with deliberate surprise. “who but a rosicrucian could explain the rosicrucian mysteries! and can you imagine that any members of that sect, the most jealous of all secret societies, would themselves lift the veil that hides the isis of their wisdom from the world?”
“aha!” thought i, “this, then, is ‘the august fraternity’ of which you spoke. heaven be praised! i certainly have stumbled on one of the brotherhood.”
“but,” i said aloud, “if not in books, sir, where else am i to obtain information? nowadays one can hazard nothing in print without authority, and one may scarcely quote shakespeare without citing chapter and verse. this is the age of facts,— the age of facts, sir.”
“well,” said the old gentleman, with a pleasant smile, “if we meet again, perhaps, at least, i may direct your researches to the proper source of intelligence.” and with that he buttoned his greatcoat, whistled to his dog, and departed.
it so happened that i did meet again with the old gentleman, exactly four days after our brief conversation in mr. d—‘s bookshop. i was riding leisurely towards highgate, when, at the foot of its classic hill, i recognised the stranger; he was mounted on a black pony, and before him trotted his dog, which was black also.
if you meet the man whom you wish to know, on horseback, at the commencement of a long hill, where, unless he has borrowed a friend’s favourite hack, he cannot, in decent humanity to the brute creation, ride away from you, i apprehend that it is your own fault if you have not gone far in your object before you have gained the top. in short, so well did i succeed, that on reaching highgate the old gentleman invited me to rest at his house, which was a little apart from the village; and an excellent house it was,— small, but commodious, with a large garden, and commanding from the windows such a prospect as lucretius would recommend to philosophers: the spires and domes of london, on a clear day, distinctly visible; here the retreat of the hermit, and there the mare magnum of the world.
the walls of the principal rooms were embellished with pictures of extraordinary merit, and in that high school of art which is so little understood out of italy. i was surprised to learn that they were all from the hand of the owner. my evident admiration pleased my new friend, and led to talk upon his part, which showed him no less elevated in his theories of art than an adept in the practice. without fatiguing the reader with irrelevant criticism, it is necessary, perhaps, as elucidating much of the design and character of the work which these prefatory pages introduce, that i should briefly observe, that he insisted as much upon the connection of the arts, as a distinguished author has upon that of the sciences; that he held that in all works of imagination, whether expressed by words or by colours, the artist of the higher schools must make the broadest distinction between the real and the true,— in other words, between the imitation of actual life, and the exaltation of nature into the ideal.
“the one,” said he, “is the dutch school, the other is the greek.”
“sir,” said i, “the dutch is the most in fashion.”
“yes, in painting, perhaps,” answered my host, “but in literature —”
“it was of literature i spoke. our growing poets are all for simplicity and betty foy; and our critics hold it the highest praise of a work of imagination, to say that its characters are exact to common life, even in sculpture —”
“in sculpture! no, no! there the high ideal must at least be essential!”
“pardon me; i fear you have not seen souter johnny and tam o’shanter.”
“ah!” said the old gentleman, shaking his head, “i live very much out of the world, i see. i suppose shakespeare has ceased to be admired?”
“on the contrary; people make the adoration of shakespeare the excuse for attacking everybody else. but then our critics have discovered that shakespeare is so real!”
“real! the poet who has never once drawn a character to be met with in actual life,— who has never once descended to a passion that is false, or a personage who is real!”
i was about to reply very severely to this paradox, when i perceived that my companion was growing a little out of temper. and he who wishes to catch a rosicrucian, must take care not to disturb the waters. i thought it better, therefore, to turn the conversation.
“revenons a nos moutons,” said i; “you promised to enlighten my ignorance as to the rosicrucians.”
“well!” quoth he, rather sternly; “but for what purpose? perhaps you desire only to enter the temple in order to ridicule the rites?”
“what do you take me for! surely, were i so inclined, the fate of the abbe de villars is a sufficient warning to all men not to treat idly of the realms of the salamander and the sylph. everybody knows how mysteriously that ingenious personage was deprived of his life, in revenge for the witty mockeries of his ‘comte de gabalis.’”
“salamander and sylph! i see that you fall into the vulgar error, and translate literally the allegorical language of the mystics.”
with that the old gentleman condescended to enter into a very interesting, and, as it seemed to me, a very erudite relation, of the tenets of the rosicrucians, some of whom, he asserted, still existed, and still prosecuted, in august secrecy, their profound researches into natural science and occult philosophy.
“but this fraternity,” said he, “however respectable and virtuous,— virtuous i say, for no monastic order is more severe in the practice of moral precepts, or more ardent in christian faith,— this fraternity is but a branch of others yet more transcendent in the powers they have obtained, and yet more illustrious in their origin. are you acquainted with the platonists?”
“i have occasionally lost my way in their labyrinth,” said i. “faith, they are rather difficult gentlemen to understand.”
“yet their knottiest problems have never yet been published. their sublimest works are in manuscript, and constitute the initiatory learning, not only of the rosicrucians, but of the nobler brotherhoods i have referred to. more solemn and sublime still is the knowledge to be gleaned from the elder pythagoreans, and the immortal masterpieces of apollonius.”
“apollonius, the imposter of tyanea! are his writings extant?”
“imposter!” cried my host; “apollonius an imposter!”
“i beg your pardon; i did not know he was a friend of yours; and if you vouch for his character, i will believe him to have been a very respectable man, who only spoke the truth when he boasted of his power to be in two places at the same time.”
“is that so difficult?” said the old gentleman; “if so, you have never dreamed!”
here ended our conversation; but from that time an acquaintance was formed between us which lasted till my venerable friend departed this life. peace to his ashes! he was a person of singular habits and eccentric opinions; but the chief part of his time was occupied in acts of quiet and unostentatious goodness. he was an enthusiast in the duties of the samaritan; and as his virtues were softened by the gentlest charity, so his hopes were based upon the devoutest belief. he never conversed upon his own origin and history, nor have i ever been able to penetrate the darkness in which they were concealed. he seemed to have seen much of the world, and to have been an eye-witness of the first french revolution, a subject upon which he was equally eloquent and instructive. at the same time he did not regard the crimes of that stormy period with the philosophical leniency with which enlightened writers (their heads safe upon their shoulders) are, in the present day, inclined to treat the massacres of the past: he spoke not as a student who had read and reasoned, but as a man who had seen and suffered. the old gentleman seemed alone in the world; nor did i know that he had one relation, till his executor, a distant cousin, residing abroad, informed me of the very handsome legacy which my poor friend had bequeathed me. this consisted, first, of a sum about which i think it best to be guarded, foreseeing the possibility of a new tax upon real and funded property; and, secondly, of certain precious manuscripts, to which the following volumes owe their existence.
i imagine i trace this latter bequest to a visit i paid the sage, if so i may be permitted to call him, a few weeks before his death.
although he read little of our modern literature, my friend, with the affable good-nature which belonged to him, graciously permitted me to consult him upon various literary undertakings meditated by the desultory ambition of a young and inexperienced student. and at that time i sought his advice upon a work of imagination, intended to depict the effects of enthusiasm upon different modifications of character. he listened to my conception, which was sufficiently trite and prosaic, with his usual patience; and then, thoughtfully turning to his bookshelves, took down an old volume, and read to me, first, in greek, and secondly, in english, some extracts to the following effect:—
“plato here expresses four kinds of mania, by which i desire to understand enthusiasm and the inspiration of the gods: firstly, the musical; secondly, the telestic or mystic; thirdly, the prophetic; and fourthly, that which belongs to love.”
the author he quoted, after contending that there is something in the soul above intellect, and stating that there are in our nature distinct energies,— by the one of which we discover and seize, as it were, on sciences and theorems with almost intuitive rapidity, by another, through which high art is accomplished, like the statues of phidias,— proceeded to state that “enthusiasm, in the true acceptation of the word, is, when that part of the soul which is above intellect is excited to the gods, and thence derives its inspiration.”
the author, then pursuing his comment upon plato, observes, that “one of these manias may suffice (especially that which belongs to love) to lead back the soul to its first divinity and happiness; but that there is an intimate union with them all; and that the ordinary progress through which the soul ascends is, primarily, through the musical; next, through the telestic or mystic; thirdly, through the prophetic; and lastly, through the enthusiasm of love.”
while with a bewildered understanding and a reluctant attention i listened to these intricate sublimities, my adviser closed the volume, and said with complacency, “there is the motto for your book,— the thesis for your theme.”
“davus sum, non oedipus,” said i, shaking my head, discontentedly. “all this may be exceedingly fine, but, heaven forgive me,— i don’t understand a word of it. the mysteries of your rosicrucians, and your fraternities, are mere child’s play to the jargon of the platonists.”
“yet, not till you rightly understand this passage, can you understand the higher theories of the rosicrucians, or of the still nobler fraternities you speak of with so much levity.”
“oh, if that be the case, i give up in despair. why not, since you are so well versed in the matter, take the motto for a book of your own?”
“but if i have already composed a book with that thesis for its theme, will you prepare it for the public?”
“with the greatest pleasure,” said i,— alas, too rashly!
“i shall hold you to your promise,” returned the old gentleman, “and when i am no more, you will receive the manuscripts. from what you say of the prevailing taste in literature, i cannot flatter you with the hope that you will gain much by the undertaking. and i tell you beforehand that you will find it not a little laborious.”
“is your work a romance?”
“it is a romance, and it is not a romance. it is a truth for those who can comprehend it, and an extravagance for those who cannot.”
at last there arrived the manuscripts, with a brief note from my deceased friend, reminding me of my imprudent promise.
with mournful interest, and yet with eager impatience, i opened the packet and trimmed my lamp. conceive my dismay when i found the whole written in an unintelligible cipher. i present the reader with a specimen:
(several strange characters.)
and so on for nine hundred and forty mortal pages in foolscap. i could scarcely believe my eyes: in fact, i began to think the lamp burned singularly blue; and sundry misgivings as to the unhallowed nature of the characters i had so unwittingly opened upon, coupled with the strange hints and mystical language of the old gentleman, crept through my disordered imagination. certainly, to say no worse of it, the whole thing looked uncanny! i was about, precipitately, to hurry the papers into my desk, with a pious determination to have nothing more to do with them, when my eye fell upon a book, neatly bound in blue morocco, and which, in my eagerness, i had hitherto overlooked. i opened this volume with great precaution, not knowing what might jump out, and — guess my delight — found that it contained a key or dictionary to the hieroglyphics. not to weary the reader with an account of my labours, i am contented with saying that at last i imagined myself capable of construing the characters, and set to work in good earnest. still it was no easy task, and two years elapsed before i had made much progress. i then, by way of experiment on the public, obtained the insertion of a few desultory chapters, in a periodical with which, for a few months, i had the honour to be connected. they appeared to excite more curiosity than i had presumed to anticipate; and i renewed, with better heart, my laborious undertaking. but now a new misfortune befell me: i found, as i proceeded, that the author had made two copies of his work, one much more elaborate and detailed than the other; i had stumbled upon the earlier copy, and had my whole task to remodel, and the chapters i had written to retranslate. i may say then, that, exclusive of intervals devoted to more pressing occupations, my unlucky promise cost me the toil of several years before i could bring it to adequate fulfilment. the task was the more difficult, since the style in the original is written in a kind of rhythmical prose, as if the author desired that in some degree his work should be regarded as one of poetical conception and design. to this it was not possible to do justice, and in the attempt i have doubtless very often need of the reader’s indulgent consideration. my natural respect for the old gentleman’s vagaries, with a muse of equivocal character, must be my only excuse whenever the language, without luxuriating into verse, borrows flowers scarcely natural to prose. truth compels me also to confess, that, with all my pains, i am by no means sure that i have invariably given the true meaning of the cipher; nay, that here and there either a gap in the narrative, or the sudden assumption of a new cipher, to which no key was afforded, has obliged me to resort to interpolations of my own, no doubt easily discernible, but which, i flatter myself, are not inharmonious to the general design. this confession leads me to the sentence with which i shall conclude: if, reader, in this book there be anything that pleases you, it is certainly mine; but whenever you come to something you dislike,— lay the blame upon the old gentleman!
london, january, 1842.
n.b.— the notes appended to the text are sometimes by the author, sometimes by the editor. i have occasionally (but not always) marked the distinction; where, however, this is omitted, the ingenuity of the reader will be rarely at fault.
zanoni.
