Zanoni — Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Glyndon’s attention grew yet more earnest. “But were it so,” muttered Zanoni; and then looking steadfastly at Viola, he said, with a half-smile, “ Hast thou no curiosity to learn more of the lover thou once couldst believe the agent of the Evil One? ” “None; all that one wishes to know of the beloved one, I know — that thou lovest me !” “T have told thee that my life is apart from others. Wouldst thou not seek to share it? ” “T share it now! ” “But were it possible to be thus young and fair forever, till the world blazes round us as one funeral yre!” “We shall be so, when we leave the world! ” Zanoni was mute for some moments, and at length he said, — “Canst thou recall those brilliant and aérial dreams which once visited thee, when thou didst fancy that thou wert preordained to some fate aloof and afar from the common children of the earth? ” “ Zanoni, the fate is found.” “ And hast thou no terror of the future? ” “The future! I forget it! Time past and present and to come reposes in thy smile, Ah, Zanoni, play not with the foolish credulities of my youth! I have been better and humbler since thy presence has dispelled the mist of the air. The future! — well, when I have cause to dread it, I will look up to heaven, and remember who guides our fate! ” As she lifted her eyes above, a dark cloud swept suddenly over the scene. It wrapped the orange-trees, the azure ocean, the dense sands; but still the last images that it veiled from the charmed eyes of Glyndon were the forms of Viola and Zanoni. ‘The face of the one

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rapt, serene, and radiant; the face of the other, dark, thoughtful, and locked in more than its usual rigidness of melancholy beauty and profound repose. “ Rouse thyself,” said Mejnour; “ thy ordeal has commenced! ‘here are pretenders to the solemn science who could have shown thee the absent, and prated to thee, in their charlatanic jargon, of the secret electricities and the magnetic fluid of whose true properties they know but the germs and elements. I will lend thee the books of those glorious dupes, and thou wilt find, in the dark ages, how many erring steps have stumbled upon the threshold of the mighty learning, and fancied they had pierced the temple. Hermes and Albert and Paracelsus, I knew ye all: but, noble as ye were, ye were fated to be deceived. Ye had not souls of faith, and daring fitted for the destinies at which ye aimed! Yet Paracelsus — modest Paracelsus —had an arrogance that soared higher than all our knowledge. Ho! ho! —he thought he could make a race of men from chemistry; he arrogated to himself the Divine gift, — the breath of life. He would have made men, and, after all, confessed that they could be but pygmies! My art is to make men above mankind. But you are impatient of my digressions. Forgive me. All these men (they were great dreamers, as you desire to be) were intimate friends of mine. But they are dead and rotten. They talked of spirits, — but they dreaded to be in other company than that of men. Like orators whom I have heard, when I stood by the Pnyx of Athens, blazing with words like comets in the assembly, and extinguishing their ardor like holiday rockets when they were inthe field. Ho! ho! Demosthenes, my hero-coward, how nimble were thy heels at Cheronea!

1 Parace sus, De Nat. Rer., lib. i.

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And thou art impatient still! Boy, I could tell thee such truths of the past as would make thee the luminary of schools. But thou lustest only for the shadows of the future. Thou shalt have thy wish. But the mind must be first exercised and trained. Go to thy room, and sleep; fast austerely; read no books; meditate, imagine, dream, bewilder thyself if thou wilt. Thought shapes out its own chaos at last. Before midnight, seek me again! ”

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CHAPTER IV.

It is fit that we who endeavor to rise to an elevation so sublime, should study first to leave behind carnal affections, the frailty of the senses, the passions that belong to matter; secondly, to learn by what means we may ascend to the climax of pure intellect, united with the powers above, without which never can we gain the lore of secret things, nor the magic that effects true wonders. — Tritemius On Secret Things and Secret Spirits.