The second part of "The Heroic Enthusiasts" which I am now sending to
the press is on the same subject as the first, namely the struggles of
the soul in its upward progress towards purification and freedom, and
the author makes use of lower things to picture and suggest the higher.
The aim of the Heroic Enthusiast is to get at the Truth and to see the
Light, and he considers that all the trials and sufferings of this life,
are the cords which draw the soul upwards, and the spur which quickens
the mind and purifies the will.
The blindness of the soul may signify the descent into the material
body, and "visit the various kingdoms" may be an allusion to the soul
passing through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms before it
arrives at man.
It is interesting to note that in the first part of "The Heroic
Enthusiasts" (page 122), Bruno makes a distinct allusion to the power of
steam, and in the second part, one might almost think, that in using the
number nine in connexion with the blind men, he intended a reference to
electricity, for we read in "The Secret Doctrine," by H.P. Blavatsky,
"There exists an universal _agent unique_ of all forms and of life, that
is called Od, Ob, and Aour, active and passive, positive and negative,
like day and night; it is the first light in creation; and the first
light of the primordial Elo-him--the A-dam,--male and female, or,
(scientifically) Electricity and Life. Its universal value is nine, for
it is the ninth letter of the alphabet and the ninth door of the fifty
portals or gateways, that lead to the concealed mysteries of being....
Od is the pure life-giving Light or magnetic fluid."
The notices of the press upon the first half of this work, were for the
most part such, as to lead me to hope that the appearance of the second
part will meet with a favourable reception.
When I first began this translation little was known about Giordano
Bruno except through the valuable works of Sig. Berti and Sig. Levi, and
since then Mrs. Firth has given us a life of the Nolan, written in
English, and several able articles in the magazines have been published,
in one of which, by C.E. Plumptre (_Westminster Review_, August, 1889),
an interesting parallel is drawn between Shelley and Bruno.
I will close this short notice with a sentence from an article in the
_Nineteenth Century_, September, 1889, entitled "Criticism as a trade."
"There is probably no author who does not feel how much he owes to the
writers who have reviewed his books, whether he has occasion to
acknowledge it or not. It is humiliating to find how many errors remain
in writings that seemed comparatively free from them. Everyone who knows
his subject, and has any modesty, is aware that there are defects in his
work which his own eye has not seen; and he is more than grateful for
the correction of every error that is pointed out to him by an honest
censor." If this is the case with authors who produce original work, it
may be still more aptly said of translators, especially of those who
attempt to translate books so full of difficulties as those presented in
the works of Giordano Bruno.