THE MANUSCRIPTS.
I got up betimes on the morrow, being awakened by Ambrose; and, after
breakfast, set out with him for the Cloisters.
The Secretary was very gloomy, and brooded in his mind. Nothing worth
remark fell out on the way, until we came to the second wood, when,
pointing to the right, Ambrose said:
“I ought to have told you: you see that region of the wood? ’tis
forbidden ground. The Doctor will have none go there; and woe to the
man who disobeyeth him! I may tell you,” added he, “that a deadly swamp
is there.”
I was silent for a moment; then I asked him:
“Is nothing there besides the swamp?”
“I do not know,” said he, looking at me strangely; and turned his head
away.
We came to the trapdoor in the tall grasses; and, having descended
and entered into the subterraneous hall, we set to work with the
manuscripts. The script I had to make a fair copy of, was a treatise of
philosophical ideas, being disposed in many several essays. The matter
was profound, the style plain and perspicuous. I took these extracts
following:--
(1) _The body is the shadow of the soul. It is but the state, or
medium, whereby immature souls know and are known of one another._
_They that judge after the appearance, do take the creatures of the
material universe for the products and progeny thereof. Yet it,
indeed, is the product and progeny of them--if a mere shadow (which
only it is) may rightly be so called. For the material universe, the
sum and crasis of bodies, is the shadow cast by the spiritual
universe, the sum and crasis of souls. It’s a picture cast upon the
curtain of the darkness, as when the sun, shining through a coloured
casement, throws a picture upon a wall. And that which doth limn out
this picture of the material universe, is (as it were) the coloured
casement of minds and experiences; the light whereof proceedeth from
the Deity, wherein all live and move and have their being. Wherein,
rather, all sleep, or sleeping, dream; or dreaming, fitfully awake._
_Yet this aggregate of minds and experiences, that casts the shadow
and maketh the picture, is not the reasoning nor the sensible nor the
carnal part, but is that elemental region and those abysms of being
plumbing deep as the souls of plants and stones and underlying in men
and animals the conscious part. As to the other regions--the provinces
of human reason and feeling and contemplation--these, too, do picture
forth; sometimes, in gleams and glimpses, they portray images of
heaven; sometimes, darkly and distorting, they conjure up visions of
hell._
(2) _God is the only power, principle, and reality. All else is but
emptiness and distortion and shadow. If He should withdraw himself,
the universe would disappear, and leave not a rack behind._
_The universe, in sooth, may be likened to a prism, having many
facets, revealing God. Love is the light thereof, and is gathered by
affinities betwixt persons, and shineth in many coloured traits. He,
therefore, that loveth man with understanding, also loveth God; and
his love shall increase. But he that loveth dotingly, and without
understanding, is an idolater; and his love is like to a candle set up
in a deep cavern: presently there shall be darkness._
Ambrose wrought at a manuscript of poesy, which he embellished in
colour with strange and beautiful pictures. As he wrought, he became
lost and out of himself; and, if I spoke to him, he was angry.
I took a copy of this poem following:--
Once I built a palace
Far from any land,
Far from any ship-way:
’Twas most grim and grand.
Glass I had for sunlight,
Coloured glass for blinds,
Glass to garner sunshine
’Gainst the wintry winds.
’Twas most grim and quiet,
’Twas most grand and free:
Sky-blue glass, or star-blue;
Glass and sky and sea.
Gone! all gone for ever!
Wander homeless man!
Came that crooked serpent,
Came Leviathan!
Smote my pleasure-palace,
Whirled in flashing foam,
Split in stars of crystal,
Floor and walls and dome!
Ambrose told me ’twas written by the Doctor in his youth.
Thus the morning passed; and, at midday, we left the Cloisters to
return to the Cells.