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.