table, by which stood a single Greek servant--there was no other soul
present--showed him with some pride that the meal consisted only of a
grilled fish and _garum_, with bread and olives, new cheese and fruit.
‘There is your supper, Flaxius!’ he exclaimed, ‘and much good may it
do you!’
‘By the lance and laurel bough or olive of the god Honour, whose temple
is by the Campidoglio!’ cried the sage, ‘what am _I_, O Cæsar! that
thou shouldst treat me with such esteem!’
‘_Non rectis oculis aspice_, never do you mind _that_,’ replied Julian.
‘Truly if I were going to entertain a Bythnian prince or a sow-bellied
contractor for the army, whom I hoped some day to crucify, I would
have given him a hundred courses of ortolans stuffed with oysters, and
galantine with truffles and pistachios, and all that sort of thing. But
to a philosopher whom I wish to treat as a brother, I give just what I
am accustomed to eat myself. One cannot be a slave at the same time to
his brain and his belly--_non potes Tethidem simul et Galateam amare_,
as Lucian says.’
‘Now, I see,’ reflected Flaxius, ‘that when a man is a gentleman
at heart, he can turn even his vanity to a kindness. A marvellous
character is this Cæsar, and one who will do much to be misunderstood
in history.’
So they held wondrous discourse of great and glorious things in
philosophy, over which the emperor quoted nearly all the Orphic
sayings, with the Poemander of Hermes, and finally came to what he had
been aiming at from the first, by bluntly asking:
‘Knowest thou aught of magic?’
‘O Cæsar! do not think I seek to quibble or raise a sophistical cloud
between us,’ replied Flaxius, ‘if I ask thee what is the meaning of
magic.’
‘It is,’ replied the emperor--who had been there before--‘the violation
of the laws of nature.’
‘And what is nature?’ asked the Sage.
‘H’m!--the eternal order of things--the action of laws, or _potentia
quatenus in potentia_.’
‘Rather vague, yet good so far as it goes. But, Cæsar, if there be
but one substance, though you call it matter in one form and spirit
in another, and one eternal law manifesting itself in infinite forms,
there can be no violation of them. Miracle or magic is only _something
which man cannot explain_, something which puzzles and astonishes him.
_Si placet_--give me an example for a miracle!’
‘I am devilish thirsty,’ replied Julian. ‘That _garum_ or fish-sauce
is pungent enough to make a Nazarene drink a gallon of strong Sicilian
wine. Now, if you could pour me any kind of wine which I may call for
out of one and the same bottle----
‘It may be done, O Cæsar! but remember that to do this one must invoke
the invisible spirits or forces of nature, whom we call the gods, to
aid in such mysteries.’
After a long pause of reflection, the emperor slowly replied,
‘Granted.’ He did not see that Puttuli, reduced to his natural stature
of three inches, and who sat unseen behind him, advanced his thumb
to his nose, and waved his fingers, making thereby an ancient and
mysterious Egyptian sign used by the priests of Memphis when they
initiated some great sage to their rites.
Then Flaxius winked to Puttuli, who presently reappeared in the form of
Bumbulbulus.
‘Go to my rooms,’ said the sage, ‘and bring hither the ancient goblet
of Bacchus!’
The goblin obeyed, and returned with a very large bottle of black _cuir
bouilli_ or moulded leather. It was of graceful shape, apparently of
great antiquity, covered with exquisite silver relief, representing the
deeds of Bacchus. Handling it with great reverence, Flaxius pronounced
over it in a voice which was half-singing, such as one may hear to this
day among witches in Italy when they chant the following:
INCANTATION TO BACCHUS
‘Golden master of the earth!
King of joy and lord of mirth!
By thy mother the divine,
Of the ancient Cadmean line!
Semele of Earth the pride;
Who of Jove’s great splendour died!
By the Seasons, who in truth,
Nursed thee from thy early youth!
Or fair Ino, who they say,
Brought thee from Arabia!
By the lion’s form you wore
When gods and Titans fought of yore!
And by the holy miracle
Of which the morning poets tell;
When from Naxos thou didst sail
With a gentle, favouring gale,
And pirates sought to conquer thee
But fell into captivity:
By the hour when thou did’st go
To the darkling realms below,
And brought thy mother, “ever bright,”
To the upper world of light,
And all that Nonnus ever sung
Of thee with mystic, golden tongue!
I conjure thee--the all-divine--
To give me what I ask, of wine!’
Saying this he took a small gold cup and said:
‘Now, Cæsar, ask for what wine thou wilt.’
‘Let it be Cæcuban,’ replied the emperor.
Then Flaxius poured forth wine from the bottle into the cup, and
extended it to Julian.
‘Cæcuban it is, sure enough,’ replied the emperor when he had drunk to
the last drop, which he poured _super naculum_ upon his thumb-nail.
‘Wilt thou have another draught?’ inquired Flaxius. ‘If so--of what?’
‘Falernian,’ answered the emperor.
‘_Sit_,’ replied Flaxius. ‘Here you are. But, O Cæsar, I have not hung
an ivy garland as yet round the cup, as the conjuration requires.’
‘_Vino vendibili suspensâ hederâ nihil opus._ Good wine needs no bush,’
answered Julian. ‘The miracle is wrought, and I wish that all were as
agreeable. And now, Flaxius, since thou sayest that all miracles can
be explained by natural causes, I pray thee to naturalise me this, for
verily _ut turris super omnes_, it is a huckleberry above my persimmon,
and I would like to know how it is done.’
‘Easily enough, O Cæsar. The bottle is made from a certain flexible
substance, and it contains many chambers or cells, in each of which
there is a different kind of wine. When I press on any one of these it
pours forth its content.’
‘Then the incantation was all gammon?’ remarked Julian.
‘Not so, O Cæsar. It made the miracle.’
‘_Hum-um-um-ump!_’ replied the monarch. ‘And yet, Flaxius, it still
seems to me that there are and must be miracles surpassing all human
skill and knowledge, which the utmost wisdom cannot compass or explain,
and _never_ will.’
‘Can your Greatness give me an example?’ replied Flaxius.
‘It is written in thine own ancient Etruscan chronicles,’ replied
Julian, ‘that in the early time the mysterious nymph, Begoe or Bergoia,
before the world, and in the Capitol, slew an ox by whispering in his
ear a single word. Now, I believe, that had I tried, I might have
worked out an explanation of thy Holy Bottle; but in the miracle of
Bergoia I have reflected many a time and oft, without solving it,
and therefore do I conclude that it _was_ a violation of the laws of
Nature.’
‘O Cæsar!’ replied Flaxius, ‘great is the man who can infallibly decide
where human reason leaves off and Divinity begins, for, _nusquam est,
qui ubique est_, that which is everywhere is nowhere, and this is true
of miracle. But what if I perform for thee--openly before all thy
court--and all Rome if thou wilt, that same miracle?’
‘By Hercules!’ cried Julian, amazed and delighted beyond measure, his
wild and mysterious eyes gleaming so as to make a very respectable
miracle of their own if he had but known it, ‘thou art a man of gold,
set with gems--the first real sage I ever found in the stuffing of
this duck of a world. And you really will in good faith--_honestus
Indicus_--slay the ox with a whisper!’
‘Thou shalt see it, O Cæsar,’ replied Flaxius. ‘But it seems to me
that the miracle would be improved on, if instead of an ox we were to
substitute a man. For it might be said by the sceptical that we had
poisoned the ox beforehand.’
‘By Medea!’ exclaimed the emperor admiringly, ‘I never thought of that!’
‘While if we take a man who declares himself to be in good health,
there can be no suspicion. Now, Cæsar, thou hast, I doubt not, in thy
prisons more than one unlucky wretch condemned to the torture and the
crucifix, to whom a quick and painless death would be as a divine
blessing and great joy?’
‘_Depone!_ bet your head on it!’ cried Julian. ‘I sent one this morning
to the Mamertine--hell would be too good for him--and I meant to give
him a foretaste of it by means of preparation.’
‘He will do,’ replied Flaxius.
So on the following day, when the emperor and his court and all Rome
assembled in the great amphitheatre, there was led in a ferocious,
giant-like and bitterly wicked-looking Gaul, who, expecting to be
tortured to death to make a Roman holiday, was on his best behaviour as
regards defiance and dying game.
‘Man, whence comest thou,’ asked Flaxius.
‘From Lutetia,’ was the proud reply.
‘_Ame de boue_,’ thought the sage in a language of the future, and then
asked:
‘And what is thy religion?’
‘I worship the devil; it was the last fashion ere I left home.’
‘You expect torture!’
‘I do not fear it. It will pain me, but when dead, I shall be amply
revenged on ye all, if hate and hell can do it.’
‘If I could give thee out of pity a sudden painless death, wouldst thou
declare that thou in all thy health and strength forgivest all men?’
The Gaul glared at him stolidly and grimly and then uttered in a
strange tongue which none understood.
‘_Mais, nom d’une pipe, pourquoi pas? J’aurais bien de quoi m’amuser
sans me soucier de ces b-là!_’ And then in rude Latin he said:
‘I consent. Hurry along with your washing, and get the pigs in!’ And he
made the declaration.
Then Flaxius, who bore in his hand a long wand, as all the Magi were
wont to do, touched him with it, while whispering a word in his ear.
And the man fell dead at full length, while a thrill of awe and a
murmur rose from all Rome, at sight of this mighty deed. And the great
and wise and even the good, or such few of the latter as were present,
_rari nantes_, thronged about him, and adored him.
‘And now, Flaxius,’ said the emperor, as they sat in solemn concert
over the Holy Bottle, which his highness was never tired of admiring,
‘if thou canst explain to me on natural grounds how thou didst slay
that Gaul, then “by Gaule!” as Julius Cæsar said to Vercingetorix, I
will believe, or disbelieve, anything!’
‘Yea, Cæsar, I will do it,’ replied the sage. ‘Now if thou wilt
remember Begoe or Bergoia, her who slew the Ox with a single word, left
to Rome a book on the _Ars Fulguritorum_ or the averting, that is to
say, managing thunder and lightning, and this book, which is in the
ancient Etruscan tongue, and hard to understand, for those who know the
language, is even yet in the temple of the Palatine Apollo, where I
read it. And it explains that the lightning is caused by an invisible
but terrible secret force, which like heat pervades all things while
seen by none, and this is the awful power of the Divinity to smite the
earth, and it was by means of it that Bergoia slew the Ox. And know
that there was in my wand a charge of condensed thunder and lightning,
quite strong enough to knock a bull sky-high.’
‘But the word?’ asked Julian who had not quite recovered from his
ideas of miracle.
‘Truly, Cæsar, the word was _Electricity_, which is as yet unknown, but
which in ages to come will be the great heritage and power of mankind.
For as when thou art done with a garment thou givest it to a servant,
so the gods when they have somewhat worn out their attributes and
glories, hand them over to men.’
‘_Semper similem ducit Deus ad similem_, and so the gods lead ever like
to like. Ah, it _is_ wonderful. And now, Flaxius, the light begins to
shine in on me, and I see that there is indeed a higher and far more
wonderful magic and miracle than the poor, thin Thaumaturgy which I
sought for once. For true magic is the mastering the awful power and
secrets of nature. Now I see that because thou mightest explain to me
by natural means how Christ fed the multitude, or raised the dead or
healed the sick, it would be none the less wonderful, for genius, even
the genius to amaze and nothing more, is miraculous.’
‘That will be better understood, O Cæsar, in times to come when science
shall have risen to glory, by means of such stupendous genius that no
man can help revering it.’
‘Ah!’ said Julian with a deep sigh, ‘happy the age and happy mankind
when there shall be but one faith, whatever it be! Thou wilt never
know what I have suffered between the old faith in the Gods and
Christianity. As Terence says, I think, somewhere in the _Andria_:
‘“How happy could I be with either,
Were t’ other dear charmer away!”’
‘Yes, Cæsar, yours is a hard case, and all the harder because you wish
heart and soul to do what is right.’
‘Orcus and hell, heathen and Christian, take me if I don’t!’ replied
the emperor in a passion and looking as wild as a panther on the
spring: he who had seen him then and there would have believed him to
be some young god enraged. ‘What the devil _can_ they expect a man
to do who has seen what _I_ have seen, and gone through what I have
endured? Well, I began in good faith enough as a Christian, and in
truth I was cut out for one as few young Roman gentlemen are. I was
never sensual, cruel, nor over-selfish.’
‘Right you are, O Cæsar,’ thought Flaxius, ‘and a very good Christian
gentleman you’d have made, if your guardians had let well alone.’
‘So I, with a deep love of ancient heathen beauty and art and poetry,
was put into a cloister, where the meanest, monkish, shaveling spite
made a sin and a shame of all that I loved. It was not belief in their
own faith, but the bitterest hate of what they called heathenism, which
chiefly inspired every one of them. That was their real religion--all
the rest was mere form--the adaptation to their ritual of what I knew
were old Oriental ceremonies. Then I began to think out, O Flaxius,
what has ever since been the idea of my life: Why cannot man keep the
old faith in Beauty, and all that was charming in the old religion, and
unite with it the humanity and higher truth of Christianity.’
‘There will perhaps be a time, in the dim and remote future,’ quoth
Flaxius, prophetically quoting Gladstone, ‘when that idea will occur to
others.’
‘So I dreamed that I, as an Eclectic--having read something of Ammonius
Saccas the Egyptian--would be the apostle of the new combined religion.
Well! time passed, and after I had become Cæsar, it occurred to me
to examine all the faiths into which Christianity had split, and a
nice job it was! Pheugh! everything from Trinitarians, Arians, and
Unitarians down to Cainites, who worship the flesh and sin and the
devil, all hating the common enemy but hating one another worse, like
the Jews who slew one another in the siege of Jerusalem while all
fought Titus.
‘O sage,’ he resumed, ‘when I think how beautiful and noble, how
holy and perfect were the conceptions of Christ, and how it was His
ideal that every man should commune directly with God, and when I see
how each one of these sects steps in and proposes with saints and
forms to do for you what you should do for yourself, I cannot wonder
at the scarcity of Christians. Yet there is a stupendous truth in
Christianity, the truth of human rights, which even they cannot crush.
_Magna est veritas et prævalebit._’
‘And the old religion?’ asked Flaxius.
‘Well! it admitted the Beautiful and let a man philosophise freely,
and did not make devils out of all the sweet and fair conceptions of
poetry, of fauns and nymphs and Oreads and all; and so, as I believe
that nature must prevail in the end with man, I went back to it. Yet
the old religion is not humane. It admits slavery and inhumanity, it
allows the grosser passions of cruelty and lust full play, evil nature
as well as good, and it needs reform. I would fain be that reformer.’
‘Now here is a great man,’ thought Flaxius, ‘who is either two hundred
years behind his time, or a thousand or more in advance of it. He means
well, but is out of the age.’ Then speaking aloud he said:
‘Cæsar, there was once a king of Bithynia or Cappadocia or some such
country, who had a mind to marry. Now the king next door had two
daughters; both were beautiful, but one was as Venus and the other as
Minerva. One was beautiful and voluptuous, witty and charming, while
the other was wise and just, humane and ever careful that no one should
be oppressed. Now which of these should he have married?’
‘Had I been in his place, I would have married both,’ replied the
emperor.
‘But that was impossible.’
‘H’m! Well, in that case I should have taken the wise one.’
‘That,’ said Flaxius, ‘is what he did, and it is what the world will
do: it will adopt the religion which, despite all the corruption with
which man surrounds it, promises the greatest good to the greatest
number.’
‘I believe that thou art in the right, O sage!’ replied the emperor
slowly. ‘However, _jacta est alea_, the die is cast, and I shall ever
remain Julian the Apostate. But what will be the end of it all?’
‘Thou wilt die nobly as a king should die--in battle for thy country.’
‘Then,’ said Julian, ‘I am content.’
FLAXIUS IN HADES
SHOWING HOW FLAXIUS WENT DOWN INTO HELL, AND OF THE MARVELLOUS THINGS
WHICH HE SAW AND LEARNED WHILE THERE
‘To the Esthete who regards all Nature and Eternity as a mere paint-box
for art, hell is a necessity, as is illustrated by Ruskin when he howls
that “in the utmost solitudes of Nature the existence of hell seems to
me as legibly declared by a thousand spiritual utterances as that of
heaven.”’
‘THEY manage these things,’ said Flaxius, ‘I verily believe, better in
hell.’
‘You have been in hell, I suppose,’ said the goblin-snob, with the most
civilly impertinent air in the world, to the sage.
‘Strange!’ reflected Flaxius, ‘that a place which may be readily
reached in a minute, if we may believe the common exhortation of
the vulgar, or even in an instant by the aid of electricity as
they manage it in America--with I forget how many volts, but “in
a demi-volt”--should be unknown to me. I must consult the Fairy.
Decidedly, my education has been neglected. I have not yet made the
grand tour.’
Flaxius was living then near a town in the Austrian Tyrol, in a lonely,
grey, and ancient ivied tower and small house, hidden away in the
mountains; and there, with his usual disregard for appearances, he had
installed a small gypsy family whom he had found camped in the woods,
three chairs, a table, and a stupendous service of gold plate: this
last not for luxury but because it was the first which, as a buried
treasure near by, came to hand. The Goblin of the Tower had revealed
to him its existence, and he used it because it saved him the trouble
of going to town for crockery. His servants had instructions, whenever
sent to buy anything, to steal one half the money, and then half of
what they bought, under penalty of severe punishment, which had the
natural result that whenever they could do so without detection, they
never stole anything. Once, indeed, when his boy Lajos impudently
brought him a manifestly superabundant supply of fruit for a half
florin, or more than he expected, did Flaxius proceed, I cannot say
to spoil the child, for the young devil was beyond all spoiling, but
to break a rod on him. Whereupon he fell on his knees in tears, but
was pardoned on promising never to be honest any more. Even Flaxius,
great as he was, could not have his own way in everything, for things
got to such a pitch at last, that these gypsies would tell the truth
before his very face openly with the utmost impunity, and even without
blushing.
It was midnight, and Flaxius the Immortal sat alone in his baronial
hall. True, it was only about twenty feet in length and fifteen
in breadth, but it was a hall. The walls were rich, or, at least,
ragged, with Roman-picturesque and very-much-battered stone carvings,
representing a lettuce-like confusion of crockets and finials, in which
were nestled angels as ugly as devils, and devils not much prettier
than the angels, like crayfish, or _écrevisses_, in foliage, the whole
resembling an early Christian or Pre-Raphaelite salad which would have
enchanted a Gothiconolator.
There was in the hall a large black Cat and an Owl, both of whom
had come in uninvited from the Without, and joined the family, on
speculation, from a desire for human sympathy and love, also for mice
and any little edible odds and ends which might be obtainable. There
was, too, a florid chimney-piece, so large that the hall seemed to be
only a portion of it, or adjunct, just as the body and tail of the
pricklefish seem to be only a part of his vast ogival jaw. In it blazed
a fire, and by, or in that fire, sat the house goblin. His name was
_Slangbrand_, and he was engaged in swallowing live coals, and then
blowing out a storm of sparks from his nose, or _de retro_--as ye may
see exemplified in Callot’s picture of Saint Anthony--anon swallowing
the poker like a juggler, and then rising and falling on the smoke,
up and down the chimney, like a ball in a fountain, to the great
admiration of the Cat and the Owl, who constituted his audience.
Then Flaxius himself took a coal from the fire, placed it on a small
silver dish on the table, and sprinkled on it a powder which burned,
emitting an intensely aromatic and most agreeable but strange perfume,
the magian meanwhile murmuring an incantation. A beautiful, soft light
diffused itself all over the room; ’twas like a delicate, rosy Aurora
with a memory of moonlight, and not without stars, for in it shone
two celestial eyes, and then anon the Fairy stood revealed to her
worshipper.
‘Joyful greeting to thee, Flaxius!’ said the _Fata_.
‘Deepest reverence to thee, O loveliest in form as in spirit, of all
thy kind!’ replied the magian in a tone of deep sincerity.
‘And how goes the world with thee?’ inquired his queen.
‘With the world ever something new, as of old. As for me, and it was
for this that I summoned thee, I would fain go----’
‘Go whither?’ inquired the fairy.
‘Go to hell!’ replied Flaxius.
‘Wherefore this unprovoked hostility?’ asked the spirit.
‘It was not spoken in the vocative,’ replied Flaxius. ‘I did but
indicate the route which I fain would take, not commend it to thee,
though by the twelve gods!’ he added passionately, ‘happy indeed would
he be who on such a journey could meet with such an Eurydice!’
‘Flaxius,’ replied the fair one, ‘thou hadst ever so much modesty as to
declare thyself unfit for heaven, and too much pride to allow that thou
wert fit for the lower regions. Therefore didst thou elect to remain
on earth to study and master its problems as thoroughly as it was in
thee to do so, maintaining that of the few magians who like thyself had
mastered immortality, too few prepared themselves, as they should do by
studying the rudiments.’
‘Ay,’ replied Flaxius with his worldly smile. ‘They are mostly like
boys who would fain run straight from their school to their dinner, not
tarrying just for a little wholesome exercise to give a better appetite
and health. But the truth which forces itself on me more and more is
that hell and earth are so nearly allied that it becomes more and more
difficult every day to investigate the one without knowing the other,
even as a knowledge of chemistry becomes essential to an astronomer.’
‘You are quite right,’ replied the fairy. ‘_Sit tibi voluntas_, you
shall have your wish. Fortunately it is extremely easy to get there,
especially to obtain a place as permanent boarder, but even as a casual
visitor I can assure you special honour. All the great geniuses of yore
made a three days’ visit to the realm; it was a ceremony _de rigueur_,
a kind of court presentation which no well-bred immortal could omit.
I do not consider,’ she added reflectively, ‘that hell is exactly the
place to which I would recommend parents to send their boys for an
education, but for men of intelligence there are a great many valuable
ideas to be picked up there. And when would you depart?’
‘Now, if you please.’
‘Said and done then,’ answered the spirit. ‘_Dicto citius_, as Virgil
used to say to you--_in un batter d’occhio--in un balen--in un amen_!
‘In a wink and in a flash,
In a snap, and at a dash,
While a priest “amen” could say!
From this earth now pass away
To the mystic world below,
Which all men dread yet none do know!’
As she uttered this incantation, Flaxius sank back in his great
arm-chair to a deep sleep. The fairy looked at him with a loving
glance, evidently with earnest and sympathetic thought, kissed his
forehead, and softly sighed:
‘Ah well, Eternity is long!’
And turning to the goblin she said: