say it was in the direction of Mutton’s, to lunch--‘we learn from past
trials and bitter storms how in future to keep under shelter, and seek
only the sunny way.
‘“For all experience is an arch where through Gleams that untravelled
world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever as we roam.”’
* * * * *
_Haec fabula docet,_ ‘ye morale of whych lytil historie,’ pens Flaxius
as usual on the galley, ‘is that we should, firstly, not believe the
worst of anybody, be it derived from their own manner, and demeanour,
or from oral or written report, and above all have patience with them,
and try to help them to a better state. For, verily, this Miss Rockhard
was a hard nut to crack, and enough to daunt the devil, or any decent
man as I first met her, and a hard time I had with her, yet did she
come out ‘all right as a trivet,’ a _trivet_ being, as ye know, dearly
beloved, a _tripod_, and the reference ‘all right’ to the infallible
accuracy of the Delphic oracle, which is, however, a fact not generally
known. For of all things a three-legged stool stands most securely.
As for the manner in which any evil report may be cruelly and
undeservedly attached to a name, there is still a word to be said for
belle Jezebel of Hebrew history. When I of late defended her character,
I was rebuffed with the remark that there was in the Book of Kings a
distinct assertion that she was a--ahem!--social evil--and a witch:
this being the speech of Jehu, Kings II. 9, v. 22.
Now be it observed that the expression here employed is to be found
over and over again in the Old Testament, and in almost every instance
is used not to signify any adultery or individual immorality, but to
discredit the Syrian religion. It was a very nasty and unmanly form
of abuse which the Hebrew prophets, and Saint John, used far too
freely, on _all_ occasions, to characterise everything theological
which displeased them; just as sailors and the like use ‘bloody,’ _et
cetera_, very often with no meaning whatever, or as the gentlemen and
ladies of Houndsditch cry out _noffgur_ and _ben-noffgur_, and so
forth, far too freely to all offenders. This speech of Jehu’s was, it
is true, used not in the Pickwickian sense, but most certainly in the
theological, which is the next thing to it. For the first impulse of
the _odium theologicum_ is, to be ‘nasty.’
Now a good tough nature like Jesabelle’s, when really honest, is
all the better and cleaner for a good mangling. As was beautifully
expressed by the ancients as follows--
[Illustration]
that is, three V’s, meaning _Virtus virtute virescit_, Virtue
flourishes by virtue, signifying that like the chamomile it grows the
more for being trampled on. To the present day this sign is often to
be seen on the walls of Florence, scratched in chalk or charcoal, and
prefixed to the names of popular favourites. It is generally believed
to be a monogram of _Evviva_!
[10] Vide _Etruscan-Roman Remains_, by Charles Godfrey Leland: London,
Fisher Unwin.
[11] Here the chronicler of Flaxius would fain get in a little
_réclame_, by mentioning that Herodias and Diana have a small book to
themselves in _Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches_, by Charles Godfrey
Leland. London: D. Nutt.
HOW FLAXIUS SAT AS JUDGE WITH A JURY OF TWELVE DEVILS
‘Sono demoni chi rappresentano il popolaccio del inferno, mentre che i
diavoli ne sono i principi e i gran signori.’
‘There are demons who represent the populace of hell, while the devils
are its nobility and great gentlemen; and some of these have left a
name, such as it is, in books on strange subjects.--_Del Diavolo, a
Treatise_, 1870.
THE Sun had drowned himself in the sea, and his widow, the Sky, after
dissipating the evening gold which he had left, was contracting a
second marriage with Night, who brought her as settlement the silver
moon and the whole heavenly sack of stars, when Flaxius wandered along
alone by the wild, wailing waves, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling,
and hearing the sweet-salt, vapoury ocean breeze. So he went on--it was
a lonely coast--till he encountered a shepherd established in a hut of
stones and turf; a tenement so small as to bear to its inhabitant the
relation a shell bears to a tortoise.
‘Is there any place hereabout,’ asked Flaxius, ‘where I could lodge for
the night?’
‘None for near a five mile,’ answered the herd, removing the slender
pipe of clay from his lips; ‘leastwise none where yer could get _hin_.
That is, ’cept the Devil’s Den, a hold ouse, furder on, and _there_,’
he added emphatically, ‘I reckon yer’d only be too glad to get _hout_.’
‘Why?’ inquired Flaxius.
‘’Cos it’s ruined--wuss than Jane Shoree hever wus by the royal
_rep-ro-bate_,’ replied the herd, who appeared to have some tincture of
letters.
‘Is it roofed?’
‘Roofed and water-proofed,’ was the reply. ‘’Taint _there_ that the
affliction commences. I mean ruined in reppertation and char-ac-ter.
It’s mellincolly and hin bad sperits--leastways bad sperits is in
hit--an’ always were--since the smugglers left hoff usin’ hof hit. Hits
‘osts his ghosts.’
Flaxius gave the man a deeply pensive look, and a small silver coin.
The herd replied with a six-pence-ive smile of gratitude. ‘Sir,’ he
exclaimed, ‘“you are a good Lot,” as the lady said to her ’usband
before she turned to a piller hof salt.’
‘How can I be a lot, being but one?’ inquired Flaxius.
‘Hi call a cove good com-peny when a penny come to me from ’im,’
replied the shepherd. ‘You stand six hof ’em. You’re more’n a cove,
you’re a whole covey hof birds, a multitood o’ virtues, a ‘arf dozener.’
The sage went on from pile to pile of pebbles, or earth, marked with
whitewash to serve the coast-guards as guides in darkness, till he
beheld before him the shelter which he sought. It was a dilapidated
stone house of the Jacobean time and style; not unpicturesque,
gracefully draped with ivy, and as it stood in the light of a full
moon on a rising rocky platform, with a sea-view circling round, there
was in it something which irresistibly recalled scenes in theatres and
novels, smugglers, witches, Guy Mannering, and Anne the uncanny of
Geierstein.
But what gave it specially this appearance to Flaxius was the gleam
from within of a light, which he knew at once was lit by no mortal
match and fed by no earthly oil or fuel. It rose and fell, quivering
and thrilling like a Northern light, sometimes causing the building to
appear as if in flame, and then shrinking to an arrowy ray, or a mere
needle, changing to many hues in which, however, a sulphur blue ever
predominated. And with its changes there rang in time and measure, high
or low, unearthly laughter, strange shouts or ululations, sinking to
stranger humming or buzzing, and passing to a dreamy melody in softened
shade, all at once broken up by a startling blare and flare and wild
vociferation in strange tongues.
It required little reflection for the Magian to conjecture the nature
of the company from whom such sounds proceeded, nor was he astonished,
after opening the door, entering the hall, and uttering the wizard
greeting, which proclaimed his nature, to see the sight which met his
eyes.
Round about a great block of sandstone, which served for a table,
and on which stood two open cases of gin, several loose bottles, a
ten-gallon demijohn of whisky, a raisin box full of Perique, or _favori
du diable_ tobacco, and an ancient, much-thumbed manuscript bound
in sheet-iron, sat lolling and sprawling in all the extravagance of
unconventional ease, on divans or seats, also of stone, twelve demons,
or spirits of that kind whose mission it is in life to busy themselves
especially with all that is mischievous, reckless, stirring, wild,
eccentric, or subversive. That is to say, they are always occupied
with what they call ‘whooping it up’; aiding and encouraging youth to
paint towns red, inspiring Celtic politics, whether French or Irish,
organising riots, editing society newspapers, evoking up divorces,
anarchising, and filling police courts with cases. They were all
smoking and drinking, and seemed to be earnestly occupied with some
extremely interesting subject of debate; the intensity or moderation of
which was manifested in the _crescendo_, or _diminuendo_, of a flame
rising from a great terra-cotta vase, and by the tones of their voices.
‘Hallo, old Flax, is that you?’ cried the only one of this precious
company with whom the Sage had ever before made acquaintance. This was
Slang--not by any means the worst of them, since his mission merely was
to corrupt language, and invent all kinds of new, grotesque forms of
speech. ‘_Mozeltoff!_ luck to you, old cove, _sās tute a kairin tiro
kokero_?’ he continued in the tongue generally spoken among devils and
goblins, ‘how have you been doing since they let you out?’
‘_Kūshti adosta_, well enough,’ replied Flaxius in the same tone and
tongue, for there never was man on earth who could so adapt himself
gracefully to the most varied society or ‘all shorts and editions’ of
life. ‘May I venture to ask for what purpose you gentlemen are here
assembled?’
‘_Lel a swägler an’ a cutter a mūl-tatto-pani_, take a pipe and a drop
of brandy before we get to _biz_,’ exclaimed Slang, dusting a seat
obsequiously as he spoke; and indeed it was quite evident, despite
their swaggering impudence and their feet on the tables, that the whole
party of demons were deeply sensible of the honour of entertaining such
a distinguished guest. Flaxius accepted the refreshment, and sat down.
‘What you behold,’ said Moloch, the _diavolo_ of Pessimism, ‘is a
sad spectacle and a melancholy instance of diabolical deterioration,
showing how even natures which have received every blessing of hell
and all infernal advantages from the devil himself can become depraved
to mere _inertia_. We are now a jury here assembled to try one of our
number for his reputation. You, sir, though happily exempted from all
such mutations, are aware that the limit of moral existence is one
thousand years for a member of our order, unless he by progressive
energy or genius advances himself, in which case he receives a renewal
of his social lease. Now there is one of our number known as _Sneak_,
who during all his snivelling millennium has never got beyond where he
begun--or vulgarity and idle folly--including carrying and retailing
petty gossip, teaching foolish old club-men and ladies how to twaddle
about divorces and marriages, elopements, and relationships, gleaning
trash and mean slander from low servants, and sticking _just there_.
Such an existence, we hold, is too contemptible for even the meanest
devil in Inferno; hence this jury, to decide whether the creature shall
exist among us any longer; and as our judge has failed to put in an
appearance we respectfully request your Wisdom to take his place as
referee.’
‘I consent with pleasure,’ said Flaxius. ‘Produce the culprit!’
A truculent-looking demon named Dobble, whose department was
quarrelling, the prize-ring, rencounters, and rows, here arose, went
to a corner, put a box under his arm, brought it to the table, opened
it, and took from it a form pressed flat like a pair of trousers in
a trunk. This he unfolded--blew it up like a bladder by means of the
stem of his clay-pipe--and gave it a drink of whisky, when lo! the form
assumed some semblance of, if not humanity, at least demonity. It was
a wretched-looking phantom, something in it recalling a battered Punch
or tattered Ally Sloper, a Paul Pry, a thing without a conscience or
moral sense, yet not without prying inquisitiveness or petty cunning--a
poor _simulacrum_ of a popular, paltry jest. It sat up and grinned, and
leered, without a trace of fear, as if--all its function finished--it
had nothing else to do but to die game, as vulgar, second-hand
tradition enjoined its kind to do.
‘I appear here,’ said Moloch, not without dignity, ‘as _advocatus
diaboli_, or public prosecutor. The entire life and actions of this
sneak, whom I will not honour with the name of devil, or even imp, are
so well known to all here present as to render a formal indictment a
work of supererogation. Yet that all due formalities may be properly
fulfilled, I ask the accused if he demands that any accusation be made?’
To which the culprit replied by casting up his head, and saying, in a
tone which would have elicited roars of applause in a music hall:
‘_Ya-ap!_ Who’re _you_? Shut up!’
‘An indictment is therefore needless. Let me here remark, gentlemen,’
said Moloch, with great impressiveness, ‘that though we may all be
demons, and even the humblest of our order, our mission is _not_, as is
vulgarly supposed, to do evil. It is simply agitation and action.’
‘To keep things a-bilin’,’ interposed Slang.
‘Quite true. The honourable gentleman who has just interrupted me is,
for example, often accused of mere vulgarity, but unjustly. He may be
a rude poet, but he invents new similes and vigorous racy words which
are often wanting. I myself--in many ways--by introducing Pessimism
to society, and by raising the question as to whether life is worth
living, caused a discussion which rendered me worthy of receiving a
renewal of my lease of life. The pugnacity of my colleague Dobble has
its silver lining--it provokes resistance, argument, and conclusion. We
may all be a rough lot with a hard bark, but there is _wood_ in us. But
the accused is all rotten bark and no bite, and _hollow_. Vulgarity,
twaddle, gossip, and small-talk are all one and the same thing; and
the mind devoted to them alone stagnates and putrefies. The spirit of
it dies very slowly, gentlemen; but if nothing better can be said of
this _fin de siècle_, it must be at least admitted that this century
has witnessed no advance in vulgarity and the pettiness which kills for
everything. Gentlemen, I await your verdict?’
‘GUILTY, in large capitals,’ cried Slang, who seemed to be foreman.
‘We’re all agreed like a rope of inyons.’
‘Prisoner,’ exclaimed Flaxius, ‘have you anything to say why sentence
of non-renewal of existence should not be passed on you.’
‘Oh, a’nt I just?’ screamed Sneak in a Punch tone. ‘Call _me_ vulgar
do yer, yer vaggabones--me that moves in the highest circles among the
biggest suckers! Listen to _this_!’ And with that, he drew from his
pocket a fashionable weekly newspaper, well known on every stand, and
proceeded to read from it such a mass of drivelling silliness relating
to the pettiest acts or tastes of the upper classes, including that
of royalty itself, and all that constituted what _it_ regarded as
‘Society,’ that even Flaxius was fain to drink another glass of brandy,
and light a cigar to enable him to sustain the infliction. At last it
came to an end.
‘There!’ exclaimed Sneak triumphantly. ‘That’s what Erbamala, the great
_noveliste_, and I call human nature. The best art is the depicting
that--it pays best--and I’m the spirit who inspires it all. There I
rest my defence.’
‘The defence,’ said Flaxius, ‘has aggravated the offence.’
‘Well, my time is not out, and you’ll find that I shall drag on awhile
longer.’
‘True,’ observed Flaxius, ‘but observe that there _was_ a time when you
had a place, such as it was, among those who are here present. Now it
is lost; even the demons of the present day disown you. Therefore I
pronounce you dead _de facto_, for those for whom you now live among
mortals have no intellects. Begone!’
The foreman opened a window, and the living dead whisked out of it,
like a great carrion blue-bottle with a buzz.
‘Did the deceased leave any property on which to administer?’ asked
Boodle, the modern incarnation of Mammon.
‘Yes, he left ME,’ piped a small voice. And a sharp little imp, two
inches in height, sprang on the table. ‘I’m _Puttuli_.’
‘Immortalised by Musæus,’ said Moloch. ‘You were used to go about to
people’s pockets and report what you found therein to your master.’
‘Yes, but I can do more than that,’ replied Puttuli. ‘I can observe and
report anything.’
‘Well, none of us want you,’ cried Slang, ‘you little, sneaking,
spying villain. So be off with you by the first boat--quicker than
immediately, if not sooner.’
‘Nay,’ said Flaxius, ‘he may be useful if properly employed. With your
permission, gentlemen, I will take him.’
And as there was no dissenting voice, the wise Flaxius departed
with Puttuli in his pocket. And he soon found that he had indeed a
pocket-companion, and voluble--if not valuable--_vade-mecum_, for
the diminutive imp was what a distinguished American writer calls an
‘amoosin’ little cuss,’ and ‘especially good at beguiling off the odd
corners of the weary hours.’
* * * * *
‘_Haec fabula docet_,’ wrote Flaxius, ‘or its moral is--not what too
many satirists so sadly wail--that Sneak actually represents the spirit
of this bottom of the century, but its very dregs, which are, however,
stirred up too much by the spoons of small writers into what would be,
but for them, a clear, exhilarating beverage. The very devils, whose
agitation in a certain way leads ever to something that is good, find
their work hindered by this imp of pettiness. Prosperity and peace,
or its stagnation, engender the birth of such mosquitoes. A roaring
torrent of even dirty water is better, for it will wash itself clean
ere long, but a standing pool only creates vile insects and malaria.
FLAXIUS AND THE BOOKSELLER
‘“L’amour des livres est plus utile que vous ne croyez,” dit le
capitaine, “car je trouve dans mes études un calme qui vous manque.
Vous ne soupçonnez pas tout ce qu’une manie a de précieux, docteur!
Elle occupe comme une passion, et n’a aucun de ses tourments.
Croyez-moi, puisque la vie n’est après tout qu’une voiture mal
suspendue qui nous conduit à la mort, les sages sont ceux qui baissent
les stores, sans songer au but ni aux cahots.”’
_Souvenirs d’un Bas Breton, par Émile Souvestre._
‘Few are the men who know what lives do hide,
Or dream what demons lurk, or fairies flit,
In places which to them seem dull and tame,
Even as a drop of water to the eye
Appears to it like naught; but take to it a glass,
And lo it is a sea with monsters filled,
Devouring, making love, or raging wild--
Full many a heart is like that water drop.’
THE day had been grim and ill-tempered--flitting fitfully through all
the phases of bad weather--promising at times, like a deceitful child,
to be good, when it would clear a little into curling mists, through
which there came a doubtful ray of light--when straight anon there fell
a dismal fog, then wild rain, maddened by the roaring of the wind--for
’tis terrible mourning when any one cries aloud and weeps at the same
time--_laut aufweinend_--as the Germans say.
Oh, I warrant you that the rusty weather-cocks, as they whirled round
and round, and screamed as if crowing to the _Wilde Jäger_, in the old
town of Nuremberg, and the wind low-waving like the deep baying of his
hounds made a fine witches’-chorus that night--yea, the very gutters in
their unwonted joy at becoming bounding brooks sang gurgling songs as
they hurried along to leap into the Pegnitz....
‘’Tis a _Sauwetter_--yea, a _Hundeswetter_--a swine and dog weather,’
exclaimed the little old man to Flaxius, as the latter refuged himself
just long enough to turn his umbrella, which had been reversed into
a great goblet by a sudden squall, under an arch. This arch was over
the projecting doorway of a shop; ’twas immensely massive from the
old, bold time, and I warrant you that Albert Dürer and Willibald
Pirckheimer and Hans Sachs and all of ’em had passed under it often.
‘I could make better weather,’ added the old man, ‘with only a rusty
tea-kettle and a pint of----’
Flaxius looked up. There was a little, half-obliterated sign over the
ancient door, which had once proclaimed to the world that here was a
_Buchhandlung_ or book-shop, but like an ancient warrior, with stress
of time and battling with the elements, it had forgotten most of its
letters.
‘You sell books?’ replied Flaxius.
‘How do you know _that_?’ asked the little man, with a quick,
suspicious glance, as if a secret which he wished to keep hidden had
been revealed.
‘And you have for sale a fine copy of the _Emblemata_ of Iselburg
in old German rhyme, published in Nuremberg in Fifteen Hundred and
Seventeen ... and a superbly bound exemplar of the _Altdeutsche Wälder_
of Grimm.’
‘Not for sale--not for sale--oh, no!’ exclaimed the little old man
eagerly. ‘They belong to my private library.’
‘Also the _Mascarades Monastiques_ of Rabelli,’ pursued Flaxius
pitilessly.
‘’Tis sold,’ cried the Bookseller, as if alarmed.
‘It isn’t; but never mind, I don’t want to buy them, yet I would like
to see your collection.’
‘_A--ch, so!_’ responded the ancient, visibly relieved. ‘_Komm herein,
du lieber Gast, wenn du nichts im Beutel hast._
‘“Enter as a welcome guest,
If thou really nothing hast,
If thou’rt poor then sit thee down
If thou’st money, get thee gone!”’
And with this invitation, he led the way into a marvellous old German
interior, which looked as if it had been painted by some artist who
was, as I once heard a French artist say, ‘mad on the Middle Age and
earlier time.’ For it was heavily arched, and looked like the crypt
of a cathedral, or the _Stube_ of the Giant Tavern in the Hof-Gasse
of Innsbruck, which is, indeed, lovely to behold, and far away finer
than the Auerbach Keller of Leipzig. All around were books: books of
tarnished gold in old ivory-parchment bindings; books in tremendous
plank covers of old oak, knobbed with bronze or iron, like castle
doors; books in marvellous cut-vellum, with rich Gothic grotesques,
and silver clasps of extravagant richness; books on shelves and heaped
up in piles like rubbish; everywhere books--and _such_ books! ’Twas a
vision, a dream, an endless promise of a bibliomaniac’s paradise!
And there the two sat for hours turning over the black letter of the
olden time, like two wizards evoking the spirits of the dead, which,
indeed, the scholar always does when he reads reverently in such books,
which were made, and once studied, by the departed. For it is in his
thoughts that the writer lives in after ages, and he is ever with us as
we read.
The dealer was enchanted also with his guest, hearing the wondrous
words and ponderous stories, strange, which were uttered in calm,
solemn tone; and a rapt shuddering stole over him as they turned some
old and legend-leaved book, mysterious to behold, while he learned
priceless secrets enhancing the value even of what he most esteemed.
Flaxius took up an old work--_Das Schachzabel-spiel_ of Jacob Manuel of
1536.
‘There seems to be something in the binding,’ he said. ‘Perhaps some
old paper. May I examine it?’
He bent back with care the thin parchment, and drew out a manuscript of
perhaps twenty leaves, which had been put in to stiffen the binding, as
waste-paper.
‘This is indeed a find,’ he solemnly remarked. ‘A great discovery.’
‘What is it?’
‘A manuscript play as yet unknown, by Hans Sachs, entitled _Die Weisse
Rabe_, or, _The White Raven_, with the motto from the _Renner_ of
Trimberg:
‘“Selten wir gesehen haben
Swarze Swanen und weisse Raben.
Seldom have we ever seen
Black swans or ravens white I ween.”
It bears the signature of the author: _Hans Sachs_.’
‘Blessed be the storm which drove thee to my gate; blessed be this day
and hour, and the mother who bore thee, and all and everything dear
unto thee!’ cried the Bookseller. ‘Lo, it has been the dream of my life
to find that play--I have seen it in visions, I have prayed for it; I
would have given a finger, an eye, yea, my choicest book to even behold
it.’
‘And now it is thine,’ replied Flaxius gently. ‘And indeed it was--_de
facto_--thine own discovery, since thou didst lead me here, and it was
in thy possession.’
The old man clasped the manuscript to his heart, and kissed it
reverently; there was silence, save for the pattering of the rain, and
anon a thunder peal, which seemed like a joyous _salvo_ fired off in
honour of the event. The Bookseller rose with tottering steps.
‘I will return anon,’ he said.
He came back, bearing two ancient bottles covered with dust and
cobwebs, and two tall, magnificent old glass goblets.