Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still.
--Shakespeare.
Venerable Brotherhood, so sacred and so little known, from whose secret
and precious archives the materials for this history have been drawn; ye
who have retained, from century to century, all that time has spared of
the august and venerable science,--thanks to you, if now, for the
first time, some record of the thoughts and actions of no false and
self-styled luminary of your Order be given, however imperfectly, to
the world. Many have called themselves of your band; many spurious
pretenders have been so-called by the learned ignorance which still,
baffled and perplexed, is driven to confess that it knows nothing of
your origin, your ceremonies or doctrines, nor even if you still have
local habitation on the earth. Thanks to you if I, the only one of
my country, in this age, admitted, with a profane footstep, into your
mysterious Academe (The reader will have the goodness to remember that
this is said by the author of the original MS., not by the editor.),
have been by you empowered and instructed to adapt to the comprehension
of the uninitiated, some few of the starry truths which shone on the
great Shemaia of the Chaldean Lore, and gleamed dimly through the
darkened knowledge of latter disciples, labouring, like Psellus and
Iamblichus, to revive the embers of the fire which burned in the Hamarin
of the East. Though not to us of an aged and hoary world is vouchsafed
the NAME which, so say the earliest oracles of the earth, “rushes into
the infinite worlds,” yet is it ours to trace the reviving truths,
through each new discovery of the philosopher and chemist. The laws of
attraction, of electricity, and of the yet more mysterious agency of
that great principal of life, which, if drawn from the universe, would
leave the universe a grave, were but the code in which the Theurgy of
old sought the guides that led it to a legislation and science of its
own. To rebuild on words the fragments of this history, it seems to me
as if, in a solemn trance, I was led through the ruins of a city whose
only remains were tombs. From the sarcophagus and the urn I awake the
genius (The Greek Genius of Death.) of the extinguished Torch, and so
closely does its shape resemble Eros, that at moments I scarcely know
which of ye dictates to me,--O Love! O Death!
And it stirred in the virgin’s heart,--this new, unfathomable, and
divine emotion! Was it only the ordinary affection of the pulse and the
fancy, of the eye to the Beautiful, of the ear to the Eloquent, or did
it not justify the notion she herself conceived of it,--that it was born
not of the senses, that it was less of earthly and human love than the
effect of some wondrous but not unholy charm? I said that, from that day
in which, no longer with awe and trembling, she surrendered herself to
the influence of Zanoni, she had sought to put her thoughts into words.
Let the thoughts attest their own nature.
THE SELF CONFESSIONAL.
“Is it the daylight that shines on me, or the memory of thy presence?
Wherever I look, the world seems full of thee; in every ray that
trembles on the water, that smiles upon the leaves, I behold but a
likeness to thine eyes. What is this change, that alters not only
myself, but the face of the whole universe?
....
“How instantaneously leaped into life the power with which thou swayest
my heart in its ebb and flow. Thousands were around me, and I saw but
thee. That was the night in which I first entered upon the world which
crowds life into a drama, and has no language but music. How strangely
and how suddenly with thee became that world evermore connected! What
the delusion of the stage was to others, thy presence was to me. My
life, too, seemed to centre into those short hours, and from thy lips
I heard a music, mute to all ears but mine. I sit in the room where my
father dwelt. Here, on that happy night, forgetting why THEY were so
happy, I shrunk into the shadow, and sought to guess what thou wert to
me; and my mother’s low voice woke me, and I crept to my father’s side,
close--close, from fear of my own thoughts.
“Ah! sweet and sad was the morrow to that night, when thy lips warned me
of the future. An orphan now,--what is there that lives for me to think
of, to dream upon, to revere, but thou!
“How tenderly thou hast rebuked me for the grievous wrong that my
thoughts did thee! Why should I have shuddered to feel thee glancing
upon my thoughts like the beam on the solitary tree, to which thou didst
once liken me so well? It was--it was, that, like the tree, I struggled
for the light, and the light came. They tell me of love, and my very
life of the stage breathes the language of love into my lips. No; again
and again, I know THAT is not the love that I feel for thee!--it is not
a passion, it is a thought! I ask not to be loved again. I murmur not
that thy words are stern and thy looks are cold. I ask not if I have
rivals; I sigh not to be fair in thine eyes. It is my SPIRIT that would
blend itself with thine. I would give worlds, though we were apart,
though oceans rolled between us, to know the hour in which thy gaze was
lifted to the stars,--in which thy heart poured itself in prayer. They
tell me thou art more beautiful than the marble images that are fairer
than all human forms; but I have never dared to gaze steadfastly on thy
face, that memory might compare thee with the rest. Only thine eyes and
thy soft, calm smile haunt me; as when I look upon the moon, all that
passes into my heart is her silent light.
....
“Often, when the air is calm, I have thought that I hear the strains of
my father’s music; often, though long stilled in the grave, have they
waked me from the dreams of the solemn night. Methinks, ere thou comest
to me that I hear them herald thy approach. Methinks I hear them wail
and moan, when I sink back into myself on seeing thee depart. Thou art
OF that music,--its spirit, its genius. My father must have guessed
at thee and thy native regions, when the winds hushed to listen to his
tones, and the world deemed him mad! I hear where I sit, the far murmur
of the sea. Murmur on, ye blessed waters! The waves are the pulses of
the shore. They beat with the gladness of the morning wind,--so beats my
heart in the freshness and light that make up the thoughts of thee!
....
“Often in my childhood I have mused and asked for what I was born; and
my soul answered my heart and said, ‘THOU WERT BORN TO WORSHIP!’ Yes; I
know why the real world has ever seemed to me so false and cold. I know
why the world of the stage charmed and dazzled me. I know why it was so
sweet to sit apart and gaze my whole being into the distant heavens.
My nature is not formed for this life, happy though that life seem to
others. It is its very want to have ever before it some image loftier
than itself! Stranger, in what realm above, when the grave is past,
shall my soul, hour after hour, worship at the same source as thine?
....
“In the gardens of my neighbour there is a small fountain. I stood by it
this morning after sunrise. How it sprung up, with its eager spray, to
the sunbeams! And then I thought that I should see thee again this day,
and so sprung my heart to the new morning which thou bringest me from
the skies.
....
“I HAVE seen, I have LISTENED to thee again. How bold I have become! I
ran on with my childlike thoughts and stories, my recollections of the
past, as if I had known thee from an infant. Suddenly the idea of my
presumption struck me. I stopped, and timidly sought thine eyes.
“‘Well, and when you found that the nightingale refused to sing?’--
“‘Ah!’ I said, ‘what to thee this history of the heart of a child?’
“‘Viola,’ didst thou answer, with that voice, so inexpressibly calm
and earnest!--‘Viola, the darkness of a child’s heart is often but the
shadow of a star. Speak on! And thy nightingale, when they caught and
caged it, refused to sing?’
“‘And I placed the cage yonder, amidst the vine-leaves, and took up my
lute, and spoke to it on the strings; for I thought that all music was
its native language, and it would understand that I sought to comfort
it.’
“‘Yes,’ saidst thou. ‘And at last it answered thee, but not with
song,--in a sharp, brief cry; so mournful, that thy hands let fall the
lute, and the tears gushed from thine eyes. So softly didst thou unbar
the cage, and the nightingale flew into yonder thicket; and thou heardst
the foliage rustle, and, looking through the moonlight, thine eyes saw
that it had found its mate. It sang to thee then from the boughs a long,
loud, joyous jubilee. And musing, thou didst feel that it was not the
vine-leaves or the moonlight that made the bird give melody to night,
and that the secret of its music was the presence of a thing beloved.’
“How didst thou know my thoughts in that childlike time better than
I knew myself! How is the humble life of my past years, with its
mean events, so mysteriously familiar to thee, bright stranger! I
wonder,--but I do not again dare to fear thee!
....
“Once the thought of him oppressed and weighed me down. As an infant
that longs for the moon, my being was one vague desire for something
never to be attained. Now I feel rather as if to think of thee sufficed
to remove every fetter from my spirit. I float in the still seas of
light, and nothing seems too high for my wings, too glorious for my
eyes. It was mine ignorance that made me fear thee. A knowledge that is
not in books seems to breathe around thee as an atmosphere. How little
have I read!--how little have I learned! Yet when thou art by my side,
it seems as if the veil were lifted from all wisdom and all Nature. I
startle when I look even at the words I have written; they seem not to
come from myself, but are the signs of another language which thou hast
taught my heart, and which my hand traces rapidly, as at thy dictation.
Sometimes, while I write or muse, I could fancy that I heard light wings
hovering around me, and saw dim shapes of beauty floating round, and
vanishing as they smiled upon me. No unquiet and fearful dream ever
comes to me now in sleep, yet sleep and waking are alike but as one
dream. In sleep I wander with thee, not through the paths of earth, but
through impalpable air--an air which seems a music--upward and upward,
as the soul mounts on the tones of a lyre! Till I knew thee, I was as a
slave to the earth. Thou hast given to me the liberty of the universe!
Before, it was life; it seems to me now as if I had commenced eternity!
....
“Formerly, when I was to appear upon the stage, my heart beat more
loudly. I trembled to encounter the audience, whose breath gave shame or
renown; and now I have no fear of them. I see them, heed them, hear them
not! I know that there will be music in my voice, for it is a hymn that
I pour to thee. Thou never comest to the theatre; and that no longer
grieves me. Thou art become too sacred to appear a part of the common
world, and I feel glad that thou art not by when crowds have a right to
judge me.
....
“And he spoke to me of ANOTHER: to another he would consign me! No, it
is not love that I feel for thee, Zanoni; or why did I hear thee without
anger, why did thy command seem to me not a thing impossible? As
the strings of the instrument obey the hand of the master, thy look
modulates the wildest chords of my heart to thy will. If it please
thee,--yes, let it be so. Thou art lord of my destinies; they cannot
rebel against thee! I almost think I could love him, whoever it be, on
whom thou wouldst shed the rays that circumfuse thyself. Whatever thou
hast touched, I love; whatever thou speakest of, I love. Thy hand played
with these vine leaves; I wear them in my bosom. Thou seemest to me the
source of all love; too high and too bright to be loved thyself,
but darting light into other objects, on which the eye can gaze less
dazzled. No, no; it is not love that I feel for thee, and therefore
it is that I do not blush to nourish and confess it. Shame on me if I
loved, knowing myself so worthless a thing to thee!
....
“ANOTHER!--my memory echoes back that word. Another! Dost thou mean that
I shall see thee no more? It is not sadness,--it is not despair that
seizes me. I cannot weep. It is an utter sense of desolation. I am
plunged back into the common life; and I shudder coldly at the solitude.
But I will obey thee, if thou wilt. Shall I not see thee again beyond
the grave? O how sweet it were to die!
“Why do I not struggle from the web in which my will is thus entangled?
Hast thou a right to dispose of me thus? Give me back--give me back the
life I knew before I gave life itself away to thee. Give me back the
careless dreams of my youth,---my liberty of heart that sung aloud as it
walked the earth. Thou hast disenchanted me of everything that is not
of thyself. Where was the sin, at least, to think of thee,--to see thee?
Thy kiss still glows upon my hand; is that hand mine to bestow? Thy kiss
claimed and hallowed it to thyself. Stranger, I will NOT obey thee.
....
“Another day,--one day of the fatal three is gone! It is strange to me
that since the sleep of the last night, a deep calm has settled upon my
breast. I feel so assured that my very being is become a part of thee,
that I cannot believe that my life can be separated from thine; and in
this conviction I repose, and smile even at thy words and my own
fears. Thou art fond of one maxim, which thou repeatest in a thousand
forms,--that the beauty of the soul is faith; that as ideal loveliness
to the sculptor, faith is to the heart; that faith, rightly understood,
extends over all the works of the Creator, whom we can know but through
belief; that it embraces a tranquil confidence in ourselves, and a
serene repose as to our future; that it is the moonlight that sways the
tides of the human sea. That faith I comprehend now. I reject all doubt,
all fear. I know that I have inextricably linked the whole that makes
the inner life to thee; and thou canst not tear me from thee, if
thou wouldst! And this change from struggle into calm came to me
with sleep,--a sleep without a dream; but when I woke, it was with
a mysterious sense of happiness,--an indistinct memory of something
blessed,--as if thou hadst cast from afar off a smile upon my slumber.
At night I was so sad; not a blossom that had not closed itself up, as
if never more to open to the sun; and the night itself, in the heart
as on the earth, has ripened the blossoms into flowers. The world is
beautiful once more, but beautiful in repose,--not a breeze stirs thy
tree, not a doubt my soul!”