"But woe to thee! insect meshed in the web in which thou hast entangled limbs and wings! Thou hast not only inhaled the elixir, thou hast conjured the spectre; of all the tribes of the space, no foe is so malignant to man,--and thou hast lifted the veil from thy gaze.I cannot restore to thee the happy dimness of thy vision.Know, at least, that all of us--the highest and the wisest--who have, in sober truth, passed beyond the threshold, have had, as our first fearful task, to master and subdue its grisly and appalling guardian.Know that thou CANSTdeliver thyself from those livid eyes,--know that, while they haunt, they cannot harm, if thou resistest the thoughts to which they tempt, and the horror they engender.DREAD THEM MOST WHENTHOU BEHOLDEST THEM NOT.And thus, son of the worm, we part!
All that I can tell thee to encourage, yet to warn and to guide, I have told thee in these lines.Not from me, from thyself has come the gloomy trial from which I yet trust thou wilt emerge into peace.Type of the knowledge that I serve, I withhold no lesson from the pure aspirant; I am a dark enigma to the general seeker.As man's only indestructible possession is his memory, so it is not in mine art to crumble into matter the immaterial thoughts that have sprung up within thy breast.The tyro might shatter this castle to the dust, and topple down the mountain to the plain.The master has no power to say, 'Exist no more,' to one THOUGHT that his knowledge has inspired.Thou mayst change the thoughts into new forms; thou mayst rarefy and sublimate it into a finer spirit,--but thou canst not annihilate that which has no home but in the memory, no substance but the idea.EVERYTHOUGHT IS A SOUL! Vainly, therefore, would I or thou undo the past, or restore to thee the gay blindness of thy youth.Thou must endure the influence of the elixir thou hast inhaled; thou must wrestle with the spectre thou hast invoked!"The letter fell from Glyndon's hand.A sort of stupor succeeded to the various emotions which had chased each other in the perusal,--a stupor resembling that which follows the sudden destruction of any ardent and long-nursed hope in the human heart, whether it be of love, of avarice, of ambition.The loftier world for which he had so thirsted, sacrificed, and toiled, was closed upon him "forever," and by his own faults of rashness and presumption.But Glyndon's was not of that nature which submits long to condemn itself.His indignation began to kindle against Mejnour, who owned he had tempted, and who now abandoned him,--abandoned him to the presence of a spectre.The mystic's reproaches stung rather than humbled him.What crime had he committed to deserve language so harsh and disdainful?
Was it so deep a debasement to feel pleasure in the smile and the eyes of Fillide? Had not Zanoni himself confessed love for Viola; had he not fled with her as his companion? Glyndon never paused to consider if there are no distinctions between one kind of love and another.Where, too, was the great offence of yielding to a temptation which only existed for the brave? Had not the mystic volume which Mejnour had purposely left open, bid him but "Beware of fear"? Was not, then, every wilful provocative held out to the strongest influences of the human mind, in the prohibition to enter the chamber, in the possession of the key which excited his curiosity, in the volume which seemed to dictate the mode by which the curiosity was to be gratified? As rapidly these thoughts passed over him, he began to consider the whole conduct of Mejnour either as a perfidious design to entrap him to his own misery, or as the trick of an imposter, who knew that he could not realise the great professions he had made.On glancing again over the more mysterious threats and warnings in Mejnour's letter, they seemed to assume the language of mere parable and allegory,--the jargon of the Platonists and Pythagoreans.By little and little, he began to consider that the very spectra he had seen--even that one phantom so horrid in its aspect--were but the delusions which Mejnour's science had enable him to raise.The healthful sunlight, filling up every cranny in his chamber, seemed to laugh away the terrors of the past night.His pride and his resentment nerved his habitual courage; and when, having hastily dressed himself, he rejoined Paolo, it was with a flushed cheek and a haughty step.
"So, Paolo," said he, "the Padrone, as you call him, told you to expect and welcome me at your village feast?""He did so by a message from a wretched old cripple.This surprised me at the time, for I thought he was far distant; but these great philosophers make a joke of two or three hundred leagues.""Why did you not tell me you had heard from Mejnour?""Because the old cripple forbade me."
"Did you not see the man afterwards during the dance?""No, Excellency."
"Humph!"
