Scene.— Basil; a chamber in the house of Paracelsus. 1526.
Paracelsus,
Festus.
Paracelsus.
Heap logs and let the blaze laugh out!
Festus. True, true!'T is very fit all, time and chance and
Have wrought since last we sat thus, face to
And soul to soul—all cares, far-looking fears,
Vague apprehensions, all vain fancies
By your long absence, should be cast away,
Forgotten in this glad unhoped
Of our affections.
Paracelsus. Oh, omit not
Which witnesses your own and Michal's
Affection: spare not that!
Only
The honours and the glories and what not,
It pleases you to tell profusely out.
Festus.
Nay, even your honours, in a sense,
I waive:
The wondrous Paracelsus, life's dispenser,
Fate's commissary, idol of the
And courts, shall be no more than Aureole still,
Still Aureole and my friend as when we
Some twenty years ago, and I
As best I could the promptings of my
Which secretly advanced you, from the first,
To the pre-eminent rank which, since, your
Adventurous ardour, nobly triumphing,
Has won for you.
Paracelsus. Yes, yes.
And Michal's
Still wears that quiet and peculiar
Like the dim circlet floating round a pearl?
Festus.
Just so.
Paracelsus. And yet her calm sweet countenance,
Though saintly, was not sad; for she would
Alone.
Does she still sing alone, bird-like,
Not dreaming you are near?
Her carols
In flakes through that old leafy bower built
The sunny wall at Würzburg, from her
Among the trees above, while I, unseen,
Sat conning some rare scroll from Tritheim's
Much wondering notes so simple could
My mind from study.
Those were happy days.
Respect all such as sing when all alone!
Festus.
Scarcely alone: her children, you may guess,
Are wild beside her.
Paracelsus. Ah, those children
Unsettle the pure picture in my mind:
A girl, she was so perfect, so distinct:
No change, no change!
Not but this added
May blend and harmonize with its compeers,
And Michal may become her motherhood;
But't is a change, and I detest all change,
And most a change in aught I loved long since.
So,
Michal—you have said she thinks of me?
Festus.
O very proud will Michal be of you!
Imagine how we sat, long winter-nights,
Scheming and wondering, shaping your
Adventure, or devising its reward;
Shutting out fear with all the strength of hope.
For it was strange how, even when most
In our domestic peace, a certain
And flitting shade could sadden all; it seemedA restlessness of heart, a silent yearning,
A sense of something wanting, incomplete—Not to be put in words, perhaps
By mute consent—but, said or unsaid,
To point to one so loved and so long lost.
And then the hopes rose and shut out the fears—How you would laugh should I recount them nowI still predicted your return at
With gifts beyond the greatest of them all,
All Tritheim's wondrous troop; did one of
Attain renown by any chance,
I smiled,
As well aware of who would prove his
Michal was sure some woman, long ere this,
As beautiful as you were sage, had loved . . .
Paracelsus.
Far-seeing, truly, to discern so
In the fantastic projects and
Of a raw restless boy!
Festus. Oh, no: the
Well warranted our faith in this full noon!
Can I forget the anxious voice which said"Festus, have thoughts like these ere shaped themselves"In other brains than mine? have their possessors"Existed in like circumstance? were they weak"As I, or ever constant from the first,"Despising youth's allurements and rejecting"As spider-films the shackles I endure?"Is there hope for me?"—and I answered
As an acknowledged elder, calmer, wiser,
More gifted mortal.
O you must remember,
For all your glorious . . .
Paracelsus. Glorious? ay, this hair,
These hands—nay, touch them, they are mine!
With all the said recallings, times when
To lay them by your own ne'er turned you
As now.
Most glorious, are they not?
Festus. Why—why—Something must be subtracted from
So wide, no doubt.
He would be scrupulous, truly,
Who should object such drawbacks.
Still, still,
Aureole,
You are changed, very changed! 'T were losing
To look well to it: you must not be
From the enjoyment of your well-won meed.
Paracelsus.
My friend! you seek my pleasure, past a doubt:
You will best gain your point, by talking,
Of me, but of yourself.
Festus. Have I not
All touching Michal and my children?
You know, by this, full well how Aennchen
Gravely, while one disparts her thick brown hair;
And Aureole's glee when some stray gannet
Amid the birch-trees by the lake.
Small
Have I that he will honour (the wild imp)His namesake.
Sigh not! 't is too much to
That all we love should reach the same proud fate.
But you are very kind to humour
By showing interest in my quiet life;
You, who of old could never tame
To tranquil pleasures, must at heart despise . . .
Paracelsus.
Festus, strange secrets are let out by
Who blabs so oft the follies of this world:
And I am death's familiar, as you know.
I helped a man to die, some few weeks since,
Warped even from his go-cart to one end—The living on princes' smiles, reflected fromA mighty herd of favourites.
No mean
He left untried, and truly well-nigh
All traces of God's finger out of him:
Then died, grown old.
And just an hour before,
Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes,
He sat up suddenly, and with natural
Said that in spite of thick air and closed
God told him it was June; and he knew well,
Without such telling, harebells grew in June;
And all that kings could ever give or
Would not be precious as those blooms to him.
Just so, allowing I am passing sage,
It seems to me much worthier
Why pansies,[1] eyes that laugh, bear beauty's
From violets, eyes that dream—(your Michal's choice)—Than all fools find to wonder at in
Or in my fortunes.
And be very sureI say this from no prurient restlessness,
No self-complacency, itching to turn,
Vary and view its pleasure from all points,
And, in this instance, willing other
May be at pains, demonstrate to
The realness of the very joy it tastes.
What should delight me like the news of
Whose memories were a solace to me oft,
As mountain-baths to wild fowls in their flight?
Ofter than you had wasted thought on
Had you been wise, and rightly valued bliss.
But there's no taming nor repressing hearts:
God knows I need such!—So, you heard me speak?
Festus.
Speak? when?
Paracelsus. When but this morning at my class?
There was noise and crowd enough.
I saw you not.
Surely you know I am engaged to
The chair here?—that't is part of my proud
To lecture to as many thick-skulled
As please, each day, to throng the theatre,
To my great reputation, and no
Danger of Basil's benches long
To crack beneath such honour?
Festus. I was there;
I mingled with the throng: shall I
Small care was mine to listen?—too
On gathering from the murmurs of the crowdA full corroboration of my hopes!
What can I learn about your powers? but
Know, care for nought beyond your actual state,
Your actual value; yet they worship you,
Those various natures whom you sway as one!
But ere I go, be sure I shall attend . . .
Paracelsus.
Stop, o' God's name: the thing's by no means
Past remedy!
Shall I read this morning's labour—At least in substance?
Nought so worth the
As an apt scholar!
Thus then, with all
Precision and emphasis—you, beside, are
Guiltless of understanding more, a whit,
The subject than your stool—allowed to beA notable advantage.
Festus. Surely,
Aureole,
You laugh at me!
Paracelsus. I laugh?
Ha, ha! thank heaven,
I charge you, if't be so! for I
Much, and what laughter should be like.
No less,
However,
I forego that
Since it alarms the friend who brings it back.
True, laughter like my own must echo
To thinking men; a smile were better far;
So, make me smile!
If the exulting
You wore but now be smiling, 't is so
Since I have smiled!
Alas, such smiles are
Alone of hearts like yours, or herdsmen's
Of ancient time, whose eyes, calm as their flocks,
Saw in the stars mere garnishry of heaven,
And in the earth a stage for altars only.
Never change,
Festus:
I say, never change!
Festus.
My God, if he be wretched after
Paracelsus.
When last we parted,
Festus, you declared,—Or Michal, yes, her soft lips whispered wordsI have preserved.
She told me she believedI should succeed (meaning, that in the searchI then engaged in,
I should meet success)And yet be wretched: now, she augured false.
Festus.
Thank heaven! but you spoke strangely: could I
To think bare apprehension lest your friend,
Dazzled by your resplendent course, might
Henceforth less sweetness in his own, could
Such earnest mood in you?
Fear not, dear friend,
That I shall leave you, inwardly
Your lot was not my own!
Paracelsus. And this for ever!
For ever! gull who may, they will be gulled!
They will not look nor think;'t is nothing
In them: but surely he is not of them!
My Festus, do you know,
I reckoned, you—Though all beside were sand-blind—you, my friend,
Would look at me, once close, with piercing
Untroubled by the false glare that confoundsA weaker vision: would remain serene,
Though singular amid a gaping throng.
I feared you, or I had come, sure, long ere this,
To Einsiedeln.
Well, error has no end,
And Rhasis is a sage, and Basil boastsA tribe of wits, and I am wise and
Past all dispute! 'T is vain to fret at it.
I have vowed long ago my
Shall owe to their own deep
All further information, good or bad.
Small risk indeed my reputation runs,
Unless perchance the glance now searching
Be fixed much longer; for it seems to
Dimly the characters a simpler
Might read distinct enough.
Old Eastern
Say, the fallen prince of morning some short
Remained unchanged in semblance; nay, his
Was hued with triumph: every spirit
Praising, his heart on flame the while:—a tale!
Well,
Festus, what discover you,
I pray?
Festus.
Some foul deed sullies then a life which
Were raised supreme?
Paracelsus. Good:
I do well, most
Why strive to make men hear, feel, fret
With what is past their power to comprehend?
I should not strive now: only, having
The faint surmise that one yet walked the earth,
One, at least, not the utter fool of show,
Not absolutely formed to be the
Of shallow plausibilities alone:
One who, in youth, found wise enough to
The happiness his riper years approve,
Was yet so anxious for another's sake,
That, ere his friend could rush upon a
And ruinous course, the converse of his own,
His gentle spirit essayed, prejudged for
The perilous path, foresaw its destiny,
And warned the weak one in such tender words,
Such accents—his whole heart in every tone—That oft their memory comforted that
When it by right should have increased despair:—Having believed,
I say, that this one
Could never lose the light thus from the
His portion—how should I refuse to
At even my gain if it disturb our
Relation, if it make me out more wise?
Therefore, once more reminding him how
He prophesied,
I note the single
That spoils his prophet's title.
In plain words,
You were deceived, and thus were you deceived—I have not been successful, and yet
Most miserable; 't is said at last; nor
Give credit, lest you force me to
That common sense yet lives upon the world!
Festus.
You surely do not mean to banter me?
Paracelsus.
You know, or—if you have been wise
To cleanse your memory of such matters—knew,
As far as words of mine could make it clear,
That't was my purpose to find joy or
Solely in the fulfilment of my
Or plot or whatsoe'er it was;
Alone as it proceeded prosperously,
Sorrowing then only when mischance
Its progress.
That was in those Würzburg days!
Not to prolong a theme I thoroughly hate,
I have pursued this plan with all my strength;
And having failed therein most signally,
Cannot object to ruin utter and
As all-excelling would have been the
Had fortune favoured me.
I scarce have
To vex your frank good spirit late so
In my supposed prosperity,
I know,
And, were I lucky in a glut of friends,
Would well agree to let your error live,
Nay, strengthen it with fables of success.
But mine is no condition to
The transient solace of so rare a godsend,
My solitary luxury, my one friend:
Accordingly I venture to put
The wearisome vest of falsehood galling me,
Secure when he is by.
I lay me
Prone at his mercy—but he is my friend!
Not that he needs retain his aspect grave;
That answers not my purpose; for't is like,
Some sunny morning—Basil being
Of its wise population, every
Of the amphitheatre crammed with learned clerks,
Here
Ecolampadius, looking worlds of wit,
Here Castellanus, as profound as he,
Munsterus here,
Frobenius there, all
And staring,—that the zany of the show,
Even Paracelsus, shall put off before
His trappings with a grace but seldom
Expedient in such cases:—the grim
That will go round!
Is it not therefore
To venture a rehearsal like the
In a small way?
Where are the signs I seek,
The first-fruits and fair sample of the
Due to all quacks?
Why, this will never do!
Festus.
These are foul vapours,
Aureole; nought beside!
The effect of watching, study, weariness.
Were there a spark of truth in the
Of these wild words, you would not outrage
Your youth's companion.
I shall ne'er
These wanderings, bred of faintness and much study.'T is not thus you would trust a trouble to me,
To Michal's friend.
Paracelsus. I have said it, dearest Festus!
For the manner, 't is ungracious probably;
You may have it told in broken sobs, one day,
And scalding tears, ere long: but I thought
To keep that off as long as possible.
Do you wonder still?
Festus. No; it must oft fall
That one whose labour perfects any work,
Shall rise from it with eye so worn that
Of all men least can measure the
Of what he has accomplished.
He
Who, nothing tasked, is nothing weary too,
May clearly scan the little he effects:
But we, the bystanders, untouched by toil,
Estimate each aright.
Paracelsus. This worthy
Is one of them, at last! 'T is so with all!
First, they set down all progress as a dream;
And next, when he whose quick
Was counted on, accomplishes some
And doubtful steps in his career,—behold,
They look for every inch of ground to
Beneath his tread, so sure they spy success!
Festus.
Few doubtful steps? when death retires
Your presence—when the noblest of mankind,
Broken in body or subdued in soul,
May through your skill renew their vigour,
The shattered frame to pristine stateliness?
When men in racking pain may purchase
Of what delights them most, swooning at
Into a sea of bliss or rapt
As in a flying sphere of turbulent light?
When we may look to you as one
To free the flesh from fell disease, as
Our Luther's burning tongue the fettered soul?
When . . .
Paracelsus. When and where, the devil, did you
This notable news?
Festus. Even from the common voice;
From those whose envy, daring not
The wonders it decries, attributes
To magic and such folly.
Paracelsus. Folly?
Why
To magic, pray?
You find a comfort
In holding,
God ne'er troubles him
Us or our doings: once we were judged
The devil's tempting . . .
I offend: forgive me,
And rest content.
Your prophecy on the
Was fair enough as prophesyings go;
At fault a little in detail, but
Precise enough in the main; and hereuponI pay due homage: you guessed long ago(The prophet!) I should fail—and I have failed.
Festus.
You mean to tell me, then, the hopes which
Your youth have not been realized as yet?
Some obstacle has barred them hitherto?
Or that their innate . . .
Paracelsus. As I said but now,
You have a very decent prophet's fame,
So you but shun details here.
Little
Whether those hopes were mad,—the aims they sought,
Safe and secure from all ambitious fools;
Or whether my weak wits are
By what a better spirit would scorn:
I fail.
And now methinks't were best to change a themeI am a sad fool to have stumbled on.
I say confusedly what comes uppermost;
But there are times when patience proves at fault,
As now: this morning's strange
Beside me once again! you, whom I
Alive, since hitherto (with Luther's leave)No friend have I among the saints at peace,
To judge by any good their prayers effect.
I knew you would have helped me—why not he,
My strange competitor in enterprise,
Bound for the same end by another path,
Arrived, or ill or well, before the time,
At our disastrous journey's doubtful close?
How goes it with Aprile?
Ah, they
Your lone sad sunny idleness of heaven,
Our martyrs for the world's sake; heaven shuts fast:
The poor mad poet is howling by this time!
Since you are my sole friend then, here or there,
I could not quite repress the varied
This meeting wakens; they have had their vent,
And now forget them.
Do the rear-mice
Hang like a fretwork on the gate (or
In my time was a gate) fronting the
From Einsiedeln to Lachen?
Festus. Trifle not:
Answer me, for my sake alone!
You
Just now, when I supposed some deed,
Yourself, might blot the else so bright result;
Yet if your motives have continued pure,
Your will unfaltering, and in spite of this,
You have experienced a defeat, why thenI say not you would cheerfully
From contest—mortal hearts are not so fashioned—But surely you would ne'ertheless withdraw.
You sought not fame nor gain nor even love,
No end distinct from knowledge,—I
Your very words: once satisfied that
Is a mere dream, you would announce as much,
Yourself the first.
But how is the event?
You are defeated—and I find you here!
Paracelsus.
As though "here" did not signify defeat!
I spoke not of my little labours here,
But of the break-down of my general aims:
For you, aware of their extent and scope,
To look on these sage lecturings,
By beardless boys, and bearded dotards worse,
As a fit consummation of such aims,
Is worthy notice.
A
At Basil!
Since you see so much in it,
And think my life was reasonably
Of life's delights to render me a
For duties arduous as such post demands,—Be it far from me to deny my
To fill the petty circle lotted
Of infinite space, or justify the
Of honours thence accruing.
So, take notice,
This jewel dangling from my neck
The features of a prince, my skill
To plague his people some few years to come:
And all through a pure whim.
He had eased the
For me, but that the droll despair which
The vermin of his household, tickled me.
I came to see.
Here, drivelled the physician,
Whose most infallible nostrum was at fault;
There quaked the astrologer, whose
Had promised him interminable years;
Here a monk fumbled at the sick man's
With some undoubted relic—a
Of the Virgin; while another piebald
Of the same brotherhood (he loved them ever)Was actively preparing 'neath his
Such a suffumigation as, once fired,
Had stunk the patient dead ere he could groan.
I cursed the doctor and upset the brother,
Brushed past the conjurer, vowed that the first
Of stench from the ingredients just
Would raise a cross-grained devil in my sword,
Not easily laid: and ere an hour the
Slept as he never slept since prince he was.
A day—and I was posting for my life,
Placarded through the town as one whose
Had near availed to stop the blessed
Of the doctor's nostrum which, well
By the sudary, and most by the costly smoke—Not leaving out the strenuous prayers sent
Hard by in the abbey—raised the prince to life:
To the great reputation of the
Who, confident, expected all
The glad event—the doctor's recompense—Much largess from his highness to the monks—And the vast solace of his loving people,
Whose general satisfaction to increase,
The prince was pleased no longer to
The burning of some dozen
Remanded till God's mercy should be
Touching his sickness: last of all were
Ample directions to all loyal
To swell the complement by seizing
Who—doubtless some rank
To thwart these pious offices,
The prince's cure, and frustrate heaven by
Of certain devils dwelling in his sword.
By luck, the prince in his first fit of
Had forced this bauble on me as an
Of further favours.
This one case may
To give sufficient taste of many such,
So, let them pass.
Those shelves support a
Of patents, licences, diplomas,
From Germany,
France,
Spain, and Italy;
They authorize some honour; ne'ertheless,
I set more store by this Erasmus sent;
He trusts me; our Frobenius is his friend,
And him "I raised" (nay, read it) "from the dead."I weary you,
I see.
I merely
To show, there's no great wonder after
That, while I fill the class-room and attractA crowd to Basil,
I get leave to stay,
And therefore need not scruple to
The utmost they can offer, if I please:
For't is but right the world should be
To treat with favour e'en fantastic
Of one like me, used up in serving her.
Just as the mortal, whom the gods in
Devoured, received in place of his lost
Some virtue or other—cured disease,
I think;
You mind the fables we have read together.
Festus.
You do not think I comprehend a word.
The time was,
Aureole, you were apt
To clothe the airiest thoughts in specious breath;
But surely you must feel how vague and
These speeches sound.
Paracelsus. Well, then: you know my hopes;
I am assured, at length, those hopes were vain;
That truth is just as far from me as ever;
That I have thrown my life away; that
On that account is idle, and further
To mend and patch what's marred beyond repairing,
As useless: and all this was taught your
By the convincing good old-fashioned
Of force—by sheer compulsion.
Is that plain?
Festus.
Dear Aureole, can it be my fears were just?
God wills not . . .
Paracelsus. Now, 't is this I most admire—The constant talk men of your stamp keep
Of God's will, as they style it; one would
Man had but merely to uplift his eye,
And see the will in question
On the heaven's vault. 'T is hardly wise to
Such topics: doubts are many and faith is weak.
I know as much of any will of
As knows some dumb and tortured brute what Man,
His stern lord, wills from the perplexing
That plague him every way; but there, of course,
Where least he suffers, longest he remains—My case; and for such reasons I plod on,
Subdued but not convinced.
I know as
Why I deserve to fail, as why I
Better things in my youth.
I simply knowI am no master here, but trained and
Into the path I tread; and here I stay,
Until some further intimation reach me,
Like an obedient drudge.
Though I
To view the whole thing as a task
Which, whether dull or pleasant, must be done—Yet,
I deny not, there is made
Of joys which tastes less jaded might affect;
Nay, some which please me too, for all my pride—Pleasures that once were pains: the iron
Festering about a slave's neck grows at
Into the flesh it eats.
I hate no longerA host of petty vile delights, undreamed
Or spurned before; such now supply the
Of my dead aims: as in the autumn
Where tall trees used to flourish, from their
Springs up a fungous brood sickly and pale,
Chill mushrooms coloured like a corpse's cheek.
Festus.
If I interpret well your words,
I
It troubles me but little that your aims,
Vast in their dawning and most likely
Extravagantly since, have baffled you.
Perchance I am glad; you merit greater praise;
Because they are too glorious to be gained,
You do not blindly cling to them and die;
You fell, but have not sullenly
To rise, because an angel worsted
In wrestling, though the world holds not your peer;
And though too harsh and sudden is the
To yield content as yet, still you
The ungracious path as though't were rosv-strewn.'T is well: and your reward, or soon or late,
Will come from him whom no man serves in vain.
Paracelsus.
Ah, very fine!
For my part,
I
The very pausing from all further toil,
Which you find heinous, would become a
To the sincerity of all my deeds.
To be consistent I should die at once;
I calculated on no after-life;
Yet (how crept in, how fostered,
I know not)Here am I with as passionate
For youth and health and love so vainly lavished,
As if their preservation had been
And foremost in my thoughts; and this strange
Humbled me wondrously, and had due
In rendering me the less averse to followA certain counsel, a mysterious warning—You will not understand—but't was a
With aims not mine and yet pursued like mine,
With the same fervour and no more success,
Perishing in my sight; who summoned
As I would shun the ghastly fate I saw,
To serve my race at once; to wait no
That God should interfere in my behalf,
But to distrust myself, put pride away,
And give my gains, imperfect as they were,
To men.
I have not leisure to
How, since, a singular series of
Has raised me to the station you behold,
Wherein I seem to turn to most
The mere wreck of the past,—perhaps
Some feeble glimmering token that God
And may approve my penance: therefore
You find me, doing most good or least harm.
And if folks wonder much and profit little'T is not my fault; only,
I shall
When my part in the farce is shuffled through,
And the curtain falls:
I must hold out till then.
Festus.
Till when, dear Aureole?
Paracelsus. Till I'm fairly
From my proud eminence.
Fortune is
And even professors fall: should that arrive,
I see no sin in ceding to my bent.
You little fancy what rude shocks apprise
We sin;
God's intimations rather
In clearness than in energy: 't were
Did they but indicate the course to
Like that to be forsaken.
I would
Be spared a further sample.
Here I stand,
And here I stay, be sure, till forced to flit.
Festus.
Be you but firm on that head! long ere
All I expect will come to pass,
I trust:
The cloud that wraps you will have disappeared.
Meantime,
I see small chance of such event:
They praise you here as one whose lore,
Divulged, eclipses all the past can show,
But whose achievements, marvellous as they be,
Are faint anticipations of a
About to be revealed.
When Basil's
Dismiss their teacher,
I shall be
That he depart.
Paracelsus. This favour at their handsI look for earlier than your view of
Would warrant.
Of the crowd you saw to-day,
Remove the full half sheer amazement draws,
Mere novelty, nought else; and next, the
Whose innate blockish dulness just
That unless miracles (as seem my works)Be wrought in their behalf, their chance is
To puzzle the devil; next, the numerous
Who bitterly hate established schools, and
The teacher that oppugns them, till he
Have planted his own doctrine, when the
May reckon on their rancour in his turn;
Take, too, the sprinkling of sagacious
Whose cunning runs not counter to the
But seeks, by flattery and crafty nursing,
To force my system to a
Short-lived development.
Why swell the list?
Each has his end to serve, and his best
Of serving it: remove all these, remainsA scantling, a poor dozen at the best,
Worthy to look for sympathy and service,
And likely to draw profit from my pains.
Festus.'T is no encouraging picture: still these
Redeem their fellows.
Once the germ implanted,
Its growth, if slow, is sure.
Paracelsus. God grant it so!
I would make some amends: but if I fail,
The luckless rogues have this excuse to urge,
That much is in my method and my manner,
My uncouth habits, my impatient spirit,
Which hinders of reception and
My doctrine: much to say, small skill to speak!
These old aims suffered not a
Though for an instant; therefore, only whenI thus renounced them and resolved to
Some present fruit—to teach mankind some
So dearly purchased—only then I
Such teaching was an art requiring
And qualities peculiar to itself:
That to possess was one thing—to
Another.
With renown first in my thoughts,
Or popular praise,
I had soon discovered it:
One grows but little apt to learn these things.
Festus.
If it be so, which nowise I believe,
There needs no waiting fuller
To leave a labour of so little use.
Why not throw up the irksome charge at once?
Paracelsus.
A task, a task! But wherefore hide the
Extent of degradation, once
In the confessing vein?
Despite of
My fine talk of obedience and repugnance,
Docility and what not, 't is yet to
If when the task shall really be performed,
My inclination free to choose once more,
I shall do aught but slightly
The nature of the hated task I quit.
In plain words,
I am spoiled; my life still
As first it tended;
I am broken and
To my old habits: they are part of me.
I know, and none so well, my darling
Are proved impossible: no less, no less,
Even now what humours me, fond fool, as
Their faint ghosts sit with me and flatter
And send me back content to my dull round?
How can I change this soul?—this
Constructed solely for their purposes,
So well adapted to their every want,
To search out and discover, prove and perfect;
This intricate machine whose most
And meanest motions have their charm to
Though to none else—an aptitude I seize,
An object I perceive, a use, a meaning,
A property, a fitness,
I
And I alone:—how can I change my soul?
And this wronged body, worthless save when
Under that soul's dominion—used to
For its bright master's cares and quite
Its proper cravings—not to ail nor
So he but prosper—whither drag this
Tried patient body?
God! how I
To live like that mad poet, for a while,
To love alone; and how I felt too
And twisted and deformed!
What should I do,
Even tho'released from drudgery, but
Faint, as you see, and halting, blind and sore,
To my old life and die as I began?
I cannot feed on beauty for the
Of beauty only, nor can drink in
From lovely objects for their loveliness;
My nature cannot lose her first imprint;
I still must hoard and heap and class all
With one ulterior purpose:
I must know!
Would God translate me to his throne,
That I should only listen to his
To further my own aim!
For other men,
Beauty is prodigally strewn around,
And I were happy could I quench as
This mad and thriveless longing, and content
With beauty for itself alone: alas,
I have addressed a frock of heavy
Yet may not join the troop of sacred knights;
And now the forest-creatures fly from me,
The grass-banks cool, the sunbeams warm no more.
Best follow, dreaming that ere night arrive,
I shall o'ertake the company and
Glittering as they!
Festus. I think I
What you would say: if you, in truth,
To enter once more on the life thus left,
Seek not to hide that all this
Of failure is assumed!
Paracelsus. My friend, my friend,
I toil, you listen;
I explain,
You understand: there our communion ends.
Have you learnt nothing from to-day's discourse?
When we would thoroughly know the sick man's
We feel awhile the fluttering pulse, press
The hot brow, look upon the languid eye,
And thence divine the rest.
Must I lay
My heart, hideous and beating, or tear
My vitals for your gaze, ere you will
Enough made known?
You! who are you, forsooth?
That is the crowning operation
By the arch-demonstrator—heaven the hall,
And earth the audience.
Let Aprile and
Secure good places: 't will be worth the while.
Festus.
Are you mad,
Aureole?
What can I have
To call for this?
I judged from your own words.
Paracelsus.
Oh, doubtless!
A sick wretch describes the
That mocks him from the bed-foot, and all
You thither turn at once: or he
The perilous journey he has late performed,
And you are puzzled much how that could be!
You find me here, half stupid and half mad;
It makes no part of my delight to
Into these matters, much less
Another's scrutiny; but so it
That I am led to trust my state to you:
And the event is, you combine,
And ponder on my foolish words as
They thoroughly conveyed all hidden here—Here, loathsome with despair and hate and rage!
Is there no fear, no shrinking and no shame?
Will you guess nothing? will you spare me nothing?
Must I go deeper?
Ay or no?
Festus. Dear friend . . .
Paracelsus.
True:
I am brutal—'t is a part of it;
The plague's sign—you are not a lazar-haunter,
How should you know?
Well then, you think it strangeI should profess to have failed utterly,
And yet propose an ultimate
To courses void of hope: and this,
You know not what temptation is, nor how'T is like to ply men in the sickliest part.
You are to understand that we who
Sport for the gods, are hunted to the end:
There is not one sharp volley shot at us,
Which 'scaped with life, though hurt, we slacken
And gather by the wayside herbs and
To staunch our wounds, secure from further harm:
We are assailed to life's extremest verge.
It will be well indeed if I return,
A harmless busy fool, to my old ways!
I would forget hints of another fate,
Significant enough, which silent
Have lately scared me with.
Festus. Another! and what?
Paracelsus.
After all,
Festus, you say well:
I amA man yet:
I need never humble me.
I would have been—something,
I know not what;
But though I cannot soar,
I do not crawl.
There are worse portions than this one of mine.
You say well!
Festus. Ah!
Paracelsus. And deeper degradation!
If the mean stimulants of vulgar praise,
If vanity should become the chosen
Of a sunk mind, should stifle even the
To find its early aspirations true,
Should teach it to breathe falsehood like life-breath—An atmosphere of craft and trick and lies;
Should make it proud to emulate,
Base natures in the practices which
Its most indignant loathing once . . .
No, no!
Utter damnation is reserved for hell!
I had immortal feelings; such shall
Be wholly quenched: no, no! My friend, you wearA melancholy face, and certain't
There's little cheer in all this dismal work.
But was it my desire to set
Such memories and forebodings?
I
Where they would drive. 'T were better we
News from Lucerne or Zurich; ask and
Of Egypt's flaring sky or Spain's cork-groves.
Festus.
I have thought: trust me, this mood will pass away!
I know you and the lofty spirit you bear,
And easily ravel out a clue to all.
These are the trials meet for such as you,
Nor must you hope exemption: to be
Is to be plied with trials manifold.
Look round!
The obstacles which kept the
From your ambition, have been spurned by you;
Their fears, their doubts, the chains that bind themall,
Were flax before your resolute soul, which
Avails to awe save these delusions
From its own strength, its selfsame strength disguised,
Mocking itself.
Be brave, dear Aureole!
The rabbit has his shade to frighten him,
The fawn a rustling bough, mortals their cares,
And higher natures yet would slight and
At these entangling fantasies, as
At trammels of a weaker intellect,—Measure your mind's height by the shade it casts!
I know you.
Paracelsus. And I know you, dearest Festus!
And how you love unworthily; and
All admiration renders blind.
Festus. You
That admiration blinds?
Paracelsus. Ay and alas!
Festus.
Nought blinds you less than admiration, friend!
Whether it be that all love renders
In its degree; from love which blends with love—Heart answering heart—to love which spends
In silent mad idolatry of
Pre-eminent mortal, some great soul of souls,
Which ne'er will know how well it is adored.
I say, such love is never blind; but
Alive to every the minutest
Which mars its object, and which hate
So vigilant and searching) dreams not of.
Love broods on such: what then?
When first
Is there no sweet strife to forget, to change,
To overflush those blemishes with
The glow of general goodness they disturb?—To make those very defects an endless
Of new affection grown from hopes and fears?
And, when all fails, is there no gallant
Made even for much proved weak? no
Lest, since all love assimilates the
To what it loves, it should at length
Almost a rival of its idol?
Trust me,
If there be fiends who seek to work our hurt,
To ruin and drag down earth's mightiest
Even at God's foot, 't will be from such as love,
Their zeal will gather most to serve their cause;
And least from those who hate, who most
By contumely and scorn to blot the
Which forces entrance even to their hearts:
For thence will our defender tear the
And show within each heart, as in a shrine,
The giant image of perfection,
In hate's despite, whose calumnies were
In the untroubled presence of its eyes.
True admiration blinds not; nor am
So blind.
I call your sin exceptional;
It springs from one whose life has passed the
Prescribed to life.
Compound that fault with God!
I speak of men; to common men like
The weakness you reveal endears you more,
Like the far traces of decay in suns.
I bid you have good cheer!
Paracelsus. Proeclare!
Optime!
Think of a quiet mountain-cloistered
Instructing Paracelsus! yet't is so.
Come,
I will show you where my merit lies.'T is in the advance of individual
That the slow crowd should ground their
Eventually to follow; as the
Waits ages in its bed till some one
Out of the multitudinous mass,
The empire of the whole, some feet perhaps,
Over the strip of sand which could
Its fellows so long time: thenceforth the rest,
Even to the meanest, hurry in at once,
And so much is clear gained.
I shall be
If all my labours, failing of aught else,
Suffice to make such inroad and procureA wider range for thought: nay, they do this;
For, whatsoe'er my notions of true
And a legitimate success, may be,
I am not blind to my undoubted
When classed with others:
I precede my age:
And whoso wills is very free to
These labours as a platform whence his
May have a prosperous outset.
But, alas!
My followers—they are noisy as you heard;
But, for intelligence, the best of
So clumsily wield the weapons I
And they extol, that I begin to
Whether their own rude clubs and
Would not do better service than my
Thus vilely swayed—if error will not
Sooner before the old awkward
Than my more subtle warfare, not half learned.
Festus.
I would supply that art, then, or
New arms until you teach their mystery.
Paracelsus.
Content you, 't is my wish;
I have
To the simplest training.
Day by day I
To wake the mood, the spirit which
Can make those arms of any use to men.
Of course they are for swaggering forth at
Graced with Ulysses' bow,
Achilles' shield—Flash on us, all in armour, thou Achilles!
Make our hearts dance to thy resounding step!
A proper sight to scare the crows away!
Festus.
Pity you choose not then some other
Of coming at your point.
The marvellous
At length established in the world bids
To remedy all hindrances like these:
Trust to Frobenius' press the precious
Obscured by uncouth manner, or
For raw beginners; let his types secureA deathless monument to after-time;
Meanwhile wait confidently and
The ultimate effect: sooner or
You shall be all-revealed.
Paracelsus. The old dull
In a new form; no more.
Thus:
I
Two sorts of knowledge; one,—vast, shadowy,
Hints of the unbounded aim I once pursued:
The other consists of many secrets,
While bent on nobler prize,—perhaps a
Prime principles which may conduct to much:
These last I offer to my followers here.
Now, bid me chronicle the first of these,
My ancient study, and in effect you
Revert to the wild courses just abjured:
I must go find them scattered through the world.
Then, for the principles, they are so simple(Being chiefly of the overturning sort),
That one time is as proper to propound
As any other—to-morrow at my class,
Or half a century hence embalmed in print.
For if mankind intend to learn at all,
They must begin by giving faith to
And acting on them: and I do not
But that my lectures serve indifferent well:
No doubt these dogmas fall not to the earth,
For all their novelty and rugged setting.
I think my class will not forget the dayI let them know the gods of Israel,
Aëtius,
Oribasius,
Galen,
Rhasis,
Serapion,
Avicenna,
Averröes,
Were blocks!
Festus. And that reminds me,
I heard
About your waywardness: you burned their books,
It seems, instead of answering those sages.
Paracelsus.
And who said that?
Festus. Some I met
With
Ecolampadius.
As you know, the
Of this short stay at Basil was to
His pleasure touching certain missives
For our Zuinglius and himself. 'T was
Apprised me that the famous teacher
Was my old friend.
Paracelsus. Ah,
I forgot: you went . . .
Festus.
From Zurich with advices for the
Of Luther, now at Wittenberg—(you know,
I make no doubt, the differences of
With Carolostadius)—and returning
Basil and . . .
Paracelsus. I remember.
Here's a case, now,
Will teach you why I answer not, but
The books you mention.
Pray, does Luther
His arguments convince by their own
The crowds that own his doctrine?
No, indeed!
His plain denial of established
Ages had sanctified and men
Could never be oppugned while earth was
And heaven above them—points which chance or
Affected not—did more than the
Of argument which followed.
Boldly deny!
There is much breath-stopping,
Awhile; then, amazed glances, mute
The thunderbolt which does not come: and next,
Reproachful wonder and inquiry:
Who else had never stirred, are able
To find the rest out for themselves,
To outstrip him who set the whole at work,—As never will my wise class its instructor.
And you saw Luther?
Festus. 'T is a wondrous soul!
Paracelsus.
True: the so-heavy chain which galled
Is shattered, and the noblest of us
Must bow to the deliverer—nay, the
Of our own project—we who long
Had burst our trammels, but forgot the crowd,
We should have taught, still groaned beneath the load:
This he has done and nobly.
Speed that may!
Whatever be my chance or my mischance,
What benefits mankind must glad me too;
And men seem made, though not as I believed,
For something better than the times produce.
Witness these gangs of peasants your new
From Suabia have possessed, whom Münzer leads,
And whom the duke, the landgrave and the
Will calm in blood!
Well, well; 't is not my world!
Festus.
Hark!
Paracelsus. 'T is the melancholy wind
Within the trees; the embers too are grey:
Morn must be near.
Festus. Best ope the casement: see,
The night, late strewn with clouds and flying stars,
Is blank and motionless: how peaceful
The tree-tops altogether!
Like an asp,
The wind slips whispering from bough to bough.
Paracelsus.
Ay; you would gaze on a wind-shaken
By the hour, nor count time lost.
Festus. So you shall gaze:
Those happy times will come again.
Paracelsus. Gone, gone,
Those pleasant times!
Does not the moaning
Seem to bewail that we have gained such
And bartered sleep for them?
Festus. It is our
That there is yet another world to
All error and mischance.
Paracelsus. Another world!
And why this world, this common world, to beA make-shift, a mere foil, how fair soever,
To some fine life to come?
Man must be
With angels' food, forsooth; and some few
Of a diviner nature which look
Through his corporeal baseness, warrant
In a supreme contempt of all
For his inferior tastes—some straggling
Which constitute his essence, just as
As here and there a gem would
The rock, their barren bed, one diamond.
But were it so—were man all mind—he gainsA station little enviable.
From
Down to the lowest spirit ministrant,
Intelligence exists which casts our
Into immeasurable shade.
No, no:
Love, hope, fear, faith—these make humanity;
These are its sign and note and character,
And these I have lost!—gone, shut from me for ever,
Like a dead friend safe from unkindness more!
See, morn at length.
The heavy darkness
Diluted, grey and clear without the stars;
The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves as
Some snake, that weighed them down all night, let
His hold; and from the East, fuller and
Day, like a mighty river, flowing in;
But clouded, wintry, desolate and cold.
Yet see how that broad prickly star-shaped plant,
Half-down in the crevice, spreads its woolly
All thick and glistering with diamond dew.
And you depart for Einsiedeln this day,
And we have spent all night in talk like this!
If you would have me better for your love,
Revert no more to these sad themes.
Festus. One favour,
And I have done.
I leave you, deeply moved;
Unwilling to have fared so well, the
My friend has changed so sorely.
If this
Shall pass away, if light once more
Where all is darkness now, if you see
To hope and trust again, and strive again,
You will remember—not our love alone—But that my faith in God's desire that
Should trust on his support, (as I must
You trusted) is obscured and dim through you:
For you are thus, and this is no reward.
Will you not call me to your side, dear Aureole?
