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Paracelsus Part III Paracelsus

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?

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Robert Browning

Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of the dramatic monologue made him one of the f…

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