The Epicurean: A Tale
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Title: The Epicurean: A Tale
Author: Thomas Moore
Release date: June 29, 2015 [eBook #49332]
Most recently updated: June 15, 2020
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EPICUREAN: A TALE ***
THE
EPICUREAN,
A TALE.
BY
THOMAS MOORE.
*Second Edition.*
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR
LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, AND GREEN,
PATERNOSTER‐ROW.
1827.
The Publishers beg to inform the Composers of Music, and Music Sellers,
that MR. JAMES POWER, of the Strand, Music Seller, is the only person
authorized by them to publish the SONGS or VERSES in this Work connected
with Music.
TO
LORD JOHN RUSSELL
_THIS VOLUME_
IS INSCRIBED
BY ONE WHO ADMIRES HIS CHARACTER
AND TALENTS,
AND IS PROUD OF HIS FRIENDSHIP.
A
LETTER TO THE TRANSLATOR,
FROM
——, ESQ.
_Cairo, June 19. 1800._
My dear Sir,
In a visit I lately paid to the monastery of St. Macarius,—which is
situated, as you know, in the Valley of the Lakes of Natron,—I was lucky
enough to obtain possession of a curious Greek manuscript, which, in the
hope that you may be induced to translate it, I herewith send you.
Observing one of the monks very busily occupied in tearing up, into a
variety of fantastic shapes, some papers which had the appearance of being
the leaves of old books, I enquired of him the meaning of his task, and
received the following explanation:—
The Arabs, it seems, who are as fond of pigeons as the ancient Egyptians,
have a superstitious notion that, if they place in their pigeon‐houses
small scraps of paper, written over with learned characters, the birds are
always sure to thrive the better for the charm; and the monks, who are
never slow in profiting by superstition, have, at all times, a supply of
such amulets for purchasers.
In general, the holy fathers have been in the habit of scribbling these
mystic fragments, themselves; but a discovery, which they have lately
made, saves them this trouble. Having dug up (as my informant stated) a
chest of old manuscripts, which, being chiefly on the subject of alchemy,
must have been buried in the time of Dioclesian, “we thought we could
not,” added the monk, “employ such rubbish more properly, than in tearing
it up, as you see, for the pigeon‐houses of the Arabs.”
On my expressing a wish to rescue some part of these treasures from the
fate to which his indolent fraternity had consigned them, he produced the
manuscript which I have now the pleasure of sending you,—the only one, he
said, remaining entire,—and I very readily paid him the price he demanded
for it.
You will find the story, I think, not altogether uninteresting; and the
coincidence, in many respects, of the curious details in Chap. VI. with
the description of the same ceremonies in the Romance of _Sethos_(1),
will, I have no doubt, strike you. Hoping that you may be tempted to give
a translation of this Tale to the world,
I am, my dear Sir,
Very truly yours,
——
THE EPICUREAN.
CHAPTER I.
It was in the fourth year of the reign of the late Emperor Valerian, that
the followers of Epicurus, who were at that time numerous in Athens,
proceeded to the election of a person to fill the vacant chair of their
sect;—and, by the unanimous voice of the School, I was the individual
chosen for their Chief. I was just then entering on my twenty‐fourth year,
and no instance had ever before occurred, of a person so young being
selected for that office. Youth, however, and the personal advantages that
adorn it, were not, it may be supposed, among the least valid
recommendations, to a sect that included within its circle all the beauty
as well as wit of Athens, and which, though dignifying its pursuits with
the name of philosophy, was little else than a pretext for the more
refined cultivation of pleasure.
The character of the sect had, indeed, much changed, since the time of its
wise and virtuous founder, who, while he asserted that Pleasure is the
only Good, inculcated also that Good is the only source of Pleasure. The
purer part of this doctrine had long evaporated, and the temperate
Epicurus would have as little recognised his own sect in the assemblage of
refined voluptuaries who now usurped its name, as he would have known his
own quiet Garden in the luxurious groves and bowers among which the
meetings of the School were now held.
Many causes, besides the attractiveness of its doctrines, concurred, at
this period, to render our school the most popular of any that still
survived the glory of Greece. It may generally be observed, that the
prevalence, in one half of a community, of very rigid notions on the
subject of religion, produces the opposite extreme of laxity and
infidelity in the other; and this kind of re‐action it was that now mainly
contributed to render the doctrines of the Garden the most fashionable
philosophy of the day. The rapid progress of the Christian faith had
alarmed all those, who, either from piety or worldliness, were interested
in the continuance of the old established creed—all who believed in the
Deities of Olympus, and all who lived by them. The consequence was, a
considerable increase of zeal and activity, throughout the constituted
authorities and priesthood of the whole Heathen world. What was wanting in
sincerity of belief was made up in rigour;—the weakest parts of the
Mythology were those, of course, most angrily defended, and any
reflections, tending to bring Saturn, or his wife Ops, into contempt, were
punished with the utmost severity of the law.
In this state of affairs, between the alarmed bigotry of the declining
Faith, and the simple, sublime austerity of her rival, it was not
wonderful that those lovers of ease and pleasure, who had no interest,
reversionary or otherwise, in the old religion, and were too indolent to
enquire into the sanctions of the new, should take refuge from the
severities of both under the shelter of a luxurious philosophy, which,
leaving to others the task of disputing about the future, centered all its
wisdom in the full enjoyment of the present.
The sectaries of the Garden had, ever since the death of their founder,
been accustomed to dedicate to his memory the twentieth day of every
month. To these monthly rites had, for some time, been added a grand
annual Festival, in commemoration of his birth. The feasts, given on this
occasion by my predecessors in the Chair, had been invariably
distinguished for their taste and splendour; and it was my ambition, not
merely to imitate this example, but even to render the anniversary, now
celebrated under my auspices, so brilliant, as to efface the recollection
of all that went before it.
Seldom, indeed, had Athens witnessed such a scene. The grounds that formed
the original site of the Garden had, from time to time, received
considerable additions; and the whole extent was laid out with that
perfect taste, which knows how to wed Nature to Art, without sacrificing
her simplicity to the alliance. Walks, leading through wildernesses of
shade and fragrance—glades, opening, as if to afford a play‐ground for the
sunshine—temples, rising on the very spots where imagination herself would
have called them up, and fountains and lakes, in alternate motion and
repose, either wantonly courting the verdure, or calmly sleeping in its
embrace,—such was the variety of feature that diversified these fair
gardens; and, animated as they were on this occasion, by all the living
wit and loveliness of Athens, it afforded a scene such as my own youthful
fancy, rich as it was then in images of luxury and beauty, could hardly
have anticipated.
The ceremonies of the day began with the very dawn, when, according to the
form of simpler and better times, those among the disciples who had
apartments within the Garden, bore the image of our Founder in procession
from chamber to chamber, chanting verses in praise of—what had long ceased
to be objects of our imitation—his frugality and temperance.
Round a beautiful lake, in the centre of the garden, stood four white
Doric temples, in one of which was collected a library containing all the
flowers of Grecian literature; while, in the remaining three,
Conversation, the Song, and the Dance, held, uninterrupted by each other,
their respective rites. In the Library stood busts of all the most
illustrious Epicureans, both of Rome and Greece—Horace, Atticus, Pliny the
elder, the poet Lucretius, Lucian, and the biographer of the Philosophers,
lately lost to us, Diogenes Laertius. There were also the portraits, in
marble, of all the eminent female votaries of the school—Leontium and her
fair daughter Danae, Themista, Philænis, and others.
It was here that, in my capacity of Heresiarch, on the morning of the
Festival, I received the felicitations of the day from some of the fairest
lips of Athens; and, in pronouncing the customary oration to the memory of
our Master (in which it was usual to dwell on the doctrines he inculcated)
endeavoured to attain that art, so useful before such an audience, of
diffusing over the gravest subjects a charm, which secures them listeners
even among the simplest and most volatile.
Though study, as may easily be supposed, engrossed but little of the
mornings of the Garden, yet the lighter part of learning,—that portion of
its attic honey, for which the bee is not obliged to go very deep into the
flower—was zealously cultivated. Even here, however, the student had to
encounter distractions, which are, of all others, least favourable to
composure of thought; and, with more than one of my fair disciples, there
used to occur such scenes as the following, which a poet of the Garden,
taking his picture from the life, described:—
“As o’er the lake, in evening’s glow,
That temple threw its lengthening shade,
Upon the marble steps below,
There sate a fair Corinthian maid,
Gracefully o’er some volume bending;
While, by her side, the youthful Sage
Held back her ringlets, lest, descending,
They should o’er‐shadow all the page.”
But it was for the evening of that day, that the richest of our luxuries
were reserved. Every part of the Garden was illuminated, with the most
skilful variety of lustre; while over the Lake of the Temples were
scattered wreaths of flowers, through which boats, filled with beautiful
children, floated, as through a liquid parterre.
Between two of these boats a perpetual combat was maintained;—their
respective commanders, two blooming youths, being habited to represent
Eros and Anteros; the former, the Celestial Love of the Platonists, and
the latter, that more earthly spirit, which usurps the name of Love among
the Epicureans. Throughout the evening their conflict was carried on with
various success; the timid distance at which Eros kept from his more
lively antagonist being his only safeguard against those darts of fire,
with showers of which the other continually assailed him, but which,
luckily falling short of their mark upon the lake, only scorched the
flowers upon which they fell, and were extinguished.
In another part of the gardens, on a wide verdant glade, lighted only by
the moon, an imitation of the torch‐race of the Panathenæa was performed,
by young boys chosen for their fleetness, and arrayed with wings, like
Cupids; while, not far off, a group of seven nymphs, with each a star on
her forehead, represented the movements of the planetary choir, and
embodied the dream of Pythagoras into real motion and song.
At every turning some new enchantment broke upon the ear or eye.
Sometimes, from the depth of a grove, from which a fountain at the same
time issued, there came a strain of music, which, mingling with the murmur
of the water, seemed like the voice of the spirit that presided over its
flow;—while sometimes the strain rose breathing from among flowers; and,
again, would appear to come suddenly from under ground, as if the foot had
just touched some spring that set it in motion.
It seems strange that I should now dwell upon these minute descriptions;
but every thing connected with that memorable night—even its long‐repented
follies—must for ever live sacredly in my memory. The festival concluded
with a banquet, at which I, of course, presided; and, feeling myself to be
the ascendant spirit of the whole scene, gave life to all around me, and
saw my own happiness reflected in that of others.
CHAP. II.
The festival was over;—the sounds of the song and dance had ceased, and I
was now left in those luxurious gardens, alone. Though so ardent and
active a votary of pleasure, I had, by nature, a disposition full of
melancholy;—an imagination that presented sad thoughts, even in the midst
of mirth and happiness, and threw the shadow of the future over the gayest
illusions of the present. Melancholy was, indeed, twin‐born in my soul
with Passion; and, not even in the fullest fervour of the latter, were
they separated. From the first moment that I was conscious of thought and
feeling, the same dark thread had run across the web; and images of death
and annihilation mingled themselves with the most smiling scenes through
which my career of enjoyment led me. My very passion for pleasure but
deepened these gloomy fancies. For, shut out, as I was by my creed, from a
future life, and having no hope beyond the narrow horizon of this, every
minute of delight assumed a mournful preciousness in my eyes, and
pleasure, like the flower of the cemetery, grew but more luxuriant from
the neighbourhood of death.
This very night my triumph, my happiness had seemed complete. I had been
the presiding genius of that voluptuous scene. Both my ambition and my
love of pleasure had drunk deep of the cup for which they thirsted. Looked
up to by the learned, and loved by the beautiful and the young, I had
seen, in every eye that met mine, either the acknowledgment of triumphs
already won, or the promise of others, still brighter, that awaited me.
Yet, even in the midst of all this, the same dark thoughts had presented
themselves;—the perishableness of myself and all around me every instant
recurred to my mind. Those hands I had prest—those eyes, in which I had
seen sparkling, a spirit of light and life that should never die—those
voices, that had talked of eternal love—all, all, I felt, were but a
mockery of the moment, and would leave nothing eternal but the silence of
their dust!
Oh, were it not for this sad voice,
Stealing amid our mirth to say,
That all, in which we most rejoice,
Ere night may be the earth‐worm’s prey;—
_But_ for this bitter—only this—
Full as the world is brimm’d with bliss,
And capable as feels my soul
Of draining to its depth the whole,
I should turn earth to heaven, and be,
If bliss made gods, a deity!
Such was the description I gave of my own feelings, in one of those wild,
passionate songs, to which this ferment of my spirits, between mirth and
melancholy, gave birth.
Seldom had my heart more fully abandoned itself to such vague sadness than
at the present moment, when, as I paced thoughtfully among the fading
lights and flowers of the banquet, the echo of my own step was all that
sounded, where so many gay forms had lately been revelling. The moon was
still up, the morning had not yet glimmered, and the calm glories of night
still rested on all around. Unconscious whither my pathway led, I wandered
along, till I, at length, found myself before that fair statue of Venus,
with which the chisel of Alcamenes had embellished our Garden;—that image
of deified woman, the only idol to which I had ever bent the knee. Leaning
against the pedestal, I raised my eyes to heaven, and fixing them sadly
and intently on the ever‐burning stars, as if I sought to read the
mournful secret in their light, asked, wherefore was it that Man alone
must perish, while they, less wonderful, less glorious than he, lived on
in light unchangeable and for ever!—“Oh, that there were some spell, some
talisman,” I exclaimed, “to make the spirit within us deathless as those
stars, and open to its desires a career like theirs, burning and boundless
throughout all time!”
While I gave myself up to this train of thought, that lassitude which
earthly pleasure, however sweet, leaves behind,—as if to show how earthly
it is,—came drowsily over me, and I sunk at the base of the statue to
sleep.
Even in sleep, however, my fancy was still busy; and a dream, so vivid as
to leave behind it the impression of reality, thus passed through my mind.
I thought myself transported to a wide desert plain, where nothing seemed
to breathe, or move, or live. The very sky above it looked pale and
extinct, giving the idea, not of darkness, but of light that had died;
and, had that region been the remains of some older world, left broken up
and sunless, it could not have looked more dead and desolate. The only
thing that bespoke life, in this melancholy waste, was a small moving
spark, that at first glimmered in the distance, but, at length, slowly
approached the spot where I stood. As it drew nearer, I could perceive
that its feeble gleam was from a taper in the hand of a pale venerable
man, who now stood, like a messenger from the grave, before me. After a
few moments of awful silence, during which he looked at me with a sadness
that thrilled my very soul, he said,—“Thou, who seekest eternal life, go
unto the shores of the dark Nile—go unto the shores of the dark Nile, and
thou wilt find the eternal life thou seekest!”
No sooner had he said these words than the death‐like hue of his cheek
brightened into a smile of more than human promise. The small torch that
he held sent forth a radiance, by which suddenly the whole surface of the
desert was illuminated, even to the far horizon’s edge, along whose line
were now seen gardens, palaces, and spires, all bright and golden, like
the architecture of the clouds at sunset. Sweet music, too, was heard
every where, floating around, and, from all sides, such varieties of
splendour poured, that, with the excess both of harmony and of light, I
woke.
That infidels should be superstitious is an anomaly neither unusual nor
strange. A belief in superhuman agency seems natural and necessary to the
mind; and, if not suffered to flow in the obvious channels, it will find a
vent in some other. Hence, many who have doubted the existence of a God,
have yet implicitly placed themselves under the patronage of Fate or the
stars. Much the same inconsistency I was conscious of in my own feelings.
Though rejecting all belief in a Divine Providence, I had yet a faith in
dreams, that all my philosophy could not conquer. Nor was experience
wanting to confirm me in my delusion; for, by some of those accidental
coincidences, which make the fortune of soothsayers and prophets, dreams,
more than once, had been to me
Oracles, truer far than oak,
Or dove, or tripod, ever spoke.
It was not wonderful, therefore, that the vision of that night, touching,
as it did, a chord so ready to vibrate, should have affected me with more
than ordinary power, and sunk deeper into my memory with every effort I
made to forget it. In vain did I mock at my own weakness;—such self‐
derision is seldom sincere. In vain did I pursue my accustomed pleasures.
Their zest was, as usual, for ever new; but still came the saddening
consciousness of mortality, and, with it, the recollection of this
visionary promise, to which my fancy, in defiance of my reason, still
clung.
Sometimes indulging in reveries, that were little else than a continuation
of my dream, I even contemplated the possible existence of some secret, by
which youth might be, if not perpetuated, at least prolonged, and that
dreadful vicinity of death, within whose circle love pines and pleasure
sickens, might be for a while averted. “Who knows,” I would ask, “but that
in Egypt, that land of wonders, where Mystery hath yet unfolded but half
her treasures,—where so many dark secrets of the antediluvian world still
remain, undeciphered, upon the pillars of Seth—who knows but some charm,
some amulet, may lie hid, whose discovery, as this phantom hath promised,
but waits my coming—some compound of the same pure atoms, that scintillate
in the eternal stars, and whose infusion into the frame of man might make
him, too, fadeless and immortal!”
Thus did I fondly speculate, in those rambling moods, when the life of
excitement which I led, acting upon a warm heart and vivid fancy, produced
an intoxication of spirit, during which I was not wholly myself. This
bewilderment, too, was not a little increased by the constant struggle
between my own natural feelings, and the cold, mortal creed of my sect, in
endeavouring to escape from whose deadening bondage I but broke loose into
the realms of romance and fantasy.
Even, however, in my calmest and soberest moments, that strange vision
perpetually haunted me. In vain were all my efforts to chase it from my
mind; and the deliberate conclusion to which I came at last, was, that
without, at least, a visit to Egypt, I could not rest, nor, till convinced
of my folly by disappointment, be reasonable. I, therefore, announced
without delay to my associates of the Garden, the intention which I had
formed to pay a visit to the land of Pyramids. To none of them did I dare
to confess the vague, visionary impulse that actuated me. Knowledge was
the object that I alleged, while Pleasure was that for which they gave me
credit. The interests of the School, it was apprehended, would suffer by
my absence; and there were some tenderer ties, which had still more to
fear from separation. But for the former inconvenience a temporary remedy
was provided; while the latter a skilful distribution of vows and sighs
alleviated. Being furnished with recommendatory letters to all parts of
Egypt, in the summer of the year 257, A.D. I set sail for Alexandria.
CHAP. III.
To one, who extracted such sweets from every moment on land, a sea‐voyage,
however smooth and favourable, appeared the least agreeable mode of losing
time that could be devised. Often did my imagination, in passing some isle
of those seas, people it with fair forms and kind hearts, to whom most
willingly, if I might, would I have paused to pay homage. But the wind
blew direct towards the land of Mystery; and, still more, I heard a voice
within me, whispering for ever “On.”
As we approached the coast of Egypt, our course became less prosperous;
and we had a specimen of the benevolence of the divinities of the Nile, in
the shape of a storm, or rather whirlwind, which had nearly sunk our
vessel, and which, the Egyptians on board said, was the work of their God,
Typhon. After a day and night of danger, during which we were driven out
of our course to the eastward, some benigner influence prevailed above;
and, at length, as the morning freshly broke, we saw the beautiful city of
Alexandria rising from the sea, with its Palace of Kings, its portico of
four hundred columns, and the fair Pillar of Pillars, towering up to
heaven in the midst.
After passing in review this splendid vision, we shot rapidly round the
Rock of Pharos, and, in a few minutes, found ourselves in the harbour of
Eunostus. The sun had risen, but the light on the Great Tower of the Rock
was still burning; and there was a languor in the first waking movements
of that voluptuous city—whose houses and temples lay shining in silence
round the harbour—that sufficiently attested the festivities of the
preceding night.
We were soon landed on the quay; and, as I walked, through a line of
palaces and shrines, up the street which leads from the sea to the Gate of
Canopus, fresh as I was from the contemplation of my own lovely Athens, I
felt a glow of admiration at the scene around me, which its novelty, even
more than its magnificence, inspired. Nor were the luxuries and delights,
which such a city promised, among the least of the considerations on which
my fancy, at that moment, dwelt. On the contrary, every thing around
seemed prophetic of future pleasure. The very forms of the architecture,
to my Epicurean imagination, appeared to call up images of living grace;
and even the dim seclusion of the temples and groves spoke only of tender
mysteries to my mind. As the whole bright scene grew animated around me, I
felt that though Egypt might not enable me to lengthen life, she could
teach the next best art,—that of multiplying its enjoyments.
The population of Alexandria, at this period, consisted of the most motley
miscellany of nations, religions, and sects, that had ever been brought
together in one city. Beside the school of the Grecian Platonist was seen
the oratory of the cabalistic Jew; while the church of the Christian
stood, undisturbed, over the crypts of the Egyptian Hierophant. Here, the
adorer of Fire, from the east, laughed at the superstition of the
worshipper of cats, from the west. Here Christianity, too, unluckily, had
learned to emulate the vagaries of Paganism; and while, on one side, her
Ophite professor was seen kneeling down gravely before his serpent, on the
other, a Nicosian was, as gravely, contending that there was no chance of
salvation out of the pale of the Greek alphabet. Still worse, the
uncharitableness of Christian schism was already distinguishing itself
with equal vigour; and I heard of nothing, on my arrival, but the rancour
and hate, with which the Greek and Latin churchmen persecuted each other,
because, forsooth, the one fasted on the seventh day of the week, and the
others fasted upon the fourth and sixth!
To none of those religions or sects, however, except for purposes of
ridicule, did I pay much attention. I was now in the most luxurious city
of the universe, and gave way, without reserve, to the seductions that
surrounded me. My reputation, as a philosopher and a man of pleasure, had
preceded me; and Alexandria, the second Athens of the world, welcomed me
as her own. My celebrity, indeed, was as a talisman, that opened hearts
and doors at my approach. The usual noviciate of acquaintance was
dispensed with in my favour, and not only intimacies, but loves and
friendships, ripened in my path, as rapidly as vegetation springs up where
the Nile has flowed. The dark beauty of the Egyptian women had a novelty
in my eyes that enhanced its other charms; and that hue of the sun on
their rounded cheeks was but an earnest of the ardour he had kindled in
their hearts—
Th’ imbrowning of the fruit, that tells
How rich within the soul of sweetness dwells.
Some weeks rolled on in such perpetual and ever‐changing pleasures, that
even the melancholy voice in my heart, though it still spoke, was but
seldom listened to, and soon died away in the sound of the siren songs
that surrounded me. At length, however, as the novelty of these scenes
wore off, the same gloomy bodings began to mingle with all my joys; and an
incident that occurred, during one of my gayest revels, conduced still
more to deepen their gloom.
The celebration of the annual festival of Serapis took place during my
stay, and I was, more than once, induced to mingle with the gay
multitudes, that crowded to his shrine at Canopus on the occasion. Day and
night, while this festival lasted, the canal, which led from Alexandria to
Canopus, was covered with boats full of pilgrims of both sexes, all
hastening to avail themselves of this pious licence, which lent the zest
of a religious sanction to pleasure, and gave a holiday to the passions of
earth, in honour of heaven.
I was returning, one lovely night, to Alexandria. The north wind, that
welcome visitor, freshened the air, while the banks, on either side, sent
forth, from groves of orange and henna, the most delicious odours. As I
had left all the crowd behind me at Canopus, there was not a boat to be
seen on the canal but my own; and I was just yielding to the thoughts
which solitude at such an hour inspires, when my reveries were broken by
the sound of some female voices, coming, mingled with laughter and
screams, from the garden of a pavilion, that stood, brilliantly
illuminated, upon the bank of the canal.
On rowing nearer, I perceived that both the mirth and the alarm had been
caused by the efforts of some playful girls to reach a hedge of jasmin
which grew near the water, and in bending towards which they had nearly
fallen into the stream. Hastening to proffer my assistance, I soon
recognised the voice of one of my fair Alexandrian friends, and, springing
on the bank, was surrounded by the whole group, who insisted on my joining
their party in the pavilion, and flinging the tendrils of jasmin, which
they had just plucked, around me, led me, no unwilling captive, to the
banquet‐room.
I found here an assemblage of the very flower of Alexandrian society. The
unexpectedness of the meeting gave it an additional zest on both sides;
and seldom had I felt more enlivened myself, or contributed more
successfully to circulate life among others.
Among the company were some Greek women, who, according to the fashion of
their country, wore veils; but, as usual, rather to set off than conceal
their beauty, some gleams of which were continually escaping from under
the cloud. There was, however, one female, who particularly attracted my
attention, on whose head was a chaplet of dark‐coloured flowers, and who
sat veiled and silent during the whole of the banquet. She took no share,
I observed, in what was passing around: the viands and the wine went by
her untouched, nor did a word that was spoken seem addressed to her ear.
This abstraction from a scene so sparkling with gaiety, though apparently
unnoticed by any one but myself, struck me as mysterious and strange. I
inquired of my fair neighbour the cause of it, but she looked grave and
was silent.
In the mean time, the lyre and the cup went round; and a young maid from
Athens, as if inspired by the presence of her countryman, took her lute,
and sung to it some of the songs of Greece, with a feeling that bore me
back to the banks of the Ilissus, and, even in the bosom of present
pleasure, drew a sigh from my heart for that which had passed away. It was
daybreak ere our delighted party rose, and unwillingly re‐embarked to
return to the city.
Scarcely were we afloat, when it was discovered that the lute of the young
Athenian had been left behind; and, with my heart still full of its sweet
sounds, I most readily sprung on shore to seek it. I hastened to the
banquet‐room, which was now dim and solitary, except that—there, to my
astonishment, still sat that silent figure, which had awakened my
curiosity so strongly during the night. A vague feeling of awe came over
me, as I now slowly approached it. There was no motion, no sound of
breathing in that form;—not a leaf of the dark chaplet on its brow
stirred. By the light of a dying lamp which stood before the figure, I
raised, with a hesitating hand, the veil, and saw—what my fancy had
already anticipated—that the shape underneath was lifeless, was a
skeleton! Startled and shocked, I hurried back with the lute to the boat,
and was almost as silent as that shape for the remainder of the voyage.
This custom among the Egyptians of placing a mummy, or skeleton, at the
banquet‐table, had been for some time disused, except at particular
ceremonies; and, even on such occasions, it had been the practice of the
luxurious Alexandrians to disguise this memorial of mortality in the
manner just described. But to me, who was wholly unprepared for such a
spectacle, it gave a shock from which my imagination did not speedily
recover. This silent and ghastly witness of mirth seemed to embody, as it
were, the shadow in my own heart. The features of the grave were now
stamped on the idea that haunted me, and this picture of what I _was to
be_ mingled itself with the sunniest aspect of what I _was_.
The memory of the dream now recurred to me more livelily than ever. The
bright assuring smile of that venerable Spirit, and his words, “Go to the
shores of the dark Nile, and thou wilt find the eternal life thou
seekest,” were for ever before my mind. But as yet, alas, I had done
nothing towards realising this splendid promise. Alexandria was not
Egypt;—the very soil on which it stood was not in existence, when Thebes
and Memphis already counted ages of glory.
“It is beneath the Pyramids of Memphis,” I exclaimed, “or in the mystic
Halls of the Labyrinth, that I must seek those holy arcana of science, of
which the antediluvian world has made Egypt its heir, and among
which—blest thought!—the key to eternal life may lie.”
Having formed my determination, I took leave of my many Alexandrian
friends, and departed for Memphis.
CHAP. IV.
Egypt was the country, of all others, from that mixture of the melancholy
and the voluptuous, which marked the character of her people, her
religion, and her scenery, to affect deeply a temperament and fancy like
mine, and keep tremblingly alive the sensibilities of both. Wherever I
turned, I saw the desert and the garden, mingling their bloom and
desolation together. I saw the love‐bower and the tomb standing side by
side, and pleasure and death keeping hourly watch upon each other. In the
very luxury of the climate there was the same saddening influence. The
monotonous splendour of the days, the solemn radiance of the nights—all
tended to cherish that ardent melancholy, the offspring of passion and of
thought, which had so long been the inmate of my soul.
When I sailed from Alexandria, the inundation of the Nile was at its full.
The whole valley of Egypt lay covered by its flood; and, as I saw around
me, in the light of the setting sun, shrines, palaces, and monuments,
encircled by the waters, I could almost fancy that I beheld the sinking
island of Atalantis, on the last evening its temples were visible above
the wave. Such varieties, too, of animation as presented themselves on
every side!—
While, far as sight can reach, beneath as clear
And blue a heaven as ever bless’d this sphere,
Gardens, and pillar’d streets, and porphyry domes,
And high‐built temples, fit to be the homes
Of mighty gods, and pyramids, whose hour
Outlasts all time, above the waters tower!
Then, too, the scenes of pomp and joy, that make
One theatre of this vast, peopled lake,
Where all that Love, Religion, Commerce gives
Of life and motion, ever moves and lives.
Here, up the steps of temples, from the wave
Ascending, in procession slow and grave,
Priests, in white garments, go, with sacred wands
And silver cymbals gleaming in their hands:
While, there, rich barks—fresh from those sunny tracts
Far off, beyond the sounding cataracts—
Glide with their precious lading to the sea,
Plumes of bright birds, rhinoceros’ ivory,
Gems from the isle of Meröe, and those grains
Of gold, wash’d down by Abyssinian rains.
Here, where the waters wind into a bay
Shadowy and cool, some pilgrims, on their way
To Saïs or Bubastus, among beds
Of lotus‐flowers, that close above their heads,
Push their light barks, and hid, as in a bower,
Sing, talk, or sleep away the sultry hour;
While haply, not far off, beneath a bank
Of blossoming acacias, many a prank
Is play’d in the cool current by a train
Of laughing nymphs, lovely as she, whose chain
Around two conquerors of the world was cast,
But, for a third too feeble, broke at last!
Enchanted with the whole scene, I lingered on my voyage, visiting all
those luxurious and venerable places, whose names have been consecrated by
the wonder of ages. At Saïs I was present during her Festival of Lamps,
and read, by the blaze of innumerable lights, those sublime words on the
temple of Neitha: “I am all that has been, that is, and that will be, and
no man hath ever lifted my veil.” I wandered among the prostrate obelisks
of Heliopolis, and saw, not without a sigh, the sun smiling over her
ruins, as if in mockery of the mass of perishable grandeur, that had once
called itself, in its pride, “The City of the Sun.” But to the Isle of the
Golden Venus was my fondest pilgrimage;—and as I explored its shades,
where bowers are the only temples, I felt how far more fit to form the
shrine of a Deity are the ever‐living stems of the garden and the grove,
than the most precious columns that the inanimate quarry can supply.
Every where new pleasures, new interests awaited me; and though
Melancholy, as usual, stood always near, her shadow fell but half‐way over
my vagrant path, and left the rest more welcomely brilliant from the
contrast. To relate my various adventures, during this short voyage, would
only detain me from events, far, far more worthy of record. Amidst such
endless variety of attractions, the great object of my journey was
forgotten;—the mysteries of this land of the sun were, to me, as much
mysteries as ever, and I had as yet been initiated in nothing but its
pleasures.
It was not till that evening, when I first stood before the Pyramids of
Memphis, and saw them towering aloft, like the watch‐towers of Time, from
whose summit, when he expires, he will look his last,—it was not till this
moment that the great secret, of which I had dreamed, again rose, in all
its inscrutable darkness, upon my thoughts. There was a solemnity in the
sunshine that rested upon those monuments—a stillness, as of reverence, in
the air around them, that stole, like the music of past times, into my
heart. I thought what myriads of the wise, the beautiful, and the brave,
had sunk into dust since earth first beheld those wonders; and, in the
sadness of my soul, I exclaimed,—“Must man alone, then, perish? must minds
and hearts be annihilated, while pyramids endure? Death, Death, even on
these everlasting tablets,—the only approach to immortality that kings
themselves could purchase,—thou hast written our doom, saying, awfully and
intelligibly, ‘There is, for man, no eternal mansion, but the tomb!’”
My heart sunk at the thought; and, for the moment, I yielded to that
desolate feeling, which overspreads the soul that hath no light from the
future. But again the buoyancy of my nature prevailed, and again, the
willing dupe of vain dreams, I deluded myself into the belief of all that
I most wished, with that happy facility which makes imagination stand in
place of happiness. “Yes,” I cried, “immortality _must_ be within man’s
reach; and, as wisdom alone is worthy of such a blessing, to the wise
alone must the secret have been revealed. Deep, it is said, under yonder
pyramid, has for ages lain concealed the Table of Emerald, on which the
Thrice‐Great Hermes engraved, before the flood, the secret of Alchemy,
that gives gold at will. Why may not the mightier, the more god‐like
secret, that gives life at will, be recorded there also? It was by the
power of gold, of endless gold, that the kings, who repose in those massy
structures, scooped earth to the centre, and raised quarries into the air,
to provide themselves with tombs that might outstand the world. Who can
tell but that the gift of immortality was also theirs? who knows but that
they themselves, triumphant over decay, still live—those mansions, which
we call tombs, being rich and everlasting palaces, within whose depths,
concealed from this withering world, they still wander, with the few who
are sharers of their gift, through a sunless, but illuminated, elysium of
their own? Else, wherefore those structures? wherefore that subterraneous
realm, by which the whole valley of Egypt is undermined? Why, else, those
labyrinths, which none of earth hath ever beheld—which none of heaven,
except that God, with the finger on his hushed lip, hath trodden!”
While I indulged in these dreams, the sun, half sunk beneath the horizon,
was taking, calmly and gloriously, his leave of the Pyramids,—as he had
done, evening after evening, for ages, till they had become familiar to
him as the earth itself. On the side turned to his ray they now presented
a front of dazzling whiteness, while, on the other, their great shadows,
lengthening to the eastward, looked like the first steps of Night,
hastening to envelope the hills of Araby in her shade.
No sooner had the last gleam of the sun disappeared, than, on every house‐
top in Memphis, gay, gilded banners were seen waving aloft, to proclaim
his setting,—while a full burst of harmony pealed from all the temples
along the shores.
Startled from my musing by these sounds, I at once recollected, that, on
that very evening, the great festival of the Moon was to be celebrated. On
a little island, half‐way over between the gardens of Memphis and the
eastern shore, stood the temple of that goddess,
Whose beams
Bring the sweet time of night‐flowers and dreams.
_Not_ the cold Dian of the North, who chains
In vestal ice the current of young veins;
But she, who haunts the gay, Bubastian grove,
And owns she sees, from her bright heav’n above,
Nothing on earth, to match that heav’n, but love!
Thus did I exclaim, in the words of one of their own Egyptian poets, as,
anticipating the various delights of the festival, I cast away from my
mind all gloomy thoughts, and, hastening to my little bark, in which I now
lived, like a Nile‐bird, on the waters, steered my course to the island‐
temple of the Moon.
CHAP. V.
The rising of the Moon, slow and majestic, as if conscious of the honours
that awaited her upon earth, was welcomed with a loud acclaim from every
eminence, where multitudes stood watching for her first light. And seldom
had she risen upon a scene more beautiful. Memphis,—still grand, though no
longer the unrivalled Memphis, that had borne away from Thebes the crown
of supremacy, and worn it undisputed through so many centuries,—now,
softened by the moonlight that harmonised with her decline, shone forth
among her lakes, her pyramids, and her shrines, like a dream of glory that
was soon to pass away. Ruin, even now, was but too visible around her. The
sands of the Libyan desert gained upon her like a sea; and, among solitary
columns and sphinxes, already half sunk from sight, Time seemed to stand
waiting, till all, that now flourished around, should fall beneath his
desolating hand, like the rest.
On the waters all was life and gaiety. As far as eye could reach, the
lights of innumerable boats were seen, studding, like rubies, the surface
of the stream. Vessels of all kinds,—from the light coracle, built for
shooting down the cataracts, to the large yacht that glides to the sound
of flutes,—all were afloat for this sacred festival, filled with crowds of
the young and the gay, not only from Memphis and Babylon, but from cities
still farther removed from the scene.
As I approached the island, I could see, glittering through the trees on
the bank, the lamps of the pilgrims hastening to the ceremony. Landing in
the direction which those lights pointed out, I soon joined the crowd;
and, passing through a long alley of sphinxes, whose spangling marble
shone out from the dark sycamores around them, in a short time reached the
grand vestibule of the temple, where I found the ceremonies of the evening
already commenced.
In this vast hall, which was surrounded by a double range of columns, and
lay open over‐head to the stars of heaven, I saw a group of young maidens,
moving in a sort of measured step, between walk and dance, round a small
shrine, upon which stood one of those sacred birds, that, on account of
the variegated colour of their wings, are dedicated to the moon. The
vestibule was dimly lighted,—there being but one lamp of naptha on each of
the great pillars that encircled it. But, having taken my station beside
one of those pillars, I had a distinct view of the young dancers, as in
succession they passed me.
Their long, graceful drapery was as white as snow; and each wore loosely,
beneath the rounded bosom, a dark‐blue zone, or bandelet, studded, like
the skies at midnight, with little silver stars. Through their dark locks
was wreathed the white lily of the Nile,—that flower being accounted as
welcome to the moon, as the golden blossoms of the bean‐flower are to the
sun. As they passed under the lamp, a gleam of light flashed from their
bosoms, which, I could perceive, was the reflection of a small mirror,
that, in the manner of the women of the East, each wore beneath her left
shoulder.
There was no music to regulate their steps; but, as they gracefully went
round the bird on the shrine, some, by the beat of the castanet, some, by
the shrill ring of the sistrum,—which they held uplifted in the attitude
of their own divine Isis,—harmoniously timed the cadence of their feet;
while others, at every step, shook a small chain of silver, whose sound,
mingling with those of the castanets and sistrums, produced a wild, but
not an unpleasing harmony.
They seemed all lovely; but there was one—whose face the light had not yet
reached, so downcast she held it,—who attracted, and, at length, riveted
all my attention. I knew not why, but there was a something in those half‐
seen features,—a charm in the very shadow, that hung over their imagined
beauty,—which took me more than all the out‐shining loveliness of her
companions. So enchained was my fancy by this coy mystery, that her alone,
of all the group, could I either see or think of—her alone I watched, as,
with the same downcast brow, she glided round the altar, gently and
aërially, as if her presence, like that of a spirit, was something to be
felt, not seen.
Suddenly, while I gazed, the loud crash of a thousand cymbals was
heard;—the massy gates of the Temple flew open, as if by magic, and a
flood of radiance from the illuminated aisle filled the whole vestibule;
while, at the same instant, as if the light and the sounds were born
together, a peal of rich harmony came mingling with the radiance.
It was then,—by that light, which shone full upon the young maiden’s
features, as, starting at the blaze, she raised her eyes to the portal,
and, as suddenly, let fall their lids again,—it was then I beheld, what
even my own ardent imagination, in its most vivid dreams of beauty, had
never pictured. Not Psyche herself, when pausing on the threshold of
heaven, while its first glories fell on her dazzled lids, could have
looked more beautiful, or blushed with a more innocent shame. Often as I
had felt the power of looks, none had ever entered into my soul so far. It
was a new feeling—a new sense—coming as suddenly as that radiance into the
vestibule, and, at once, filling my whole being;—and had that vision but
lingered another moment before my eyes, I should have wholly forgotten who
I was and where, and thrown myself, in prostrate adoration, at her feet.
But scarcely had that gush of harmony been heard, when the sacred bird,
which had, till now, stood motionless as an image, expanded his wings, and
flew into the Temple; while his graceful young worshippers, with a
fleetness like his own, followed,—and she, who had left a dream in my
heart never to be forgotten, vanished with the rest. As she went rapidly
past the pillar against which I leaned, the ivy that encircled it caught
in her drapery, and disengaged some ornament which fell to the ground. It
was the small mirror which I had seen shining on her bosom. Hastily and
tremulously I picked it up, and hurried to restore it;—but she was already
lost to my eyes in the crowd.
In vain I tried to follow;—the aisles were already filled, and numbers of
eager pilgrims pressed towards the portal. But the servants of the Temple
prevented all further entrance, and still, as I presented myself, their
white wands barred the way. Perplexed and irritated amid that crowd of
faces, regarding all as enemies that impeded my progress, I stood on
tiptoe, gazing into the busy aisles, and with a heart beating as I caught,
from time to time, a glimpse of some spangled zone, or lotus wreath, which
led me to fancy that I had discovered the object of my search. But it was
all in vain;—in every direction, files of sacred nymphs were moving, but
nowhere could I see her, whom alone I sought.
In this state of breathless agitation did I stand for some
time,—bewildered with the confusion of faces and lights, as well as with
the clouds of incense that rolled around me,—till, fevered and impatient,
I could endure it no longer. Forcing my way out of the vestibule into the
cool air, I hurried back through the alley of sphinxes to the shore, and
flung myself into my boat.
There is, to the north of Memphis, a solitary lake (which, at this season
of the year, mingles with the rest of the waters,) upon whose shores
stands the Necropolis, or City of the Dead—a place of melancholy grandeur,
covered over with shrines and pyramids, where many a kingly head, proud
even in death, has for ages awaited the resurrection of its glories.
Through a range of sepulchral grots underneath, the humbler denizens of
the tomb are deposited,—looking out on each successive generation that
visits them, with the same face and features they wore centuries ago.
Every plant and tree, that is consecrated to death, from the asphodel‐
flower to the mystic plantain, lends its sweetness or shadow to this place
of tombs; and the only noise that disturbs its eternal calm, is the low
humming sound of the priests at prayer, when a new inhabitant is added to
the silent city.
It was towards this place of death that, in a mood of mind, as usual, half
bright, half gloomy, I now, almost unconsciously, directed my bark. The
form of the young Priestess was continually before me. That one bright
look of hers, the very memory of which was worth all the actual smiles of
others, never left my mind. Absorbed in such thoughts, I rowed on, scarce
knowing whither I went, till, startled by finding myself within the shadow
of the City of the Dead, I looked up, and saw, rising in succession before
me, pyramid beyond pyramid, each towering more loftily than the
other,—while all were out‐topped in grandeur by one, upon whose summit the
moon seemed to rest, as on a pedestal.
Drawing near to the shore, which was sufficiently elevated to raise this
city of monuments above the level of the inundation, I lifted my oar, and
let the boat rock idly on the water, while my thoughts, left equally
without direction, fluctuated as idly. How various and vague were the
dreams that then passed through my mind—that bright vision of the temple
mingling itself with all! Sometimes she stood before me, like an aërial
spirit, as pure as if that element of music and light, into which I had
seen her vanish, was her only dwelling. Sometimes, animated with passion,
and kindling into a creature of earth, she seemed to lean towards me with
looks of tenderness, which it were worth worlds, but for one instant, to
inspire; and again—as the dark fancies, that ever haunted me, recurred—I
saw her cold, parched, and blackening, amid the gloom of those eternal
sepulchres before me!
Turning away, with a shudder, from the cemetery at this thought, I heard
the sound of an oar plying swiftly through the water, and, in a few
moments, saw, shooting past me towards the shore, a small boat in which
sat two female figures, muffled up and veiled. Having landed them not far
from the spot where I lay,—concealed by the shadow of a monument on the
bank,—the boat again departed, with the same fleetness, over the flood.
Never had the prospect of an adventure come more welcome than at this
moment, when my fancy was weaving such chains for my heart, as threatened
a bondage, of all others, the most difficult to break. To become enamoured
thus of a creature of my own imagination, was the worst, because the most
lasting, of follies. Reality alone gives a chance of dissolving such
spells, and the idol I was now creating to myself must for ever remain
ideal. Any pursuit, therefore, that seemed likely to divert me from such
thoughts—to bring back my imagination to earth and reality, from the vague
region in which it was wandering, was a relief too seasonable not to be
welcomed with eagerness.
I had watched the course which the two figures took, and, having hastily
fastened my boat to the bank, stepped gently on shore, and, at a little
distance, followed them. The windings through which they led were
intricate; but, by the bright light of the moon, I was enabled to keep
their forms in view, as, with rapid step, they glided among the monuments.
At length, in the shade of a small pyramid, whose peak barely surmounted
the plane‐trees that grew nigh, they vanished from my sight. I hastened to
the spot, but there was not a sign of life around; and had my creed
extended to another world, I might have fancied that these forms were
spirits, sent from thence to mock me,—so instantaneously they disappeared.
I searched through the neighbouring grove, but all there was still as
death. At length, in examining one of the sides of the pyramid, which, for
a few feet from the ground, was furnished with steps, I found, midway
between peak and base, a part of the surface, which, though presenting an
appearance of smoothness to the eye, gave to the touch, I thought,
indications of a concealed opening.
After a variety of efforts and experiments, I, at last, more by accident
than skill, pressed the spring that commanded this mysterious aperture. In
an instant the portal slid aside, and disclosed a narrow stair‐way within,
the two or three first steps of which were discernible by the moonlight,
while the rest were lost in utter darkness. Though it was difficult to
conceive that the persons whom I had followed would have ventured to pass
through this gloomy opening, yet to account for their disappearance
otherwise was still more difficult. At all events, my curiosity was now
too eager in the chase to relinquish it;—the spirit of adventure, once
raised, could not be so easily laid. Accordingly, having sent up a gay
prayer to that bliss‐loving Queen whose eye alone was upon me, I passed
through the portal and descended into the pyramid.
CHAP. VI.
At the bottom of the stair‐way I found myself in a low, narrow passage,
through which, without stooping almost to earth, it was impossible to
proceed. Though leading through a multiplicity of dark windings, this way
seemed but little to advance my progress,—its course, I perceived, being
chiefly circular, and gathering, at every turn, but a deeper intensity of
darkness.
“Can this,” I thought, “be the sojourn of any thing human?”—and had
scarcely asked myself the question, when the path opened into a long
gallery, at the farthest end of which a gleam of light was visible. This
welcome glimmer appeared to come from some cell or alcove, in which the
right‐hand wall of the gallery terminated, and, breathless with
expectation, I stole gently towards it.
Arrived at the end of the gallery, a scene presented itself to my eyes,
for which my fondest expectations of adventure could not have prepared me.
The place from which the light proceeded was a small chapel, of whose
interior, from the dark recess in which I stood, I had, unseen myself, a
full and distinct view. Over the walls of this oratory were painted some
of those various symbols, by which the mystic wisdom of the Egyptians
loves to shadow out the History of the Soul—the winged globe with a
serpent,—the rays descending from above, like a glory, and the Theban
beetle, as he comes forth, after the waters have passed away, and the
first sunbeam falls on his regenerated wings.
In the middle of the chapel stood a low altar of granite, on which lay a
lifeless female form, enshrined within a case of crystal,—as they preserve
their dead in Ethiopia,—and looking as freshly beautiful as if the soul
had but a few hours departed. Among the emblems of death, on the front of
the altar, were a slender lotus‐branch, broken in two, and a bird, just
winging its flight from the spray.
To these memorials of the dead, however, I but little attended; for there
was a living object there upon which my eyes were most intently fixed.
The lamp, by which the whole of the chapel was illuminated, was placed at
the head of the pale image in the shrine; and, between its light and me,
stood a female form, bending over the monument, as if to gaze upon the
silent features within. The position in which this figure was placed,
intercepting a strong light, afforded me, at first, but an imperfect and
shadowy view of it. Yet even at this mere outline my heart beat high,—and
memory, as it proved, had as much share in this feeling as imagination.
For, on the head changing its position, so as to let a gleam fall on the
features, I saw with a transport, which had almost led me to betray my
lurking‐place, that it was she—the young worshipper of Isis—the same, the
very same, whom I had seen, brightening the holy place where she stood,
and looking like an inhabitant of some purer world.
The movement, by which she had now given me an opportunity of recognising
her, was made in raising from the shrine a small cross(2) of silver, which
lay directly over the bosom of the lifeless figure. Bringing it close to
her lips, she kissed it with a religious fervour; then, turning her eyes
mournfully upwards, held them fixed with an inspired earnestness, as if,
at that moment, in direct communion with heaven, they saw neither roof,
nor any other earthly barrier between them and the skies.
What a power hath innocence, whose very helplessness is its safeguard—in
whose presence even Passion himself stands abashed, and turns worshipper
at the altar which he came to despoil. She, who, but a short hour before,
had presented herself to my imagination, as something I could have risked
immortality to win—she, whom gladly, from the floor of her own lighted
temple, in the very face of its proud ministers, I would have borne away
in triumph, and defied all punishments, both human and sacred, to make her
mine,—she was now before me, thrown, as if by fate itself, into my
power—standing there, beautiful and alone, with nothing but her innocence
for her guard! Yet, no—so touching was the purity of the whole scene, so
calm and august that protection which the dead seemed to extend over the
living, that every earthlier feeling was forgotten as I gazed, and love
itself became exalted into reverence.
Entranced, indeed, as I felt in witnessing such a scene, thus to enjoy it
by stealth, seemed a wrong, a sacrilege—and, rather than let her eyes meet
the flash of mine, or disturb, by a whisper, that sacred silence, in which
Youth and Death held communion through Love, I would have let my heart
break, without a murmur, where I stood. Gently, as if life depended upon
every movement, I stole away from that tranquil and holy scene—leaving it
still tranquil and holy as I found it—and, gliding back through the same
passages and windings by which I had entered, regained the narrow stair‐
way, and again ascended into light.
The sun had just risen, and, from the summit of the Arabian hills, was
pouring down his beams into that vast valley of waters,—as if proud of the
homage that had been paid to his own Isis, now fading away in the superior
light of her Lord. My first impulse was to fly from this dangerous spot,
and in new loves and pleasures seek forgetfulness of the scene which I had
witnessed. “Once out of the circle of this enchantment,” I exclaimed, “I
know my own susceptibility to new impressions too well, to doubt that I
shall soon break the spell that is around me.”
But vain were my efforts and resolves. Even while I swore to fly, my steps
were still lingering round the pyramid—my eyes still turned towards the
secret portal, which severed this enchantress from the world of the
living. Hour after hour did I wander through that City of Silence,—till,
already, it was noon, and, under the sun’s meridian eye, the mighty
pyramid of pyramids stood, like a great spirit, shadowless.
Again did those wild and passionate feelings, which had, for a moment,
been subdued into reverence by her presence, return to kindle up my
imagination and senses. I even reproached myself for the awe, that had
held me spell‐bound before her. “What would my companions of the Garden
say, did they know that their chief,—he, whose path Love had strewed with
trophies—was now pining for a simple Egyptian girl, in whose presence he
had not dared to give utterance to a sigh, and who had vanquished the
victor, without even knowing her triumph!”
A blush came over my cheek at the humiliating thought, and my
determination was fixed to await her coming. That she should be an inmate
of those gloomy caverns seemed inconceivable; nor did there appear to be
any issue from their depths but by the pyramid. Again, therefore, like a
sentinel of the dead, did I pace up and down among these tombs,
contrasting, in many a mournful reflection, the burning fever within my
own veins with the cold quiet of those who slept around.
At length the fierce glow of the sun over my head, and, still more, that
ever restless agitation in my heart, were too much for even strength like
mine to bear. Exhausted, I lay down at the base of the pyramid—placing
myself directly under the portal, where, even should slumber surprise me,
my heart, if not my ear, might still be on the watch, and her footstep,
light as it was, could not fail to awake me.
After many an ineffectual struggle against drowsiness, I at length sunk
into sleep—but not into forgetfulness. The same image still haunted me, in
every variety of shape, with which imagination, assisted by memory, could
invest it. Now, like Neïtha, upon her throne at Saïs, she seemed to sit,
with the veil just raised from that brow, which mortal had never, till
then, beheld,—and now, like the beautiful enchantress Rhodope, I saw her
rise out of the pyramid in which she had dwelt for ages,—
“Fair Rhodope, as story tells,
The bright, unearthly nymph, who dwells
Mid sunless gold and jewels hid,
The Lady of the Pyramid!”
So long, amid that unbroken silence, did my sleep continue, that I found
the moon again shining above the horizon, when I awoke. All around was
silent and lifeless as before, nor did a print upon the herbage betray
that any foot had passed it since my own. Refreshed by rest, and with a
fancy still more excited by the mystic wonders of which I had been
dreaming, I now resolved to revisit the chapel in the pyramid, and put an
end, if possible, to this illusion that haunted me.
Having learned from the experience of the preceding night, the
inconvenience of encountering those labyrinths without a light, I now
hastened to provide myself with a lamp from my boat. Tracking my way back
with some difficulty to the shore, I there found, not only my lamp, but
some dates and dried fruits, with a store of which, for my roving life
upon the waters, I was always supplied,—and which now, after so many hours
of abstinence, were a welcome and necessary relief.
Thus prepared, I again ascended the pyramid, and was proceeding to search
out the secret spring, when a loud, dismal noise was heard at a distance,
to which all the echoes of the cemetery answered. It came, I knew, from
the Great Temple on the shore of the Lake, and was the shriek which its
gates—the Gates of Oblivion, as they were called—sent forth from their
hinges, in opening at night, to receive within their precincts the newly‐
landed dead.
I had heard that sound before, and always with sadness; but, at this
moment, it thrilled through me, like a voice of ill omen, and I almost
doubted whether I should not abandon my enterprise. The hesitation,
however, was but momentary;—even while it passed through my mind, I had
touched the spring of the portal. In a few seconds more, I was again in
the passage beneath the pyramid, and being enabled by my lamp to follow
the windings of the way more rapidly, soon found myself at the door of the
small chapel in the gallery.
I entered, still awed, though there was now nothing living within. The
young Priestess had fled—had vanished, like a spirit, into the darkness.
All the rest was as I had left it on the preceding night. The lamp still
stood burning upon the crystal shrine—the cross lay where the hands of the
young mourner had placed it, and the cold image beneath wore the same
tranquil look, as if resigned to the solitude of death—of all lone things
the loneliest. Remembering the lips that I had seen kiss that cross, and
kindling with the recollection, I raised it passionately to my own;—but,
at the same moment, I fancied the dead eyes met mine, and, saddened in the
midst of my ardour, I replaced the cross upon the shrine.
I had now lost all clue to the object of my pursuit, and was preparing
slowly to retrace my steps to earth, with that gloomy satisfaction which
certainty, even when unwelcome, brings,—when, as I held forth my lamp, on
leaving the chapel, I could perceive that the gallery, instead of
terminating here, took a sudden bend to the left, which had before eluded
my eye, and which gave a promise of leading still further into those
recesses. Re‐animated by this discovery, which opened a new source of hope
to my heart, I cast but one hesitating look at my lamp, as if to ask
whether it would be faithful through the gloom I was about to encounter,
and, without further thought, rushed eagerly forward.
CHAP. VII.
The path led, for some time, through the same sort of narrow windings as
those which I had encountered in descending the stair‐way; and at length
opened, in a similar manner, into a straight and steep gallery, along each
side of which stood, closely ranged and upright, a file of lifeless
bodies, whose glassy eyes threw a preternatural glare upon me as I passed.
Arrived at the end of this gallery, I found my hopes a second time vanish.
The path, I perceived, extended no further. The only object that I could
discern, by the glimmering of my lamp, which now, every minute, burned
fainter and fainter, was the mouth of a huge well, that lay gaping before
me—a reservoir of darkness, black and unfathomable. It now crossed my
memory that I had heard of such wells, as being used occasionally for
passages by the Priests. Leaning down, therefore, over the edge, I looked
anxiously within, to discover whether it was possible to descend into the
chasm; but the sides were hard and smooth as glass, being varnished all
over with that dark pitch, which the Dead Sea throws out on its slimy
shore.
After a more attentive scrutiny, however, I observed, at the depth of a
few feet, a sort of iron step, projecting dimly from the side, and, below
it, another, which, though hardly perceptible, was just sufficient to
encourage an adventurous foot to the trial. Though all hope of tracing the
young Priestess was at an end,—it being impossible that female foot should
have dared this descent,—yet, as I had so far engaged in the adventure,
and there was, at least, a mystery to be unravelled, I determined, at all
hazards, to explore the chasm. Placing my lamp (which was hollowed at the
bottom, so as to fit like a helmet) firmly on my head, and having thus
both hands at liberty for exertion, I set my foot cautiously on the iron
step, and descended into the well.
I found the same footing, at regular intervals, to a considerable depth;
and had already counted near a hundred of these steps, when the ladder
altogether ceased, and I could descend no farther. In vain did I stretch
down my foot in search of support—the hard, slippery sides were all that
it encountered. At length, stooping my head, so as to let the light fall
below, I observed an opening or window directly above the step on which I
stood, and, taking for granted that the way must lie in that direction,
with some little difficulty clambered through the aperture.
I now found myself on a rude and narrow stair‐way, the steps of which were
cut out of the living rock, and wound spirally downward in the same
direction as the well. Almost dizzy with the descent, which seemed as if
it would never end, I, at last, reached the bottom, where a pair of massy
iron gates closed directly across my path, as if to forbid any further
progress. Massy, however, and gigantic as they were, I found, to my
surprise, that the hand of an infant might have opened them with ease—so
readily did their great folds give way to my touch,
“Light as a lime‐bush, that receives
Some wandering bird among its leaves.”
No sooner, however, had I passed through, than the din, with which the
gates clashed together again, was such as might have awakened death
itself. It seemed as if every echo, throughout that vast, subterranean
world, from the Catacombs of Alexandria to Thebes’s Valley of Kings, had
caught up and repeated the thundering sound.
Startled, however, as I was, not even this supernatural clangour could
divert my attention from the light that now broke upon me—soft, warm, and
welcome as are the stars of his own South to the mariner who has been
wandering through the seas of the north. Looking for the source of this
splendour, I saw, through an archway opposite, a long illuminated alley,
stretching away as far as the eye could reach, and fenced, on one side,
with thickets of odoriferous shrubs, while, along the other, extended a
line of lofty arcades, from which the light, that filled the whole area,
issued. As soon, too, as the din of the deep echoes had subsided, there
stole gradually on my ear a strain of choral music, which appeared to
come, mellowed and sweetened in its passage, through many a spacious hall
within those shining arcades. Among the voices I could distinguish some
female tones, towering high and clear over all the rest, and forming the
spire, as it were, into which the harmony tapered, as it rose.
So excited was my fancy by this sudden enchantment, that—though never had
I caught a sound from the young Egyptian’s lips,—I yet persuaded myself
that the voice I now heard was hers, sounding highest and most heavenly of
all that choir, and calling to me, like a distant spirit out of its
sphere. Animated by this thought, I flew forward to the archway, but
found, to my mortification, that it was guarded by a trellis‐work, whose
bars, though invisible at a distance, resisted all my efforts to force
them.
While occupied in these ineffectual struggles, I perceived, to the left of
the archway, a dark, cavernous opening, which seemed to lead in a
direction parallel to the lighted arcades. Notwithstanding my impatience,
however, the aspect of this passage, as I looked shudderingly into it,
chilled my very blood. It was not so much darkness, as a sort of livid and
ghastly twilight, from which a damp, like that of death‐vaults, exhaled,
and through which, if my eyes did not deceive me, pale, phantom‐like
shapes were, at that very moment, hovering.
Looking anxiously round, to discover some less formidable outlet, I saw,
over the vast folding‐gates through which I had just passed, a blue,
tremulous flame, which, after playing for a few seconds over the dark
ground of the pediment, settled gradually into characters of light, and
formed the following words:—
You, who would try
Yon terrible track,
To live, or to die,
But ne’er to look back—
You, who aspire
To be purified there,
By the terrors of Fire,
Of Water, and Air,—
If danger, and pain,
And death you despise,
On—for again
Into light you shall rise;
Rise into light
With that Secret Divine,
Now shrouded from sight
By the Veils of the Shrine!
But if——
Here the letters faded away into a dead blank, more awfully intelligible
than the most eloquent words.
A new hope now flashed across me. The dream of the Garden, which had been
for some time almost forgotten, returned to my mind. “Am I then,” I
exclaimed, “in the path to the promised mystery? and shall the great
secret of Eternal Life _indeed_ be mine?”
“Yes!” seemed to answer, out of the air, that spirit‐voice, which still
was heard crowning the choir with its single sweetness. I hailed the omen
with transport. Love and Immortality, both beckoning me onward—who could
give a thought to fear, with two such bright hopes in view? Having invoked
and blessed that unknown enchantress, whose steps had led me to this abode
of mystery and knowledge, I plunged into the chasm.
Instead of that vague, spectral twilight which had at first met my eye, I
now found, as I entered, a thick darkness, which, though far less
horrible, was, at this moment, still more disconcerting, as my lamp, which
had been, for some time, almost useless, was fast expiring. Resolved,
however, to make the most of its last gleam, I hastened, with rapid step,
through this gloomy region, which seemed wider and more open to the air
than any that I had yet passed. Nor was it long before the appearance of a
bright blaze in the distance announced to me that my first great Trial was
at hand. As I drew nearer, the flames burst high and wide on all
sides;—and the spectacle that now presented itself was such as might have
appalled even hearts more habituated to dangers than mine.
There lay before me, extending completely across my path, a thicket, or
grove of the most combustible trees of Egypt—tamarind, pine, and Arabian
balm. Around their stems and branches were coiled serpents of fire, which,
twisting themselves rapidly from bough to bough, spread their own wild‐
fire as they went, and involved tree after tree in one general blaze. It
was, indeed, rapid as the burning of those reed‐beds of Ethiopia, whose
light brightens, at night, the distant cataracts of the Nile.
Through the middle of this blazing grove, I perceived, my only pathway
lay. There was not a moment to be lost—the conflagration gained rapidly on
either side, and already the narrowing path between was strewed with fire.
Casting away my now useless lamp, and holding my robe as some protection
over my head, with a tremor, I own, in every limb, I ventured through the
blaze.
Instantly, as if my presence had given new life to the flames, a fresh
outbreak of combustion arose on all sides. The trees clustered into a
bower of fire above my head, while the serpents, that hung hissing from
the red branches, shot showers of sparkles down upon me, as I passed.
Never were decision and activity more serviceable;—one minute later, and I
must have perished. The narrow opening, of which I had so promptly availed
myself, closed instantly behind me; and, as I looked back, to contemplate
the ordeal which I had passed, I saw that the whole grove was already one
mass of fire.
Happy at having escaped this first trial, I plucked from one of the pine‐
trees a bough that was but just kindled, and, with this for my only guide,
hastened breathlessly forward. I had gone but a few paces, when the path
turned suddenly off,—leading downwards, as I could see by the glimmer of
my brand, into a more confined space, through which a chilling air, as if
from some neighbouring waters, blew over my brow. Nor had I proceeded very
far, when the sound of torrents fell on my ear,—mingled, as I thought,
from time to time, with shrill wailings, like the cries of persons in
danger or distress. At every step the noise of the dashing waters
increased, and I now perceived that I had entered an immense rocky cavern,
through the middle of which, headlong as a winter‐torrent, the flood, to
whose roar I had been listening, rushed. Upon its surface, too, there
floated strange, spectre‐like shapes, which, as they went by, sent forth
those dismal shrieks, as if in fear of some precipice to whose brink they
were hurrying.
I saw too plainly that my course must be across that torrent. It was
fearful; but in courage lay my only hope. What awaited me on the opposite
shore, I knew not; for all there was wrapped in impenetrable gloom, nor
could the weak light I held reach half so far. Dismissing, however, all
thoughts but that of pressing onward, I sprung from the rock on which I
stood into the flood,—trusting that, with my right hand, I should be able
to buffet the current, while, with the other, I might contrive to hold my
brand aloft, as long as a glimmer of it remained, to guide me to the
shore.
Long and formidable was the struggle I had to maintain. More than once,
overpowered by the rush of the waters, I had almost given myself up, as
destined to follow those apparitions, that still passed me, hurrying, with
mournful cries, to their doom in some invisible gulf before them.
At length, just as my strength was nearly exhausted, and the last remains
of the pine‐branch were falling from my hand, I saw, outstretching towards
me into the water, a light double balustrade, with a flight of steps
between, ascending, almost perpendicularly, from the wave, till they
seemed lost in a dense mass of clouds above. This glimpse—for it was no
more, as my light expired in giving it—lent new spring to my courage.
Having now both hands at liberty, so desperate were my efforts, that after
a few minutes’ struggle, I felt my brow strike against the stairway, and,
in an instant more, my feet were on the steps.
Rejoiced at my rescue from that perilous flood, though I knew not whither
the stairway led, I promptly ascended it. But this feeling of confidence
was of short duration. I had not mounted far, when, to my horror, I
perceived, that each successive step, as my foot left it, broke away from
beneath me,—leaving me in midair, with no other alternative than that of
mounting still by the same momentary footing, and with the dreadful doubt
whether it would even endure my tread.
And thus did I, for a few seconds, continue to ascend, with nothing
beneath me but that awful river, in which—so tranquil it had become—I
could hear the plash of the falling fragments, as every step in succession
gave way under my feet. It was a trying moment, but still worse remained.
I now found the balustrade, by which I had held during my ascent, and
which had hitherto seemed firm, grow tremulous in my hand,—while the step
to which I was about to trust myself, tottered under my foot. Just then, a
momentary flash, as if of lightning, broke around, and I saw, hanging out
of the clouds, within my reach, a huge brazen ring. Instinctively I
stretched forth my arm to seize it, and, at the same instant, both
balustrade and steps gave way beneath me, and I was left swinging by my
hands in the dark void. As if, too, this massy ring, which I grasped, was
by some magic power linked with all the winds in heaven, no sooner had I
seized it than, like the touching of a spring, it seemed to give loose to
every variety of gusts and tempests, that ever strewed the sea‐shore with
wrecks or dead; and, as I swung about, the sport of this elemental strife,
each new burst of its fury threatened to shiver me, like a storm‐sail, to
atoms!
Nor was even this the worst;—still holding, I know not how, by the ring, I
felt myself caught up, as if by a thousand whirlwinds, and round and
round, like a stone‐shot in a sling, whirled in the midst of all this
deafening chaos, till my brain grew dizzy, and my recollection confused,
and I almost fancied myself on that wheel of the infernal world, whose
rotations, it is said, Eternity alone can number!
Human strength could no longer sustain such a trial. I was on the point,
at last, of loosing my hold, when suddenly the violence of the storm
moderated;—my whirl through the air gradually ceased, and I felt the ring
slowly descend with me, till—happy as a shipwrecked mariner at the first
touch of land—I found my feet once more upon firm ground.
At the same moment, a light of the most delicious softness filled the
whole air. Music, such as is heard in dreams, came floating at a distance;
and, as my eyes gradually recovered their powers of vision, a scene of
glory was revealed to them, almost too bright for imagination, and yet
living and real. As far as the sight could reach, enchanting gardens were
seen, opening away through long tracts of light and verdure, and sparkling
every where with fountains, that circulated, like streams of life, among
the flowers. Not a charm was here wanting, that the imagination of poet or
prophet, in their pictures of Elysium, ever yet dreamed or promised.
Vistas, opening into scenes of indistinct grandeur,—streams, shining out
at intervals, in their shadowy course,—and labyrinths of flowers, leading,
by mysterious windings, to green, spacious glades, full of splendour and
repose. Over all this, too, there fell a light, from some unseen source,
resembling nothing that illumines our upper world—a sort of golden
moonlight, mingling the warm radiance of day with the calm and melancholy
lustre of night.
Nor were there wanting inhabitants for this sunless Paradise. Through all
the bright gardens were wandering, with the serene air and step of happy
spirits, groups both of young and old, of venerable and of lovely forms,
bearing, most of them, the Nile’s white flowers on their heads, and
branches of the eternal palm in their hands; while, over the verdant turf,
fair children and maidens went dancing to aërial music, whose source was,
like that of the light, invisible, but which filled the whole air with its
mystic sweetness.
Exhausted as I was by the trials I had undergone, no sooner did I perceive
those fair groups in the distance, than my weariness, both of frame and
spirit, was forgotten. A thought crossed me that she, whom I sought, might
be among them; and, notwithstanding the awe, with which that unearthly
scene inspired me, I was about to fly, on the instant, to ascertain my
hope. But in the act of making the effort, I felt my robe gently pulled,
and turning, beheld an aged man before me, whom, by the sacred hue of his
garb, I knew to be a Hierophant. Placing a branch of the consecrated palm
in my hand, he said, in a solemn voice, “Aspirant of the Mysteries,
welcome!”—then, regarding me for a few seconds with grave attention,
added, in a tone of courteousness and interest, “The victory over the body
hath been gained!—Follow me, young Greek, to thy resting place.”
I obeyed in silence,—and the Priest, turning away from this scene of
splendour, into a secluded path, where the light faded away, as we
advanced, conducted me to a small pavilion, by the side of a whispering
stream, where the very spirit of slumber seemed to preside, and, pointing
to a bed of dried poppy‐leaves within it, left me to repose.
CHAP. VIII.
Though the sight of that splendid scene which opened upon me, like a
momentary glimpse into another world, had, for an instant, re‐animated my
strength and spirit, so completely had fatigue overmastered my whole
frame, that, even had the form of the young Priestess stood before me, my
limbs would have sunk in the effort to reach her. No sooner had I fallen
on my leafy couch, than sleep, like a sudden death, came over me; and I
lay, for hours, in the deep, and motionless rest, which not even a shadow
of life disturbs.
On awaking I saw, beside me, the same venerable personage, who had
welcomed me to this subterranean world on the preceding night. At the foot
of my couch stood a statue, of Grecian workmanship, representing a boy,
with wings, seated gracefully on a lotus‐flower, and having the forefinger
of his right hand pressed to his lips. This action, together with the
glory round his brows, denoted, as I already knew, the God of Silence and
Light.
Impatient to know what further trials awaited me, I was about to speak,
when the Priest exclaimed, anxiously, “Hush!”—and pointing to this statue
at the foot of the couch, said—“Let the spell of that Spirit be on thy
lips, young stranger, till the wisdom of thy instructors shall think fit
to remove it. Not unaptly doth the same god preside over Silence and
Light; since it is only out of the depth of contemplative silence, that
the great light of the soul, Truth, arises!”
Little used to the language of dictation or instruction, I was now
preparing to rise, when the priest again restrained me; and, at the same
moment, two boys, beautiful as the young Genii of the stars, entered the
pavilion. They were habited in long garments of the purest white, and bore
each a small golden chalice in his hand. Advancing towards me, they
stopped on opposite sides of the couch, and one of them, presenting to me
his chalice of gold, said, in a tone between singing and speaking,—
“Drink of this cup—Osiris sips
The same in his halls below;
And the same he gives, to cool the lips
Of the Dead, who downward go.
“Drink of this cup—the water within
Is fresh from Lethe’s stream;
’Twill make the past with all its sin,
And all its pain and sorrows, seem
Like a long‐forgotten dream!
“The pleasure, whose charms
Are steep’d in woe;
The knowledge, that harms
The soul to know;
“The hope, that, bright
As the lake of the waste,
Allures the sight,
But mocks the taste;
“The love, that binds
Its innocent wreath,
Where the serpent winds,
In venom, beneath;—
“All that, of evil or false, by thee
Hath ever been known or seen,
Shall melt away in this cup, and be
Forgot, as it never had been!”
Unwilling to throw a slight on this strange ceremony, I leaned forward,
with all due gravity, and tasted the cup; which I had no sooner done than
the young cup‐bearer, on the other side, invited my attention, and, in his
turn, presenting the chalice which he held, sung, with a voice still
sweeter than that of his companion, the following strain:—
“Drink of this cup—when Isis led
Her boy, of old, to the beaming sky,
She mingled a draught divine, and said—
‘Drink of this cup, thou’lt never die!’
“Thus do I say and sing to thee,
Heir of that boundless heav’n on high,
Though frail, and fall’n, and lost thou be,
Drink of this cup, thou’lt never die!”
Much as I had endeavoured to keep my philosophy on its guard, against the
illusions with which, I knew, this region abounded, the young cup‐bearer
had here touched a spring of imagination, over which, as has been seen, my
philosophy had but little controul. No sooner had the words, “thou shalt
never die,” struck on my ear, than the dream of the Garden came fully to
my mind, and, starting half‐way from the couch, I stretched forth my hands
to the cup. Recollecting myself, however, and fearful of having betrayed
to others a weakness only fit for my own secret indulgence, with an
affected smile of indifference I sunk back again on my couch,—while the
young minstrel, but little interrupted by my movement, still continued his
strain, of which I heard but the concluding words:—
“And Memory, too, with her dreams shall come,
Dreams of a former, happier day,
When Heaven was still the Spirit’s home,
And her wings had not yet fallen away;
“Glimpses of glory, ne’er forgot,
That tell, like gleams on a sunset sea,
What once hath been, what now is not,
But, oh, what again shall brightly be!”
Though the assurances of immortality, contained in these verses, would, at
any other moment,—vain and visionary as I thought them,—have sent my fancy
wandering into reveries of the future, the effort of self‐control I had
just made enabled me to hear them with indifference.
Having gone through the form of tasting this second cup, I again looked
anxiously to the Hierophant, to ascertain whether I might be permitted to
rise. His assent having been given, the young pages brought to my couch a
robe and tunic, which, like their own, were of linen of the purest white;
and having assisted to clothe me in this sacred garb, they then placed
upon my head a chaplet of myrtle, in which the symbol of Initiation, a
golden grasshopper, was seen shining out from among the dark leaves.
Though sleep had done much to refresh my frame, something more was still
wanting to restore its strength; and it was not without a smile at my own
reveries I reflected, how much more welcome than the young page’s cup of
immortality was the unpretending, but real, repast now set before
me,—fresh fruits from the Isle of Gardens in the Nile, the delicate flesh
of the desert antelope, and wine from the Vineyard of the Queens at
Anthylla, fanned by one of the pages with a palm‐leaf, to keep it cool.
Having done justice to these dainties, it was with pleasure I heard the
proposal of the Priest, that we should now walk forth together, and
meditate among the scenes without. I had not forgotten the elysium that
welcomed me last night,—those enchanted gardens, that mysterious music,
and light, and the fair forms I saw wandering about,—as if, in the very
midst of happiness, still seeking it. The hope, which had then occurred to
me, that, perhaps, among those sparkling groups, might be the maiden I
sought, now returned with increased strength. I had little doubt that my
guide was about to lead to the same Elysian scene, and that the form, so
fit to inhabit it, would again appear before my eyes.
But far different was the region to which he conducted me; nor could the
whole world produce a scene more gloomy, or more strange. It had the
appearance of a small, solitary valley, inclosed, on every side, by rocks,
which seemed to rise, almost perpendicularly, to the very sky;—for it was,
indeed, the blue sky that I saw shining between their summits, and whose
light, dimmed and half lost, in its descent thus far, formed the
melancholy daylight of this nether world.(3) Down the side of these rocky
walls fell a cataract, whose source was upon earth, and on whose waters,
as they rolled glassily over the edge above, a gleam of radiance rested,
that showed how brilliant was the sunshine they left. From thence,
gradually darkening, and broken, in its long descent, by alternate chasms
and projections, the stream fell, at last, in a pale and thin mist—the
phantom of what it had been on earth—into a small lake that lay at the
base of the rock to receive it.
Nothing could be more bleak and saddening than the appearance of this
lake. The usual ornaments of the waters of Egypt were not wanting: the
lotus here uplifted her silvery flowers, and the crimson flamingo floated
over the tide. But they were, neither of them, the same as in the upper
world;—the flower had exchanged its whiteness for a livid hue, and the
wings of the bird hung heavy and colourless. Every thing wore the same
half‐living aspect; and the only sounds that disturbed the mournful
stillness were the wailing cry of a heron among the sedges, and that din
of the waters, in their midway struggle, above.
There was an unearthly sadness in the whole scene, of which no heart,
however light, could resist the influence. Perceiving how I was affected
by it, “Such scenes,” said the Priest, “are best suited to that solemn
complexion of mind, which becomes him who approaches the Great Secret of
futurity. Behold,”—and, in saying thus, he pointed to the opening over our
heads, through which I could perceive a star or two twinkling in the
heavens, though the sun had but a short time passed his meridian,—“as from
this gloomy depth we can see those stars, which are now invisible to the
dwellers upon the bright earth, even so, to the sad and self‐humbled
spirit, doth many a mystery of heaven reveal itself, of which they, who
walk in the light of the proud world, know not!”
He now led me towards a rustic seat or alcove, beside which stood an image
of that dark Deity, that God without a smile, who presides over the
kingdom of the Dead.(4) The same livid and lifeless hue was upon his
features, that hung over every thing in this dim valley; and, with his
right hand, he pointed directly downwards, to denote that his melancholy
kingdom lay there. A plantain—that favourite tree of the genii of
Death—stood behind the statue, and spread its branches over the alcove, in
which the Priest now, seating himself, signified that I should take my
place by his side.
After a long pause, as if of thought and preparation,—“Nobly,” said he,
“young Greek, hast thou sustained the first trials of Initiation. What
remains, though of vital import to the soul, brings with it neither pain
nor peril to the body. Having now proved and chastened thy mortal frame,
by the three ordeals of Fire, of Water, and of Air, the next task to which
we are called is the purification of thy spirit,—the cleansing of that
inward and immortal part, so as to render it fit for the reception of the
last luminous revealment, when the Veils of the Sanctuary shall be thrown
aside, and the Great Secret of Secrets unfolded to thee!—Towards this
object, the primary and most essential step is, instruction. What the
three purifying elements, through which thou hast passed, have done for
thy body, instruction will effect for——”
“But that lovely maiden!” I exclaimed, bursting from my silence, having
fallen, during his speech, into a deep revery, in which I had forgotten
him, myself, the Great Secret, every thing—but her.
Startled by this profane interruption, he cast a look of alarm towards the
statue, as if fearful lest the God should have heard my words. Then,
turning to me, in a tone of mild solemnity, “It is but too plain,” said
he, “that thoughts of the upper world, and of its vain delights, still
engross thee too much, to let the lessons of Truth sink profitably into
thy heart. A few hours of meditation amid this solemn scenery—of that
wholesome meditation, which purifies, by saddening—may haply dispose thee
to receive, with reverence, the holy and immortal knowledge that is in
store for thee. With this hope, I now leave thee to thy own thoughts, and
to that God, before whose calm and mournful eye the vanities of the world,
from which thou comest, wither!”
Thus saying, he turned slowly away, and passing behind the statue, towards
which he had pointed during the last sentence, suddenly, and as if by
enchantment, disappeared from my sight.
CHAP. IX.
Being left to my own solitary thoughts, I had now leisure to reflect, with
coolness, on the inconveniences, if not dangers, of the situation into
which my love of adventure had hurried me. However ready my imagination
was to kindle, in its own ideal sphere, I have ever found that, when
brought into contact with reality, it as suddenly cooled;—like those
meteors, that seem stars in the air, but, the moment they touch earth, are
extinguished. Such was the disenchantment that now succeeded to the dreams
in which I had been indulging. As long as Fancy had the field of the
future to herself, even immortality did not seem too distant a race for
her. But when human instruments interposed, the illusion vanished. From
mortal lips the promise of immortality seemed a mockery, and imagination
herself had no wings that could carry beyond the grave.
Nor was this disappointment the only feeling that occupied me;—the
imprudence of the step, which I had taken, now appeared in its full extent
before my eyes. I had thrown myself into the power of the most artful
priesthood in the world, without a chance of being able to escape from
their toils, or to resist any machinations with which they might beset me.
It seemed evident, from the state of preparation in which I had found all
that wonderful apparatus, by which the terrors and splendours of
Initiation are produced, that my descent into the pyramid was not
unexpected. Numerous, indeed, and active as were the spies of the Sacred
College of Memphis, there could be but little doubt that all my movements,
since my arrival, had been tracked; and the many hours I had passed in
watching and wandering round the pyramid, betrayed a curiosity which might
well inspire these wily priests with the hope of drawing an Epicurean into
their superstitious toils.
I well knew their hatred to the sect of which I was Chief;—that they
considered the Epicureans as, next to the Christians, the most formidable
enemies of their craft and power. “How thoughtless, then,” I exclaimed,
“to have placed myself in a situation, where I am equally helpless against
their fraud and violence, and must either seem to be the dupe of their
impostures, or submit to become the victim of their vengeance.” Of these
alternatives, bitter as they were, the latter appeared by far the more
welcome. I blushed even to think of the mockeries to which I already had
yielded; and the prospect of being put through still further ceremonials,
and of being tutored and preached to by hypocrites I despised, appeared to
me, in my present temper, a trial of patience, to which the flames and the
whirlwinds I had already encountered were pastime.
Often and impatiently did I look up, between those rocky walls, to the
bright sky that appeared to rest upon their summits, as, round and round,
through every part of the valley, I endeavoured to find an outlet from its
gloomy precincts. But in vain I endeavoured;—that rocky barrier, which
seemed to end but in heaven, interposed itself every where. Neither did
the image of the young maiden, though constantly in my mind, now bring
with it the least consolation or hope. Of what avail was it that she,
perhaps, was an inhabitant of this region, if I could neither see her
smile, nor catch the sound of her voice,—if, while among preaching priests
I wasted away my hours, her presence diffused its enchantment elsewhere.
At length exhausted, I lay down by the brink of the lake, and gave myself
up to all the melancholy of my fancy. The pale semblance of daylight,
which had hitherto shone around, grew, every moment, more dim and dismal.
Even the rich gleam, at the summit of the cascade, had faded; and the
sunshine, like the water, exhausted in its descent, had now dwindled into
a ghostly glimmer, far worse than darkness. The birds upon the lake, as if
about to die with the dying light, sunk down their heads; and, as I looked
to the statue, the deepening shadows gave an expression to its mournful
features that chilled my very soul.
The thought of death, ever ready to present itself to my imagination, now
came, with a disheartening weight, such as I had never before felt. I
almost fancied myself already in the dark vestibule of the
grave,—separated, for ever, from the world above, and with nothing but the
blank of an eternal sleep before me. It had often, I knew, happened that
the visitants of this mysterious realm were, after their descent from
earth, never seen or heard of;—being condemned, for some failure in their
initiatory trials, to pine away their lives in the dark dungeons, with
which, as well as with altars, this region abounded. Such, I shuddered to
think, might probably be my destiny; and so appalling was the thought,
that even the spirit of defiance died within me, and I was already giving
myself up to helplessness and despair.
At length, after some hours of this gloomy musing, I heard a rustling in
the sacred grove behind the statue; and, soon after, the sound of the
Priest’s voice—more welcome than I had ever thought such voice could
be—brought the assurance that I was not yet, at least, wholly abandoned.
Finding his way to me through the gloom, he now led me to the same spot,
on which we had parted so many hours before; and, in a voice that retained
no trace of displeasure, bespoke my attention, while he should reveal to
me some of those divine truths, by whose infusion, he said, into the soul
of man, its purification can alone be effected.
The valley had now become so wholly dark, that we could no longer discern
each other’s faces, as we sat. There was a melancholy in the voice of my
instructor that well accorded with the gloom around us; and, saddened and
subdued, I now listened with resignation, if not with interest, to those
sublime, but, alas, I thought, vain tenets, which, with the warmth of a
believer, this Hierophant expounded to me.
He spoke of the pre‐existence of the soul,—of its abode, from all
eternity, in a place of bliss, of which all that we have most beautiful in
our conceptions here is but a dim transcript, a clouded remembrance. In
the blue depths of ether, he said, lay that “Country of the Soul,”—its
boundary alone visible in the line of milky light, that separates it, as
by a barrier of stars, from the dark earth. “Oh, realm of purity! Home of
the yet unfallen Spirit!—where, in the days of her primal innocence, she
wandered, ere her beauty was soiled by the touch of earth, or her
resplendent wings had withered away. Methinks,” he cried, “I see, at this
moment, those fields of radiance,—I look back, through the mists of life,
into that luminous world, where the souls that have never lost their high,
heavenly rank, still soar, without a stain, above the shadowless stars,
and dwell together in infinite perfection and bliss!”
As he spoke these words, a burst of pure, brilliant light, like a sudden
opening of heaven, broke through the valley; and, as soon as my eyes were
able to endure the splendour, such a vision of loveliness and glory opened
upon them, as took even my sceptical spirit by surprise, and made it
yield, at once, to the potency of the spell.
Suspended, as I thought, in air, and occupying the whole of the opposite
region of the valley, there appeared an immense orb of light, within
which, through a haze of radiance, I could see distinctly groups of young
female spirits, who, in silent, but harmonious movement, like that of the
stars, wound slowly through a variety of fanciful evolutions; and, as they
linked and unlinked each other’s arms, formed a living labyrinth of beauty
and grace. Though their feet seemed to tread along a field of light, they
had also wings, of the richest hue, which, like rainbows over waterfalls,
when played with by the breeze, at every moment reflected a new variety of
glory.
As I stood, gazing with wonder, the orb, with all its ethereal inmates,
gradually receded into the dark void, lessening, as it went, and growing
more bright, as it lessened;—till, at length, distant, apparently, as a
retiring comet, this little world of Spirits, in one small point of
intense radiance, shone its last and vanished. “Go,” exclaimed the rapt
Priest, “ye happy souls, of whose dwelling a glimpse is thus given to our
eyes, go, wander, in your orb, through the boundless heaven, nor ever let
a thought of this perishable world come to mingle its dross with your
divine nature, or tempt you to that earthward fall, by which spirits, as
bright, have been ruined!”
A pause ensued, during which, still under the influence of wonder, I sent
my fancy wandering after the inhabitants of that orb,—almost wishing
myself credulous enough to believe in a heaven, of which creatures, so
like all that I most loved on earth, were inmates.
At length, the Priest, with a sigh at the contrast he was about to draw,
between the happy spirits we had just seen and the fallen ones of earth,
resumed his melancholy History of the Soul. Tracing it, from the first
moment of earthward desire, to its final eclipse in the shadows of this
world, he dwelt upon every stage of its darkening descent, with a pathos
that sent sadness into the very depths of the heart. The first downward
look of the Spirit towards earth—the tremble of her wings on the edge of
Heaven—the giddy slide, at length, down that fatal descent, and the
Lethæan cup, midway in the sky, of which when she has once tasted, Heaven
is forgot,—through all these gradations he mournfully traced her fall, to
the last stage of darkness, when, wholly immersed in this world, her
celestial nature is changed, she can no longer rise above earth, nor
remembers her home, but by glimpses so vague, that, mistaking for hope
what is only memory, she believes them to be a light from the Future, not
the Past.
“To retrieve this ruin of the once blessed Soul—to clear away, from around
her, the clouds of earth, and, restoring her lost wings(5), facilitate
their return to Heaven—such,” said the reverend man, “is the great task of
our religion, and such the triumph of those divine Mysteries, in which the
life and essence of our religion lie. However sunk and changed and clouded
may be the Spirit, as long as a single trace of her original light
remains, there is yet hope that——”
Here his voice was interrupted by a strain of mournful music, of which the
low, distant breathings had been, for some minutes, heard, but which now
gained upon the ear too thrillingly to let it listen to any more earthly
sound. A faint light, too, at that instant broke through the valley,—and I
could perceive, not far from the spot where we sat, a female figure,
veiled, and crouching to earth, as if subdued by sorrow, or under the
influence of shame.
The light, by which I saw her, was from a pale, moon‐like meteor, which
had formed itself in the air as the music approached, and shed over the
rocks and the lake a glimmer as cold as that by which the Dead, in their
own realm, gaze on each other. The music, too, which appeared to rise
directly out of the lake, and to come full of the breath of its dark
waters, spoke a despondency in every note which no language could
express;—and, as I listened to its tones, and looked upon that fallen
Spirit, (for such, the holy man whispered, was the form before us,) so
entirely did the illusion of the scene take possession of me, that, with
breathless anxiety, I waited the result.
Nor had I gazed long before that form rose slowly from its drooping
position;—the air around it grew bright, and the pale meteor overhead
assumed a more cheerful and living light. The veil, which had before
shrouded the face of the figure, became gradually transparent, and the
features, one by one, disclosed themselves through it. Having tremblingly
watched the progress of the apparition, I now started from my seat, and
half exclaimed, “It is she!” In another minute, this veil had, like a thin
mist, melted away, and the young Priestess of the Moon stood, for the
third time, revealed before my eyes.
To rush instantly towards her was my first impulse—but the arm of the
Priest held me firmly back. The fresh light, which had begun to flow in
from all sides, collected itself in a glory round the spot where she
stood. Instead of melancholy music, strains of the most exalted rapture
were heard; and the young maiden, buoyant as the inhabitants of the fairy
orb, amid a blaze of light like that which fell upon her in the Temple,
ascended into the air.
“Stay, beautiful vision, stay!” I exclaimed, as, breaking from the hold of
the Priest, I flung myself prostrate on the ground,—the only mode by which
I could express the admiration, even to worship, with which I was filled.
But the vanishing spirit heard me not:—receding into the darkness, like
that orb, whose track she seemed to follow, her form lessened away, till
she was seen no more. Gazing, till the last luminous speck had
disappeared, I suffered myself unconsciously to be led away by my reverend
guide, who, placing me once more on my bed of poppy‐leaves, left me to
such repose as it was possible, after such a scene, to enjoy.
CHAP. X.
The apparition with which I had been blessed in that Valley of Visions—as
the place where I had witnessed these wonders was called—brought back to
my heart all the hopes and fancies, in which I had indulged during my
descent from earth. I had now seen once more that matchless creature, who
had been my guiding star into this mysterious world; and that she was, in
some way, connected with the further revelations that awaited me, I saw no
reason to doubt. There was a sublimity, too, in the doctrines of my
reverend teacher, and even a hope in the promises of immortality held out
by him, which, in spite of reason, won insensibly both upon my fancy and
my pride.
The Future, however, was now but of secondary consideration;—the Present,
and that deity of the Present, woman, were the objects that engrossed my
whole soul. For the sake, indeed, of such beings alone did I think
immortality desirable, nor, without them, would eternal life have appeared
to me worth a prayer. To every further trial of my patience and faith, I
now made up my mind to submit without a murmur. Some propitious chance, I
fondly persuaded myself, might yet bring me nearer to the object of my
adoration, and enable me to address, as mortal woman, her who had hitherto
been to me but as a vision, a shade.
The period of my probation, however, was nearly at an end. Both frame and
spirit had now been tried; and, as the crowning test of the purification
of the latter was that power of seeing into the world of spirits, with
which, in the Valley of Visions, I had proved myself to be endowed, there
remained now, to perfect my Initiation, but this one night more, when, in
the Temple of Isis, and in the presence of her unveiled image, the last
grand revelation of the Secret of Secrets was to open upon me.
I passed the morning of this day in company with the same venerable
personage, who had, from the first, presided over the ceremonies of my
instruction; and who, to inspire me with due reverence for the power and
magnificence of his religion, now conducted me through the long range of
illuminated galleries and shrines, that extend under the site upon which
Memphis and the Pyramids stand, and form a counterpart under ground to
that mighty city of temples upon earth.
He then descended with me, still lower, into those winding crypts, where
lay the Seven Tables of stone, found by Hermes in the valley of Hebron.
“On these tables,” said he, “is written all the knowledge of the
antediluvian race,—the decrees of the stars from the beginning of time,
the annals of a still earlier world, and all the marvellous secrets, both
of heaven and earth, which would have been,
“_but_ for this key,
Lost in the Universal Sea.”
Returning to the region, from which we had descended, we next visited, in
succession, a series of small shrines, representing the various objects of
adoration through Egypt, and thus furnishing to the Priest an occasion for
explaining the mysterious nature of animal worship, and the refined
doctrines of theology that lay veiled under its forms. Every shrine was
consecrated to a particular faith, and contained a living image of the
deity which it adored. Beside the goat of Mendes, with his refulgent star
upon his breast, I saw the crocodile, as presented to the eyes of its
idolaters at Arsinoë, with costly gems in its loathsome ears, and rich
bracelets of gold encircling its feet. Here, floating through a tank in
the centre of a temple, the sacred carp of Lepidotum exhibited its silvery
scales; while, there, the Isiac serpents trailed languidly over the altar,
with that movement which most inspires the hopes of their votaries. In one
of the small chapels we found a beautiful child, feeding and watching over
those golden beetles, which are adored for their brightness, as emblems of
the sun; while, in another, stood a sacred ibis upon its pedestal, so
like, in plumage and attitude, to the bird of the young Priestess, that I
could gladly have knelt down and worshipped it for her sake.
After visiting these various shrines, and listening to the reflections
which they suggested, I was next led by my guide to the Great Hall of the
Zodiac, on whose ceiling, in bright and undying colours, was delineated
the map of the firmament, as it appeared at the first dawn of time. Here,
in pointing out the track of the sun, among the spheres, he spoke
eloquently of the analogy that exists between moral and physical
darkness—of the sympathy with which all spiritual creatures regard the
sun, so as to sadden and droop when he sinks into his wintry hemisphere,
and to rejoice when he resumes his own empire of light. Hence, the
festivals and hymns, with which most of the nations of the earth are wont
to welcome the resurrection of his orb in spring, as an emblem and pledge
of the re‐ascent of the soul to heaven. Hence, the songs of sorrow, the
mournful ceremonies,—like those Mysteries of the Night, upon the Lake of
Saïs,—in which they brood over his autumnal descent into the shades, as a
type of the Spirit’s fall into this world of death.
In discourses such as these the hours passed away; and though there was
nothing in the light of this sunless region to mark to the eye the decline
of day, my own feelings told me that the night drew near;—nor, in spite of
my incredulity, could I refrain from a flutter of hope, as that promised
moment of revelation approached, when the Mystery of Mysteries was to be
made all my own. This consummation, however, was less near than I
expected. My patience had still further trials to encounter. It was
necessary, I now found, that I should keep watch, during the greater part
of the night, in the Sanctuary of the Temple, alone and in darkness,—and
thus prepare myself, by meditation, for the awful moment, when the
irradiation from behind the sacred Veils was to burst upon me.
At the appointed hour, we left the Hall of the Zodiac, and proceeded
through a line of long marble galleries, where the lamps were more thinly
scattered as we advanced, till, at length, we found ourselves in total
darkness. Here the Priest, taking me by the hand, and leading me down a
flight of steps, into a place where the same deep gloom prevailed, said,
with a voice trembling, as if from excess of awe,—“Thou art now in the
Sanctuary of our goddess, Isis, and the dark veils, that hang over her
image, are before thee!”
After exhorting me earnestly to that train of thought, which best accorded
with the spirit of the place where I stood, and, above all, to that full
and unhesitating faith, with which alone, he said, the manifestation of
such mysteries should be approached, the holy man took leave of me, and
re‐ascended the steps;—while, so spell‐bound did I feel by that deep
darkness, that the last sound of his footsteps died upon my ear, before I
ventured to stir a limb from the position in which he had left me.
The prospect of the long watch, now before me, was dreadful. Even danger
itself, in an active form, would have been preferable to this sort of
safe, but dull, probation, by which patience was the only virtue put to
the proof. Having ascertained how far the space around me was free from
obstacles, I endeavoured to beguile the time by pacing up and down within
those limits, till I became tired of the echoes of my own tread. Finding
my way, then, to what I felt to be a massive pillar, and, leaning wearily
against it, I surrendered myself to a train of thoughts and feelings, far
different from those with which the Hierophant had hoped to inspire me.
“Why,” I again asked, “if these priests possess the secret of life, why
are they themselves the victims of death? why sink into the grave with the
cup of immortality in their hands? But no, safe boasters, the eternity
they so lavishly promise is reserved for _another_, a future world—that
ready resource of all priestly promises—that depository of the airy
pledges of all creeds. Another world!—alas, where does it lie? or, what
spirit hath ever come to say that Life is there?”
The conclusion, to which, half sadly, half passionately, I arrived, was
that, life being but a dream of the moment, never to come again, every
bliss that is promised for hereafter should be secured by the wise man
here. And, as no heaven I had ever heard of from these visionary priests
opened half such certainty of happiness as that smile which I beheld last
night,—“Let me,” I exclaimed, impatiently, striking the massy pillar, till
it rung, “let me but make that beautiful Priestess my own, and I here
willingly exchange for her every chance of immortality, that the combined
wisdom of Egypt’s Twelve Temples can offer me!”
No sooner had I uttered these words, than a tremendous peal, like that of
thunder, rolled over the Sanctuary, and seemed to shake its walls. On
every side, too, a succession of blue, vivid flashes pierced, like so many
lances of light, through the gloom, revealing to me, at intervals, the
mighty dome in which I stood—its ceiling of azure, studded with stars, its
colossal columns, towering aloft, and those dark, mysterious veils, which
hung, in massy drapery, from the roof to the floor, and covered the rich
glories of the Shrine under their folds.
So weary had I grown of my tedious watch, that this stormy and fitful
illumination, during which the Sanctuary seemed to rock to its base, was
by no means an unwelcome interruption of the monotony under which my
impatience suffered. After a short interval, however, the flashes
ceased;—the sounds died away, like exhausted thunder, through the abyss,
and darkness and silence, like that of the grave, succeeded.
Resting my back once more against the pillar, and fixing my eyes upon that
side of the Sanctuary, from which the promised irradiation was to burst, I
now resolved to await the awful moment in patience. Resigned and
immovable, I had remained thus, for nearly another hour, when, suddenly,
along the edges of the mighty Veils, I perceived a thin rim of light, as
if from some brilliant object under them;—like that border which encircles
a cloud at sunset, when the radiance, from behind, is escaping at its
edges.
This indication of concealed glories grew every instant more strong; till,
at last, vividly marked as it was upon the darkness, the narrow fringe of
lustre almost pained the eye, giving promise of a splendour too bright to
be endured. My expectations were now wound to the highest pitch, and all
the scepticism, into which I had been cooling down my mind, was forgotten.
The wonders that had been presented to me since my descent from earth—that
glimpse into Elysium on the first night of my coming—those visitants from
the Land of Spirits in the mysterious valley,—all led me to expect, in
this last and brightest revelation, such visions of glory and knowledge as
might transcend even fancy itself, nor leave a doubt that they belonged
less to earth than heaven.
While, with an imagination thus excited, I stood waiting the result, an
increased gush of light still more awakened my attention; and I saw, with
an intenseness of interest, which made my heart beat aloud, one of the
corners of the mighty Veil slowly raised up. I now felt that the Great
Secret—whatever it might be—was at hand. A vague hope even crossed my
mind—so wholly had imagination resumed her empire—that the splendid
promise of my dream was on the point of being realised!
With surprise, however, and—for a moment—with disappointment, I perceived,
that the massy corner of the Veil was but raised sufficiently to allow a
female figure to emerge from under it,—and then fell again, over its
mystic splendours, as dark as before. By the strong light, too, that
issued when the drapery was lifted, and illuminated the profile of the
emerging figure, I either saw, or fancied that I saw, the same bright
features, that had already mocked me so often with their momentary charm,
and seemed destined to haunt my heart as unavailingly as the fond, vain
dream of Immortality itself.
Dazzled as I had been by that short gush of splendour, and distrusting
even my senses, when under the influence of a fancy so excited, I had
hardly time to question myself as to the reality of my impression, when I
heard the sounds of light footsteps approaching me through the gloom. In a
second or two more, the figure stopped before me, and, placing the end of
a riband gently in my hand, said, in a tremulous whisper, “Follow, and be
silent.”
So sudden and strange was the adventure, that, for a moment, I
hesitated,—fearful lest my eyes should have been deceived as to the object
they had seen. Casting a look towards the Veil, which seemed bursting with
its luminous secret, I was almost doubting to which of the two chances I
should commit myself, when I felt the riband in my hand pulled softly at
the other extremity. This movement, at once, like a touch of magic,
decided me. Without further deliberation, I yielded to the silent summons,
and following my guide, who was already at some distance before me, found
myself led up the same flight of marble steps, by which the Priest had
conducted me into the Sanctuary. Arrived at their summit, I felt the pace
of my conductress quicken, and, giving one more look to the Veiled Shrine,
whose glories we left burning ineffectually behind us, hastened into the
gloom, full of confidence in the belief, that she, who now held the other
end of that clue, was one whom I could follow devotedly through the world.
CHAP. XI.
So rapidly was I hurried along by my unseen conductress, full of wonder at
the speed with which she ventured through these labyrinths, that I had but
little time to reflect upon the strangeness of the adventure to which I
had committed myself. My knowledge of the character of the priests, as
well as the fearful rumours that had reached me, of the fate that often
attended unbelievers in their hands, waked a momentary suspicion of
treachery in my mind. But, when I recalled the face of my guide, as I had
seen it in the chapel, with that divine look, the very memory of which
brought purity into the heart, this suspicion all vanished, and I felt
shame at having harboured it but an instant.
In the mean while, our course continued uninterrupted, through windings
more capriciously intricate than any that I had yet passed, and whose
darkness seemed never to have been disturbed by a single glimmer. My
conductress still continued at some distance before me, and the clue, to
which I clung as if it were the thread of Destiny herself, was still kept,
by her speed, at full stretch between us. At length, suddenly stopping,
she said, in a breathless whisper, “Seat thyself here,” and, at the same
moment, led me by the hand to a sort of low car, in which I lost not a
moment in placing myself, as desired, while the maiden, as promptly, took
her seat by my side.
A sudden click, like the touching of a spring, was then heard, and the
car,—which, as I had felt in entering it, leaned half‐way over a steep
descent,—on being loosed from its station, shot down, almost
perpendicularly, into the darkness, with a rapidity which, at first,
nearly deprived me of breath. The wheels slid smoothly and noiselessly in
grooves, and the impetus, which the car acquired in descending, was
sufficient, I perceived, to carry it up an eminence that succeeded,—from
the summit of which it again rushed down another declivity, even still
more long and precipitous than the former. In this manner we proceeded, by
alternate falls and rises, till, at length, from the last and steepest
elevation, the car descended upon a level of deep sand, where, after
running for a few yards, it by degrees lost its motion and stopped.
Here, the maiden alighting, again placed the riband in my hands,—and again
I followed her, though with more slowness and difficulty than before, as
our way led up a flight of damp and time‐worn steps, whose ascent seemed
to the weary and insecure foot interminable. Perceiving with what languor
my guide now advanced, I was on the point of making an effort to assist
her progress, when the creak of an opening door above, and a faint gleam
of light which, at the same moment, shone upon her figure, apprised me
that we were arrived within reach of sunshine.
Joyfully I followed through this opening, and, by the dim light, could
discern, that we were now in the sanctuary of a vast, ruined
temple,—having entered by a passage under the lofty pedestal, upon which
an image of the idol of the place once stood. The first movement of the
maiden, after replacing the portal under the pedestal, was, without even a
look towards me, to cast herself down on her knees, with her hands clasped
and uplifted, as if for the purpose of thanksgiving or prayer. But she was
unable to sustain herself in this position;—her strength could hold out no
longer. Overcome by agitation and fatigue, she sunk senseless upon the
pavement.
Bewildered as I was, myself, by the events of the night, I stood for some
minutes looking upon her in a state of helplessness and alarm. But,
reminded, by my own feverish sensations, of the reviving effects of the
air, I raised her gently in my arms, and crossing the corridor that
surrounded the sanctuary, found my way to the outer vestibule of the
temple. Here, shading her eyes from the sun, I placed her, reclining, upon
the steps, where the cool wind, then blowing freshly from the north, might
play, with free draught, between the pillars over her brow.
It was, indeed,—I now saw, with certainty,—the same beautiful and
mysterious girl, who had been the cause of my descent into that
subterranean world, and who now, under such strange and unaccountable
circumstances, was my guide back again to the realms of day. I looked
round, to discover where we were, and beheld such a scene of grandeur,
as—could my eyes have wandered to any other object from the pale form
reclining at my side—might well have won them to dwell on its splendid
beauties.
I was now standing, I found, on the small island in the centre of Lake
Mœris; and that sanctuary, where we had emerged from darkness, formed part
of the ruins of a temple, which (as I have since learned) was, in the
grander days of Memphis, a place of pilgrimage for worshippers from all
parts of Egypt. The fair Lake, itself, out of whose waters once rose
pavilions, palaces, and even lofty pyramids, was still, though divested of
many of these wonders, a scene of interest and splendour such as the whole
world could not equal. While the shores still sparkled with mansions and
temples, that bore testimony to the luxury of a living race, the voice of
the Past, speaking out of unnumbered ruins, whose summits, here and there,
rose blackly above the wave, told of times long fled and generations long
swept away, before whose giant remains all the glory of the present stood
humbled. Over the southern bank of the Lake hung the dark relics of the
Labyrinth;—its twelve Royal Palaces, like the mansions of the Zodiac,—its
thundering portals and constellated halls, having left nothing behind but
a few frowning ruins, which, contrasted with the soft groves of olive and
acacia around them, seemed to rebuke the luxuriant smiles of nature, and
threw a melancholy grandeur over the whole scene.
The effects of the air, in re‐animating the young Priestess, were less
speedy than I had expected;—her eyes were still closed, and she remained
pale and insensible. Alarmed, I now rested her head (which had been, for
some time, supported by my arm,) against the base of a column, with my
cloak for its pillow, while I hastened to procure some water from the
Lake. The temple stood high, and the descent to the shore was precipitous.
But, my Epicurean habits having but little impaired my activity, I soon
descended, with the lightness of a desert deer, to the bottom. Here,
plucking from a lofty bean‐tree, whose flowers stood, shining like gold,
above the water, one of those large hollowed leaves that serve as cups for
the Hebes of the Nile, I filled it from the Lake, and hurried back with
the cool draught to the temple. It was not without some difficulty and
delay that I succeeded, in bearing my rustic chalice steadily up the
steep; more than once did an unlucky slip waste its contents, and as often
did I impatiently return to refill it.
During this time, the young maiden was fast recovering her animation and
consciousness; and, at the moment when I appeared above the edge of the
steep, was just rising from the steps, with her hand pressed to her
forehead, as if confusedly recalling the recollection of what had
occurred. No sooner did she observe me, than a short cry of alarm broke
from her lips. Looking anxiously round, as though she sought for
protection, and half audibly uttering the words, “Where is he?” she made
an effort, as I approached, to retreat into the temple.
Already, however, I was by her side, and taking her hand gently, as she
turned away, “Whom dost thou seek, fair Priestess?” I asked,—for the first
time breaking through the silence she had enjoined, and in a tone that
might have re‐assured the most timid spirit. But my words had no effect in
calming her apprehension. Trembling, and with her eyes still averted
towards the Temple, she continued in a voice of suppressed alarm,—“Where
_can_ he be?—that venerable Athenian, that philosopher, who——”
“Here, here,” I exclaimed, anxiously interrupting her,—“behold him still
by thy side—the same, the very same who saw thee steal from under the
lighted Veils of the Sanctuary, whom thou hast guided by a clue through
those labyrinths below, and who now but waits his command from those lips,
to devote himself through life and death to thy service.” As I spoke these
words, she turned slowly round, and looking timidly in my face, while her
own burned with blushes, said, in a tone of doubt and wonder, “Thou!” and
hid her eyes in her hands.
I knew not how to interpret a reception so unexpected. That some mistake
or disappointment had occurred was evident; but so inexplicable did the
whole adventure appear, that it was in vain to think of unravelling any
part of it. Weak and agitated, she now tottered to the steps of the
temple, and there seating herself, with her forehead against the cold
marble, seemed for some moments absorbed in the most anxious
thought,—while silent and watchful I waited her decision, with a prophetic
feeling, however, that my destiny would be henceforth linked with hers.
The inward struggle by which she was agitated, though violent, was not of
long continuance. Starting suddenly from her seat, with a look of terror
towards the temple, as if the fear of immediate pursuit had alone decided
her, she pointed eagerly towards the East, and exclaimed, “To the Nile,
without delay!”—clasping her hands, when she had spoken, with the most
suppliant fervour, as if to soften the abruptness of the mandate she had
given, and appealing to me with a look that would have taught Stoics
tenderness.
I lost no time in obeying the welcome command. While a thousand wild hopes
and wishes crowded upon my fancy, at the prospect which a voyage, under
such auspices, presented, I descended rapidly to the shore, and hailing
one of the numerous boats that ply upon the Lake for hire, arranged
speedily for a passage down the canal to the Nile. Having learned, too,
from the boatmen, a more easy path up the rock, I hastened back to the
Temple for my fair charge; and without a word, a look, that could alarm,
even by its kindness, or disturb that innocent confidence which she now
placed in me, led her down by the winding path to the boat.
Every thing looked smiling around us as we embarked. The morning was now
in its first freshness, and the path of the breeze might be traced over
the Lake, wakening up its waters from their sleep of the night. The gay,
golden‐winged birds that haunt these shores, were, in every direction,
skimming along the lake; while, with a graver consciousness of beauty, the
swan and the pelican were seen dressing their white plumage in the mirror
of its wave. To add to the animation of the scene, a sweet tinkling of
musical instruments came, at intervals, on the breeze, from boats at a
distance, employed thus early in pursuing the fish of these waters, that
suffer themselves to be decoyed into the nets by music.
The vessel which I selected for our voyage was one of those small
pleasure‐boats or yachts,—so much in use among the luxurious navigators of
the Nile,—in the centre of which rises a pavilion of cedar or cypress
wood, gilded gorgeously, without, with religious emblems, and fitted up,
within, for all the purposes of feasting and repose. To the door of this
pavilion I now led my companion, and, after a few words of
kindness—tempered with as much respectful reserve as the deep tenderness
which I felt would admit of—left her in solitude to court that restoring
rest, which the agitation of her spirits but too much required.
For myself, though repose was hardly less necessary to me, the ferment in
which my thoughts had been kept seemed to render it hopeless. Throwing
myself upon the deck, under an awning which the sailors had raised for me,
I continued, for some hours, in a sort of vague day‐dream,—sometimes
passing in review the scenes of that subterranean drama, and sometimes,
with my eyes fixed in drowsy vacancy, receiving passively the impressions
of the bright scenery through which we passed.
The banks of the canal were then luxuriantly wooded. Under the tufts of
the light and towering palm were seen the orange and the citron,
interlacing their boughs; while, here and there, huge tamarisks thickened
the shade, and, at the very edge of the bank, the willow of Babylon stood
bending its graceful branches into the water. Occasionally, out of the
depth of these groves, there shone a small temple or pleasure‐
house;—while, now and then, an opening in their line of foliage allowed
the eye to wander over extensive fields, all covered with beds of those
pale, sweet roses, for which this district of Egypt is so celebrated.
The activity of the morning hour was visible every where. Flights of doves
and lapwings were fluttering among the leaves, and the white heron, which
had roosted all night in some date‐tree, now stood sunning its wings upon
the green bank, or floated, like living silver, over the flood. The
flowers, too, both of land and water, looked freshly awakened;—and, most
of all, the superb lotus, which had risen with the sun from the wave, and
was now holding up her chalice for a full draught of his light.
Such were the scenes that now passed before my eyes, and mingled with the
reveries that floated through my mind, as our boat, with its high,
capacious sail, swept over the flood. Though the occurrences of the last
few days appeared to me one series of wonders, yet by far the most
miraculous wonder of all was, that she, whose first look had sent wild‐
fire into my heart,—whom I had thought of ever since with a restlessness
of passion, that would have dared any thing on earth to obtain its
object,—was now sleeping sacredly in that small pavilion, while guarding
her, even from myself, I lay calmly at its threshold.
Meanwhile, the sun had reached his meridian. The busy hum of the morning
had died gradually away, and all around was sleeping in the hot stillness
of noon. The Nile‐goose, folding her splendid wings, was lying motionless
on the shadow of the sycamores in the water. Even the nimble lizards upon
the bank seemed to move more languidly, as the light fell upon their gold
and azure hues. Overcome as I was with watching, and weary with thought,
it was not long before I yielded to the becalming influence of the hour.
Looking fixedly at the pavilion,—as if once more to assure my senses, that
I was not already in a dream, but that the young Egyptian was really
there,—I felt my eyes close as I looked, and in a few minutes sunk into a
profound sleep.
CHAP. XII.
It was by the canal through which we now sailed, that, in the more
prosperous days of Memphis, the commerce of Upper Egypt and Nubia was
transported to her magnificent Lake, and from thence, having paid tribute
to the queen of cities, was poured out again, through the Nile, into the
ocean. The course of this canal to the river was not direct, but ascending
in a south‐easterly direction towards the Saïd; and in calms, or with
adverse winds, the passage was tedious. But as the breeze was now blowing
freshly from the north, there was every prospect of our reaching the river
before night‐fall. Rapidly, too, as our galley swept along the flood, its
motion was so smooth as to be hardly felt; and the quiet gurgle of the
waters underneath, and the drowsy song of the boatman at the prow, alone
disturbed the deep silence that prevailed.
The sun, indeed, had nearly sunk behind the Libyan hills, before the
sleep, in which these sounds lulled me, was broken; and the first object,
on which my eyes rested, in waking, was that fair young Priestess,—seated
under a porch by which the door of the pavilion was shaded, and bending
intently over a small volume that lay unrolled on her lap.
Her face was but half turned towards me, and as, once or twice, she raised
her eyes to the warm sky, whose light fell, softened through the trellis,
over her cheek, I found every feeling of reverence, with which she had
inspired me in the chapel, return. There was even a purer and holier charm
around her countenance, thus seen by the natural light of day, than in
those dim and unhallowed regions below. She could now, too, look direct to
the glorious sky, and that heaven and her eyes, so worthy of each other,
met.
After contemplating her for a few moments, with little less than
adoration, I rose gently from my resting‐place, and approached the
pavilion. But the mere movement had startled her from her devotion, and,
blushing and confused, she covered the volume with the folds of her robe.
In the art of winning upon female confidence, I had long been schooled;
and, now that to the lessons of gallantry the inspiration of love was
added, my ambition to please and to interest could hardly, it may be
supposed, fail of success. I soon found, however, how much less fluent is
the heart than the fancy, and how very distinct are the operations of
making love and feeling it. In the few words of greeting now exchanged
between us, it was evident that the gay, the enterprising Epicurean was
little less embarrassed than the secluded Priestess;—and, after one or two
ineffectual efforts to bring our voices acquainted with each other, the
eyes of both turned bashfully away, and we relapsed into silence.
From this situation—the result of timidity on one side, and of a feeling
altogether new, on the other—we were, at length, after an interval of
estrangement, relieved, by the boatmen announcing that the Nile was in
sight. The countenance of the young Egyptian brightened at this
intelligence; and the smile with which I congratulated her on the speed of
our voyage was answered by another, so full of gratitude, that already an
instinctive sympathy seemed established between us.
We were now on the point of entering that sacred river, of whose sweet
waters the exile drinks in his dreams,—for a draught of whose flood the
daughters of the Ptolemies, when wedded to foreign kings, sighed in the
midst of their splendour. As our boat, with slackened sail, glided into
the current, an enquiry from the boatmen, whether they should anchor for
the night in the Nile, first reminded me of the ignorance, in which I
still remained, with respect to either the motive or destination of our
voyage. Embarrassed by their question I directed my eyes towards the
Priestess, whom I saw waiting for my answer with a look of anxiety, which
this silent reference to her wishes at once dispelled. Eagerly unfolding
the volume with which I had seen her occupied, she took from its folds a
small leaf of papyrus, on which there appeared to be some faint lines of
drawing, and after thoughtfully looking upon it, herself, for a moment,
placed it, with an agitated hand, in mine.
In the mean time, the boatmen had taken in their sail, and the yacht drove
slowly down the river with the current, while, by a light which had been
kindled at sunset on the deck, I stood examining the leaf that the
Priestess had given me,—her dark eyes fixed anxiously on my countenance
all the while. The lines traced upon the papyrus were so faint as to be
almost invisible, and I was for some time at a loss to divine their
import. At length, I could perceive that they were the outlines, or
map—traced slightly and unsteadily with a Memphian reed—of a part of that
mountainous ridge by which Upper Egypt is bounded to the east, together
with the names, or rather emblems, of the chief towns in the
neighbourhood.
It was thither, I could not doubt, that the young Priestess wished to
pursue her course. Without a moment’s delay, therefore, I gave orders to
the boatmen to set our yacht before the wind and ascend the current. My
command was promptly obeyed: the white sail again rose into the region of
the breeze, and the satisfaction that beamed in every feature of the fair
Egyptian showed that the quickness with which I had obeyed her wishes was
not unfelt by her. The moon had now risen; and though the current was
against us, the Etesian wind of the season blew strongly up the river, and
we were soon floating before it, through the rich plains and groves of the
Saïd.
The love, with which this simple girl had inspired me, was—possibly from
the mystic scenes and situations in which I had seen her—not unmingled
with a tinge of superstitious awe, under the influence of which I felt the
buoyancy of my spirit checked. The few words that had passed between us on
the subject of our route had somewhat loosened this spell; and what I
wanted of vivacity and confidence was more than made up by the tone of
deep sensibility which love had awakened in their place.
We had not proceeded far before the glittering of lights at a distance,
and the shooting up of fireworks, at intervals, into the air, apprised us
that we were approaching one of those night‐fairs, or marts, which it is
the custom, at this season, to hold upon the Nile. To me the scene was
familiar; but to my young companion it was evidently a new world; and the
mixture of alarm and delight with which she gazed, from under her veil,
upon the busy scene into which we now sailed, gave an air of innocence to
her beauty, which still more heightened its every charm.
It was one of the widest parts of the river; and the whole surface, from
one bank to the other, was covered with boats. Along the banks of a green
island, in the middle of the stream, lay anchored the galleys of the
principal traders,—large floating bazaars, bearing each the name of its
owner, emblazoned in letters of flame, upon the stern. Over their decks
were spread out, in gay confusion, the products of the loom and needle of
Egypt,—rich carpets of Memphis, and those variegated veils, for which the
female embroiderers of the Nile are so celebrated, and to which the name
of Cleopatra lends a traditional value. In each of the other galleys was
exhibited some branch of Egyptian workmanship,—vases of the fragrant
porcelain of On,—cups of that frail crystal, whose hues change like those
of the pigeon’s plumage,—enamelled amulets graven with the head of Anubis,
and necklaces and bracelets of the black beans of Abyssinia.
While Commerce thus displayed her luxuries in one quarter, in every other
direction Pleasure, multiplied into her thousand shapes, swarmed over the
waters. Nor was the festivity confined to the river only. All along the
banks of the island and on the shores, lighted up mansions were seen
through the trees, from which sounds of music and merriment came. In some
of the boats were bands of minstrels, who, from time to time, answered
each other, like echoes, across the wave; and the notes of the lyre, the
flageolet, and the sweet lotus‐wood flute, were heard, in the pauses of
revelry, dying along the waters.
Meanwhile, from other boats stationed in the least lighted places, the
workers of fire sent forth their wonders into the air. Bursting out from
time to time, as if in the very exuberance of joy, these sallies of flame
seemed to reach the sky, and there breaking into a shower of sparkles,
shed such a splendour round, as brightened even the white Arabian
hills,—making them shine like the brow of Mount Atlas at night, when the
fire from his own bosom is playing around its snows.
The opportunity which this luxurious mart afforded us, of providing
ourselves with other and less remarkable habiliments than those in which
we had escaped from that nether world, was too seasonable not to be gladly
taken advantage of by both. For myself, the strange mystic garb that I
wore was sufficiently concealed by my Grecian mantle, which I had luckily
thrown round me on the night of my watch. But the thin veil of my
companion was a far less efficient disguise. She had, indeed, flung away
the golden beetles from her hair; but the sacred robe of her order was
still too visible, and the stars of the bandelet shone brightly through
her veil.
Most gladly, therefore, did she avail herself of this opportunity of a
change; and, as she took from a casket—which, with the volume I had seen
her reading, appeared to be her only treasure—a small jewel, to exchange
for the simple garments she had chosen, there fell out, at the same time,
the very cross of silver, which I had seen her kiss, as may be remembered,
in the monumental chapel, and which was afterwards pressed to my own lips.
This link (for such it appeared to my imagination) between us, now revived
in my heart all the burning feelings of that moment;—and, had I not
abruptly turned away, my agitation would, but too plainly, have betrayed
itself.
The object, for which we had delayed in this gay scene, being
accomplished, the sail was again spread, and we proceeded on our course up
the river. The sounds and the lights we left behind died gradually away,
and we now floated along in moonlight and silence once more. Sweet dews,
worthy of being called “the tears of Isis,” fell through the air, and
every plant and flower sent its fragrance to meet them. The wind, just
strong enough to bear us smoothly against the current, scarcely stirred
the shadow of the tamarisks on the water. As the inhabitants from all
quarters were collected at the night‐fair, the Nile was more than usually
still and solitary. Such a silence, indeed, prevailed, that, as we glided
near the shore, we could hear the rustling of the acacias, as the
chameleons ran up their stems. It was, altogether, a night such as only
the clime of Egypt can boast, when every thing lies lulled in that sort of
bright tranquillity, which, we may imagine, shines over the sleep of those
happy spirits, who are supposed to rest in the Valley of the Moon, on
their way to heaven.
By such a light, and at such an hour, seated, side by side, on the deck of
that bark, did we pursue our course up the lonely Nile—each a mystery to
the other—our thoughts, our objects, our very names a secret;—separated,
too, till now, by destinies so different, the one, a gay voluptuary of the
Garden of Athens, the other, a secluded Priestess of the Temples of
Memphis;—and the only relation yet established between us being that
dangerous one of love, passionate love, on one side, and the most feminine
and confiding dependence on the other.
The passing adventure of the night‐fair had not only dispelled still more
our mutual reserve, but had supplied us with a subject on which we could
converse without embarrassment. From this topic I took care to lead on,
without interruption, to others,—fearful lest our former silence should
return, and the music of her voice again be lost to me. It was, indeed,
only by thus indirectly unburdening my heart that I was enabled to refrain
from the full utterance of all I thought and felt; and the restless
rapidity with which I flew from subject to subject was but an effort to
escape from the only one in which my heart was interested.
“How bright and happy,” said I,—pointing up to Sothis, the fair Star of
the Waters, which was just then sparkling brilliantly over our heads,—“How
bright and happy this world ought to be, if—as your Egyptian sages
assert—yon pure and beautiful luminary was its birth‐star!” Then, still
leaning back, and letting my eyes wander over the firmament, as if seeking
to disengage them from the fascination which they dreaded—“To the study (I
said), for ages, of skies like this, may the pensive and mystic character
of your nation be traced. That mixture of pride and melancholy which
naturally arises, at the sight of those eternal lights shining out of
darkness;—that sublime, but saddened, anticipation of a Future, which
comes over the soul in the silence of such an hour, when, though Death
seems to reign in the repose of earth, there are those beacons of
Immortality burning in the sky—”
Pausing, as I uttered the word “immortality,” with a sigh to think how
little my heart echoed to my lips, I looked in the face of the maiden, and
saw that it had lighted up, as I spoke, into a glow of holy animation,
such as Faith alone gives—such as Hope herself wears, when she is dreaming
of heaven. Touched by the contrast, and gazing upon her with mournful
tenderness, I found my arms half opened, to clasp her to my heart, while
the words died away inaudibly upon my lips,—“thou, too, beautiful maiden!
must thou, too, die for ever?”
My self‐command, I felt, had nearly deserted me. Rising abruptly from my
seat, I walked to the middle of the deck, and stood, for some moments,
unconsciously gazing upon one of those fires, which,—as is the custom of
all who travel by night upon the Nile,—our boatmen had just kindled, to
scare away the crocodiles from the vessel. But it was in vain that I
endeavoured to compose my spirit. Every effort I made but more deeply
convinced me, that, till the mystery which hung round that maiden should
be solved—till the secret, with which my own bosom laboured, should be
disclosed—it was fruitless to attempt even a semblance of tranquillity.
My resolution was therefore taken;—to lay open, at least, my own heart, as
far as such a revelation might be risked, without startling the timid
innocence of my companion. Thus resolved, I returned, with more composure,
to my seat by her side, and taking from my bosom the small mirror which
she had dropped in the Temple, and which I had ever since worn suspended
round my neck, with a trembling hand presented it to her view. The boatmen
had just kindled one of their night‐fires near us, and its light, as she
leaned forward towards the mirror, fell on her face.
The quick blush of surprise with which she recognised it to be hers, and
her look of bashful, yet eager, inquiry, in raising her eyes to mine, were
appeals to which I was not, of course, slow in answering. Beginning with
the first moment when I saw her in the Temple, and passing hastily, but
with words that burned as they went, over the impression which she had
then left upon my heart and fancy, I proceeded to describe the particulars
of my descent into the pyramid—my surprise and adoration at the door of
the chapel—my encounter with the Trials of Initiation, so mysteriously
prepared for me, and all the various visionary wonders I had witnessed in
that region, till the moment when I had seen her stealing from under the
Veils to approach me.
Though, in detailing these events, I had said but little of the feelings
they had awakened in me,—though my lips had sent back many a sentence,
unuttered, there was still enough that could neither be subdued or
disguised, and which, like that light from under the veils of her own
Isis, glowed through every word that I spoke. When I told of the scene in
the chapel,—of the silent interview which I had witnessed between the dead
and the living,—the maiden leaned down her head and wept, as from a heart
full of tears. It seemed a pleasure to her, however, to listen; and, when
she looked at me again, there was an earnest and affectionate cordiality
in her eyes, as if the knowledge of my having been present at that
mournful scene had opened a new source of sympathy and intelligence
between us. So neighbouring are the fountains of Love and of Sorrow, and
so imperceptibly do they often mingle their streams.
Little, indeed, as I was guided by art or design, in my manner and conduct
to this innocent girl, not all the most experienced gallantry of the
Garden could have dictated a policy half so seductive as that which my new
master, Love, now taught me. The ardour which, shown at once, and without
reserve, might have startled a heart so little prepared for it, thus
checked and softened by the timidity of real love, won its way without
alarm, and, when most diffident of success, most triumphed. Like one whose
sleep is gradually broken by music, the maiden’s heart was awakened
without being disturbed. She followed the charm, unconscious whither it
led, nor was aware of the flame she had lighted in another’s bosom, till
she perceived the reflection of it glimmering in her own.
Impatient as I was to appeal to her generosity and sympathy, for a similar
proof of confidence to that which I had just given, the night was now too
far advanced for me to impose such a task upon her. After exchanging a few
words, in which, though little was said, there was a tone and manner that
spoke far more than language, we took a lingering leave of each other for
the night, with every prospect of still being together in our dreams.
CHAP. XIII.
It was so near the dawn of day when we parted, that we again found the sun
sinking westward when we rejoined each other. The smile with which she met
me,—so frankly cordial,—might have been taken for the greeting of a long
mellowed friendship, did not the blush and the castdown eyelid, that
followed, give symptoms of a feeling newer and less calm. For myself,
lightened as I was, in some degree, by the confession which I had made, I
was yet too conscious of the new aspect thus given to our intercourse, to
feel altogether unembarrassed at the prospect of returning to the theme.
It was, therefore, willingly we both suffered our attention to be
diverted, by the variety of objects that presented themselves on the way,
from a subject that both equally trembled to approach.
The river was now full of life and motion. Every moment we met with boats
descending the current, so independent of aid from sail or oar, that the
sailors sat idly upon the deck as they shot along, singing or playing upon
their double‐reeded pipes. Of these boats, the greater number came loaded
with merchandise from Coptos,—some with those large emeralds, from the
mine in the desert, whose colours, it is said, are brightest at the full
of the moon, and some laden with frankincense from the acacia‐groves near
the Red Sea. On the decks of others, that had been to the Golden Mountains
beyond Syene, were heaped blocks and fragments of that sweet‐smelling
wood, which the Green Nile of Nubia washes down in the season of the
floods.
Our companions up the stream were far less numerous. Occasionally a boat,
returning lightened from the fair of last night, with those high sails
that catch every breeze from over the hills, shot past us;—while, now and
then, we overtook one of those barges full of bees, that at this season of
the year, are sent to colonise the gardens of the south, and take
advantage of the first flowers after the inundation has passed away.
By these various objects we were, for a short time, enabled to divert the
conversation from lighting and settling upon the one subject, round which
it continually hovered. But the effort, as might be expected, was not long
successful. As evening advanced, the whole scene became more solitary. We
less frequently ventured to look upon each other, and our intervals of
silence grew more long.
It was near sunset, when, in passing a small temple on the shore, whose
porticoes were now full of the evening light, we saw, issuing from a
thicket of acanthus near it, a train of young maids linked together in the
dance by lotus‐stems, held at arms’ length between them. Their tresses
were also wreathed with this emblem of the season, and such a profusion of
the white flowers were twisted round their waists and arms, that they
might have been taken, as they gracefully bounded along the bank, for
Nymphs of the Nile, risen freshly from their gardens under the wave.
After looking for a few moments at this sacred dance, the maid turned away
her eyes, with a look of pain, as if the remembrances it recalled were of
no welcome nature. This momentary retrospect, this glimpse into the past,
seemed to offer a sort of clue to the secret for which I panted;—and,
gradually and delicately as my impatience would allow, I availed myself of
it. Her frankness, however, saved me the embarrassment of much
questioning. She even seemed to feel that the confidence I sought was due
to me, and beyond the natural hesitation of maidenly modesty, not a shade
of reserve or evasion appeared.
To attempt to repeat, in her own touching words, the simple story which
she now related to me, would be like endeavouring to note down some strain
of unpremeditated music, with those fugitive graces, those felicities of
the moment, which no art can restore, as they first met the ear. From a
feeling, too, of humility, she had omitted in her narrative some
particulars relating to herself, which I afterwards learned;—while others,
not less important, she but slightly passed over, from a fear of wounding
the prejudices of her heathen hearer.
I shall, therefore, give her story, as the outline which she, herself,
sketched was afterwards filled up by a pious and venerable hand,—far, far
more worthy than mine of being associated with the memory of such purity.
STORY OF ALĒTHE.
“The mother of this maiden was the beautiful Theora of Alexandria, who,
though a native of that city, was descended from Grecian parents. When
very young, Theora was one of the seven maidens selected, to note down the
discourses of the eloquent Origen, who, at that period, presided over the
School of Alexandria, and was in all the fulness of his fame, both among
Pagans and Christians. Endowed richly with the learning of both creeds, he
brought the natural light of philosophy to elucidate the mysteries of
faith, and was only proud of his knowledge of the wisdom of this world,
inasmuch as it ministered to the triumph of divine truth.
“Though he had courted in vain the crown of martyrdom, it was held,
throughout his life, suspended over his head, and in more than one
persecution, he had evinced his readiness to die for that faith which he
lived but to testify and adorn. On one of these occasions, his tormentors,
having habited him like an Egyptian priest, placed him upon the steps of
the Temple of Serapis, and commanded that he should, in the manner of the
Pagan ministers, present palm‐branches to the multitude who went up to the
shrine. But the courageous Christian disappointed their views. Holding
forth the branches with an unshrinking hand, he cried aloud, ‘Come hither
and take the branch, not of an Idol Temple, but of Christ.’
“So indefatigable was this learned Father in his studies, that, while
composing his Commentary on the Scriptures, he was attended by seven
scribes or notaries, who relieved each other in taking down the dictates
of his eloquent tongue; while the same number of young females, selected
for the beauty of their penmanship, were employed in arranging and
transcribing the precious leaves.
“Among the scribes so selected, was the fair young Theora, whose parents,
though attached to the Pagan worship, were not unwilling to profit by the
accomplishments of their daughter, thus devoted to a task which they
considered purely mechanical. To the maid herself, however, her task
brought far other feelings and consequences. She read anxiously as she
wrote, and the divine truths, so eloquently illustrated, found their way,
by degrees, from the page to her heart. Deeply, too, as the written words
affected her, the discourses from the lips of the great teacher himself,
which she had frequent opportunities of hearing, sunk still more deeply
into her mind. There was, at once, a sublimity and gentleness in his views
of religion, which, to the tender hearts and lively imaginations of women,
never failed to appeal with convincing power. Accordingly, the list of his
female pupils was numerous; and the names of Barbara, Juliana, Heraïs, and
others, bear honourable testimony to his influence over that sex.
“To Theora the feeling, with which his discourses inspired her, was like a
new soul,—a consciousness of spiritual existence, unfelt before. By the
eloquence of the comment she was awakened into admiration of the text; and
when, by the kindness of a Catechumen of the school, who had been struck
by her innocent zeal, she, for the first time, became possessor of a copy
of the Scriptures, she could not sleep for thinking of her sacred
treasure. With a mixture of pleasure and fear she hid it from all eyes,
and was like one who had received a divine guest under her roof, and felt
fearful of betraying its divinity to the world.
“A heart so awake would have been easily secured to the faith, had her
opportunities of hearing the sacred word continued. But circumstances
arose to deprive her of this advantage. The mild Origen, long harassed and
thwarted in his labours by the tyranny of the Bishop of Alexandria,
Demetrius, was obliged to relinquish his school and fly from Egypt. The
occupation of the fair scribe was, therefore, at an end: her intercourse
with the followers of the new faith ceased; and the growing enthusiasm of
her heart gave way to more worldly impressions.
“Love, among the rest, had its share in alienating her thoughts from
religion. While still very young, she became the wife of a Greek
adventurer, who had come to Egypt as a purchaser of that rich tapestry, in
which the needles of Persia are rivalled by the looms of the Nile. Having
taken his young bride to Memphis, which was still the great mart of this
merchandise, he there, in the midst of his speculations, died,—leaving his
widow on the point of becoming a mother, while, as yet, but in her
nineteenth year.
“For single and unprotected females, it has been, at all times, a
favourite resource, to seek admission into the service of some of those
great temples, which absorb so much of the wealth and power of Egypt. In
most of these institutions there exists an order of Priestesses, which,
though not hereditary, like that of the Priests, is provided for by ample
endowments, and confers that rank and station, with which, in a government
so theocratic, Religion is sure to invest even her humblest handmaids.
From the general policy of the Sacred College of Memphis, it may be
concluded, that an accomplished female, like Theora, found but little
difficulty in being chosen one of the Priestesses of Isis; and it was in
the service of the subterranean shrines that her ministry chiefly lay.
“Here, a month or two after her admission, she gave birth to Alethe, who
first opened her eyes among the unholy pomps and specious miracles of this
mysterious region. Though Theora, as we have seen, had been diverted by
other feelings from her first enthusiasm for the Christian faith, she had
never wholly forgot the impression then made upon her. The sacred volume,
which the pious Catechumen had given her, was still treasured with care;
and, though she seldom opened its pages, there was an idea of sanctity
associated with it in her memory, and often would she sit to look upon it
with reverential pleasure, recalling the happiness she felt when it was
first made her own.
“The leisure of her new retreat, and the lone melancholy of widowhood, led
her still more frequently to indulge in such thoughts, and to recur to
those consoling truths which she had heard in the school of Alexandria.
She now began to peruse eagerly the sacred book, drinking deep of the
fountain of which she before but tasted, and feeling—what thousands of
mourners, since her, have felt—that Christianity is the true religion of
the sorrowful.
“This study of her secret hours became still more dear to her, from the
peril with which, at that period, it was attended, and the necessity she
was under of concealing from those around her the precious light that had
been kindled in her heart. Too timid to encounter the fierce persecution,
which awaited all who were suspected of a leaning to Christianity, she
continued to officiate in the pomps and ceremonies of the Temple;—though,
often, with such remorse of soul, that she would pause, in the midst of
the rites, and pray inwardly to God, that he would forgive this
profanation of his Spirit.
“In the mean time her daughter, the young Alethe, grew up still lovelier
than herself, and added, every hour, to her happiness and her fears. When
arrived at a sufficient age, she was taught, like the other children of
the priestesses, to take a share in the service and ceremonies of the
shrines. The duty of some of these young servitors was to look after the
flowers for the altar;—of others, to take care that the sacred vases were
filled every day with fresh water from the Nile. The task of some was to
preserve, in perfect polish, those silver images of the moon which the
priests carried in processions; while others were, as we have seen,
employed in feeding the consecrated animals, and in keeping their plumes
and scales bright, for the admiring eyes of their worshippers.
“The office allotted to Alethe—the most honourable of these minor
ministries—was to wait upon the sacred birds of the Moon, to feed them
with those eggs from the Nile which they loved, and provide for their use
that purest water, which alone these delicate birds will touch. This
employment was the delight of her childish hours; and that ibis, which
Alciphron (the Epicurean) saw her dance round in the Temple, was her
favourite, of all the sacred flock, and had been daily fondled and fed by
her from infancy.
“Music, as being one of the chief spells of this enchanted region, was an
accomplishment required of all its ministrants; and the harp, the lyre,
and the sacred flute, sounded nowhere so sweetly as that through these
subterranean gardens. The chief object, indeed, in the education of the
youth of the Temple, was to fit them, by every grace of art and nature, to
give effect to the illusion of those shows and phantasms, in which the
whole charm and secret of Initiation lay.
“Among the means employed to support the old system of superstition,
against the infidelity and, still more, the new Faith that menaced it, was
an increased display of splendour and marvels in those Mysteries for which
Egypt has so long been celebrated. Of these ceremonies so many imitations
had, under various names, been multiplied through Europe, that the parent
superstition ran a risk of being eclipsed by its progeny; and, in order
still to retain their rank of the first Priesthood in the world, those of
Egypt found it necessary to continue still the best impostors.
“Accordingly, every contrivance that art could devise, or labour
execute—every resource that the wonderful knowledge of the Priests, in
pyrotechny, mechanics, and dioptrics, could command, was brought into
action to heighten the effect of their Mysteries, and give an air of
enchantment to every thing connected with them.
“The final scene of beatification—the Elysium, into which the Initiate was
received,—formed, of course, the leading attraction of these ceremonies;
and to render it captivating alike to the senses of the man of pleasure,
and the imagination of the spiritualist, was the object to which the whole
skill and attention of the Sacred College were devoted. By the influence
of the Priests of Memphis over those of the other Temples they had
succeeded in extending their subterranean frontier, both to the north and
south, so as to include, within their ever‐lighted Paradise, some of the
gardens excavated for the use of the other Twelve Shrines.
“The beauty of the young Alethe, the touching sweetness of her voice, and
the sensibility that breathed throughout her every look and movement,
rendered her a powerful auxiliary in such appeals to the imagination. She
was, accordingly, from her childhood, selected from among her fair
companions, as the most worthy representative of spiritual loveliness, in
those pictures of Elysium—those scenes of another world—by which not only
the fancy, but the reason, of the excited Aspirants was dazzled.
“To the innocent child herself these shows were pastime. But to Theora,
who knew too well the imposition to which they were subservient, this
profanation of all that she loved was a perpetual source of horror and
remorse. Often would she—when Alethe stood smiling before her, arrayed,
perhaps, as a spirit of the Elysian world,—turn away, with a shudder, from
the happy child, almost fancying that she already saw the shadows of sin
descending over that innocent brow, as she gazed on it.
“As the intellect of the young maid became more active and inquiring, the
apprehensions and difficulties of the mother increased. Afraid to
communicate her own precious secret, lest she should involve her child in
the dangers that encompassed it, she yet felt it to be no less a cruelty
than a crime to leave her wholly immersed in the darkness of Paganism. In
this dilemma, the only resource that remained to her was to select, and
disengage from the dross that surrounded them, those pure particles of
truth which lie at the bottom of all religions;—those feelings, rather
than doctrines, which God has never left his creatures without, and which,
in all ages, have furnished, to those who sought it, some clue to his
glory.
“The unity and perfect goodness of the Creator; the fall of the human soul
into corruption; its struggles with the darkness of this world, and its
final redemption and re‐ascent to the source of all spirit;—these natural
solutions of the problem of our existence, these elementary grounds of all
religion and virtue, which Theora had heard illustrated by her Christian
teacher, lay also, she knew, veiled under the theology of Egypt; and to
impress them, in all their abstract purity, upon the mind of her
susceptible pupil, was, in default of more heavenly lights, her sole
ambition and care.
“It was their habit, after devoting their mornings to the service of the
Temple, to pass their evenings and nights in one of those small mansions
above ground, allotted to some of the most favoured Priestesses, in the
precincts of the Sacred College. Here, out of the reach of those gross
superstitions, which pursued them, at every step, below, she endeavoured
to inform, as far as she might, the mind of her beloved girl; and found it
lean as naturally and instinctively to truth, as plants that have been
long shut up in darkness will, when light is let in, incline themselves to
its ray.
“Frequently, as they sat together on the terrace at night, contemplating
that assembly of glorious stars, whose beauty first misled mankind into
idolatry, she would explain to the young listener by what gradations it
was that the worship, thus transferred from the Creator to the creature,
sunk lower and lower in the scale of being, till man, at length, presumed
to deify man, and by the most monstrous of inversions, heaven was made the
mirror of earth, reflecting all its most earthly features.
“Even in the Temple itself, the anxious mother would endeavour to
interpose her purer lessons among the idolatrous ceremonies in which they
were engaged. When the favourite ibis of Alethe took its station on the
shrine, and the young maiden was seen approaching, with all the gravity of
worship, the very bird which she had played with but an hour before,—when
the acacia‐bough, which she herself had plucked, seemed to acquire a
sudden sacredness in her eyes, as soon as the priest had breathed on
it,—on all such occasions Theora, though with fear and trembling, would
venture to suggest to the youthful worshipper the distinction that should
be drawn between the sensible object of adoration, and that spiritual,
unseen Deity, of which it was but the remembrancer or type.
“With sorrow, however, she soon discovered that, in thus but partially
enlightening a mind too ardent to be satisfied with such glimmerings, she
only bewildered the heart that she meant to guide, and cut down the hope
round which its faith twined, without substituting any other support in
its place. As the beauty, too, of Alethe began to attract all eyes, new
fears crowded upon the mother’s heart;—fears, in which she was but too
much justified by the characters of some of those around her.
“In this sacred abode, as may easily be conceived, morality did not always
go hand in hand with religion. The hypocritical and ambitious Orcus, who
was, at this period, High Priest of Memphis, was a man, in every respect,
qualified to preside over a system of such splendid fraud. He had reached
that effective time of life, when enough of the warmth of youth remains to
give animation to the counsels of age. But, in his instance, youth had
only the baser passions to bequeath, while age but contributed a more
refined maturity of mischief. The advantages of a faith appealing so
wholly to the senses, were well understood by him; nor was he ignorant
that the only way of making religion subservient to his own interests was
by shaping it adroitly to the passions of others.
“The state of misery and remorse in which the mind of Theora was kept by
the scenes, however veiled by hypocrisy, which she witnessed around her,
became at length intolerable. No perils that the cause of truth could
bring with it would be half so dreadful as this endurance of sinfulness
and deceit. Her child was, as yet, pure and innocent;—but, without that
sentinel of the soul, Religion, how long might she continue so?
“This thought at once decided her;—all other fears vanished before it. She
resolved instantly to lay open to Alethe the whole secret of her soul; to
make her, who was her only hope on earth, the sharer of all her hopes in
heaven, and then fly with her, as soon as possible, from this unhallowed
place, to the desert—to the mountains—to any place, however desolate,
where God and the consciousness of innocence might be with them.
“The promptitude with which her young pupil caught from her the divine
truths, was even beyond what she expected. It was like the lighting of one
torch at another,—so prepared was Alethe’s mind for the illumination.
Amply was the mother now repaid for all her misery, by this perfect
communion of love and faith, and by the delight with which she saw her
beloved child—like the young antelope, when first led by her dam to the
well,—drink thirstily by her side, at the source of all life and truth.
“But such happiness was not long to last. The anxieties that Theora had
suffered preyed upon her health. She felt her strength daily decline; and
the thoughts of leaving, alone and unguarded in the world, that treasure
which she had just devoted to heaven, gave her a feeling of despair which
but hastened the ebb of life. Had she put in practice her resolution of
flying from this place, her child might have been now beyond the reach of
all she dreaded, and in the solitude of the wilderness would have found at
least safety from wrong. But the very happiness she had felt in her new
task diverted her from this project;—and it was now too late, for she was
already dying.
“She concealed, however, her state from the tender and sanguine girl, who,
though she saw the traces of disease on her mother’s cheek, little knew
that they were the hastening footsteps of death, nor thought even of the
possibility of losing what was so dear to her. Too soon, however, the
moment of separation arrived; and while the anguish and dismay of Alethe
were in proportion to the security in which she had indulged, Theora, too,
felt, with bitter regret, that she had sacrificed to her fond
consideration much precious time, and that there now remained but a few
brief and painful moments, for the communication of all those wishes and
instructions, on which the future destiny of the young orphan depended.
“She had, indeed, time for little more than to place the sacred volume
solemnly in her hands, to implore that she would, at all risks, fly from
this unholy place, and, pointing in the direction of the mountains of the
Saïd, to name, with her last breath, the holy man, to whom, under heaven,
she trusted for the protection and salvation of her child.
“The first violence of feeling to which Alethe gave way was succeeded by a
fixed and tearless grief, which rendered her insensible, for some time, to
the dangers of her situation. Her only comfort was in visiting that
monumental chapel, where the beautiful remains of Theora lay. There, night
after night, in contemplation of those placid features, and in prayers for
the peace of the departed spirit, did she pass her lonely, and—sad as they
were—happiest hours. Though the mystic emblems that decorated that chapel
were but ill suited to the slumber of a Christian saint, there was one
among them, the Cross, which, by a remarkable coincidence, is an emblem
common alike to the Gentile and the Christian,—being, to the former, a
shadowy type of that immortality, of which, to the latter, it is a
substantial and assuring pledge.
“Nightly, upon this cross, which she had often seen her lost mother kiss,
did she breathe forth a solemn and heartfelt vow, never to abandon the
faith which that departed spirit had bequeathed to her. To such
enthusiasm, indeed, did her heart at such moments rise, that, but for the
last injunctions from those pallid lips, she would, at once, have avowed
her perilous secret, and spoken out the words, ‘I am a Christian,’ among
those benighted shrines!
“But the will of her, to whom she owed more than life, was to be obeyed.
To escape from this haunt of superstition must now, she felt, be her first
object; and, in devising the means of effecting it, her mind, day and
night, was employed. It was with a loathing not to be concealed she now
found herself compelled to resume her idolatrous services at the shrine.
To some of the offices of Theora she succeeded, as is the custom, by
inheritance; and in the performance of these—sanctified as they were in
her eyes by the pure spirit she had seen engaged in them—there was a sort
of melancholy pleasure in which her sorrow found relief. But the part she
was again forced to take, in the scenic shows of the Mysteries, brought
with it a sense of wrong and degradation which she could no longer bear.
“She had already formed, in her own mind, a plan of escape, in which her
knowledge of all the windings of this subterranean realm gave her
confidence, when the reception of Alciphron, as an Initiate, took place.
“From the first moment of the landing of that philosopher at Alexandria,
he had become an object of suspicion and watchfulness to the inquisitorial
Orcus, whom philosophy, in any shape, naturally alarmed, but to whom the
sect over which the young Athenian presided was particularly obnoxious.
The accomplishments of Alciphron, his popularity, wherever he went, and
the freedom with which he indulged his wit at the expense of religion, was
all faithfully reported to the High Priest by his spies, and stirred up
within him no kindly feelings towards the stranger. In dealing with an
infidel, such a personage as Orcus could know no alternative but that of
either converting or destroying him; and though his spite, as a man, would
have been more gratified by the latter proceeding, his pride, as a priest,
led him to prefer the triumph of the former.
“The first descent of the Epicurean into the pyramid was speedily known,
and the alarm immediately given to the Priests below. As soon as it was
discovered that the young philosopher of Athens was the intruder, and that
he still continued to linger round the pyramid, looking often and
wistfully towards the portal, it was concluded that his curiosity would
impel him to try a second descent; and Orcus, blessing the good chance
which had thus brought the wild bird to his net, determined not to allow
an opportunity so precious to be wasted.
“Instantly, the whole of that wonderful machinery, by which the phantasms
and illusions of Initiation are produced, were put in active preparation
throughout that subterranean realm; and the increased stir and
watchfulness excited among its inmates, by this more than ordinary display
of all the resources of priestcraft, rendered the accomplishment of
Alethe’s design, at such a moment, peculiarly difficult. Wholly ignorant
of the share which had fallen to herself in attracting the young
philosopher down to this region, she but heard of him vaguely, as the
Chief of a great Grecian sect, who had been led, by either curiosity or
accident, to expose himself to the first trials of Initiation, and whom
the priests, she saw, were endeavouring to ensnare in their toils, by
every art and skill with which their science of darkness had gifted them.
“To her mind, the image of a philosopher, such as Alciphron had been
represented to her, came associated with ideas of age and reverence; and,
more than once, the possibility of his being made instrumental to her
deliverance flashed a hope across her heart in which she could not help
indulging. Often had she been told by Theora of the many Gentile sages,
who had laid their wisdom down humbly at the foot of the Cross; and though
this Initiate, she feared, could hardly be among the number, yet the
rumours which she had gathered from the servants of the Temple, of his
undisguised contempt for the errors of heathenism, led her to hope she
might find tolerance, if not sympathy, in her appeal to him.
“Nor was it solely with a view to her own chance of deliverance that she
thus connected him in her thoughts with the plan which she meditated. The
look of proud and self‐gratulating malice, with which the High Priest had
mentioned this ‘infidel,’ as he styled him, when instructing her in the
scene she was to enact before the philosopher in the valley, but too
plainly informed her of the destiny that hung over him. She knew how many
were the hapless candidates for Initiation, who had been doomed to a
durance worse than that of the grave, for but a word, a whisper breathed
against the sacred absurdities which they witnessed; and it was evident to
her that the venerable Greek (for such her fancy represented Alciphron)
was no less interested in escaping from this region than herself.
“Her own resolution was, at all events, fixed. That visionary scene, in
which she had appeared before Alciphron,—little knowing how ardent were
the heart and imagination, over which her beauty, at that moment, shed its
whole influence,—was, she solemnly resolved, the very last unholy service,
that superstition or imposture should ever command of her.
“On the following night the Aspirant was to watch in the Great Temple of
Isis. Such an opportunity of approaching and addressing him might never
come again. Should he, from compassion for her situation, or a sense of
the danger of his own, consent to lend his aid to her flight, most gladly
would she accept it,—assured that no danger or treachery she might risk
could be half so dreadful as those she left behind. Should he, on the
contrary, refuse, her determination was equally fixed—to trust to that
God, who watches over the innocent, and go forth alone.
“To reach the island in Lake Mœris was her first object, and there
occurred luckily, at this time, a mode of accomplishing it, by which the
difficulty and dangers of the attempt would be, in a great degree,
diminished. The day of the annual visitation of the High Priest to the
Place of Weeping—as that island in the centre of the lake is called—was
now fast approaching; and Alethe well knew that the self‐moving car, by
which the High Priest and one of the Hierophants are conveyed to the
chambers under the lake, stood waiting in readiness. By availing herself
of this expedient, she would gain the double advantage both of
facilitating her own flight and retarding the speed of her pursuers.
“Having paid a last visit to the tomb of her beloved mother, and wept
there, long and passionately, till her heart almost failed in the
struggle,—having paused, too, to give a kiss to her favourite ibis, which,
though too much a Christian to worship, she was still child enough to
love,—with a trembling step she went early to the Sanctuary, and hid
herself in one of the recesses of the Shrine. Her intention was to steal
out from thence to Alciphron, while it was yet dark, and before the
illumination of the great Statue behind the Veils had begun. But her fears
delayed her till it was almost too late;—already was the image lighted up,
and still she remained trembling in her hiding place.
“In a few minutes more the mighty Veils would have been withdrawn, and the
glories of that scene of enchantment laid open,—when, at length, summoning
up courage, and taking advantage of a momentary absence of those employed
in the preparations of this splendid mockery, she stole from under the
Veil and found her way, through the gloom, to the Epicurean. There was
then no time for explanation;—she had but to trust to the simple words,
‘Follow, and be silent;’ and the implicit readiness with which she found
them obeyed filled her with no less surprise than the philosopher himself
felt in hearing them.
“In a second or two they were on their way through the subterranean
windings, leaving the ministers of Isis to waste their splendours on
vacancy, through a long series of miracles and visions which they now
exhibited,—unconscious that he, whom they took such pains to dazzle, was
already, under the guidance of the young Christian, removed beyond the
reach of their spells.”
CHAP. XIV.
Such was the story, of which this innocent girl gave me, in her own
touching language, the outline.
The sun was just rising as she finished her narrative. Fearful of
encountering the expression of those feelings with which, she could not
but observe, I was affected by her recital, scarcely had she concluded the
last sentence, when, rising abruptly from her seat, she hurried into the
pavilion, leaving me with the words already crowding for utterance to my
lips.
Oppressed by the various emotions, thus sent back upon my heart, I lay
down on the deck in a state of agitation, that defied even the most
distant approaches of sleep. While every word she had uttered, every
feeling she expressed, but ministered new fuel to that flame within me, to
describe which, passion is too weak a word, there was also much of her
recital that disheartened, that alarmed me. To find a Christian thus under
the garb of a Memphian Priestess, was a discovery that, had my heart been
less deeply interested, would but have more powerfully stimulated my
imagination and pride. But, when I recollected the austerity of the faith
she had embraced,—the tender and sacred tie, associated with it in her
memory, and the devotion of woman’s heart to objects thus consecrated,—her
very perfections but widened the distance between us, and all that most
kindled my passion at the same time chilled my hopes.
Were we left to each other, as on this silent river, in this undisturbed
communion of thoughts and feelings, I knew too well, I thought, both her
sex’s nature and my own, to feel a doubt that love would ultimately
triumph. But the severity of the guardianship to which I must resign
her,—some monk of the desert, some stern Solitary,—the influence such a
monitor would gain over her mind, and the horror with which, ere long, she
would be taught to regard the reprobate infidel on whom she now smiled,—in
all this prospect I saw nothing but despair. After a few short hours, my
happiness would be at an end, and such a dark chasm open between our
fates, as must sever them, far as earth is from heaven, asunder.
It was true, she was now wholly in my power. I feared no witnesses but
those of earth, and the solitude of the desert was at hand. But though I
acknowledged not a heaven, I worshipped her who was, to me, its type and
substitute. If, at any moment, a single thought of wrong or deceit,
towards a creature so sacred, arose in my mind, one look from her innocent
eyes averted the sacrilege. Even passion itself felt a holy fear in her
presence,—like the flame trembling in the breeze of the sanctuary,—and
Love, pure Love, stood in place of Religion.
As long as I knew not her story, I might indulge, at least, in dreams of
the future. But, now—what hope, what prospect remained? My sole chance of
happiness lay in the feeble hope of beguiling away her thoughts from the
plan which she meditated; of weaning her, by persuasion, from that austere
faith, which I had before hated and now feared, and of—attaching her,
perhaps, alone and unlinked as she was in the world, to my own fortunes
for ever!
In the agitation of these thoughts, I had started from my resting‐place,
and continued to pace up and down, under a burning sun, till, exhausted
both by thought and feeling, I sunk down, amid its blaze, into a sleep,
which, to my fevered brain, seemed a sleep of fire.
On awaking, I found the veil of Alethe laid carefully over my brow, while
she, herself, sat near me, under the shadow of the sail, looking anxiously
at that leaf, which her mother had given her, and apparently employed in
comparing its outlines with the course of the river and the forms of the
rocky hills by which we passed. She looked pale and troubled, and rose
eagerly to meet me, as if she had long and impatiently waited for my
waking.
Her heart, it was plain, had been disturbed from its security, and was
beginning to take alarm at its own feelings. But, though vaguely conscious
of the peril to which she was exposed, her reliance, as is usually the
case, increased with her danger, and on me, far more than on herself, did
she depend for saving her from it. To reach, as soon as possible, her
asylum in the desert, was now the urgent object of her entreaties and
wishes; and the self‐reproach she expressed at having permitted her
thoughts to be diverted, for a single moment, from this sacred purpose,
not only revealed the truth, that she had forgotten it, but betrayed even
a glimmering consciousness of the cause.
Her sleep, she said, had been broken by ill‐omened dreams. Every moment
the shade of her mother had stood before her, rebuking her, with mournful
looks, for her delay, and pointing, as she had done in death, to the
eastern hills. Bursting into tears at this accusing recollection, she
hastily placed the leaf, which she had been examining, in my hands, and
implored that I would ascertain, without a moment’s delay, what portion of
our voyage was still unperformed, and in what space of time we might hope
to accomplish it.
I had, still less than herself, taken note of either place or distance;
and, had we been left to glide on in this dream of happiness, should never
have thought of pausing to ask where it would end. But such confidence, I
felt, was too sacred to be deceived. Reluctant as I was, naturally, to
enter on an inquiry, which might so soon dissipate even my last hope, her
wish was sufficient to supersede even the selfishness of love, and on the
instant I proceeded to obey her will.
There is, on the eastern bank of the Nile, to the north of Antinöe, a high
and steep rock, impending over the flood, which for ages, from a prodigy
connected with it, has borne the name of the Mountain of the Birds.
Yearly, it is said, at a certain season and hour, large flocks of birds
assemble in the ravine, of which this rocky mountain forms one of the
sides, and are there observed to go through the mysterious ceremony of
inserting each its beak into a particular cleft of the rock, till the
cleft closes upon one of their number, when the rest, taking wing, leave
the selected victim to die.
Through the ravine where this charm—for such the multitude consider it—is
worked, there ran, in ancient times, a canal from the Nile, to some great
and forgotten city that now lies buried in the desert. To a short distance
from the river this canal still exists, but, soon after having passed
through the defile, its scanty waters disappear altogether, and are lost
under the sands.
It was in the neighbourhood of this place, as I could collect from the
delineations on the leaf,—where a flight of birds represented the name of
the mountain,—that the dwelling of the Solitary, to whom Alethe was
bequeathed, lay. Imperfect as was my knowledge of the geography of Egypt,
it at once struck me, that we had long since left this mountain behind;
and, on inquiring of our boatmen, I found my conjecture confirmed. We had,
indeed, passed it, as appeared, on the preceding night; and, as the wind
had, ever since, blown strongly from the north, and the sun was already
declining towards the horizon, we must now be, at least, an ordinary day’s
sail to the southward of the spot.
At this discovery, I own, my heart felt a joy which I could with
difficulty conceal. It seemed to me as if fortune was conspiring with
love, and, by thus delaying the moment of our separation, afforded me at
least a chance of happiness. Her look, too, and manner, when informed of
our mistake, rather encouraged than chilled this secret hope. In the first
moment of astonishment, her eyes opened upon me with a suddenness of
splendour, under which I felt my own wink, as if lightning had crossed
them. But she again, as suddenly, let their lids fall, and, after a quiver
of her lip, which showed the conflict of feeling within, crossed her arms
upon her bosom, and looked silently down upon the deck;—her whole
countenance sinking into an expression, sad, but resigned, as if she felt,
with me, that fate was on the side of wrong, and saw Love already stealing
between her soul and heaven.
I was not slow in availing myself of what I fancied to be the irresolution
of her mind. But, fearful of exciting alarm by any appeal to tenderer
feelings, I but addressed myself to her imagination, and to that love of
novelty, which is for ever fresh in the youthful breast. We were now
approaching that region of wonders, Thebes. “In a day or two,” said I, “we
shall see, towering above the waters, the colossal Avenue of Sphinxes, and
the bright Obelisks of the Sun. We shall visit the plain of Memnon, and
those mighty statues, that fling their shadows at sunrise over the Libyan
hills. We shall hear the image of the Son of the Morning answering to the
first touch of light. From thence, in a few hours, a breeze like this will
transport us to those sunny islands near the cataracts; there, to wander,
among the sacred palm‐groves of Philæ, or sit, at noon‐tide hour, in those
cool alcoves, which the waterfall of Syene shadows under its arch. Oh,
who, with such scenes of loveliness within reach, would turn coldly away
to the bleak desert, and leave this fair world, with all its enchantments,
shining behind them, unseen and unenjoyed? At least,”—I added, tenderly
taking her by the hand,—“at least, let a few more days be stolen from the
dreary fate to which thou hast devoted thyself, and then——”
She had heard but the last few words;—the rest had been lost upon her.
Startled by the tone of tenderness, into which, in spite of all my
resolves, my voice had softened, she looked for an instant in my face,
with passionate earnestness;—then, dropping upon her knees with her
clasped hands upraised, exclaimed—“Tempt me not, in the name of God I
implore thee, tempt me not to swerve from my sacred duty. Oh, take me
instantly to that desert mountain, and I will bless thee for ever.”
This appeal, I felt, _could not_ be resisted,—though my heart were to
break for it. Having silently expressed my assent to her prayer, by a
pressure of her hand as I raised her from the deck, I hastened, as we were
still in full career for the south, to give orders that our sail should be
instantly lowered, and not a moment lost in retracing our course.
In proceeding, however, to give these directions, it, for the first time,
occurred to me, that, as I had hired this yacht in the neighbourhood of
Memphis, where it was probable that the flight of the young fugitive would
be most vigilantly tracked, we should act imprudently in betraying to the
boatmen the place of her retreat;—and the present seemed the most
favourable opportunity of evading such a danger. Desiring, therefore, that
we should be landed at a small village on the shore, under pretence of
paying a visit to some shrine in the neighbourhood, I there dismissed our
barge, and was relieved from fear of further observation, by seeing it
again set sail, and resume its course fleetly up the current.
From the boats of all descriptions that lay idle beside the bank, I now
selected one, which, in every respect, suited my purpose,—being, in its
shape and accommodations, a miniature of our former vessel, but so small
and light as to be manageable by myself alone, and, with the advantage of
the current, requiring little more than a hand to steer it. This boat I
succeeded, without much difficulty, in purchasing, and, after a short
delay, we were again afloat down the current;—the sun just then sinking,
in conscious glory, over his own golden shrines in the Libyan waste.
The evening was more calm and lovely than any that yet had smiled upon our
voyage; and, as we left the bank, there came soothingly over our ears a
strain of sweet, rustic melody from the shore. It was the voice of a young
Nubian girl, whom we saw kneeling on the bank before an acacia, and
singing, while her companions stood round, the wild song of invocation,
which, in her country, they address to that enchanted tree:—
“Oh! Abyssinian tree,
We pray, we pray, to thee;
By the glow of thy golden fruit,
And the violet hue of thy flower,
And the greeting mute
Of thy bough’s salute
To the stranger who seeks thy bower.(6)
II.
“Oh! Abyssinian tree,
How the traveller blesses thee,
When the night no moon allows,
And the sun‐set hour is near,
And thou bend’st thy boughs
To kiss his brows,
Saying, ‘Come rest thee here.’
Oh! Abyssinian tree,
Thus bow thy head to me!”
In the burden of this song the companions of the young Nubian joined; and
we heard the words, “Oh! Abyssinian tree,” dying away on the breeze, long
after the whole group had been lost to our eyes.
Whether, in this new arrangement which I had made for our voyage, any
motive, besides those which I professed, had a share, I can scarcely, even
myself, so bewildered were my feelings, determine. But no sooner had the
current borne us away from all human dwellings, and we were alone on the
waters, with not a soul near, than I felt how closely such solitude draws
hearts together, and how much more we seemed to belong to each other, than
when there were eyes around.
The
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