Part 6

And yet anon to Flaxius, as he gazed on the form, it was as if he were looking through some wondrous arch into a Vanity fairy-land, and, advancing, saw at every step newer and stranger arches, richly and wildly adorned; through which, as in a marvellous vista, he beheld Infernos, Paradises, Fiddler’s Greens, Edens, Tom Tiddler’s grounds, convents. These he knew were lupanars, witch-burnings at which holy men sang hymns to God, martyrdoms for smoke, or the toss of a farthing, millions killed in battles for quarrels about things which had no existence, men and women tortured to death for not believing in nothing but a farce--ages following ages, all mad with lies against Nature. And busy in it all was the spirit Aschmodai or Asmodeus, whose business it is on earth to turn chance to mischief, to inspire all the manias and follies and delusions which make men fools in every way, and awaken in them vanity and error. And it was no wonder that, as he beheld him, something like a vision or a song swept through the soul of Flaxius. For this was He

‘Who grappled once with mighty Solomon, And cast him from his throne, and then in turn Was fettered heavily and made to work On the great temple of Jerusalem, To which he gave its last magnificence Beyond the monarch’s hope, yet jeered at all; Yea, at his chains as at his victory; And who, as he was borne in fetters thus, When all men deemed him sunk in deep despair, Burst out a-laughing. “Wherefore art thou glad?” Inquired a sage. He answered, “Lo, I laughed, Because I saw a conjurer in the street, Who promised unto all his dupes to tell Where buried treasure lay, yet never knew That such a treasure lay beneath his feet, Even as he spoke during his conjuring.” He too it was of old who tempted Job: Nay, there are Rabbis who maintain to-day ’Twas he who as the Serpent tempted Eve, Not out of evil but from mockery, Deeming the Tree and all a mighty joke, The farce primæval, out of which has grown A thousand-farcèd series which men call The History of Man--which were indeed A mighty jest to devils, as the frogs Were to the boys of old--and might be too Unto the baratrachians, were not The pebbles which are cast, so sharp and large, Yes, in a thousand times ten thousand forms, As mocking devil, or as god supreme, Asmodeus is known unto the world.’

‘Do not forget,’ said Asmodeus, ‘my last--albeit my weakest and most stagey and shallow incarnation--the Mephistopheles of Goethe. Yet he made me say one good thing, when I call myself, “_der Geist der stets verneint_.” Do you know what _verneint_ means?--for if you do, you know more than most folk.’

‘I opine,’ said Flaxius, ‘that it means “denies.”’

‘That, and something more,’ laughed Asmodeus. ‘_Verneinen_ meant, of yore, also to enchant, conjure, bewitch, or humbug. _C’est mon métier_, I cast a spell on every work of man, and make thereof in time a mockery--all mockery is denial in the end--denial is the bringing all to naught.’

‘Truly, from thy point of view thou hast seen rare jests in thy time, Aschmodai,’ said Flaxius. ‘A history of the world, written by thee, with comments, would be amusing reading--as would the review thereof in the _Presbyterian_--and I could find it in my heart to wish a plague on ye both, did I not know that there are some grains of truth between ye.’

‘Ay, I should catch it hot beyond a doubt,’ replied Asmodeus, ‘for the less intellect a man has the more he believes in it, and is therefore the more furious with those who mock the sublime wisdom in whose army he is a corporal. But what thinkest thou, Flaxius, of Thought?’

‘I read not long ago,’ replied the Sage, ‘an essay by a she-philosopher, who said that as we ever deeper go into the subtlest mystery of things, the more impossible it still becomes _not_ to perceive an action as of mind, working co-relative with natural law. The good girl left out of sight the small fact that thought and natural law may be one in Nirvana. It is a marvellous, apparent law that man is not allowed to solve the problem as yet; could he do so he would settle down into superstition or atheism--both unprogressive.’

‘Ay,’ quoth Asmodeus, ‘thought and natural law now carry one another alternately. See the boys in Florence when they play at _scaricabarile_. One boy, back to back with a rival, locks arms with him, and so they lift each other up and down.[3] ’Tis a game much resembling polemics, because in it both of the combatants--whether lifting or lifted--appear by turns ridiculous.’

‘Ah, well,’ replied Flaxius, ‘it is a vigorous game, and developes muscle, as does all struggling. Out of peaceful parthenogenesis and idleness, starvation, and the struggle for life, evolve energy and male strength, intellect, and will. But, Aschmodai, what thinkest thou more of Thought.’

‘Though I was one of the very first thoughts ever thought, if not the first itself, as many think,’ replied the Spirit, ‘the answer to that question is still unto me a mystery. Yet as we see that in life the crystal precedes the flower, or organic growth, monsters come before man, Egyptian pyramids before Greek and Gothic grace, barbarism before enlightenment, so do I deem that natural law preceded thought and involuntary action will, which was first, creatingness or a creator. With the first motion in matter came the first act, in the unorganic the organic was born;--but how this was it knew not, nor do we know, O my Flaxius, for truly there is an immense amount of things which it would be better for man to look after before he afflicts his small soul with the problem of the egg and the hen. But so long as man shall make a fool of himself, either as atheist, theist, or agnostic waiting to see how the fight will turn, so that he, the Mugwump of faith, may join the conqueror--even so long shall I, Aschmodai, live in glory and triumph. This trinity has been my very life, even as alchemy drew from the spirit of the three its _elixir vitæ_. And mighty have been the mockeries and many the jests which I have drawn from it, nor is the merriment as yet quite o’er--albeit I know that I am perishing--and passing with the Triad fast away. Oh, it was glorious to behold the Jew--the original inventor of man’s vilest vanity, Chauvinism or national pride, who first created religious oppression, and believed with Rabbi Jochanan that, “as the best of serpents deserves to have its head crushed, so the best of Gentiles ought to be killed”--’tis sweet, I say, to live to hear him raise the martyr’s cry, even as the Pope is now raising it--“the po-oo-r Pope”--as a prisoner in the Vatican! Then were the discoverers of the art of Martyrdom avenged by seeing the humblest among them made the gods of the oppressors; and so Men all rolled on into time, burning and torturing millions, especially old women, for the love of Him whose one great doctrine was mercy, charity, love, and sweetness. Then there were revolts of the oppressed, and peasants’ wars and gladiators’ revolts, and French Revolutions--alternate black and white--and in it all hell throve, and I laughed.’

‘But thou art dying.’

‘Well, my Flaxius, I have had a call. Thou rememberest the tale of the Three Warnings, or how Death promised a man that he should be signalled thrice ere called away. So he became lame and deaf and blind--these were the three.’

‘And when was thy first warning?’

‘When Christ preached unconditional altruism unto mankind--cosmopolitanism and equality. That lamed me.’

‘And the second?’

‘When a Hindu set up a religion on the word _Sikh_. It means, “seek!” What goes beyond faith, unbelief, or uncertainty is to inquire and search and seek for truth. So I was deafened by that awful cry.’

‘And the third?’

‘Aristotle, Friar Bacon, Francis Bacon, Darwin, Induction, Evolution. That will soon finish me. But the first blow was the worst, and I knew it. I bore up well, and made a gallant fight, but I am dying. _Vicisti, Galilæe!_’

As he spoke, the full golden Syrian moon shone o’er their heads in an unclouded sky, a gentle breeze was wantoning in the palms, yet from afar there came a jackal’s cry, and then the booming of a lion’s roar.

‘I shall pass away, my Flaxius, but I shall live again in some form; evil or good, my spirit cannot die. For there is a _good_ in me--a good of strength--and while matter casts a shadow, or contrasts and paradoxes exist, I shall be. All in a softened form I well previse. As the sun which set is followed by yonder moon, so shall I be softer, and yet as eternal. When God shall assume a higher form, I shall inherit the old throne and sceptre.’

‘Yes,’ replied Flaxius, ‘it well may be. Shelley and sundry other inspired lunatics had that idea; ’twas known to the Greeks, not without thy aid, O Aschmodai! For thou hast always thrown doubt and a fine frenzy and confusion over all great truths.’

‘_Rectè dixisti_, thou speakest truly,’ answered Aschmodai. ‘Had all been all at once, nothing had ever been.’ Son Flaxius, thou too art a moon, and thou art my son; but thou wouldst fain enjoy the paradox without the pain. As the old hard-griping peasant grows rich, unheeding of what misery he makes, while his cultured heir grows gentle and amiable, so wilt thou, and the world which has been enriched by the past, grow milder. _Le diable est mort--vive le diable!_

* * * * *

‘_Hæc fabula docet_,’ penned the sage, ‘that men, with all their wisdom, do not train their wondrous power of putting numbers together to make sums, or the faculty of deduction, by means of which stupendous results of prophecy may be attained. This might be increased to a degree which would seem to us miraculous. Edgar A. Poe had strange intuitions of what might be in his theory that he who observes all antecedents and possible combinations may surely foresee consequences.

‘And, as his name reminds me, Poe mentions that at Palæchosi, in Sparta, there is existent on a stone an inscription L.A.S.M., which is probably a part of GELASMA or Laughter, indicating a shrine to the merry god. Apropos of which M. Marcel Schwob remarks that laughter is destined to die away with advancing culture. “It is,” he declares, “a mere _tic_, a gross physical manifestation of the perception of disharmony in the world, which will vanish before complete scepticism, absolute science, general pity, or intolerance of suffering and respect for all things.” This idea should assuredly please Anglo-Americans, among whom, while a sense of humour increases, the laugh diminishes, till we generally find in their greatest jesters men who never laugh at all.

‘But M. Schwob errs in his _Essai de Paradoxe sur le Rire_, when he declares that this species of contraction of the zygomatic muscles is peculiar to man, it having been an indication of his feeble intelligence and the conviction of his own superiority. The Newfoundland dog laughs at times, and that with an expression which is completely human. I had heard of this several times before I witnessed it, and also heard that the expression, though droll, was so uncanny in a dog as to awaken something like awe, as I, indeed, experienced. These dogs have a keen sense of humour, entering with intelligence into the games and romps of boys. But the error of M. Schwob, as well as that of Matthew Arnold, is to believe that seriousness or mere gravity is essential to genius. The French writer is of opinion that laughter expresses only sneers, sarcasms, vanity, and short-witted scepticism. It means far more than this to greater minds. As the Schwobian view is diabolical, so is there, on the other hand, a divine humour, a sweet and sacred _gelasma_, which we only do not associate with sacred things and grandeur, simply because we know nothing about their true inner nature and are not at home there. There is a sweet laughter of innocence, purity and youth, in which a smile always irradiates the face, lighting it to higher beauty. Is not a smile divine? Is not all beauty as the smile of God in nature? And there is also a bitter smile--a sardonic laugh--the very life of Aschmodai, and the meaning of this chapter is that this laugh is vanishing in the world, and with it the brutal bray and idiotic ‘yawp’ and silly snigger of the vulgar mind; but that the merry musical laugh of the gentle heart, and the smile divine which thrills the heart of love like wine, will remain to man, after asinine seriousness shall have vanished for ever.

’Tis a delicate thing to draw the lines which divide the gold from the dross, and show how the _harsh_ humour will be neglected in Shakespeare and Rabelais, as theology is dropped from our admiration of Dante, but all of them will live in so far as the angelic smile beams in them.

Note that had this world been without variableness or the shadow of turning, darkness and light, or night and day, rise and fall, it had not been at all; and that, while there shall be change and contrast and evolution, or nature itself, there will be humour, which is the soul and life of laughter, and though it has been easily checked in this priggish _fin de siècle_ (when dolts have well-nigh got the upper hand, and dismal dulness shadows all the land) yet with the great coming Renaissance of Nature, which is just beginning to show under the aid of science, as the morning redness comes with the rising sun, men will laugh merrily once more, not in bitterness, but in love.

[2] _Epistolæ delict, sive de Magia_, lib. i. cap. 24.

[3] _Scaricabarili_, ‘unloading barrels.’ ‘Ludus est puerilis quil’a duobus tantum peragitur. Alter enim alteri terga vertunt, brachiisque mutuo implicatis, se alter alterum vicissim humo tollunt. Unde significare volentes duos alterum in alterum alicujus peccati culpam refundere dicimus: _E fanno a scaricabarili_. Inter hoc autem et illud de quo supra: _Fare a scaricalasino_, ea est differentia quod hoc significat alterum in alterum culpam suam rejicere; illud verò simpliciter alicujus criminis culpam a se dimovere.’--_Angeli Monosinii Floris Italicæ Linguæ Libri Novem_, A.D. 1604.

FLAXIUS IN FLORENCE

OR, THE GOBLIN OF THE TOWER DELLA TRINITÀ, BY THE PORTA SAN NICCOLO.

‘They do not speak as mortals speak, Nor sing as others sing: Their words are gleams of starry light, Their songs the glow of sunset bright: Or meteors on the wing.’

THE following story belongs to this book ‘in good faith of all sorts,’ be it salted, pickled or sugared; since it was originally the first ever recorded of the great and good Flaxius. But as it was of Florence, Florentiny, so, following the saying, ‘first come, first served,’ and being engaged on _The Legends of Florence_[4]--in which book the lovers of romance and the occult will find many a rare treat, showing how all Florence is a charmingly haunted city--therefore did I first introduce the sage in it to the world.

And in the introduction I said that the legend is of great antiquity, since there is a hint of it in an ancient Hebrew work by Rabbi ben Mozel-toff, or the learned Rev Gedauler Chamar, besides being found in poetic form in my own great work _The Music Lesson of Confucius_; also in a marvellous cabalistic manuscript which I bought in sight of Santa Maria Novella, which describes how the _Bathkol_, or Daughter of the Voice, may be caused to be heard within our soul, and teach us all kinds of magic.

Money is the root of all evil, and Flaxius, who went to the root of everything, of course wanted it. How he often got it is set forth as follows:

FLAXIUS AND THE ROSE

Midnight was ringing from the cloister of San Miniato in Florence on the hill above, and Flaxius sat by the Arno down below, on the bank, by the square grey tower of other days, known as the Niccolò, or _Torre della Trinità_ because there are in it three arches....

It was midnight in mid-winter and a full moon poured forth all its yellow light over Florence as if it would fain preserve it in oil--or amber--and over the olive groves till they looked in the distance like moss-agates in topaz.

‘Or I,’ quoth Flaxius, to carry out the simile, ‘like a fly in hock!’

Yes, it was a clear, cold Tuscan night, and as the last peal of bells went out into Eternity and faded in the Irrevocable, thousands of spirits of the departed began to appear, thronging like fire-flies in June, through the streets, visiting their ancient haunts and homes, shops and shades, greeting, gossiping or arranging their affairs just as the peasants do on Friday in the great place of the Signoria--as they have done for centuries.

Flaxius looked at the rolling river which went rushing by at his feet, and said:

‘_Arno mio!_ you are in a tremendous hurry to get to the sea, and all the more because you have just had an _accessit_, a remittance, of rain from the mountain-banks. _Buon pro vi faccia_, much good may it do you! So every mortal fain would rise and run. So every shopman hurries to become a great merchant when he gets some money, and every farmer a signore, and every signore a great lord, and every great lord a ruler at court and over all the land--_prorsum et sursum_. And when they _get there_, or when you get to the sea, then ye are all swallowed up in greater lives, interests and actions; and so the rivers run for ever on--longer yet ever seeming less unto yourselves. And so--_ad altiora tendunt omnes sic_--all to the Higher ever doth aspire, the flower-edged torrent and the Florentine.’....

When he suddenly heard above his head a spirit-voice, clear, sweet and strange, singing not in words, or on the ear, but by tones of unearthly music, of which languages there are many among the unearthlies, each unto its ‘chaos,’ all being wordless songs or airs suggesting speech and yet conveying ideas more rapidly. It was the Goblin of the Tower to him of the tower next beyond on the further hill, and he said:

‘How many ghosts there are abroad to-night!’

‘Yes; it is a fine night for ghosting. Moonlight is mid-summer for them, poor souls! But I say, brother, who is yonder _Frate_, the dark monk-spectre, who always haunts your tower, lingering here and there about it? What is the spell upon that _spirito_?’

‘He is one to be pitied,’ replied the goblin of the _Trinità_. ‘He was a good fellow while he lived, but a little too fond of money. He was afflicted with what the doctors called in Rome, when I was young, the _amor sceleratus_, or _sal aeratus habendi_. So it came to pass that he died, leaving a treasure, _mille aureos_, or a thousand gold crowns, buried in my tower, unknown to any one, and for that he must walk the earth until some one living wins the money. For money is as life to all men, and he who destroys it is, in a way, a murderer.’

Flaxius pricked up his ears. He understood all that the goblins said, but they had no idea that the man in a scholar’s robe who sat below knew Goblinese.

‘What must a mortal do to get the gold?’ inquired the second goblin.

‘Truly he must do what is well-nigh impossible,’ replied the Elf of the Tower, ‘for he must, without the aid of magic--note that--bring to me here, in this month of January, a fresh, full-blown rose.’

The voices were silent; a cloud passed over the face of the moon; the river rushed and roared on; Flaxius sat in a Vandyke-brown study, thinking how he could obtain peace and repose for the ghostly monk, and also get the _solatium_ or reward.

‘Here is,’ he thought, ‘_aliquid laborare_, something to be worked out. Now is the time, and here is the chance, _ingirlandisi di lauro_, to win the laurel wreath. A rose in January! What a pity it is not four hundred years later, when people will have green-houses, and blue-nosed vagabonds will be selling red roses all the winter long in the Tornabuoni! Faith! it is sometimes inconvenient to be behind, or in advance of the age!

‘_Eureka!_ I have it!’ he at last exclaimed, ‘have it by the neck and tail! I will _spogliar la tesoria_, rob the treasury and spoil the Egyptian. _Si non in errore versatus sum_, unless I am stupendously mistaken, monk, thy weird will soon be dreed, thy penance prophesied will soon be o’er!’

Saying this he went into the city. And there the next day, going to a fair lady of his acquaintance who excelled all in Italy in ingenious needlework, he had made of silk a rose; and so deftly was it done, that had it been put on a bush you would have sworn that a nightingale would have sung to it, or a bee sought to ravish it.

Then going to a Venetian perfumer’s in the Via Vacchereccia close by the Signoria, the wise Flaxius had his flower well scented with best attar of roses from Constantinople, and when midnight struck he was at the tower once more, where he called to the goblin.

‘_Che vuoi!_ What dost thou seek?’ cried the elf.

‘The treasure of the monk.’

‘_Bene!_ Give me a rose?’

‘_Ecco!_ There it is!’ replied Flaxius extending it.

‘_Non facit_--it won’t do,’ answered the goblin in Latin, thinking Flaxius to be a monk. ‘It is a sham rose of silk, artificially coloured--_murice tincta est_.’

‘Smell it,’ replied Flaxius calmly.

‘The _smell_ is all right and sweet, I admit,’ answered the guardian of the gold. ‘The perfume is delicious’--here he sniffed at it seriously, being like all of his kind enraptured with perfume--‘and that much of it is, I grant, the real thing.’

‘Then tell me truly,’ replied Flaxius, ‘and swear by thy great ancestress Diana, the mother of the Spirits of the Night, and her sister-daughter Herodias, and her Nine Cats, by the Moon and her eternal shadow Endamone, and the word which Bergoia whispered into the ear of the Ox, and the Nails of Nortia, and the Lamia whom thou lovest!--what is it makes a man? Is it his soul or his body?’

‘Man of mystery and master of the old Etruscan hidden lore!’ replied the awe-struck goblin, ‘it is his soul.’

‘And is not the perfume of the rose its _soul_, that which breathes its life, in which it speaks to fairies or to men? Is not the voice in song or sweetened words the perfume of the spirit ever true? Is not----’

‘I give it up,’ replied the goblin. ‘The priest may turn in now for a long, long nap. Here, take his gold, and may you have a merry time with it; there is a great deal of good drinking in a thousand crowns, to say nothing of the eating! Do you ever play at dice, old man, _ludere latrunculis_? When you do, I promise you three sixes. By the way, I’ll just keep this rose to remember you by. _Addio, a rivederla!_ Good-bye and _au revoir_!’

So the bedesman slept among his ashes cold, and Flaxius, who was a stout carl for the nonce, with a broad back and a great beard, returned, bearing a mighty sack of ancient gold, which stood him in good stead for many a day. And the goblin is still there in the tower.

* * * * *

‘_Hæc fabula docet_,’ wrote Flaxius, as he revised the proof with a red pencil for which he had paid a penny at Ancora’s ancient stationery shop in the Via Condotti, ‘this tale teaches that in this life there is naught which hath not its ideal side or idol inner-soul, which may raise us to high reflection or great profit if we will but seek it.

‘The lower the man the less he sees, and the lower he looks, but it is all to his loss.

‘Now every chapter in this book, or in that of thy life, O my son, or daughter! may seem to thee to be only a rose of silk, yet do not stop at that, but try to find therein its perfume.

‘For thou art thyself, I doubt not, such a rose, even if thy threads, as in most of us, be somewhat worn or torn or faded; and yet thou _hast_ a soul far better than many deem who see thee only from a distance. And this my book is written for the perfume, not the silk of my reader. And there is no person who is better in any way than what the world deems him or her to be who will not find in it comfort.’