Part 17 (1/2)
WORDSWORTH.
These lines have occurred to me again and again, as I looked on the face of her to whom I have applied them. And, remembering as I do its radiance and glory in her happier moments, I can scarcely persuade myself to notice the faults and heats of temper which at times dashed away all its l.u.s.tre and gladness. Unrestrained and fervid, she gave way to the irritation of grief of the moment with a violence that would have terrified any one who beheld her at such times. But it rarely happened that the scene had its witness even in her father, for she fled to the loneliest spot she could find to indulge these emotions; and perhaps even the agony they occasioned--an agony convulsing the heart and whole of her impa.s.sioned frame--took a sort of luxury from the solitary and unchecked nature of its indulgence.
Volktman continued his pursuits with an ardour that increased--as do all species of monomania--with increasing years; and in the accidental truth of some of his predictions, he forgot the erroneous result of the rest.
He corresponded at times with the Englishman, who, after a short sojourn in England, had returned to the Continent, and was now making a prolonged tour through its northern capitals.
Very different, indeed, from the astrologer's occupations were those of the wanderer; and time, dissipation, and a maturer intellect had cured the latter of his boyish tendency to studies so idle and so vain. Yet he always looked back with an undefined and unconquered interest to the period of his acquaintance with the astrologer; to their long and thrilling watches in the night season; to the contagious fervour of faith breathing from the visionary; his dark and restless excursions into that remote science a.s.sociated with the legends of eldest time, and of
”The crew, who, under names of old renown, Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train, With monstrous shapes and sorceries, abused Fanatic Egypt and her priests.”
One night, four years after the last scene we have described in the astrologer's house, Volktman was sitting alone in his favourite room.
Before him was a calculation on which the ink was scarcely dry. His face leant on his breast, and he seemed buried in thought. His health had been of late gradually declining; and it might be seen upon his worn brow and attenuated frame, that death was already preparing to withdraw the visionary from a world whose substantial enjoyments he had so sparingly tasted.
Lucilla had been banished from his chamber during the day. She now knew that his occupation was over, and entered the room with his evening repast; that frugal meal, common with the Italians--the polenta (made of Indian corn), the bread and the fruits, which after the fas.h.i.+on of students he devoured unconsciously, and would not have remembered one hour after whether or not it had been tasted!
”Sit thee down, child,” said he to Lucilla, kindly;--”sit thee down.”
Lucilla obeyed, and took her seat upon the very stool on which she had been seated the last night on which the Englishman had seen her.
”I have been thinking,” said Volktman, as he placed his hand on his daughter's head, ”that I shall soon leave thee; and I should like to see thee protected by another before my own departure.”
”Ah, father,” said Lucilla, as the tears rushed to her eyes, ”do not talk thus! indeed, indeed, you must not indulge in this perpetual gloom and seclusion of life. You promised to take me with you, some day this week, to the Vatican. Do let it be to-morrow; the weather has been so fine lately; and who knows how long it may last?”
”True,” said Volktman; ”and to-morrow will not, I think, be unfavourable to our stirring abroad, for the moon will be of the same age as at my birth--an accident that thou wilt note, my child, to be especially auspicious towards any enterprise.”
The poor astrologer so rarely stirred from his home, that he did well to consider a walk of a mile or two in the light of an enterprise.--”I have wished,” continued he, after a pause, ”that I might see our English friend once more--that is, ere long. For, to tell thee the truth, Lucilla, certain events happening unto him do, strangely enough, occur about the same time as that in which events, equally boding, will befall thee. This coincidence it was which contributed to make me a.s.sume so warm an interest in the lot of a stranger. I would I might see him soon.”
Lucilla's beautiful breast heaved, and her face was covered with blushes: these were symptoms of a disorder that never occurred to the recluse.
”Thou rememberest the foreigner?” asked Volktman, after a pause.
”Yes,” said Lucilla, half inaudibly.
”I have not heard from him of late: I will make question concerning him ere the c.o.c.k crow.”
”Nay my father!” said Lucilla, quickly: ”not tonight: you want rest, your eyes are heavy.”
”Girl,” said the mystic, ”the soul sleepeth not, nor wanteth sleep: even as the stars, to which (as the Arabian saith) there is also a soul, wherewith an intent pa.s.sion of our own doth make a union--so that we, by an unslumbering diligence, do const.i.tute ourselves a part of the heaven itself!--even, I say, as the stars may vanish from the human eye, nor be seen in the common day--though all the while their course is stopped not, nor their voices dumb--even so doth the soul of man retire, as it were, into a seeming sleep and torpor, yet it worketh all the same--and perhaps with a less impeded power, in that it is more free from common obstruction and trivial hindrance. And if I purpose to confer this night with the 'Intelligence' that ruleth earth and earth's beings, concerning this stranger, it will not be by the vigil and the scheme, but by the very sleep which thou imaginest, in thy mental darkness, would deprive me of the resources of my art.”
”Can you really, then, my father,” said Lucilla, in a tone half anxious, half timid,--”can you really, at will, conjure up in your dreams the persons you wish to see; or draw, from sleep, any oracle concerning their present state?”
”Of a surety,” answered the astrologer; ”it is one of the great--though not perchance the most gifted--of our endowments.”
”Can you teach me the method?” asked Lucilla, gravely.
”All that relates to the art I can,” rejoined the mystic: ”but the chief and main power rests with thyself. For know, my daughter, that one who seeks the wisdom that is above the earth must cultivate and excite, with long labour and deep thought, his least earthly faculty.”
Here the visionary, observing that the countenance of Lucilla was stamped with a fixed attention, which she did not often bestow upon his metaphysical exordiums; paused for a moment; and then pursued the theme with the tone of one desirous of making himself at once as clear and impressive as the nature of an abstruse science would allow.