Part 4 (1/2)

and you loved to take in earnest vague Hanoverian threats of possible arrest for your baby-treason, and, for some time, I know, you never pa.s.sed a policeman without a dignified tremor, as of one who might at any moment find a lodging in the Tower.

But the most serious of all N.'s 'mad' enthusiasms was that of which the Reader has already received some hint, in the few paragraphs of his own confessions above, that which 'had almost sent him to the Himalayas.'

It belongs to natures like his always through life to cherish a half belief in their old fairy tales, and a longing, however late in the day, to prove them true at last. To many such the revelations with which Madame Blavatsky, as with some mystic trumpet, startled the Western world some years ago, must have come with most pa.s.sionate appeal; and to Narcissus they came like a love arisen from the dead. Long before, he had 'supped full' of all the necromantic excitements that poet or romancer could give. Guy Mannering had introduced him to Lilly; Lytton and Hawthorne had sent him searching in many a musty folio for Elixir Vitas and the Stone. Like Scythrop, in 'Nightmare Abbey,' he had for a long period slept with horrid mysteries beneath his pillow. But suddenly his interest had faded: these phantoms fled before a rationalistic c.o.c.k-crow, and Eugenius Philalethes and Robert Fludd went with Mejnour and Zanoni into a twilight forgetfulness. There was no hand to show the hidden way to the land that might be, and there were hands beckoning and voices calling him along the highway to the land that is. So, dream-light pa.s.sing, he must, perforce, reconcile himself to daylight, with its dusty beam and its narrow horizons.

Judge, then, with what a leaping heart he chanced on some newspaper gossip concerning the sibyl, for it was so that he first stumbled across her mission. Ironical, indeed, that the so impossible 'key' to the mystery should come by the hand of 'our own correspondent'; but so it was, and that paragraph sold no small quant.i.ty of 'occult' literature for the next twelve months. Mr. Sinnett, doorkeeper in the house of Blavatsky, who, as a precaution against the vision of Bluebeards that the word Oriental is apt to conjure up in Western minds, is always dressed in the latest mode, and, so to say, offers his cigar-case along with some horrid mystery--it was to his prospectus of the new gospel, his really delightful pages, that Narcissus first applied. Then he entered within the gloomier Egyptian portals of the _Isis_ itself, and from thence--well, in brief, he went in for a course of Redway, and little that figured in that gentleman's thrilling announcements was long in reaching his hands.

At last a day came when his eye fell upon a notice, couched in suitably mysterious terms, to the effect that really earnest seekers after divine truth might, after necessary probation, etc., join a brotherhood of such--which, it was darkly hinted, could give more than it dared promise. Up to this point Narcissus had been indecisive. He was, remember, quite in earnest, and to actually accept this new evangel meant to him--well, as he said, nothing less in the end than the Himalayas. Pending his decision, however, he had gradually developed a certain austerity, and experimented in vegetarianism; and though he was, oddly enough, free of amorous bond that might have held him to earth, yet he had grown to love it rather rootedly since the earlier days when he was a 'seeker.' Moreover, though he read much of 'The Path,' no actual Mejnour had yet been revealed to set his feet therein. But with this paragraph all indecision soon came to an end. He felt there a clear call, to neglect which would be to have seen the light and not to have followed it, ever for him the most tragic error to be made in life. His natural predisposition towards it was too great for him to do other than trust this new revelation; and now he must gird himself for 'the sacrifice which truth always demands.'

But, sacrifice! of what and for what? An undefined social warmth he was beginning to feel in the world, some meretricious ambition, and a great friends.h.i.+p--to which in the long run would he not be all the truer by the great new power he was to win? If hand might no longer spring to hand, and friends.h.i.+p vie in little daily acts of brotherhood, might he not, afar on his mountain-top, keep loving watch with clearer eyes upon the dear life he had left behind, and be its vigilant fate? Surely! and there was nothing worth in life that would not gain by such a devotion.

All life's good was of the spirit, and to give that a clearer s.h.i.+ning, even in one soul, must help the rest. For if its light, s.h.i.+ning, as now, through the grimy horn-lantern of the body, in narrow lanes and along the miasmatic flats of the world, even so helped men, how much more must it, rising above that earthly fume, in a hidden corner no longer, but in the open heaven, a star above the city. Sacrifice! yes, it was just such a tug as a man in the dark warmth of morning sleep feels it to leave the pillow. The mountain-tops of morning gleam cold and bare: but O! when, staff in hand, he is out amid the dew, the larks rising like fountains above him, the gorse bright as a golden fleece on the hill-side, and all the world a s.h.i.+ning singing vision, what thought of the lost warmth then? What warmth were not well lost for this keen exhilarated sense in every nerve, in limb, in eye, in brain? What potion has sleep like this crystalline air it almost takes one's breath to drink, of such a maddening chast.i.ty is its grot-cool sparkle? What intoxication can she give us for this larger better rapture? So did Narcissus, an old Son of the Morning, figure to himself the struggle, and p.r.o.nounce 'the world well lost.'

But I feel as I write how little I can give the Reader of all the 'splendid purpose in his eyes' as he made this resolve. Perhaps I am the less able to do so as--let me confess--I also shared his dream. One could hardly come near him without, in some measure, doing that at all times; though with me it could only be a dream, for I was not free. I had Scriptural example to plead 'Therefore I cannot come,' though in any case I fear I should have held back, for I had no such creative instinct for realisation as Narcissus, and have, I fear, dreamed many a dream I had not the courage even to think of clothing in flesh and blood; like, may I say, the many who are poets for all save song--poets in chrysalis, all those who dream of what some do, and make the audience of those great articulate ones. But there were one or two trifling doubts to set at rest before final decision. The Reader has greatly misconceived Narcissus if he has deemed him one of those simple souls whom any quack can gull, and the good faith of this mysterious fraternity was a difficult point to settle. A tentative application through the address given, an appropriate _nom de mystere_, had introduced the ugly detail of preliminary expenses. Divine truth has to pay its postage, its rent, its taxes, and so on; and the 'guru' feeds not on air--although, of course, being a 'guru,' he comes as near it as the flesh will allow: therefore, and surely, Reader, a guinea per annum is, after all, reasonable enough. Suspect as much as one will, but how gainsay? Also, before the applicant could be admitted to noviciate even, his horoscope must be cast, and--well, the poor astrologer also needed bread and--no!

not b.u.t.ter--five s.h.i.+llings for all his calculations, circles, and significations--well, that again was only reasonable. H'm, ye-e-s, but it was dubious; and, mad as we were, I don't think we ever got outside that dubiety, but made up our minds, like other converts, to gulp the primary postulate, and pay the twenty-six s.h.i.+llings. From the first, however, Narcissus had never actually entrusted all his spiritual venture in this particular craft: he saw the truth independent of them, not they alone held her for him, though she might hold them, and they might be that one of the many avenues for which he had waited to lead him nearer to her heart. That was all. His belief in the new illumination neither stood nor fell with them, though his ardour for it culminated in the experience. One must take the most doubtful experiment seriously if we are in earnest for results.

So next came the sacred name of 'the Order,' which, Reader, I cannot tell thee, as I have never known it, Narcissus being bound by horrid oaths to whisper it to no man, and to burn at midnight the paper which gave it to his eyes. From this time, also, we could exchange no deep confidences of the kind at all, for the various MSS. by means of which he was to begin his excursions into Urania, and which his 'guru' sent from time to time--at first, it must be admitted, with a diligent frequency--were secret too. So several months went by, and my knowledge of his 'chela-s.h.i.+p' was confined to what I could notice, and such trifling harmless gossip as 'Heard from ”guru” this morning,' 'Copying an old MS. last night,' and so on. What I could notice was truly, as Lamb would say, 'great mastery,' for lo! Narcissus, whose eyes had never missed a maiden since he could walk, and lay in wait to wrest his tribute of glance and blush from every one that pa.s.sed, lo! he had changed all that, and Saint Anthony in an old master looks not more resolutely 'the other way' than he, his very thoughts crus.h.i.+ng his flesh with invisible pincers. No more softly-scented missives lie upon his desk a-mornings; and, instead of blowing out the candle to dream of Daffodilia, he opens his eyes in the dark to defy--the Dweller on the Threshold, if haply he should indeed already confront him.

One thrilling piece of news in regard to the latter he was unable to conceal. He read it out to me one flushed morning:--

'_I--have--seen--him--and--am--his--master_,'

wrote the 'guru,' in answer to his neophyte's half fearful question.

Fitly underlined and sufficiently s.p.a.ced, it was a statement calculated to awe, if only by its mendacity. I wonder if that chapter of Bulwer's would impress one now as it used to do then. It were better, perhaps, not to try.

The next news of these mysteries was the conclusion of them. When so darkly esoteric a body begins to issue an extremely catchpenny 'organ,'

with advertis.e.m.e.nts of theosophic 'developers,' magic mirrors, and mesmeric discs, and also advertises large copies of the dread symbol of the Order, 'suitable for framing,' at five s.h.i.+llings plain and seven and sixpence coloured, it is, of course, impossible to take it seriously, except in view of a police-court process, and one is evidently in the hands of very poor bunglers indeed. Such was the new departure in propaganda inst.i.tuted by a little magazine, mean in appearance, as the mouthpieces of all despised 'isms' seem to be, with the first number of which, need one say, ended Narcissus' ascent of 'The Path.' I don't think he was deeply sad at being disillusionised. Unconsciously a broader philosophy had slowly been undermining his position, and all was ready for the fall. It cost no such struggle to return to the world as it had taken to leave it, for the poet had overgrown the philosopher, and the open mystery of the common day was already exercising an appeal beyond that of any melodramatic 'arcana.' Of course the period left its mark upon him, but it is most conspicuous upon his bookshelves.

CHAPTER VII

THE CHILDREN OF APOLLO

'He is a _true_ poet,' or 'He is a _genuine_ artist,' are phrases which irritate one day after day in modern criticism. One had thought that 'poet' and 'artist' were enough; but there must be a need, we regretfully suppose, for these re-enforcing qualifications; and there can be but the one, that the false in each kind do so exceedingly abound, that none can be taken as genuine without such special certificate. The widespread confusion with the poet of the rhetorician and sentimentalist in verse, and again of the mere rhymer without even rhetoric, not to refer to finer differentiation of error, is also a fruitful source of bewilderment. The misuse of the word has parallels: for instance, the spurious generic use of the word 'man' for 'male,'

the subst.i.tution of 'artist' for 'painter.' But here we have only to deal with that one particular abuse. Some rules how to know a poet may conceivably be of interest, though of no greater value.

Of course, the one first and last test is his work, but 'how to know poetry' is another matter, which I do not propose treating of here; my intention rather being to dot down a few personal characteristics--not so much his 'works' as his 'ways.' I write as they come into my head; and to any Reader about to cry out against digression, let me add: I write thinking of Narcissus; for know all men, friend or Philistine, if you have yet to learn it, my Narcissus is a poet!

First, as to the great question of 'garmenting.' The superst.i.tion that the hat and the cloak 'does it' has gone out in mockery, but only that the other superst.i.tion might reign in its stead--that the hat and cloak cannot do it. Because one great poet dispensed with 'pontificals,' and yet brought the fire from heaven, henceforward 'pontificals' are humbug, and the wearer thereof but charlatan, despite--'the master yonder in the isle.' Pegasus must pack in favour of a British hunter, and even the poet at last wear the smug regimentals of mediocrity and mammon. Ye younger choir especially have a care, for, though you sing with the tongues of men and angels, and wear not a silk hat, it shall avail you nothing. Neither Time, which is Mudie, nor Eternity, which is Fame, will know you, and your verses remain till doom in an ironical _editio princeps_, which not even the foolish bookman shall rescue from the threepenny box. It is very unlikely that you will escape as did Narcissus, for though, indeed,

'He swept a fine majestic sweep Of toga Tennysonian, Wore strange soft hat, that such as you Would tremble to be known in,'

nevertheless, he somehow won happier fates, on which, perhaps, it would be unbecoming in so close a friend to dilate.

The 'true' poet is, first of all, a gentleman, usually modest, never arrogant, and only a.s.sertive when pushed. He does not by instinct take himself seriously, as the 'poet-ape' doth, though if he meets with recognition it becomes, of course, his duty to acknowledge his faculty, and make good Scriptural use of it.

He is probably least confident, however, when praised; and never, except in rare moments, especially of eclipse, has he a strong faith in the truth that is in him. Therefore crush him, saith the Philistine, as we crush the vine; strike him, as one strikes the lyre. When young, he imagines the world to be filled with one ambition; later on, he finds that so indeed it is--but the name thereof is not Poesy. Strange! sighs he. And if, when he is seventeen, he writes a fluent song, and his fellow-clerk admire it, why, it is nothing; surely the ledger-man hath such sc.r.a.ps in his poke, or at least can roll off better. 'True bards believe all able to achieve what they achieve,' said Naddo. But lo! that ambition is a word that begins with pounds and ends with pence--like life, quoth the ledger-man, who, after all, had but card-scores, a tailor's account, and the bill for his wife's confinement in his pocket.

All through his life he loves his last-written most, and no honey of Hybla is so sweet as a new rhyme. Let no maid hope to rival it with her lips--she but interrupts: for the travail of a poet is even as that of his wife--after the pain comes that dear joy of a new thing born into the world, which doting sipping dream beware to break. Fifty repet.i.tions of the new sweetness, fifty deliberate rollings of it under the tongue, is, I understand, the minimum duration of such, before the pa.s.sion is worked off, and the dream-child really breathing free of its dream-parent. I have occasionally come upon Narcissus about the twenty-fifth, I suppose, and wondered at my glum reception. 'Poetry gone sour,' he once gave as the reason. Try it not, Reader, if, indeed, in thy colony of beavers a poet really dwells.