第35章

Strange stories were afloat concerning this wise progenitor.He was said to have lived to an age far exceeding the allotted boundaries of mortal existence, and to have preserved to the last the appearance of middle life.He had died at length, it was supposed, of grief for the sudden death of a great-grandchild, the only creature he had ever appeared to love.The works of this philosopher, though rare, were extant, and found in the library of Glyndon's home.Their Platonic mysticism, their bold assertions, the high promises that might be detected through their figurative and typical phraseology, had early made a deep impression on the young imagination of Clarence Glyndon.His parents, not alive to the consequences of encouraging fancies which the very enlightenment of the age appeared to them sufficient to prevent or dispel, were fond, in the long winter nights, of conversing on the traditional history of this distinguished progenitor.And Clarence thrilled with a fearful pleasure when his mother playfully detected a striking likeness between the features of the young heir and the faded portrait of the alchemist that overhung their mantelpiece, and was the boast of their household and the admiration of their friends,--the child is, indeed, more often than we think for, "the father of the man."I have said that Glyndon was fond of pleasure.Facile, as genius ever must be, to cheerful impression, his careless artist-life, ere artist-life settles down to labour, had wandered from flower to flower.He had enjoyed, almost to the reaction of satiety, the gay revelries of Naples, when he fell in love with the face and voice of Viola Pisani.But his love, like his ambition, was vague and desultory.It did not satisfy his whole heart and fill up his whole nature; not from want of strong and noble passions, but because his mind was not yet matured and settled enough for their development.As there is one season for the blossom, another for the fruit; so it is not till the bloom of fancy begins to fade, that the heart ripens to the passions that the bloom precedes and foretells.Joyous alike at his lonely easel or amidst his boon companions, he had not yet known enough of sorrow to love deeply.For man must be disappointed with the lesser things of life before he can comprehend the full value of the greatest.It is the shallow sensualists of France, who, in their salon-language, call love "a folly,"--love, better understood, is wisdom.Besides, the world was too much with Clarence Glyndon.His ambition of art was associated with the applause and estimation of that miserable minority of the surface that we call the Public.

Like those who deceive, he was ever fearful of being himself the dupe.He distrusted the sweet innocence of Viola.He could not venture the hazard of seriously proposing marriage to an Italian actress; but the modest dignity of the girl, and something good and generous in his own nature, had hitherto made him shrink from any more worldly but less honourable designs.Thus the familiarity between them seemed rather that of kindness and regard than passion.He attended the theatre; he stole behind the scenes to converse with her; he filled his portfolio with countless sketches of a beauty that charmed him as an artist as well as lover; and day after day he floated on through a changing sea of doubt and irresolution, of affection and distrust.The last, indeed, constantly sustained against his better reason by the sober admonitions of Mervale, a matter-of-fact man!

The day following that eve on which this section of my story opens, Glyndon was riding alone by the shores of the Neapolitan sea, on the other side of the Cavern of Posilipo.It was past noon; the sun had lost its early fervour, and a cool breeze sprung up voluptuously from the sparkling sea.Bending over a fragment of stone near the roadside, he perceived the form of a man; and when he approached, he recognised Zanoni.

The Englishman saluted him courteously."Have you discovered some antique?" said he, with a smile; "they are common as pebbles on this road.""No," replied Zanoni; "it was but one of those antiques that have their date, indeed, from the beginning of the world, but which Nature eternally withers and renews." So saying, he showed Glyndon a small herb with a pale-blue flower, and then placed it carefully in his bosom.

"You are an herbalist?"

"I am."

"It is, I am told, a study full of interest.""To those who understand it, doubtless."

"Is the knowledge, then, so rare?"

"Rare! The deeper knowledge is perhaps rather, among the arts, LOST to the modern philosophy of commonplace and surface! Do you imagine there was no foundation for those traditions which come dimly down from remoter ages,--as shells now found on the mountain-tops inform us where the seas have been? What was the old Colchian magic, but the minute study of Nature in her lowliest works? What the fable of Medea, but a proof of the powers that may be extracted from the germ and leaf? The most gifted of all the Priestcrafts, the mysterious sisterhoods of Cuth, concerning whose incantations Learning vainly bewilders itself amidst the maze of legends, sought in the meanest herbs what, perhaps, the Babylonian Sages explored in vain amidst the loftiest stars.Tradition yet tells you that there existed a race ("Plut.Symp." l.5.c.7.) who could slay their enemies from afar, without weapon, without movement.The herb that ye tread on may have deadlier powers than your engineers can give to their mightiest instruments of war.Can you guess that to these Italian shores, to the old Circaean Promontory, came the Wise from the farthest East, to search for plants and simples which your Pharmacists of the Counter would fling from them as weeds?

The first herbalists--the master chemists of the world--were the tribe that the ancient reverence called by the name of Titans.