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 [pg 102]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 [pg 103]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 [pg 104]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 [pg 105]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 [pg 106]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 [pg 107]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! [pg 108]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 [pg 109]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 [pg 110]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 to[pg 111]wards 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 wings5, 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 [pg 112]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 [pg 113]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, [pg 114]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 [pg 115]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.

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