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It was rumored of him once that he was about to join the Roman Catholic communion; and
certainly the Roman ritual had always a great attraction for him. The daily sacrifice, more
awful really than all the sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him as much by its
superb rejection of the evidence of the senses as by the primitive simplicity of its elements
and the eternal pathos of the human tragedy that it sought to symbolize. He loved to kneel
down on the cold marble pavement, and with the priest, in his stiff flowered cope, slowly
and with white hands moving aside the veil of the tabernacle, and raising aloft the jewelled
lantern-shaped monstrance with that pallid wafer that at times, one would fain think,
is indeed the "panis caelestis," the bread of angels, or, robed in the garments of the
Passion of Christ, breaking the Host into the chalice, and smiting his breast for his
sins. The fuming censers, that the grave boys, in their lace and scarlet, tossed into the
air like great gilt flowers, had their subtle fascination for him. As he passed out, he
used to look with wonder at the black confessionals, and long to sit in the dim shadow of one of
them and listen to men and women whispering through the tarnished grating the true story
of their lives.
But he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual development by any formal
acceptance of creed or system, or of mistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that
is but suitable for the sojourn of a night, or for a few hours of a night in which there
are no stars and the moon is in travail. Mysticism, with its marvellous power of making common
things strange to us, and the subtle antinomianism that always seems to accompany it, moved him
for a season; and for a [69] season he inclined to the materialistic doctrines of the Darwinismus
movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in tracing the thoughts and passions of men
to some pearly cell in the brain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the
conception of the absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions, morbid
or healthy, normal or diseased. Yet, as has been said of him before, no theory of life
seemed to him to be of any importance compared with life itself. He felt keenly conscious
of how barren all intellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment.
He knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their mysteries to reveal.
And so he would now study perfumes, and the secrets of their manufacture, distilling heavily-scented
oils, and burning odorous gums from the East. He saw that there was no mood of the mind
that had not its counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their true
relations, wondering what there was in frankincense that made one mystical, and in ambergris that
stirred one's passions, and in violets that woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk
that troubled the brain, and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often
to elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several influences of
sweet-smelling roots, and scented pollen-laden flowers, of aromatic balms, and of dark and
fragrant woods, of spikenard that sickens, of hovenia that makes men mad, and of aloes
that are said to be able to expel melancholy from the soul.
At another time he devoted himself entirely to music, and in a long latticed room, with
a vermilion-and-gold ceiling and walls of olive- green lacquer, he used to give curious
concerts in which mad gypsies tore wild music from little zithers, or grave yellow-shawled
Tunisians plucked at the strained strings of monstrous lutes, while grinning negroes
beat monotonously upon copper drums, or turbaned Indians, crouching upon scarlet mats, blew
through long pipes of reed or brass, and charmed, or feigned to charm, great hooded snakes and
horrible horned adders. The harsh intervals and shrill discords of barbaric music stirred
him at times when Schubert's grace, and Chopin's beautiful sorrows, and the mighty harmonies
of Beethoven himself, fell unheeded on his ear. He collected together from all parts
of the world the strangest instruments that could be found, either in the tombs of dead
nations or among the few savage tribes that have survived contact with Western civilizations,
and loved to touch and try them. He had the mysterious juruparis of the Rio *** Indians,
that women are not allowed to look at, and that even youths may not see till they have
been subjected to fasting and scourging, and the earthen jars of the Peruvians that have
the shrill cries of birds, and flutes of human bones such as Alfonso de Ovalle heard in Chili,
and the sonorous green stones that are found near Cuzco and give forth a note of singular
sweetness. He had painted gourds filled with pebbles that rattled when they were shaken;
the long clarin of the Mexicans, into which the performer does not blow, but through which
he inhales the air; the harsh turé of the Amazon tribes, that is sounded by the sentinels
who sit all day long in trees, and that can be heard, it is said, at a distance of three
leagues; the teponaztli, that [70] has two vibrating tongues of wood, and is beaten with
sticks that are smeared with an elastic gum obtained from the milky juice of plants; the
yotl-bells of the Aztecs, that are hung in clusters like grapes; and a huge cylindrical
drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, like the one that Bernal Diaz saw when he
went with Cortes into the Mexican temple, and of whose doleful sound he has left us
so vivid a description. The fantastic character of these instruments fascinated him, and he
felt a curious delight in the thought that Art, like Nature, has her monsters, things
of *** shape and with hideous voices. Yet, after some time, he wearied of them,
and would sit in his box at the Opera, either alone or with Lord Henry, listening in rapt
pleasure to "Tannhäuser," and seeing in that great work of art a presentation of the tragedy
of his own soul.
On another occasion he took up the study of jewels, and appeared at a costume ball as
Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, in a dress covered with five hundred and sixty pearls.
He would often spend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the various
stones that he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that turns red by
lamplight, the cymophane with its wire-like line of silver, the pistachio-colored peridot,
rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes, carbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous four-rayed
stars, flame- red cinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with their
alternate layers of ruby and sapphire. He loved the red gold of the sunstone, and the
moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow of the milky opal. He procured from
Amsterdam three emeralds of extraordinary size and richness of color, and had a turquoise
de la vieille roche that was the envy of all the connoisseurs.
He discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels. In Alphonso's "Clericalis Disciplina"
a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real jacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander
he was said to have found snakes in the vale of Jordan "with collars of real emeralds growing
on their backs." There was a gem in the brain of the dragon, Philostratus told us, and "by
the exhibition of golden letters and a scarlet robe" the monster could be thrown into a magical
sleep, and slain. According to the great alchemist Pierre de Boniface, the diamond rendered a
man invisible, and the agate of India made him eloquent. The cornelian appeased anger,
and the hyacinth provoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine. The garnet cast
out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her color. The selenite waxed and
waned with the moon, and the meloceus, that discovers thieves, could be affected only
by the blood of kids. Leonardus Camillus had seen a white stone taken from the brain of
a newly-killed toad, that was a certain antidote against poison. The bezoar, that was found
in the heart of the Arabian deer, was a charm that could cure the plague. In the nests of
Arabian birds was the aspilates, that, according to Democritus, kept the wearer from any danger
by fire.
The King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand, as the ceremony
of his coronation. The gates of the palace of John the Priest were "made of sardius,
with the horn of the horned [71] snake inwrought, so that no man might bring poison within."
Over the gable were "two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles," so that the gold
might shine by day, and the carbuncles by night. In Lodge's strange romance "A Margarite
of America" it was stated that in the chamber of Margarite were seen "all the chaste ladies
of the world, inchased out of silver, looking through fair mirrours of chrysolites, carbuncles,
sapphires, and greene emeraults." Marco Polo had watched the inhabitants of Zipangu place
a rose-colored pearl in the mouth of the dead. A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl
that the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned for seven
moons over his loss. When the Huns lured the king into the great pit, he flung it away,—
Procopius tells the story,—nor was it ever found again, though the Emperor Anastasius
offered five hundred-weight of gold pieces for it. The King of Malabar had shown a Venetian
a rosary of one hundred and four pearls, one for every god that he worshipped.
When the Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander VI., visited Louis XII. of France, his horse
was loaded with gold leaves, according to Brantôme, and his cap had double rows of
rubies that threw out a great light. Charles of England had ridden in stirrups hung with
three hundred and twenty-one diamonds. Richard II. had a coat, valued at thirty thousand
marks, which was covered with balas rubies. Hall described Henry VIII., on his way to
the Tower previous to his coronation, as wearing "a jacket of raised gold, the placard embroidered
with diamonds and other rich stones, and a great bauderike about his neck of large balasses."
The favorites of James I. wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold filigrane. Edward II.
gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armor studded with jacinths, and a collar
of gold roses set with turquoise-stones, and a skull-cap parsemé with pearls. Henry II.
wore jewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove set with twelve rubies
and fifty-two great pearls. The ducal hat of Charles the Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy
of his race, was studded with sapphires and hung with pear- shaped pearls.
How exquisite life had once been! How gorgeous in its pomp and decoration! Even to read of
the luxury of the dead was wonderful.