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Texts>Dweller on the Threshold- excerpt from Zanoni
CHAPTER III
MAN is the eye of things.- EURYPH De Vit Hum.
There is, therefore, a certain ecstatical or transporting power, which, if at any time it shall be excited or stirred up by ardent desire and most strong imagination, is able to conduct the spirit of the more outward, even to some absent and far-distant object.- VON HELMONT
The rooms that Mejnour occupied consisted of two chambers communicating with each other, and a third in which he slept. All these rooms were placed in the huge square tower that beetled over the dark and bush-grown precipice. The first chamber which Glyndon entered was empty. With a noiseless step he passed on, and opened the door that admitted him into the inner one. He drew back at the threshold, overpowered by a strong fragrance which filled the chamber; a kind of mist thickened the air, rather than obscured it, for this vapor was not dark, but resembled a snow cloud, moving slowly, and in heavy undulations, wave upon wave, regularly over the space. A mortal cold struck to the Englishman's heart, and his blood froze. He stood rooted to the spot; and, as his eyes strained involuntarily through the vapor, he fancied (for he could) not be sure that it was not the trick of his imagination) that he saw dim, specter-like, but gigantic forms floating through the mist; or was it not rather the mist itself that formed its vapors fantastically into those moving, impalpable, and bodiless apparitions?
A great painter of antiquity is said, in a picture of Hades, to have represented the monsters that glide through the ghostly River of the Dead, so artfully, that the eye perceived at once that the river itself was but a sceptre, and the bloodless things that tenanted it had no life, their forms blending with the dead waters till, as the eye continued to gaze, it ceased to discern them from the preternatural element they were supposed to inhabit.
Such were the moving outlines that coiled and floated through the mist; but before Glyndon had, even drawn breath in this atmosphere- for his life itself seemed arrested or changed into a kind of horrid trance- he felt his hand seized, and he was led from that room into the outer one. He heard the door close- his blood rushed again through his veins, and he saw Mejnour by his side. Strong convulsions then suddenly seized his whole frame - he fell to the ground insensible. When he recovered, he found himself in the open air, in a rude balcony of stone that jutted from the chamber; the stars shining serenely over the dark abyss below, and resting calmly upon the face of the mystic, who stood beside him with folded arms.
"Young man," said Mejnour, "judge by what you have just felt, how dangerous it is to seek knowledge until prepared to receive it. Another moment in the air of that chamber and you had been a corpse."
"Then of what nature was the knowledge that you, once mortal life myself, could safely have sought in that icy atmosphere, which it was death for me to breathe?- Mejnour," continued Glyndon, and his wild desire sharpened by the very danger he had passed, once more animated and nerved him; "I am prepared, at least for the first steps. I come to you as of old, the pupil to the Hierophant, and demand the initiation."
Mejnour passed his hand over the young man's heart- it beat loud, regularly, and boldly. He looked at him with something almost like admiration in his passionless and frigid features, and muttered, half to himself: "Surely, in so much courage the true disciple is found at last." Then, speaking aloud, he added: "Be it so; man's first initiation is in TRANCE. In dreams commences all human knowledge; in dreams hovers over measureless space the first faint bridge between spirit and spirit- this world and the worlds beyond! Look steadfastly on yonder star!"
Glyndon obeyed, and Mejnour retired into the chamber; from which there then slowly emerged a vapor, somewhat paler and of fainter odour than that which had nearly produced so fatal an effect on his frame. This, on the contrary, as it coiled around him, and then melted in thin spires into the air, breathed a refreshing and healthful fragrance. He still kept his eyes on the star, and the star seemed gradually to fix and command his gaze. A sort of languor next seized his frame, but without, as he thought, communicating itself to the mind; and as this crept over him, he felt his temples sprinkled with some volatile and fiery essence. At the same moment, a slight tremor shook his limbs, and thrilled through his veins. The languor increased: still he kept his gaze upon the star; and now its luminous circumference seemed to expand and dilate. It became gradually softer and clearer in its light; spreading wider and broader, it diffused all space- all space seemed swallowed up in it. And at last, in the midst of a silver shining atmosphere, he felt as if something burst within his brain- as if a strong chain were broken; and at that moment a sense of heavenly liberty, of unutterable delight, of freedom from the body, of birdlike lightness, seemed to float him into the space itself.
"Rouse thyself," said Mejnour, "thy ordeal has commenced! There are pretenders to the solemn science, who could have shown thee the absent; and prated to thee, in their charlatanic jargon, of the secret electricities and the magnetic fluid, of whose true properties they know but the germs and elements. I will lend thee the books of those glorious dupes, and thou will find, in the dark ages, how many erring steps have stumbled upon the threshold of the mighty learning, and fancied they had pierced the temple. Hermes and Albert, and Paracelsus, I knew ye all; but, noble as ye were, ye were fated to be deceived. Ye had not souls of faith, and daring fitted for the destinies at which ye aimed! Yet Paracelsus- modest Paracelsus- had an arrogance that soared higher than all our knowledge. Ho! Ho!- he thought he could make a race of men from chemistry; he arrogated to himself the Divine gift- the breath of life. (Paracelsus, De Nat. Rer. Lib. I) He would have made men, and, after all, confessed that they could be but pygmies! My art is to make men above mankind. But you are impatient of my digressions. Forgive me. All these men (they were great dreamers) as you desire to be) were intimate friends of mine. But they are dead and rotten. They talked of spirits- but they dreaded to be in other company than that of men. Like orators whom I have heard, when I stood by the Pnyx of Athens, blazing with words like comets in the assembly, and extinguishing their ardor like holiday rockets when they were in the field. Ho! Ho!. Demosthenes, my hero-coward, how nimble were thy heels at Chaeronea! And thou art impatient still! Boy, I could tell thee such truths of the Past, as would make thee the luminary of schools But thou lustest only for the shadows of the Future. Thou shalt have thy wish. But the mind must be first exercised and trained. Go to thy room, and sleep; fast austerely; read no books; meditate, imagine, dream, bewilder thyself, if thou wilt. Thought shapes out its own chaos at last. Before midnight, seek me again!"
