Section 3

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What of a love like that of Christ — the love of object, country, race — that drives its slaves to torment and to death? A calm re- tort. It is the same — passion seven times hotter than before — passion that outvies all fires that man can build — passion that bids poets write^their sonnets in the blood of their beloved — passion that lights the dungeon with the eyes of those adored — passion that captures countries and subdues their tribes — passion that lays claim to the unborn, and dominates the future by its grasp upon today. Passion that hurls scorn like hard rocks at the Gentile, and rains tears upon the Jew.
Whate'er you love^ be it country, object, angel or a god, your tongue of irony is loosed, and bitter words drop from the place where honeyed measures fell.
The Master's poise lies not \n feeling but in knowing — He feels as a god feels — ^to the dregs of his heart — He knows as a god knows — to the limit of intellect — And look- ing Necessity full in the eyes, he cuts the flower chain of Cupid, and liberates Hate.
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WOMAN.
As it required but one rib of Adam to make Eve, and as she is completely equipped with this portion of a skeleton herself, while she is ever a part of him, she is essen- tially not all of him; in fact she has a potent individuality that never can be his. The myth of the Bible is pregnant with meaning, and might be interpreted in its completest sense by a practical Hermetic; but in this essay we propose neither to in- spect its subtleties, nor lay bare the shining tables of the Law. We cover the face of Moses and come down to earth's level to be- hold humanity as it sees itself.
In the crowd we find woman ; she is every- where as common as man. She not only looks out through the lattice of the casement, but she traverses the street and barters in the
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market. The bolts slip back as if moved by unseen hands when her knock is heard on the door. Unveiled she sits amid men in the counsel chamber and the church. She points her own telescope at the sky and searches for stars, as her timid sister hunts for flowers, and dares to look man straight in the eyes without dropping her fringed lids. She is possessed of a sort of bold modesty, the like of which was never seen on earth before. There is defiance in the straight carriage of her form and the poise of her head which is not wanting in sweet- ness, though it teems with half expressed power. The shape of her brow is changed, and Praxiteles, were he alive today, would need more breadth of marble where the hair kisses the skin, than he used in the balmy days of Greece. Her brain is heavier and more infolded, than was that of Diana, boxed into a twenty inch skull. She has kept pace with herself however, for her chin is firmer, and her eyes speak meanings not read in those of Dido; there is a challenge in their depths which has recently come; it has the
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Sphinx quality. And man who has changed but little since the days of Herodotus, save through the evolution of his mother, seeks to read the riddle; he is puzzled, enchanted. The Oriental scoflFs and sneers and looks again. The Occidental feels a sweetness about his heart that is new — and gazes on.
Behold the master parallel — man and woman — the pair bound eternally by the rib of Adam, in their polarity challenging each other, and smiling in an ecstacy of defiance, feeling in their extreme of consciousness the sweetness and indissolubility of the bond. Woman has slept through the ages till now, with an infant on her breast and an embryo in her womb ; save here and there one, or a few, who woke to shock earth from its foun- dations with the potency of an ultra indi- viduality.
The woman in woman has lived sleepless from all time; but the man in her — the positive — ^naps oflF and on, as if drugged by sex narcotics.
Evolution is slower than the mills of the gods, but in spite of this the individual
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buried in the brain of woman, at last looks out from the windows of her eyes — it is sleepy still — and wonders as its glance sweeps the spaces, whether there will be rain or shine ; it wonders if it dare venture forth ; it blinks and blinks and turns this way and that, uncertain ; it feels as the bud feels on the first opening — afraid of space and the sun. It fears knowledge and learning and experience ; it dreads the elbows of man and his tongue ; it fears the elements and the battle-^yet when it looks over its shoulder on the nest where it has slept and dreamed for centuries, it finds it foul — unclean. For the first time it is sufficiently awake to sense the odor of decay and age.
The individual is turning, in woman, backward and forward, undecided. It lies down to get up, and gets up to lie down ; it is restless. It has no fixed gaze, like that of man. Its power of concentration is weak. But mark you the sea, when its tide starts upward, no mandate of a king can stop it. It rises to its limit of possi-
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bility in spite of all the effort that the Deipon of Earth's gravitation may make. Should man wipe woman off the face of earthj he needs must vanish with her — and nothing short of that can stop her apparent evolution, nor turn back the wheels of time. Fools dam the ocean — and hide the flaming torch of modern woman under a bushel — but the ocean rises in spite of this and the bushel burns. Man forgets the indestruc- tible rib, and in his ignorance is unaware that in shackling woman with chains of gold, he weights himself with lead.
Woman has been a Har through the ages, and why? Because half asleep, she feared for her dreams and her husband — brother Osiris. There was but one individual and that was He. In the Orient still, in softly shaded rooms, under veils, she suffers man to weight her with gems till her limbs are so heavy that she is powerless to raise them in her own defense, and there she continues to lie — matching his honest force by a subtle and ever shifting intrigue. By reason of her sleepiness and her overtaxed func-
OF THE HER ME TICS 39
tions, man has instituted the harem, where his positive entity has found in the many, what he missed unconsciously in a single Ego.
Now and then one — a veritable Cleopatra has flashed like a comet across skies to show that such could be. One Sapho sang notes that live yet, and drown in their echoes the voices of the male nightingales of modem song. One Aspasia was a casus belli, that changed the international rela- tions of Greece; and one woman of the moderns altered the Astronomical map. But a star, isolate, is ever bright — the search-light of comparison shines else- where — ^and without a foil it glitters on. '
What of it? What does it mean? — this claim to individuality by woman — this self assertiveness — ^this force? Will Cupid per- ish neath the heel o^ her masculine foot, and man suflFer by her accession of strength? Perhaps, till the woman awakes in him. Of one thing be sure, the mythical rib— or that for which it stands as a perpetual symbol — can never be severed; the indis-
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soluble bond is as fixed as the fiat of law. And whether man sleeps and woman wakes, or woman sleeps and man wakes, or both look with a challenging smile of full con- sciousness—eye to eye — one can never escape the other. The moving equilibrium will be struck somehow, somewhere, be- tween the negative and positive. The Pairs are faithful, and an equator is as cer- tain as are the north and south poles.
But today, what of today — the positive now? We answer, it foreshadows totnor- row. Today is the dawn which conceives and gives birth to noon — and who shall predict the splendors of noon?
^ When woman reaches full consciousness O man! tremble at your joy. When the girdle of Venus is taken from her hips and twined about her brow, O man! beware of too much happiness. In the old time, Aphrodite stole in to sup with thee, and afterward to twine herself about thee as the ivy hugs the oak. But tomorrow from early dawn to dusk, she will gleam here and everywhere, defying light with the flash of
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her individuality — on ship deck, in the mart of trade, mid books, touching all things with herself, till the world bums and your own eyes smart.
Will it be better or worse? For whom, we ask — for thee? 'Tis out of order. Her turn has come. She also shall know life — She also shall read the future in the flash of different gems — She also shall draw at the flasks of varied wines — She also shall enter the ice chambers of intellect, and grow warm at the furnace of divine passion — She also shall give and take. Justice never yet through eternity has blushed ; her scale reaches out of sight, and her arm from socket to finger tip, is too long for the measurement of mortal eyes.
The sun of the Orient descends to rise over the Occident, and departs from the west to flood the east — The equator runs true to the poles — And the doves of night brood o'er the land, when the sea-gull rises to greet the day.
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THE MARTYRS.
Many ardent disciples of every cult instinctively seek martyrdom. This comes not necessarily from a love of Truth as they understand it, but from a desire to prove their righteousness by their very suflFering, and also from a vanity inherent in them- selves. The uniqueness and sacredness of martyrdom tickles their fancy and makes them anxious to pose as saviors and semi- saviors of mankind. In the martyr you can usually discover an obstinacy and intoler- ance that would be unendurable to the world outside were it not for the reality of his suf- fering. To be sure he believes himself right. This is the first proposition and not to be disputed. In this he is honest; as honest as God. Braced by his backbone of conviction, he stands erect and prides him- self upon his straightness, as though there
OF THE HERMETICS
were not another reliable soul on earth. He glories about that of which the vast tnajority says nothing, and instantly becomes a martyr; for the crowd will tolerate no assumption of superiority for that which to the ordinary mind is as com- mon as love, so they proceed to persecute. This is the rule. There are exceptions. The commonplace martyr poses because he dares to believe something or somewhat, and gets a blow or a brand, whereupon he strikes a new attitude and poses again. At last he is tortured to death and goes down in history as a saint; for after a man's capacity for posing has reached its cHmax,his sufferings loom up, and the world reacts and kneels.
This passion for martyrdom develops in the very young, who are especially given to sensitiveness and self pity and " misunder- stoodness." They imagine that their mental liberty is continually threatened, and not altogether without cause considering the dogmatism of the average parent. But this desire to be set apart, and to become sacred grows rapidly in the young heart, where the
I
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owner of it is converted by something, no matter what. He glares at the world like a mother tigress protecting her young and imagines that his position and stand are of more importance than that of a reasoning archangel. This ultra aspect excites com- ment and sneers from an otherwise unin- terested crowd. In fact they laugh and pro- ceed to pelt him with stones. This is what he most ardently desires; a new dignity envelopes him, a "far off" look comes into his eyes, he casts them upward and folds his hands, and the crowd laughs louder and throws more stones. There is something supremely ridiculous and sad in the whole condition; each is injured, the crowd and the martyr; the people first, because of the assumption on the part of one of them that he is prohibited, when he really is not. This very assumption is an outrage on the crowd's idea of fair play, and they proceed to bring him to sense in virile fashion. The moment the first stone is thrown the posi- tion shifts, and the outrage apparently is upon the martyr, though really a balance is
OF THE HERMETICS 45
struck. But later the passion for cruelty keeps pace with the passion for martyrdom, and the more the lone figure poses, the more the crowd rages. Finally heaven opens, the martyr floats away on a gilded cloud and the crowd sits down in sackcloth and ashes.
The vast array of martyrs is thus, but as we have already said there are exceptions. And here comes our great and clinching argument in favor of Hermeticism: "Silence is golden." The Hermetic has some ultra views, but be refrains from thrusting them upon the world, more rapidly than his judg- ment dictates. He has understood through the ages that were he to tell all he knows he would go out to return as a martyr a thousand times. He knew full well in the middle century, that the glory of the fagot and the gibbet were as much, ^055»5/v fnore, his, than that of any avowed pagan or Christian, out of time on earth. He knows to-day that the press, an engine of torture, and the two-edged tongues of men, are only waiting an opportunity to get in their deadly work. He has discovered some things that
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he would cut out his tongue rather than men- tion aloud, because he avoids martyrdom. He has no desire whatever to be unique, nor ultra, nor by his position to challenge humanity, as though they knew nothing and he knew all. He has no desire that repent- ant tears shall be rained upon his sacred grave. When he talks his speech is bold, but there is much that he does not say.
Now having written this against the majority of have-been and would-be mar- tyrs, we come out in defense of those others whose martyrdom is thrust upon them in spite of themselves. Of those few who have not been self assertive, nor proselytists nor presumptuous, only in deadly earnest, allowing the same privilege to their fellow men that they demand for themselves. Such there are who are persecuted.
The crowd, as a rule, believes in fair play, and avoids interfering with a sort of half understood liberty which all desire to have. But now and then an individual among them, spoiling for a fight, raises a hue and cry, till the mass, like a flock of sheep, bleat in
OP THE HER ME TICS
unison, and rouse in themselves unholy desires which they proceed as fast as possible to realize; then comes a passion for perse- cution more catching than smallpox.
When the Hermetic is at bay he is the most desperate fighter on earth; his sword of opinion lies safe in its scabbard, till another draws and thrusts at him, then quick and sure he lunges back, and the glitter of blades is seen from afar.
But it is not the Hermetic martyr who claims our special attention; he is a rara avis in terra; but all those who like him cleave their way through the jungle of opin- ion, straight to the temple of truth. It may be a Gothic cathedral resonant with the chords of mass. It may be a severe Lutheran meeting house, or a Mohammedan mosque. It may be the Hall of Science, or the Minster of Nature. He starts for an open door; he determines to go under though heaven rains stones; he neither crowds nor jostles, he demands but walking room, his share, that is all. He molests no one and brooks no interference.
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But there are some in the world who cannot endure this poise, this justice; there are tyrants, intolerants, dictators, who are galled beyond measure by such an exhibit in a brother man. They hate with a cold steel hate, and if they fail to thrust him through with a sword, they prick him with pins. He suflfers a blow on the right cheek, then on the left till the limit is reached. If the power lie in him he clinches his foes; if not, he suflfers martyrdom. This is an unsought honor ; it is thrust on him, and from it he extracts a sweet, as might a bee from bitter herbs. He is no coward who goes with a hung down head to the stake. He walks erect with an air of conviction which is far removed from arrogance, and turns neither to the right nor left to feel the public pulse. He neither rolls up his eyes nor clasps his hands, nor is there a halo about his head. His glance speaks power, and his tread firmness — while around his lips are lines of pain. He thrills with no fictitious ecstacy, whose reaction is as deadly