CHAPTER VI.

*T is certain that this man has an estate of fifty thousand livres, and seems to be a person of very great accomplishments. But, then, if he’s a wizard, are wizards so devoutly given as this man seems to be? In short, I could make neither head nor tail on’t.— THe Count pe Gasatis, Translation affixed to the second edition of the “ Rape of the Lock.”
Or all the weaknesses which little men rail against, there is none that they are more apt to ridicule than the ten- dency to believe. And of all the signs of a corrupt heart and a feeble head, the tendency of incredulity is the surest.
Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny. While we hear, every day, the small pretenders to science talk of the absurdities of alchemy and the dream of the Philosopher’s Stone, a more erudite knowledge is aware that by alchemists the greatest discoveries in science have been made, and much which still seems abstruse, had we the key to the mystic phraseology they were com- pelled to adopt, might open the way to yet more noble acquisitions. The Philosopher’s Stone itself has seemed no visionary chimera to some of the soundest chemists that even the present century has produced.t Man can-
1 Mr. Disraeli, in his “Curiosities of Literature” (article “Alchem”’), after quoting the sanguine judgments of modern chemists as to the transmutation of metals, observes of one yet greater and more recent than those to which Glyndon’s thoughts could have referred, “Sir Humphry Davy told me that he did not consider this undiscovered art as impossible; but should it ever be discovered, it would certainly be useless.”
ZANONL 107
not contradict the Laws of Nature. But are all the laws of Nature yet discovered ?
“Give me a proof of your art,” says the rational inquirer. “When I have seen the effect, I will endeavor, with you, to ascertain the causes.”
Somewhat to the above effect were the first thoughts of Clarence Glyndon on quitting Zanoni. But Clarence Glyndon was no “rational inquirer.” The more vague and mysterious the language of Zanoni, the more it imposed upon him. A proof would have been something tangible, with which he would have sought to grapple. And it would have only disappointed his curiosity to find the supernatural reduced to Nature. He endeavored in vain, at some moments rousing himself from credulity to the scepticism he deprecated, to reconcile what he had heard with the probable motives and designs of an impostor. Unlike Mesmer and Cagliostro, Zanoni, whatever his pretensions, did not make them a source of profit; nor was Glyndon’s position or rank in life suffi- cient to render any influence obtained over his mind, subservient to schemes, whether of avarice or ambition. Yet, ever and anon, with the suspicion of worldly knowl- edge, he strove to persuade himself that Zanoni had at least some sinister object in inducing him to what his English pride and manner of thought considered a derog- atory marriage with the poor actress. Might not Viola and the Mystic be in league with each other? Might not all this jargon of prophecy and menace be but arti- fices to dupe him? He felt an unjust resentment towards Viola at her having secured such an ally. But with that resentment was mingled a natural jealousy. Zanoni threatened him with rivalry. Zanoni, who, whatever his character or his arts, possessed at least all the external attributes that dazzle and command. Inmpa-
108 ZANONI.
tient of his own doubts, he plunged into the society of such acquaintances as he had made at Naples,— chiefly artists, like himself, men of letters, and the rich com- mercialists, who were already vying with the splendor, though debarred from the privileges, of the nobles. From these he heard much of Zanoni, already with them, as with the idler classes, an object of curiosity and speculation.
He had noticed, as a thing remarkable, that Zanoni had conversed with him in English, and with a command of the language so complete that he might have passed for a native. On the other hand, in Italian, Zanoni was equally at ease. Glyndon found that it was the same in languages less usually learned by foreigners. A painter from Sweden, who had conversed with him, was posi- tive that he was a Swede; and a merchant from Con- stantinople, who had sold some of his goods to Zanoni, professed his conviction that none but a Turk, or at least a native of the East, could have so thoroughly mastered the soft Oriental intonations. Yet in all these languages, when they came to compare their several recollections, there was a slight, scarce perceptible dis- tinction, not in pronunciation, nor even accent, but in the key and chime, as it were, of the voice, between himself and a native. This faculty was one which Glyndon called to mind, that sect, whose tenets and powers have never been more than most partially explored, the Rosicrucians, especially arrogated. He remembered to have heard in Germany of the work of John Bringeret,’ asserting that all the languages of the earth were known to the genuine Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross. Did Zanoni belong to this mystical Fra- ternity, who, in an earlier age, boasted of secrets of
1 Printed in 1615.
ZANONI. 109
which the Philosopher’s Stone was but the least; who considered themselves the heirs of all that the Chal- deans, the Magi, the Gymnosophists, and the Platonists had taught; and who differed from all the darker Sons of Magic in the virtue of their lives, the purity of their doctrines, and their insisting, as the foundation of all wisdom, on the subjugation of the senses, and the intensity of Religious Faith?—-a glorious sect, if they lied not! And, in truth, if Zanoni had powers beyond the race of worldly sages, they seemed not unworthily exercised. The little known of his life was in his favor. Some acts, not of indiscriminate, but judicious gener- osity and beneficence, were recorded; in repeating which, still, however, the narrators shook their heads, and ex- pressed surprise how a stranger should have possessed so minute a knowledge of the quiet and obscure distresses he had relieved. Two or three sick persons, when aban- doned by their physicians, he had visited, and conferred with alone. They had recovered: they ascribed to him their recovery; yet they could not tell by what medi- cines they had been healed. They could only depose that he came, conversed with them, and they were cured; it usually, however, happened that a deep sleep had preceded the recovery.
Another circumstance was also beginning to be remarked, and spoke yet more in his commendation. Those with whom he principally associated — the gay, the dissipated, the thoughtless, the sinners and publi- cans of the more polished world — all appeared rapidly, yet insensibly to themselves, to awaken to purer thoughts and more regulated lives. Even Cetoxa, the prince of gallants, duellists, and gamesters, was no longer the same man since the night of the singular events which he had related to Glyndon. The first trace
110 ZANONI.
of his reform was in his retirement from the gaming- houses; the next was his reconciliation with an heredi- tary enemy of his house, whom it had been his constant object for the last six years to entangle in such a quarrel as might call forth his inimitable manwuvre of the stoccata. Nor when Cetoxa and his young com- panions were heard to speak of Zanoni, did it seem that this change had been brought about by any sober lectures or admonitions. They all described Zanoni as a man keenly alive to enjoyment: of manners the reverse of formal, — not precisely gay, but equable, serene, and cheerful; ever ready to listen to the talk of others, however idle, or to charm all ears with an inexhaustible fund of brilliant anecdote and worldly experience. All manners, all nations, all grades of men, seemed familiar to him. He was reserved only if allusion were ever ventured to his birth or history. The more general opinion of his origin certainly seemed the more plausi- ble. His riches, his familiarity with the languages of the East, his residence in India, a certain gravity which never deserted his most cheerful and familiar hours, the lustrous darkness of his eyes and hair, and even the peculiarities of his shape, in the delicate smallness of the hands, and the Arab-like turn of the stately head, appeared to fix him as belonging to one at least of the Oriental races. Anda dabbler in the Eastern tongues even sought to reduce the simple name of Zanoni, which a century before had been borne by an inoffensive naturalist of Bologna,! to the radicals of the extinct lan- guage. Zan was unquestionably the Chaldean appella- tion for the sun. Even the Greeks, who mutilated every Oriental name, had retained the right one in this
1 The author of two works on botany and rare plants.
ZANONI. 111
case, as the Cretan inscription on the tomb of Zeus’ significantly showed. As to the rest, the Zan, or Zaun, was, with the Sidonians, no uncommon prefix to On. Adonis was but another name for Zanonas, whose wor- ship in Sidon Hesychius records, To this profound and unanswerable derivation Mervale listened with great attention, and observed that he now ventured to announce an erudite discovery he himself had long since made, — namely, that the numerous family of Smiths in England were undoubtedly the ancient priests of the Phrygian Apollo. “ For,” said he, “ was not Apollo’s surname, in Phrygia, Smintheus? How clear all the ensuing corruptions of the august name, — Smintheus, Smitheus, Smithé, Smith! And even now, I may remark that the more ancient branches of that illustrious family, unconsciously anxious to approximate at least by a letter nearer to the true title, take a pious pleasure in writing their names Smithe! ”
The philologist was much struck with this discovery, and begged Mervale’s permission to note it down as an illustration suitable to a work he was about to publish on the origin of languages, to be called “ Babel,” and published in three quartos by subscription.
1 Ne weyas kertar Zav.t— Cyril contra Julian.
@ Here lies great Jove.
112 ZANONI.