[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.You have uttered dim prophecies of my future, if I wed one who, in the judgment of thesober world, would only darken its prospects and obstruct its ambition.Do you speak from thewisdom which is experience, or that which aspires to prediction?""Are they not allied? Is it not he best accustomed to calculation who can solve at a glance any newproblem in the arithmetic of chances?""You evade my question.""No; but I will adapt my answer the better to your comprehension, for it is upon this very point that Ihave sought you.Listen to me!" Zanoni fixed his eyes earnestly on his listener, and continued: "Forthe accomplishment of whatever is great and lofty, the clear perception of truths is the firstrequisite,-- truths adapted to the object desired.The warrior thus reduces the chances of battle tocombinations almost of mathematics.He can predict a result, if he can but depend upon thematerials he is forced to employ.At such a loss he can cross that bridge; in such a time he canreduce that fort.Still more accurately, for he depends less on material causes than ideas at hiscommand, can the commander of the purer science or diviner art, if he once perceive the truths thatare in him and around, foretell what he can achieve, and in what he is condemned to fail.But thisperception of truths is disturbed by many causes,--vanity, passion, fear, indolence in himself,ignorance of the fitting means without to accomplish what he designs.He may miscalculate his ownforces; he may have no chart of the country he would invade.It is only in a peculiar state of themind that it is capable of perceiving truth; and that state is profound serenity.Your mind is feveredby a desire for truth: you would compel it to your embraces; you would ask me to impart to you,without ordeal or preparation, the grandest secrets that exist in Nature.But truth can no more beseen by the mind unprepared for it, than the sun can dawn upon the midst of night.Such a mindreceives truth only to pollute it: to use the simile of one who has wandered near to the secret of thesublime Goetia (or the magic that lies within Nature, as electricity within the cloud), 'He who pourswater into the muddy well, does but disturb the mud.'" ("Iamb.de Vit.Pythag.")"What do you tend to?""This: that you have faculties that may attain to surpassing power, that may rank you among thoseenchanters who, greater than the magian, leave behind them an enduring influence, worshippedwherever beauty is comprehended, wherever the soul is sensible of a higher world than that inwhich matter struggles for crude and incomplete existence."But to make available those faculties, need I be a prophet to tell you that you must learn toconcentre upon great objects all your desires? The heart must rest, that the mind may be active.Atpresent you wander from aim to aim.As the ballast to the ship, so to the spirit are faith and love.With your whole heart, affections, humanity, centred in one object, your mind and aspirations willbecome equally steadfast and in earnest.Viola is a child as yet; you do not perceive the high naturethe trials of life will develop.Pardon me, if I say that her soul, purer and loftier than your own, willbear it upward, as a secret hymn carries aloft the spirits of the world.Your nature wants theharmony, the music which, as the Pythagoreans wisely taught, at once elevates and soothes.I offeryou that music in her love.""But am I sure that she does love me?""Artist, no; she loves you not at present; her affections are full of another.But if I could transfer toyou, as the loadstone transfers its attraction to the magnet, the love that she has now for me,--if Icould cause her to see in you the ideal of her dreams--""Is such a gift in the power of man?""I offer it to you, if your love be lawful, if your faith in virtue and yourself be deep and loyal; if not,think you that I would disenchant her with truth to make her adore a falsehood?""But if," persisted Glyndon,--"if she be all that you tell me, and if she love you, how can you robyourself of so priceless a treasure?""Oh, shallow and mean heart of man!" exclaimed Zanoni, with unaccustomed passion andvehemence, "dost thou conceive so little of love as not to know that it sacrifices all--love itself--forthe happiness of the thing it loves? Hear me!" And Zanoni's face grew pale."Hear me! I press thisupon you, because I love her, and because I fear that with me her fate will be less fair than withyourself.Why,--ask not, for I will not tell you.Enough! Time presses now for your answer; it cannotlong be delayed.Before the night of the third day from this, all choice will be forbid you!""But," said Glyndon, still doubting and suspicious,--"but why this haste?""Man, you are not worthy of her when you ask me.All I can tell you here, you should have knownyourself.This ravisher, this man of will, this son of the old Visconti, unlike you,-- steadfast, resolute,earnest even in his crimes,--never relinquishes an object.But one passion controls his lust,--it is hisavarice [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]