第25章
"There is.What then? Do you, with the alchemists, blend in one discovery, gold and life?""No.But it is only where the chemistry of earth or of man produces gold, that the substance from which the great pabulum of life is extracted by ferment can be found.Possibly, in the attempts at that transmutation of metals, which I think your own great chemist, Sir Humphry Davy, allowed might be possible, but held not to be worth the cost of the process--possibly, in those attempts, some scanty grains of this substance were found by the alchemists, in the crucible, with grains of the metal as niggardly yielded by pitiful mimicry of Nature's stupendous laboratory; and from such grains enough of the essence might, perhaps, have been drawn forth, to add a few years of existence to some feeble graybeard--granting, what rests on no proofs, that some of the alchemists reached an age rarely given to man.But it is not in the miserly crucible, it is in the matrix of Nature herself, that we must seek in prolific abundance Nature's grand principle--life.
As the loadstone is rife with the magnetic virtue, as amber contains the electric, so in this substance, to which we yet want a name, is found the bright life-giving fluid.In the old gold mines of Asia and Europe the substance exists, but can rarely be met with.The soil for its nutriment may there be well nigh exhausted.
It is here, where Nature herself is all vital with youth, that the nutriment of youth must be sought.Near this spot is gold; guide me to it.""You cannot come with me.The place which I know as auriferous is some miles distant, the way rugged.You cannot walk to it.It is true I have horses, but--""Do you think I have come this distance and not foreseen and forestalled all that I want for my object? Trouble yourself not with conjectures how I can arrive at the place.I have provided the means to arrive at and leave it.My litter and its bearers are in reach of my call.Give me your arm to the rising ground, fifty yards from your door."I obeyed mechanically, stifling all surprise.I had made my resolve, and admitted no thought that could shake it.
When we reached the summit of the grassy hillock, which sloped from the road that led to the seaport, Margrave, after pausing to recover breath, lifted up his voice, in a key, not loud, but shrill and slow and prolonged, half cry and half chant, like the nighthawk's.Through the air--so limpid and still, bringing near far objects, far sounds--the voice pierced its way, artfully pausing, till wave after wave of the atmosphere bore and transmitted it on.
In a few minutes the call seemed re-echoed, so exactly, so cheerily, that for the moment I thought that the note was the mimicry of the shy mocking lyre bird, which mimics so merrily all that it hears in its coverts, from the whir of the locust to the howl of the wild dog.
"What king," said the mystical charmer, and as he spoke he carelessly rested his hand on my shoulder, so that I trembled to feel that this dread son of Nature, Godless and soulless, who had been--and, my heart whispered, who still could be--my bane and mind darkener, leaned upon me for support, as the spoiled younger-born on his brother--"what king," said this cynical mocker, with his beautiful boyish face--"what king in your civilized Europe has the sway of a chief of the East? What link is so strong between mortal and mortal as that between lord and slave? I transport you poor fools from the land of their birth; they preserve here their old habits--obedience and awe.They would wait till they starved in the solitude--wait to hearken and answer my call.And I, who thus rule them, or charm them--I use and despise them.They know that, and yet serve me! Between you and me, my philosopher, there is but one thing worth living for--life for oneself."Is it age, is it youth, that thus shocks all my sense, in my solemn completeness of man? Perhaps, in great capitals, young men of pleasure will answer, "It is youth; and we think what he says!"Young friends, I do not believe you.