La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages Part 30

All these novelties came of Satan. Each step forward has been a crime of his doing.

He was the wicked logician who, despising the clerical law, preserved and renewed that of jurists and philosophers, grounded on an impious faith, on the freedom of the will.

He was that dangerous magician who, while men were discussing the s.e.x of angels and other questions of like sublimity, threw himself fiercely on realities, and created chemistry, physics, mathematics--ay, even mathematics. He sought to revive them, and that was rebellion.

People were burnt for saying that three made three.

Medicine especially was a Satanic thing, a rebellion against disease, the scourge so justly dealt by G.o.d. It was clearly sinful to check the soul on its way towards heaven, to plunge it afresh into life!

What atonement shall we make for all this? How are we to put down, to overthrow, this pile of insurrections, whereof at this moment all modern life is made up? Will Satan destroy his work, that he may tread once more the way of angels? That work rests on three everlasting rocks, Reason, Right, and Nature.

So great is the triumph of the new spirit, that he forgets his battles, hardly at this moment deigns to remember that he has won.

It were not amiss to remind him of his wretched beginnings, how coa.r.s.ely mean, how rude and painfully comic were the shapes he wore in the season of persecution, when through a woman, even the unhappy Witch, he made his first homely flights in science. Bolder than the heretic, the half-Christian reasoner, the scholar who kept one foot within the sacred circle, this woman eagerly escaped therefrom, and under the open sunlight tried to make herself an altar of rough moorland stones.

She has perished, as she was certain to perish. By what means? Chiefly by the progress of those very sciences which began with her, through the physician, the naturalist, for whom she had once toiled.

The Witch has perished for ever, but not the Fay. She will reappear in the form that never dies.

Busied in these latter days with the affairs of men, Woman has in return given up her rightful part, that of the physician, the comforter, the healing Fairy. Herein lies her proper priesthood--a priesthood that does belong to her, whatever the Church may say.

Her delicate organs, her fondness for the least detail, her tender consciousness of life, all invite her to become Life's shrewd interpreter in every science of observation. With her tenderly pitiful heart, her power of divining goodness, she goes of her own accord to the work of doctoring. There is but small difference between children and sick people. For both of them we need the Woman.

She will return into the paths of science, whither, as a smile of nature, gentleness and humanity will enter by her side.

The Anti-natural is growing dim, nor is the day far off when its eclipse will bring back daylight to the earth.

The G.o.ds may vanish, but G.o.d is still there. Nay, but the less we see of them, the more manifest is He. He is like a lighthouse eclipsed at moments, but alway s.h.i.+ning again more clearly than before.

It is a remarkable thing to see Him discussed so fully, even in the journals themselves. People begin to feel that all questions of education, government, childhood, and womanhood, turn on that one ruling and underlying question. As G.o.d is, so must the world be.

From this we gather that the times are ripe.

So near, indeed, is that religious dayspring that I seemed momently to see it breaking over the desert where I brought this book to an end.

How full of light, how rough and beautiful looked this desert of mine!

I had made my nest on a rock in the mighty roadstead of Toulon, in a lowly villa surrounded with aloe and cypress, with the p.r.i.c.kly pear and the wild rose. Before me was a spreading basin of sparkling sea; behind me the bare-topt amphitheatre, where, at their ease, might sit the Parliament of the world.

This spot, so very African, bedazzles you in the daytime with flas.h.i.+ngs as of steel. But of a winter morning, especially in December, it seemed full of a divine mystery. I was wont to rise exactly at six o'clock, when the signal for work was boomed from the a.r.s.enal gun. From six to seven I enjoyed a delicious time of it. The quick--may I call it piercing?--twinkle of the stars made the moon ashamed, and fought against the daybreak. Before its coming, and during the struggle between two lights, the wonderful clearness of the air would let things be seen and heard at incredible distances. Two leagues away I could make everything out. The smallest detail about the distant mountains, a tree, a cliff, a house, a bend in the ground, was thrown out with the most delicate sharpness. New senses seemed to be given me. I found myself another being, released from bondage, free to soar away on my new wings. It was an hour of utter purity, all hard and clear. I said to myself, "How is this? Am I still a man?"

An unspeakable bluish hue, respected, left untouched by the rosy dawn, hung round me like a sacred ether, a spirit that made all things spiritual.

One felt, however, a forward movement, through changes soft and slow.

The great marvel was drawing nearer, to s.h.i.+ne forth and eclipse all other things. It came on in its own calm way: you felt no wish to hurry it. The coming transfiguration, the expected witcheries of the light, took not a whit away from the deep enjoyment of being still under the divinity of night, still, as it were, half-hidden, and slow to emerge from so wonderful a spell.... Come forth, O Sun! We wors.h.i.+p thee while yet unseen, but will reap all of good we yet may from these last moments of our dream!

He is about to break forth. In hope let us await his welcome.

THE END.

LIST OF LEADING AUTHORITIES.

Graesse, _Bibliotheca Magiae_, Leipsic, 1843.

_Magie Antique_--as edited by Soldan, A. Maury, &c.

Calcagnini, _Miscell., Magia Amatoria Antiqua_, 1544.

J. Grimm, _German Mythology_.

_Acta Sanctorum._--Acta SS. Ordinis S. Benedicti.

Michael Psellus, _Energie des Demons_, 1050.

Caesar of Heisterbach, _Ill.u.s.tria Miracula_, 1220.

_Registers of the Inquisition_, 1307-1326, in Limburch; and the extracts given by Magi, Llorente, Lamothe-Langon, &c.

_Directorium._ Eymerici, 1358.

Llorente, _The Spanish Inquisition_.

Lamothe-Langon, _Inquisition de France_.

_Handbooks of the Monk-Inquisitors of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries_: Nider's _Formicarius_; Sprenger's _Malleus_.

C. Bernardus's _Lucerna_; Spina, Grillandus, &c.

H. Corn. Agrippae _Opera_, Lyons.

Paracelsi _Opera_.

Wyer, _De Prestigiis Daemonum_, 1569.

Bodin, _Demonomanie_, 1580.

Remigius, _Demonolatria_, 1596.

Del Rio, _Disquisitiones Magicae_, 1599.