The Count was pleased to allow me all the night in Prayer, and in the morning by break of day, he acquainted me with a note that he would come to my house by eight of the clock, and that if I pleased, we might go and take the air together. I waited for him; he came, and after reciprocal civilities, let us go (said he to me) to some place where we may be free together and where nobody may interrupt our discourse.
He seeing that we were as free from company as he could desire said:—How happy shall you be, my son, if heaven has the kindness to put those dispositions into your soul, which the high mysteries require of you. You are about to learn how to command nature; God above shall be your master, and the Sages only shall be your equals, the supreme intelligences shall esteem it as glory to obey your desires. When you shall be enrolled amongst the children of Philosophy, and that your eyes shall be fortified by the use of our sacred medicine, you shall immediately discover that the Elements are inhabited by most perfect creatures, from the knowledge and commerce of whom, the sin of the unfortunate Adam has excluded all his too unhappy posterity. This immense space which is between the earth and the Heavens, has more noble inhabitants than birds and flies; this vast ocean has also other troops, besides dolphins and whales; the profundity of the earth, is not only for moles; and the element of fire (more noble than the other three) was not made to be unprofitable and void.
The air is full of an innumerable multitude of people having human shape, somewhat fierce in appearance, but tractable upon experience; great lovers of the sciences, subtil, officious to the Sages, and enemies to sots and ignorants. Their wives and their daughter have a kind of masculine beauty, such as we describe the Amazons to have. How Sir (cried I), would you persuade me, that these friends you speak of are married?
Be not so fierce, my son (replied he) for so small a matter. Believe whatsoever I tell you, to be solid and true. I am making known nothing to you, but the principles of the antient Cabal, and there needs nothing more to justify them, than that you should believe your own eyes; but receive with a meek spirit the light which God sends you by my interposition. Know that the Seas and Rivers are Inhabited, as well as the air: the ancient Sages have called these kind of people Undians or Nymphs. They have but few males amongst them, but the women are there in great numbers: their beauty is marvellous, and the daughters of men have nothing in them comparable to these.
The earth is filled almost to the centre with Gnomes or Pharyes, a people of small stature, the guardians of treasures, of mines, and of precious stones. They are ingenious, friends of men, and easy to be commanded. They furnish the children of the Sages with as much money as they have need of, and never ask any other reward than the glory of being commanded. The Gnomides or Wives of these Gnomes or Pharyes, are little, but very handsome and their habit marvellously curious.... As for the Salamanders, the inhabitants of the region of fire, they serve the Philosophers, but they seek not for their company with any great eagerness. The wives of the Salamanders are fair, nay, rather more fair than all others, seeing they are of a purer element. You will be charmed more with the beauty of their wit than of their body, yet you cannot choose but be grieved for these poor wretches when they shall tell you that their soul is mortal, and that they have no hope of enjoying eternal happiness, and of the Supreme Being, which they acknowledge and religiously adore. They will tell us, that being composed of the most pure parts of the elements which they inhabit, and not having in them any contrary qualities, seeing they are made but of one element, they die not but after many Ages, but alas! what is such a Time, in respect of Eternity? They must eternally resolve into their nothing. This consideration does sorely afflict them; and we have trouble enough, to comfort them concerning it.
Our Fathers, the Philosophers, speaking to God face to face, complained to him of the unhappiness of these people, and God whose mercy is without bounds, revealed to them, that it was not impossible to find out a remedy for this evil. He inspired them, that by the same means as man, by the alliance which he contracted with God, has been made partaker of Divinity: the Sylphs, the Gnomes, the Nymphs, and the Salamanders by the alliance which they might contract with man, might be made partakers of immortality. So a She-Nymph or a Sylphide becomes Immortal, and capable of the blessing to which we aspire, when they shall be so happy as to be married to a Sage; a Gnome, or a Sylph ceases to be mortal, from the moment that he espouses one of our daughters.
Hence arose the error of the former ages, of Tertullian, of Justin Martyr, of Lactantius, Cyprian, Clemens Alexandrinus, Athengoras the Christian Philosopher, and generally of all the writers of that time. They had learnt that these elementary Demi-men, had endeavoured a commerce with maids, and they have from thence imagined that the fall of the angels had not happened, but for the love which they were touched with after women. Certain Gnomes, desirous of becoming immortal, had a mind to gain the good affections of our daughters, and had brought abundance of precious stones of which they are the natural guardians, and these authors, relying on the Book of Enoch, which they misunderstood, thought that it was the attempt which these Amorous Angels had offered to the chastity of our wives. In the beginning these children of heaven begat famous giants by making themselves beloved by the daughters of men, and the old Cabalists, Josephine and Philo (as all the Jews are ignorant) and after them all the other Authors, which I have just now named, as well as Origen and Macrebius, and have not known that they were the Sylphs, and other people of the elements that under the name of the Children of Elohim, are distinguished from the children of men. Likewise that which the Sage Saint Augustine, has had the modesty to leave undetermined, touching the pursuits which those called Faunes or Satyrs, made after the Africans of his time, is cleared by that which I have now alleged of the desire which all these elementary inhabitants have, of allying themselves to men; as the only means to attain to the immortality which they have not.
No, no! Our Sages have never erred so as to attribute the fall of the first Angels to their love of women, no more than they have put men under the power of the Devil; by imputing all the adventures of the Nymphs and Sylphs to him, of which the historians speak so largely. There was nothing criminal in all that. They were the Sylphs, which endeavoured to become Immortal. Their innocent pursuits, far enough from being able to scandalize the Philosophers, have appeared so just to us, that we are all resolved by common consent, utterly to renounce women; and entirely to give ourselves to the immortalizing of the Nymphs and Satyrs.
Good Lord (cried I) What do I hear? Was there ever such marvellous F——. Yes, my son (interrupted the Count) admire the marvellous felicity of the Sages! Instead of women, whose fading beauty passes away in a short time, and is followed with horrible wrinkles and ugliness, the Philosophers enjoy beauties which never wax old, and whom they have the glory to make immortal. Guess at the love and the acknowledgment of those invisible mistresses, and with what ardour they strive to please the charitable philosopher, who labours to immortalize them.
Ah! Sir (cried I once again), I renounce ——. Yes, you Sir, (pursued he, without giving me the leisure to finish) Renounce the fading pleasures which are to be had with women; the fairest among them all is loathsome in respect of the homeliest Syphide: no displeasure ever follows our Sage embraces. Miserable Ignorants! How should you complain, that ye have not the power to taste of the Philosophick pleasures. Miserable Count de Gabalis (interrupted I, in an accent mixed with Choler and Compasion) Will you give me leave to tell you at last, that I renounce this senseless wisdom; that I find this visionary philosophy very ridiculous; that I detest the abominable embraces which make you affect these Phantasms; and that I tremble for you, and wonder that some one of these pretended Sylphides does not hurry you to Hell, in the middle of your transports and raptures; and for fear, lest so honest a man as you, should not perceive the end of your foolish Chymerick Zeal, and should not repent of so great a crime. Oh! Oh! (answered he) mischief light on thy indocible spirit. His action, I must confess, affrighted me; but it was yet worse, when I perceived, that going further from me, he drew out of his pocket a Paper which I could easily see at that distance to be full of Characters; yet I could not well discern it. He read them gravely, and spake low. I guessed that he was invoking some spirit for my ruin, and repented me more than a little for my inconsiderate Zeal. If I escape this adventure (cried I), I’ll never have to do with a Cabalist more. I fixed my eyes upon him, as upon a judge that was ready to condemn me to death; when at last I perceived that his looks became serene. ’Tis hard, (said he, smiling, and coming towards me again) ’Tis hard for you to kick against the Pricks. You are a vessel of Election. Heaven has ordained you to be the greatest Cabalist of your age. Behold the scheme of your Nativity, which cannot fail. If it be not now, and that too by my means, ’twill be a great wonder, as it appears by this Saturn retrograde.