Anyone who is interested in the subject may be referred to the work Sylva Sylvarum, which I composed in the summer and autumn of 1895, with a feeling of pride in my perspicuity at having divined the secrets of creation, especially in the vegetable and animal kingdoms. He may further consult my Churchyard Studies, which show how in loneliness and sorrow I was brought back to a wavering apprehension of God and immortality.
[IV]
THE FALL AND PARADISE LOST
Guided into this new world in which no one can follow me, I conceived an aversion to social intercourse, and have an unconquerable desire to free myself from my surroundings. I therefore informed my friends that I wished to go to Meudon to write a book which required solitude and quiet.
At the same time insignificant disagreements led to a breach with the circle which met at the Restaurant, so that one day I found myself entirely isolated. The first result was an extraordinary expansion of my inner sense; a spiritual power which longed to realise itself. I believed myself in the possession of unlimited strength, and pride inspired me with the wild idea of seeing whether I could perform a miracle.
At an earlier period, in the great crisis of my life, I had observed that I could exercise a telepathic influence on absent friends. In popular legends writers have occupied themselves with the subjects of telepathy and witchcraft. I wish neither to do myself an injustice, nor altogether to acquit myself of wrong-doing, but I believe that my evil will was not so evil as the counterstroke which I received. A devouring curiosity, an outbreak of perverted love, caused by my frightful loneliness, inspired me with an intense longing to be re-united with my wife and child, both of whom I still loved. But how was this to be brought about, as divorce proceedings were already on foot? Some extraordinary event, a common misfortune, a thunderbolt, a conflagration ... in brief, some catastrophe which unites two hearts, just as in novels two persons are reconciled at the sick-bed of a third. Stop! there I have it! A sick-bed! Children are always more or less ill; a mother's fear exaggerates the danger; a telegram follows, and all is said.
I had no idea of practising magic, but an unwholesome instinct suggested I must set to work with the picture of my dear little daughter, who later on was to be my only comfort in a cursed existence.
Further on in this work I will relate the results of my manoeuvre, in which my evil purpose seemed to work with the help of symbolical operations. Meantime the results had to be waited for, and I continued my work with a feeling of undefined uneasiness and a foreboding of fresh misfortune.