TO IGNATIUS JOSEPH MARLIENOWIEZ, PROFESSOR OF PHYSIC
AT LEMBERG.
"Borne away, as by a whirlpool, like the satellites of a star king we followed Spartacus[24] through rugged pathways, and under the dark shadows of the Boehmer-wald. Why were you not there, my friend? You would have neglected to pick up pebbles in the torrents, and to examine the bones and veins of our mysterious mother Earth. The ardent words of our master gave us wings. We crossed ravines and mountain tops, without counting our steps, without looking down on the abyss above which we stood, and without watching in the distance for the place where we should rest at night. Spartacus had never seemed greater, or more completely impregnated with sublime truth. The beauties of nature exerted on his mind all the influence of a great poem; but in the glow of his imagination, his spirit of wise analysis and ingenious combination never left him. He explained the sky and stars, the earth and seas, with the same clearness that presides over his dissertations on the lesser subjects of this world. As though his soul became greater, when alone and at liberty with the elect of his disciples, beneath the azure of the starry skies, or looking on the dawn that announced the rising sun, he broke through the limits of time and space to embrace in one glance all humanity, both in its general view and in its details, to penetrate the fragile destiny of empires and the imposing future of nations. You in the flesh understand this, young man; you have heard on the mountain this youth, with a wisdom surpassing his years, and who seems to have lived amongst men since the beginning of the world.
"When we came to the frontier, we made a salutation to the land which had witnessed the exploits of the great Ziska, and bowed yet lower to the caves which had been sepulchres to the martyrs of our old national liberty. There we resolved to separate, for the purpose of examining every point at once. Cato[25] went to the north-west, Celsus[26] to the south-east, Ajax[27] went from the west to the east, and our rendezvous was Pilsen.
"Spartacus kept me with him, and resolved to rely on chance and a certain divine inspiration which was to direct us. I was a little amazed at his absence of calculation and thought, which seemed altogether contradictory to his methodical habit. 'Philo,' said he, when we were alone, 'I think men like us are ministers of Providence. Do not imagine, however, that I deem Providence inert and disdainful, for by it we live and think. I have observed that you are more favored than I am. Your designs almost always succeed. Forward, then, and I will follow you. I have faith in your second sight, in that mysterious clearness invoked naïvely by our ancestors, the Illuminati, the pious fanatics of the past.' It really seems that the master has prophesied truly. Before the second day we found what we looked for, and thus I became the instrument of fate.
"We had reached the end of the wood, and there were two forks of the road before us. One went into the lowlands, and the other went along the sides of the mountain.
"'Whither shall we go?' said Spartacus, seating himself on a rock. 'I can see from here cultivated fields, meadows, and humble huts. They told us he was poor, and he must therefore live with people of the same class. Let us inquire after him, among the humble shepherds of the valley.'
"'Not so, master,' said I, pointing to the road on my right. 'I see there the towers and crumbling walls of an old mansion. They told us he was a poet, and he must therefore love ruins and solitude.'
"'Well, then,' said Spartacus, with a smile, 'I see Hesper rising, white as a pearl, in the yet roseate sky, above the ruins of the old domain. We are shepherds looking for a prophet, and the wonderful star hurries before us.'
"We soon reached the ruins. It was an imposing structure, built at different epochs. The ruins of the days of the emperor, Karl, however, lay side by side with those of feudality. Not time, but the hands of man had worked this destruction. It was broad day when we ascended a dried-up ditch, and reached a rusted and motionless portcullis. The first object we saw amid the ruins, as we came into the court-yard, was an old man covered with rags, and more like a being of the past than of the present day. His beard, like ivory grown yellow from age, fell on his breast, and his golden hair glittered like a lake lighted up by the sun. Spartacus trembled, and, approaching him hastily, asked the name of the castle. The old man did not seem to fear us. He looked at us with his glassy eyes, but seemed unable to see us. We asked his name. He made no reply, his face merely expressing a dreamy indifference. His Socratic features, however, did not express the degradation of idiotcy. There was in his stern features an indescribable kind of beauty, originating in a pure and serene mind. Spartacus put a piece of silver into his hand; but having held it near his eyes, he let it fall as if he did not know the use of it.
"'Is it possible,' said I to my master, 'that an old man so totally deprived of his senses can be thus abandoned by his fellow-men, and left to ramble amid mountains, far away from the abodes of men without a guide, without even a dog to lead him?'