"You accuse life of injustice,—it is you who are unjust to life! Life gave you those dreams and aspirations you speak of,—it was in your power to realise them! I say it was in your power, had you chosen! No parents, no friends, not God Himself, can stop you from doing what you WILL to do! Who frustrated any great ambition of yours but yourself? Who can slay a hope but him in whose soul it was born? And that love of woman?—was she your true mate?—or only a thing of eyes and hair and vanity? Did your passion touch her body only, or did it reach her Soul? Did you seek to know whether that Soul had ever wakened within her, or were you too well satisfied with her surface beauty to care? In all these things blame Yourself, not life!—for life gives you earth and heaven, time and eternity for the attainment of joy—joy, in which, but for Yourself, there would never be a trace of sorrow!"
The kneeling penitent—for such he now appeared to be—covered his face with his hands.
"I cannot give you death,"—continued Aselzion-"You can take what is called by that name for yourself if you choose—you can by your own action, sudden or premeditated, destroy this present form and composition of yourself for just so long as it takes the forces of Nature to build you up again—an incredibly brief moment of time! But you gain nothing—you neither lose your consciousness nor your memory! Ponder this well before you pull down your present dwelling-house!—for ingratitude breeds narrowness, and your next habitation might be smaller and less fitted for peace and quiet breathing!"
With these words, gently spoken, he raised the penitent from his knees, and signed to him to return to his place. He did so obediently, without another word, pulling his cowl closely about him so that none of his fellow-brethren might see his features. Another man then stepped forward and addressed Aselzion.
"Master"—he said, "would it not be better to die than to grow old? If, as you teach us, there is no real death, should there be any real decay? What pleasure is there in life when the strength fails and the pulses slacken—when the warm blood grows chill and stagnant, and when even those we have loved consider we have lived too long? I who speak now am old, though I am not conscious of age—but others are conscious for me,—their looks, their words, imply that I am in their way—that I am slowly dying like a lopped tree and that the process is too tedious for their impatience. And yet—I could be young!—my powers of work have increased rather than lessened—I enjoy life more than those that have youth on their side—but I know I carry the burden of seventy years upon me, and I say that surely it is better to die than live even so long!"
Aselzion, standing in the full light of the glittering Cross and Star, looked upon him with a smile.
"I also carry the burden—if burden you must call it—of seventy years!" he said—"But years are nothing to me—they should be nothing to you. Who asked you to count them or to consider them? In the world of wild Nature, time is measured by seasons only—the bird does not know how old it is—the rose-tree does not count its birthdays! You, whom I know to be a brave man and patient student, have lived the usual life of men in the world—you are wedded to a Woman who has never cared to understand the deeper side of your nature, and who is now far older than you, though in actual years younger,—you have children who look upon you as their banker merely and who, while feigning affection, really wait for your death with eagerness in order to possess your fortune. You might as well have never had those children!—I know all this as you yourself know it—I also know that through the word-impressions and influence of so-called 'friends' who wish to persuade you of your age, the disintegrating process has begun,—but this can be arrested. You yourself can arrest it!—the dream of Faust is no fallacy!—only that the renewal of youth is not the work of magic evil, but of natural good. If you would be young, leave the world as you have known it and begin it anew,—leave wife, children, friends, all that hang like fungi upon an oak, rotting its trunk and sapping its strength without imparting any new form of vitality. Live again—love again!"
"I!"—and he who was thus spoken to threw back his cowl, showing a face wan and deeply wrinkled, yet striking in its fine intellectuality of feature—"I!—with these white hairs! You jest with me, Aselzion!"
"I never jest!"—replied Aselzion—"I leave jesting to the fools who prate of life without comprehending its first beginnings. I do not jest with you—put me to the proof! Obey my rules here but for six months and you shall pass out of these walls with every force in your body and spirit renewed in youth and vitality! But Yourself must work the miracle,—which, after all, is no miracle! Yourself must build Yourself!—as everyone is bound to do who would make the fullest living out of life. If you hesitate,—if you draw back,—if you turn with one foolish regret or morbid thought to your past mistakes in life which ARE past—to her, your wife, a wife in name but never in soul,—to your children, born of animal instinct but not of spiritual deep love,—to those your 'friends' who count up your years as though they were crimes,—you check the work of re-invigoration, and you stultify the forces of renewal. You must choose—and the choice must be voluntary and deliberate,—for no man becomes aged and effete without his own intention and inclination to that end,—and equally, no man retains or renews his youth without a similar intention and inclination. Take two days to consider—and then tell me your mind."
The man he thus addressed hesitated as though he had something more to say—then with a deep obeisance went back to his place. Aselzion waited till he was seated—and after the brief interval spoke again—