"Perhaps both are one," said Henry. "For my own part, I only know that Fable is the collective instrument of my present world. Even Conscience, that sense and world-creating power, that germ of all Personality, appears to me like the spirit of the world-poem, like the event of the eternal, romantic confluence of the infinitely mutable common life."
"Dear pilgrim," Sylvester replied, "the Conscience appears in every serious perfection, in every fashioned truth. Every inclination and ability transformed by reflection into a universal type becomes a phenomenon, a phase of Conscience. All formation tends to that which can only be called Freedom; though by that is not meant an idea, but the creative ground of all being. This freedom is that of a guild. The master exercises free power according to design, and in defined and well digested method. The objects of his art are his, and he can do with them as he pleases, nor is he fettered or circumscribed by them. To speak accurately, this all-embracing freedom, this mastership of dominion, is the essence, the impulse of Conscience. In it is revealed the sacred peculiarity, the immediate creation of Personality, and every action of the master, is at once the announcement of the lofty, simple, evident world--God's word."
"Then is that, which I remember was once called morality, only religion as Science, the so called theology in its proper sense? Is it but a code of laws related to worship as nature is to God, a construction of words, a train of thoughts, which indicates, represents the upper world, and extends it to a certain point of progress--the religion for the faculty of insight and judgment--the sentence, the law of the solution and determination of all the possible relations which a personal being sustains?"
"Certainly," said Sylvester, "Conscience is the innate mediator of every man. It takes the place of God upon earth, and is therefore to many the highest and the final. But how far was the former science, called virtue or morality, from the pure shape of this lofty, comprehensive, personal thought! Conscience is the peculiar essence of man fully glorified, the divine archetypal man (Urmensch.) It is not this thing and that thing; it does not command in a common tongue, it does not consist of distinct virtues. There is but one virtue,--the pure, solemn Will, which, at the moment of decision chooses, resolves instantaneously. In living and peculiar oneness it dwells and inspires that tender emblem, the human body, and can excite all the spiritual members to the truest activity."
"O excellent father!" exclaimed Henry, "with what joy fills me the light which flows from your words! Thus the true spirit of Fable is the spirit of virtue in friendly disguise; and the proper spirit of the subordinate art of poetry is the emotion of the loftiest, most personal existence. There is a surprising selfness (Selbstheit) between a genuine song and a noble action. The disfranchised conscience in a smooth, unresisting world, becomes an enchaining conversation, an all-narrating fable. In the fields and halls of this old world lives the poet, and virtue is the spirit of his earthly acts and influences; and as this is the indwelling divinity among men, the marvellous reflex of the higher world, so also is Fable. How safely can the poet now follow the guidance of his inspiration, or if he possesses a lofty, transcendent sense, follow higher essences, and submit to his calling with child-like humility. The higher voice of the universe also speaks within him, and cries with enchanting words to kindlier and more familiar worlds. As religion is related to virtue, so is inspiration to mythology; and as the history of revelation is treasured in sacred writings, so the life of a higher world expresses itself in mythology in manifold ways, in poems of wonderful origin. Fable and history sustain to each other the most intimate relations, through paths the most intricate, and disguises the most extraordinary; and the Bible and mythology are constellations of one orbit."
"What you say is perfectly true," said Sylvester; "and now you can probably comprehend that all nature subsists by the spirit of virtue alone, and must ever become more permanent. It is the all-inflaming, the all-quickening light in the embrace of earth. From the firmament, that lofty dome of the starry realm, down to the ruffling carpet of the varied meadow, all things will be sustained by it, united to us and made comprehensible; and by it the unknown course of infinite nature's history will be conducted to its consummation."
"Yes; and you have often as beautifully shown, before now, the connexion between virtue and religion. Everything, which experience and earthly activity embrace, forms the province of Conscience, which unites this world with higher worlds. With a loftier sense religion appears, and what formerly seemed an incomprehensible necessity of our inmost nature, a universal law without any definite intent, now becomes a wonderful, domestic, infinitely varied, and satisfying world, an inconceivably interior communion of all the spiritual with God, and a perceptible, hallowing presence of the only One, or of his Will, of his Love in our deepest self."
"The innocence of your heart," Sylvester replied, "makes you a prophet. All things will be revealed to you, and for you the world and its history will be transformed into holy writ, just as the sacred writings evince how the universe can be revealed in simple words, or narratives, if not directly, yet mediately by hinting at and exciting higher senses. My connexion with nature has led me to the point where the joy and inspiration of language have brought you. Art and history have made me acquainted with nature. My parents dwelt in Sicily, not far from the famous Mount Ætna. Their dwelling was a comfortable house in the ancient style, hidden by old chestnut trees near the rocky shore of the sea, and affording the attraction of a garden stocked with various plants. Near were many huts, in which dwelt fishermen, herdsmen, and vine-dressers. Our chambers and cellar were amply provided with everything that supports and gives enjoyment to life, and by well bestowed labor, our arrangements were agreeable to the most refined senses. Moreover there was no lack of those manifold objects, whose contemplation and use elevate the mind above ordinary life and its necessities, preparing it for a more suitable condition, and seem to promise and procure for it the pure enjoyment of its full and proper nature. You might have seen there marble statues, storied vases, small stones with most distinct figures, and other articles of furniture, the relics perhaps of other and happier times. Also many scrolls of parchment lay in folds upon each other, in which were treasured, in their long succession of letters, the knowledge, sentiments, histories, and poems of that past time, in most agreeable and polished expressions. The calling of my father, who had by degrees become an able astrologer, attracted to him many inquiring visiters, even from distant lands; and as the knowledge of the future seemed to men a rare and precious gift, they were led to remunerate him richly for his communication; so that he was enabled, by the gifts he received, to defray the expenses of a comfortable and even luxurious style of life."
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