ENGLISH TRANSLATION
BY TORSTEN SCHWANKE
I
THE YOUNG STUDENT
There are many different ways people go. Whoever follows and compares them will see strange figures emerging; Figures that seem to belong to that great cipher writing that one sees everywhere, on wings, on eggshells, in clouds, in snow, in crystals and in stone formations, on freezing waters, inside and outside the mountains, the plants, the animals, the people, in the lights of the sky, on touched and painted panes of pitch and glass, in the filings around the magnet and strange conjunctures of chance. In them, one findes the key of this miracle, the language of this miracle; only searching does not want to put itself into fixed forms, and does not seem to want to become a higher key. An Alcahest seems to be poured out over the senses of man. Only in the present moment do their wishes, their thoughts seem to condense. This is how their pains arise, but after a short time everything floats again, as before, before their eyes.
From afar I hear it said: incomprehensibility is the consequence of ignorance; ignorance seeks what it has and could never find further. One does not understand language because language itself does not understand itself, does not want to understand itself; ostracized Sanscrit would speak in order to speak, because speaking is its pleasure and its essence.
Not long afterwards, one said: The Holy Scripture needs no explanation. He who speaks truthfully is full of eternal life, and his writing seems to us to be wonderfully related to outlawed secrets, for it is an accord from the Space Symphony.
The voice certainly spoke of our teacher, for he knows how to gather together the features that are scattered everywhere. A special light ignites in his eyes when the high rune lies before us and he looks into our eyes to see whether the star that makes the figure visible and understandable has risen in us. If he sees us sad that the night does not give way, he consoles us and promises the faithful seer future happiness. He has often told us how, as a child, the urge to practice, occupy and fulfil the senses, left him no peace. He watched the stars and imitated their features, their positions in the sand. He looked into the sea of air without rest, never tired of looking at its clarity, its movements, its clouds, its lights. He gathered stones, flowers, beetles of all kinds, and laid them in rows in many ways. He took care of people and animals, and sat on the beach of the sea, looking for shells. He listened carefully to his mind and his thoughts. He did not know where his longing took him. As he grew taller, he wandered around, looked at other countries, other seas, new airs, strange stars, unknown plants, animals and people, climbed into caves, saw how construction was carried out in benches and in the colourful layers of the earth, and pressed mud into strange rock paintings. Now he found familiar things everywhere, only strangely mixed, paired, and so strange things often arranged themselves in him. He soon noticed the connections in everything, the meetings and encounters. Now he soon saw nothing alone. The perceptions of his senses crowded into large colourful pictures: he heard, saw, felt and thought at the same time. He was happy to bring strangers together. Soon the stars were people to him, soon the people were stars, the stones were animals, the clouds were plants, he played with the powers and appearances, he knew where and how he could find this and that, and make it appear, and so he grabbed the strings himself for sounds and courses.
What has become of him since then, he does not reveal. He tells us that we ourselves, guided by him and our own lust, will discover what has happened to him. Several of us have left him. They returned to their parents and learned a trade. Some have been sent out by him, we do not know where; he chose them. Some of them were only there for a short time, the others longer. One of them was still a child, it was hardly ever there, so he wanted to give him the lessons. He had big dark eyes with a sky-blue background, his skin shone like lilies, and his curls like light clouds when evening came. The voice penetrated our hearts, we would have loved to give him our flowers, stones, feathers, everything. He smiled with an infinitely serious smile, and we were strangely happy with him. One day it will come back, said the teacher, and live among us, then the lessons will stop. - One he sent away with him. He always looked sad, he was here for many years, he was not happy, he did not find it easy when we were looking for crystals or flowers. He did not see well into the distance, he did not know how to lay colourful rows. He broke everything so easily. But no one had such a drive and such pleasure in seeing and hearing. Since a time (before that child entered our circle) he suddenly became cheerful and skilful. One day he had gone out sadly, he did not come back and night fell. We were very worried about him; suddenly, as dawn came, we heard his voice in a nearby grove. He was singing a high, happy song; we were all amazed; the teacher looked at morning with a look that I will probably never see him again. Soon he entered our midst, and brought, with unspeakable bliss on his face, an inconspicuous little stone of a strange shape. The teacher took it in his hand and kissed it for a long time, then he looked at us with wet eyes and placed this little stone in an empty place, which lay in the middle of other stones, just where many rows touched like rays.
I will never forget these moments from now on. It was as if we had had a bright joy of this wonderful world in our souls as we passed by.
I too am more clumsy than the others, and I do not seem to like the treasures of nature to be found by me. But the teacher is kind to me, and lets me sit in my thoughts when the others go searching. I have never been like the teacher. Everything leads me back into myself. What the second voice once said, I have well understood. I rejoice in the whimsical heaps and figures in the halls, but I feel as if they were only pictures, shells, ornaments, gathered around a divine miraculous image, and this is always in my thoughts. I do not search for them, I often search in them. It is as if they should show me the way, where in deep sleep stands the VIRGIN for whom my spirit longs. The teacher never told me about it, I can't confide in him either, an unbreakable secret thinks so. I would have liked to ask that child, in his features I found kinship; also, in his presence everything seemed to become brighter to me. Had it stayed longer, I would certainly have experienced more in me. In the end, my bosom might have been open and my tongue would have been free. I would have liked to go with him too. It did not happen like that. How long I will stay here, I don't know. It seems to me that I always stay here. No sooner do I dare to confess it to myself, but too deeply do I believe: once I will find here what moves me all the time; She is present. When I walk around here with this faith, everything appears to me in a higher image, in a new order, and everyone is directed towards one region. Each becomes so familiar, so dear to me; and what seemed strange to me suddenly becomes like a household appliance.
It is precisely this strangeness that is foreign to me, and that is why this collection has always both attracted and removed me. I cannot and do not want to understand the teacher. He is just so incomprehensibly dear to me. I know it, he understands me, he has never spoken against my feelings and my wishes. Rather, he wants us to follow our own path, because every new path leads through new countries, and each one of us finally leads to these dwellings, to this holy home. So I, too, want to describe my figure, and if no mortal, according to that inscription there, lifts the veil, then we must seek to become immortals; he who does not want to lift it is not an ostracized apprentice to Sais.
II
GREAT MOTHER NATURE
It may have been a long time before people thought of giving a common name to the many objects of their senses and of opposing each other. Practice promotes development, and in all development there are divisions and dissections which can easily be compared with the refractions of the light beam. Thus our inner being has only gradually split into so many different forces, and with continued practice this splitting will also increase. Perhaps it is only a pathological disposition of later human beings when they lose the ability to mix these scattered colours of their minds again and to restore the old simple state of nature at will, or to create new, manifold connections among them. The more united they are, the more unified, the more complete and personal every natural body, every phenomenon flows into them: for the nature of the sense corresponds to the nature of the impression, and therefore everything must have seemed human, familiar and sociable to those earlier men, the freshest peculiarity must have been visible in their views, each of their expressions must have been a true natural feature, and their ideas must have been in harmony with the world around them and be a faithful expression of it. We can therefore regard the thoughts of our forefathers of the things in the world as a necessary product, as a self-image of the state of earthly nature at that time, and especially in them, as the most suitable tools for the observation of the universe, we can certainly take from them the main relationship of the universe, the relationship of that time to its inhabitants, and its inhabitants to it. We find that it was precisely the most sublime questions that first occupied their attention, and that they sought the key to this wonderful building, sometimes in a mass of real things, sometimes in the fictional object of an unknown meaning. What is remarkable here is the common idea of the same in the liquid, in the thin, in the shapeless. It may well be that the sluggishness and imperviousness of the solid bodies did not leave the belief in their dependence and lowliness without meaning. Soon enough, however, a brooding head came across the difficulty of the explanation of forms from those shapeless forces and seas. He tried to untie the knot by a kind of unification, by making the first beginnings into solid, shaped bodies, which he took for granted, but which he took for granted as small, and now from this sea of dust, but certainly not without the help of participating thought beings, attractive and repulsive forces, he thought he would be able to carry out the monstrous construction. Even earlier, instead of scientific explanations, one finds morals and poems full of strange pictorial traits, people, gods and animals as joint masters of work, and listens to the most natural way of describing the creation of the world. At the very least, one experiences the certainty of its accidental, tool-like origin, and even for the despiser of the disorderly products of the imagination this idea is significant enough. To treat the history of the world as human history, to find everywhere only human events and conditions, has become an idea that has been constantly evolving and has been newly formed in various times, and seems to have always had priority in terms of its wonderful effects and easy conviction. The randomness of nature also seems to have joined the idea of human personality, and the latter most willing to be understood as a human being. This is probably why poetry has been the favourite tool of the true nature-lovers, and it is in poems that the spirit of nature has appeared most clearly. When one reads and hears outlawed poems, one feels an inner mind of nature move and float, like the heavenly body of nature, in it and above it at the same time. Naturalists and poets have always presented themselves through one language as one people. What they collected as a whole and put together in large, orderly masses, they have processed for human hearts to daily nourishment and need, and fragmented and formed that immense nature into manifold, small, pleasing natures. If the first pursued the liquid and ephemeral with an easy mind, the latter sought to explore the inner structure and the conditions of the limbs with sharp knife cuts. Under their hands the friendly nature died, leaving only dead, twitching remains, whereas the poet, as if inspired by spiritual wine, animated it even more, made it hear the most divine and cheerful ideas, and raised it above its everyday life, ascended to heaven, danced and prophesied, welcomed each guest, and wasted their treasures of joyful muth. So she enjoyed heavenly hours with the poet, and invited the naturalist only when she was ill and conscientious. Then she answered his every question, and gladly honoured the serious, strict man. So, if you want to know her mind well, you have to look for her in the company of poets, where she is open and pours out her wondrous heart. But whoever does not love her from the bottom of his heart, and admires this and that in her alone, and strives to experience it, must diligently visit her infirmary, her ossuary.
One stands with nature in just as incomprehensibly different circumstances as one does with men; and as it is childlike to the child and pleasing to the child's heart, so it is divine to God and is in harmony with his high spirit. One cannot say that there is a nature without saying something effusive, and all striving for truth in the speeches and conversations of nature is only ever more removed from naturalness. There is much to be gained if the striving to comprehend nature completely is refined into longing, into the tender, humble longing which the strange, cold being will gladly put up with, if it can only once count on more familiar contact. It is a mysterious nerve to all sides within us, spreading out from an infinitely deep centre. If the wondrous sensual and non-sensual nature lies all around us, we believe that it is an attraction to nature, an expression of our sympathy for her: But behind these blue, distant figures, one of them is still looking for a home that he conceals, a lover of his youth, parents and siblings, old friends, dear pasts; others think that on the other side unknown glories are waiting for him, a living future is hidden behind them, and they stretch out their hands to a new world. Few stand still in this splendid setting, seeking only to grasp it in its fullness and its concatenation, not forgetting the sparkling thread that weaves the limbs in rows and forms the holy chandelier, and finding themselves blissfully contemplating this living jewel floating above the depths of the night. This is the origin of many a contemplation of nature, and when at one end the perception of nature becomes a funny idea, a meal, one sees it transformed into the most devout religion, giving direction, attitude and meaning to a whole life. Even among the childlike peoples there were such serious minds for whom nature was the face of a deity, while other happy hearts only invited themselves to the table; the air was a refreshing drink to them, the stars were lights for nightly dancing, and plants and animals were only delicious food, and so nature did not seem to them like a quiet, wonderful temple, but like a merry kitchen and pantry. In between were other more sensible souls, who only noticed large but overgrown plants in the present nature, and were busy day and night creating models of a nobler nature. They divided themselves in a convivial way into the great work, some of them sought to awaken the silent and lost sounds in the air and forests, others laid down their images of the fairer sexes in ore and stones, rebuilt more beautiful rocks into dwellings, brought the hidden treasures from the vaults of the earth to light again; tamed the raging streams, populated the inhospitable sea, brought back into barren zones ancient and beautiful plants and animals, stopped the flooding of the forests, and cultivated the nobler flowers and herbs, opened the earth to the invigorating touches of the generating air and the igniting light, taught the colours to mix and order themselves into cartoon-like formations, and woods and meadows, springs and cliffs to come together again to form lovely gardens, breathed sounds into the living limbs in order to unfold them and move them in serene vibrations, took care of the poor, abandoned animals receptive to human customs, and purged the forests free from the harmful monsters, these abortions of a degenerate imagination. Soon nature learned more friendly manners again, it became gentler and more refreshing, and was willing to be found to carry human desires. Gradually her heart began to stir humanly again, her fantasies became more cheerful, she became sociable again, and gladly answered the friendly questioner, and so it seems that the old golden age is gradually returning, in which she was a friend, comforter, priestess and miracle-worker to mankind, when she lived among them, and a heavenly contact made men immortal. Then the heavenly bodies will visit the earth again, for which they had been grieved in those times. Then the old orphaned families are found, and every day sees new greetings, new embraces; then the former inhabitants of the earth come back to it, in every hill there is a new burst of ashes, flames of life blaze everywhere, old dwellings are rebuilt, old times are renewed, and history becomes the dream of an infinite, incalculable present.
Those who are of this tribe and of this faith, and who would like to contribute their own to this detoxification of nature, walk around in the artists' workshops, listen to the poetry that is breaking out unexpectedly in all classes, never tire of looking at and dealing with nature, follow her finger-pointing everywhere, never spurn an arduous walk when she beckons him, and should he also walk through mouldy troughs: he is sure to find unspeakable treasures, the pit light comes to a standstill at the end, and who knows what heavenly secrets a seated inhabitant of the underground kingdom will then initiate him into them. No one is more misguided than those who imagine that they already know the strange realm and know how to fathom its constitution with few words and find the right way everywhere. No one who breaks away and makes himself an island will understand, even without effort. Only children, or childish people who do not know what they are doing, can encounter this. A long, uninterrupted contact, free and artificial observation, attention to quiet nods and features, an inner life as a poet, trained senses, a simple and God-fearing mind, these are the essential requirements of an outlawed friend of nature, without which no one will be able to prosper. It does not seem wise to want to understand a human world without a fully flourishing humanity. No sense must slumber, and though not all are equally awake, they must all be stimulated and not oppressed and flaccid. Just as one sees a future painter in the boy who fills all walls and every flat sand with drawings and colourfully combines colours to form figures, so one sees a future worldly wisdom in the one who pursues all natural things without rest, inquires, pays attention to everything, gathers every strange thing together and is glad when he has become master and owner of a new appearance, a new strength and a new knowledge.
Now some people think it is not worth the effort to follow the endless divisions of nature, and moreover a dangerous undertaking, without fruit or outcome. Just as one will never find the smallest grain of solid bodies, never the simplest fibre, because all greatness is lost to infinity both forwards and backwards, so it is with the types of bodies and forces; here too, new types, new compositions, new phenomena are found in infinity. They then only seem to stand still when our diligence wearies, and so we waste our noble time with idle contemplation and boring counting, and in the end this becomes a true madness, a firm dizziness at the terrible depths. Nature, too, would remain a terrible mill of death as far as one could go: everywhere a tremendous change of direction, an indissoluble chain of vortexes, a realm of gluttony, of the greatest exuberance, an immensity pregnant with misfortune; the few bright spots only illuminate a night that is all the more gruesome, and horrors of all kinds should frighten every observer to numbness. Like a saviour, death stands by the poor human race, for without death the madman would be the happiest. The very striving for the discovery of this gigantic engine is already a draught into the depths, a beginning dizziness: for every ride seems to be a growing vortex that soon takes over the unhappy person completely and then carries him away with it through a terrifying night. Here is the cunning pitfall of the human mind, which nature everywhere seeks to destroy as its greatest enemy. Hail to the childish simplicity and innocence of men, which would make them unaware of the horrible dangers which are everywhere like terrible weather clouds around their peaceful homes, ready to burst upon them at any moment. Only the disunity of the forces of nature has sustained mankind until now, but there can be no escaping the great moment when all men, by a great collective decision, will break free from this embarrassing situation, from these terrible prisons, and by a voluntary renunciation of their local possessions will forever save their family from this misery, and save them into a happier world, to their old Father. Thus they would end up worthy of them, and would come to their necessary, violent extermination, or an even more horrible degeneration into animals, through gradual destruction of the organs of thought, with animals, plants, rocks, storms and waves, man must necessarily resemble these objects, and this resemblance, transformation and dissolution of the divine and human into unbridled forces is the spirit of nature, this terribly devouring power: and are not all that is seen already a robbery of the heavens, a great ruin of former glories, the remnant of a terrible meal?
Let our race, says the more courageous, wage a slow, well-considered war of destruction against this nature. We must try to deal with it with insidious poisons. The naturalist is a noble hero who plunges into the open abyss to save his fellow citizens. The artists have already played many a secret trick on her, go on, take hold of the secret threads and make them desire after themselves. Use those strands to direct them, like that fire-breathing bull, towards your own despotism. It must become subservient to you. Patience and faith are the children of men. Distant brothers are united with us for one purpose, the star wheel will become the spinning wheel of our lives, and then we can build a new djinnistan for ourselves through our slaves. In triumph let us see her devastation, her turmoil, she shall sell herself to us, and every act of violence shall become a heavy penance for her. Let us live and die in the thrilling feelings of our freedom, here springs the river that will one day flood and tame her, and in it let us bathe and refresh ourselves with new courage for heroic deeds. The monster's rage is not enough, one drop of freedom is enough to paralyse it forever and to set a standard and a goal for its devastations.
You are right, say several men; here or nowhere lies the talisman. At the source of freedom we sit and peep; it is the great magic mirror in which the whole of creation is revealed pure and clear, in which the delicate spirits and images of all natures bathe, and all chambers we see here open. What do we need to laboriously wander through the murky world of visible things? The purer world lies within us, in this spring. Here the true meaning of the great, colourful, confused spectacle is revealed; and if we step from these gazes fully into nature, everything is well known to us, and certainly we know every shape. We do not need to investigate for long, an easy comparison, only a few moves in the sand are enough to make us understand. Thus everything is written in large letters, to which we have the key, and nothing comes unexpectedly to us, because we know in advance the movement of the great clockwork. Only we enjoy nature with full senses, because it does not make us lose our senses, because no feverish dreams frighten us, and bright prudence makes us confident and calm.
The others talk crazy, says a serious man to them. Do they not recognise in nature the faithful imprint of themselves? They consume themselves in wild thoughtlessness. They do not know that their nature is a thought-game, a wild fantasy of their dream. It is a terrible animal to them, a strange abysmal larva of their desires. The waking man sees without shudder this brood of his disorderly imagination, for he knows that they are vain specters of his weakness. He feels himself master of the world, his ego hovers mightily over this abyss, and will forever float above this endless change. Harmony strives to announce and spread his inner being. He will always be with himself and his creation around him, and with every step he takes he will see the eternal omnipotence of a high moral world order, the vest of his ego, emerging ever brighter. The meaning of the world is reason: it is there for its sake, and once it is the battlefield of a childlike, blossoming reason, it will one day become the divine image of its activity, the scene of a true church. Up to that point man will honour it, as a symbol of his mind, which ennobles itself with him in indeterminable stages. Whoever wants to get to know nature, therefore, should exercise his moral sense, act and form according to the noble core of his inner being, and nature will open itself before him as if by itself. Moral action is the great and only attempt in which all the mysteries of the most diverse phenomena are solved. He who understands it and knows how to dissect it in strict sequences of thoughts is the eternal master of nature.
The student is anxiously listening to the crossing voices. Him seems every man to have right, and a strange confusion takes over his mind. Gradually, the inner turmoil subsides and a spirit of peace appears to float over the dark, breaking waves, announcing its arrival with new courage and overlooking serenity in the young man's soul.
A gentle playmate, whose temples were adorned with roses and winds, jumped up and saw him sitting low within himself. You brooding man, he cried, are on the wrong way. You will not make much progress this way. The best thing is the mood everywhere. Is that a mood of nature? You are still young, and don't you feel the commandment of youth in all your veins? Did not love and longing fill your breast? How can you sit in solitude? Does nature sit in solitude? Joy and desire flee from the lonely: and without desire, what good is nature to you? It is only among people that it becomes native, the spirit that pushes itself into all your senses with a thousand bright colours, that surrounds you like an invisible lover. At our feasts his tongue loosens, he sits on top and sings songs of the happiest life. You have not yet loved, you poor man; with the first kiss a new world is opened to you, with him life in a thousand rays enters your delighted heart. I will tell you a tale, listen well.
*
Long ago there lived a young man far in the west. He was very good, but he was also strangely large. He never stopped grieving over nothing, he always sat quietly for himself, sat alone when the others were playing and cheerful, and hung about strange things. Caves and woods were his favourite places to stay, and then he would go on talking to animals and birds, trees and rocks, not a sensible word of course, all silly stuff that would make you laugh. But he always remained grumpy and serious, in spite of the squirrel, the guenon, the papagay and the bullfinch, all trying to dissipate him and point him in the right direction. The goose told morals, the brook strummed a ballad in between, a big thick stone made ridiculous leaps, the rose crept friendly behind him, crept through his curls, and the epheu stroked his worried forehead. Only the displeasure and seriousness were persistent. His parents were very sad, they did not know what to do. He was healthy and ate, they had never insulted him, he had been cheerful and funny like no one else until a few years ago; at all the games in front, gladly seen by all the girls. He was quite beautiful, looked like reason, danced like a darling. Among the girls there was one, a delicious, beautiful child, looked like wax, hair like golden silk, cherry red lips, grown like a doll, eyes as black as a crab. Whoever saw her would never have forgotten her, she was so lovely. In those days Rose-petal, that was her name, was the heart of the beautiful Hyacinth, that was his name, and he loved her to die for her. The other children did not know this. A violet had told them that first, the house kittens had probably noticed, their parents' houses were close together. Now when Hyacinth stood by his window that night, and Rose-petal by hers, and the kittens walked by on the mice, they saw them standing there, and laughed and kicked so loudly that they heard it and became angry. The violet had told it the strawberry in confidence, and the strawberry told it her friend the gooseberry, and the gooseberry did not stop teasing when Hyacinth came; and soon the whole garden and the woods were told it, and when Hyacinth went out, there were cries from all sides: Rose-petal is my darling! Now Hyacinth was annoyed, and had to laugh again from the bottom of his heart when the little oathex came out, sat down on a warm stone, wagged his tail and sang:
Rose-petal, the good child,
Has suddenly become blind,
Thinks the mother was Hyacinth,
Falls around his neck quickly;
But she notices the strange face,
Just think about it, she won't be frightened,
Drives as if she didn't notice a word,
Always away with kisses.
Ah! how soon the glory was gone. There came a man from foreign lands, who had travelled astonishingly far, had a long beard, deep eyes, horrible eyebrows, a strange dress with many folds and strange figures woven into it. He sat down in front of the house that belonged to Hyacinth's parents. Now Hyacinth was very curious, and sat down with him and took some bread and wine. Then he drew his white beard from each other and talked until deep into the night, and Hyacinth did not waver, nor did he became tired of listening. As much as was heard afterwards, he told many tales of foreign lands, unknown areas, of astonishingly wonderful things, and stayed there for three days, crawling down deep shafts with Hyacinth. Rose-petal has cursed the old sorcerer enough, for Hyacinth was quite fond of his conversations, and did not worry about anything; no sooner did he eat a little food. At last he has gone away, but left Hyacinth a little book that no one could read. He gave him fruits, bread and wine, and accompanied him far away. And then he came back profoundly, and began a whole new way of life. Rose-petal was right to have mercy on him, because from that time on he cared little for her and always staid alone. Now it happened that he once came home and was like a newborn. He fell around the neck of his parents and wept. I must go away to foreign lands, he said, the old strange woman in the forest told me how I had to get well, she threw the book into the fire, and drove me to go to you and ask you for your blessings. Maybe I will come soon, maybe never again. Give my regards to Rose-petal. I would have liked to speak to her, I don't know how I feel, it is pushing me away; when I want to think back to the old times, more powerful thoughts come up, the peace is gone, heart and love with me, I have to go and look for them. I would like to tell you where, I don't know myself, to where the MOTHER of all things lives, the MAIDEN in disguise. After her my mind is inflamed. Farewell. He broke away and went away. His parents wept and shed tears, Rose-petal remained in her chamber and wept bitterly. Hyacinth now ran what he could, through valleys and wilderness, over mountains and streams, towards the mysterious land. He asked everywhere for the holy GODDESS: people and animals, rocks and trees. Some laughed, some remained silent, nowhere did he get any information. In the beginning he came through rough, wild land, fog and clouds were in his way, it was stormy all the time; then he found unforeseeable deserts of sand, glowing dust, and as he walked, so his mind changed, time became long and the inner restlessness subsided, he became softer and the mighty hustle and bustle in him turned into a quiet but strong nerve into which his whole mind dissolved. It lay like many years behind him. Now the countryside became richer and more varied again, the air lukewarm and blue, the path of level green bushes lured him with graceful shadows, but he did not understand their language, they did not seem to speak either, and yet they filled his heart with green colours and a cool, quiet nature. Ever higher grew that sweet longing in him, and ever wider and juicier grew the leaves, ever louder and lustier the birds and animals, more balmy the fruits, darker the sky, warmer the air, and hotter his love, time went ever faster, as if he were near his goal. One day he met a crystalline spring and a lot of flowers, which came down into a valley between black sky-high columns. They greeted him friendly with familiar words. Dear companions, he said, where do you think I can find the sacred residence of Isis? It must be around here, and you are perhaps better known here than I am. We are just passing through here, the flowers answered; a family of spirits is on its way and we are preparing their way and lodging, although we have recently passed through a region where we heard its name mentioned. Just go upwards, where we come from, and you will learn more. The flowers and the fountain smiled as they said so, offered him a fresh drink and went on. Hyacinth followed their advice, pondering and pondering and finally arrived at that long sought-after dwelling, hidden under palm trees and other delicious plants. His heart beat with infinite longing, and the sweetest anxiety pervaded him in this dwelling of the eternal seasons. Under heavenly scents he slumbered, because only the dream was allowed to lead him into the holy of holies. Miraculously the dream led him through endless chambers full of strange things on loudly scratching sounds and in alternating chords. Everything seemed so familiar to him, and yet in never-before-seen splendour, and the last earthly touch vanished, as if consumed in air, and he stood before the heavenly VIRGIN, and lifted the light, shining veil, and - Rose-petal sank into his arms! A distant music surrounded the secrets of the loving reunion, the effusions of longing, and shut out all strangers from this enchanting place. Hyacinth lived for a long time afterwards with Rose-petal among his happy parents and playmates, and countless grandchildren thanked the old strange woman for her advice and her fire; for in those days people had as many children as they wanted.
*
The apprentices hugged each other and left. The wide echoing hall stood empty and bright, and the wonderful conversation in countless languages continued among the thousand natures gathered in these halls and set up in manifold orders. Their inner forces played against each other. They strove back to their freedom, to their old conditions. Few stood in their proper place and watched in peace the manifold hustle and bustle around them. The rest complained of terrible torment and pain, and lamented the old, wonderful life in the lap of nature, where a communal freedom united them, and each received what was needed of its own accord. Oh! that man, they said, understood the inner music of nature and had a sense of outer harmony. But he hardly knows that we belong together, and that neither can exist without the other. He cannot leave anything lying around; tyrannically he separates us and reaches around in pure dissonance. How happy he could be if he treated us kindly, and also entered into our great union, as he once did in the golden age, as he rightly calls it. In that time he understood us as we understood him. His desire to become God separated him from us, he sought what we could not know, and since then he has not been an accompanying voice, not a co-movement. He probably searched the infinite lust, the eternal pleasure in us, and that is why he has such a wonderful love for some of us. The magic of gold, the secrets of colours, the pleasures of water are not foreign to him. In the ancient world he avenged the wonder of stones, and yet he still lacks the sweet passion for the weaving of nature, the eye for our delightful mysteries. Does he learn to feel only once? This heavenly, this most natural of all senses he still knows little: through feeling the old, longed for time would come back; the element of feeling is an inner light, which refracts itself in more beautiful, stronger colours. Then the stars were rising in him, he learned to feel the whole world, clearer and more varied than the eye now shows to him. He would become master of an infinite game and forget all foolish endeavours in an eternal, self nourishing and ever growing pleasure. Thinking is only a dream of feeling, a dead feeling, a pale grey, weak life.
As they spoke, the sun shone through the high windows, and the noise of the conversation was lost in a gentle whisper; an infinite odour pervaded all the figures, the sweetest warmth spread over all, and the most wonderful song of nature rose from the deepest silence. People's voices could be heard nearby, the large doors leading to the garden were opened, and some travellers sat down on the steps of the wide staircase, in the shadow of the building. The seated landscape lay before them in beautiful illumination, and in the background the view was lost in the blue mountains. Lovely children brought a variety of food and drink, and soon a lively conversation began among them.
To everything that man does, he must direct his unhealed attention or ego, said the one at last, and when he has done this, thoughts soon arise, or a new kind of perceptions, which seem to be nothing more than delicate movements of a colouring or rattling pencil, or strange contractions and figurations of an elastic fluid, in a wonderful way in him. They spread from the point where he stabbed the impression firmly, in all directions with lively agility, and take his ego away with them. He can often destroy this play again immediately by dividing his attention again or by letting it wander around at will, for they seem to be nothing but rays and effects that excite that ego in all directions in that elastic medium, or its refractions in the same, or even a strange play of the waves of the sea with the rigid attention. It is most strange that it is only in this game that man becomes aware of his peculiarity, his specific freedom, and that it seems to him as if he were awakening from a deep sleep, as if he were only now at home in the world, and only now is the light of day spreading over his inner world. He believes he has achieved the highest when he can do the ordinary business of the senses, and feel and think at the same time, without disturbing that game. In this way both perceptions are enhanced: the outer world becomes transparent, and the inner world becomes manifold and meaningful, and so the human being finds himself in an intimately living state between two worlds in the most perfect freedom and the most joyful feeling of power. It is natural that man should seek to perpetuate this state and spread it over the whole sum of his impressions; that he should not become tired of following these associations of both worlds, and of tracing their laws and their sympathies and antipathies. The epitome of that which moves us is called nature, and so nature is directly related to the limbs of our body, which we call senses. Unknown and mysterious relations of our body suggest unknown and mysterious relations of nature, and so nature is that wonderful community into which our body introduces us, and which we get to know according to its facilities and abilities. The question is whether we can truly understand the nature of nature through this special nature, and to what extent our thoughts and the intensity of our attention are determined by it, or determine it, and thereby break away from nature and perhaps spoil its delicate yielding. It is obvious that these internal conditions and facilities of our body must be explored before we can answer this question and hope to penetrate into the nature of things. But it might also be thought that we must first have practised thinking a little before we can try to understand the inner workings of our body and use our mind to understand nature, and there would be nothing more natural than to produce all possible movements of thought and to acquire a skill in this business, such as the ability to pass from one to another, to connect and dissect them a little. At the end of the process one should look carefully at all the impressions, and notice the play of thoughts that is created, and then, once again, new thoughts should arise, and watch them too, so as to gradually learn their mechanism and, by repeating them many times, to learn to distinguish and remember the movements that are constantly connected with each impression from the others. If only a few movements, as letters of nature, had been brought out, deciphering would become easier, and the power of thought production and movement would put the observer in a good position to produce thoughts of nature and to create compositions of nature, even without any previous real impression, and then the final result would be a natural thought.
It is much daring, said another, to try to put them together from the external forces and phenomena of nature, and to spend them sometimes on a tremendous fire, sometimes on a wonderfully designed ball, sometimes on a two or three, or on some other strange force. It would be more conceivable that it would be the product of an incomprehensible understanding of infinitely different beings, the wonderful bond of the spiritual world, the point of union and contact of countless worlds.
Let it be daring, said a third; the more arbitrarily the net that the bold fisherman casts is woven, the happier the catch. One should only encourage everyone to continue his course as far as possible, and everyone is welcome who spins things with a new imagination. Don't you think that it will be precisely the well-designed systems from which the future geographer of nature will take facts as his great map of nature? He will compare them, and this comparison will teach us about this strange land. The knowledge of nature will, however, be different from its interpretation for a long time to come. The actual creator will perhaps come to the point of setting several forces of nature in motion at the same time to produce wonderful and useful phenomena; he will be able to fantasise about nature as if on a large instrument, and yet he will not understand nature. This is the gift of the historian, of the visionary, who is familiar with the history of nature, and familiar with the world, this higher stage of natural history, perceives and prophesies its meanings. This area is still an unknown, sacred field. Only divine messengers have spoken a few words of this highest science, and it is only astonishing that the spirits who have been punished have let this punishment slip and have degraded nature to a uniform machine, without a past or future. All that is divine has a history and nature, that only all with which man can compare himself, it should not be as well conceived as man in history or which is one, to have a spirit? Nature would not be nature if it had no spirit, not that only counter-image of mankind, not the indispensable answer to this mysterious question, or the question to this infinite answer.
Only the poets have felt what nature can be to man, began a beautiful youth, and one can also say of them that humanity in them is in the most perfect dissolution, and therefore every impression is purely propagated in all its infinite changes in all directions by its mirror‘s brightness and mobility. They find everything in nature. The soul of nature alone is not foreign to them, and they do not seek all the bliss of the golden age in vain in their dealings with nature. For them, nature has all the variations of an infinite mind, and more than the most spiritual, lively human being, it surprises them with meaningful turns, encounters and deviations, great ideas and bizarreness. The inexhaustible richness of her fantasy lets no one seek her company in vain. Everything knows to embellish, animate, confirm them, and even if in the individual case an unconscious, insignificant mechanism alone seems to reign, the deeper-seeing eye sees a wonderful sympathy with the human heart in the meeting and in the succession of the individual coincidences. The wind is a movement of air which may have some external causes, but is it no longer present to the lonely, yearning heart when it rushes by, blowing from beloved places, and with a thousand dark, melancholy sounds seems to dissolve the silent pain into a deep melodic sigh of all nature? Doesn't the young lover, even in the fresh, modest green of the spring meadows, feel his entire flowery soul expressed with delightful truth, and has the opulence of a soul lustful after sweet dissolution in golden wine ever seemed more delicious and awakening than in a full, shining grape half-hidden under the broad leaves? One accuses the poets of exaggeration, and holds their figurative inauthentic language only too beautiful, so to speak, and without deeper investigation one is content to attribute to their imagination that whimsical nature which sees and hears what others do not hear and see, and which in a sweet madness with the real world switches and rules as it pleases; but it seems to me that the poets do not exaggerate enough to punish the magic of that language in a dark way, and play with imagination as a child plays with his father's magic wand. They do not know which forces are subject to them, which worlds must obey them. Is it not true then that stones and forests obey music and, tamed by it, submit to every will like domestic animals? Do not the most beautiful flowers really bloom around the beloved and take pleasure in decorating her? Will the sky not be cheerful for her and the sea not even? Does not the whole of nature express as well as the face, and the givers, the pulse and the colours, the state of each of the higher, wonderful beings we call humans? Does not the rock become a strange person, just when I address it? And what am I other than the stream, when I look wistfully down into its waves and lose my thoughts in its gliding? Only a calm, pleasurable mind will understand the plant world, only a funny child or a wild animal will understand the animals. I do not know whether someone has already understood the stones and the stars, but he must certainly have been a sublime being. In those statues, which are left over from a vanished time of the glory of the human race, only such a deep spirit, such a strange understanding of the stone world, shines out and covers the sensible observer with a stone bark, which seems to grow inwards. The sublime has a fossilizing effect, and so we should not wonder about the sublime nature and its effects, or not know where to look for it. Could nature not have become stone by the eye of God? Or be in horror at the coming of man?
About this speech, the one who spoke first had sunk into deep contemplation, the distant mountains were coloured, and the evening lay over the region with sweet familiarity. After a long silence he was heard to say: To understand nature, one must allow nature to arise inwardly in its entirety. In this undertaking, one must only allow oneself to be determined by the divine longing for beings that are like us and the necessary conditions to hear them, for the whole of nature can truly only be understood as a tool and medium for the consent of rational beings. The thinking human being returns to the original function of his existence, to creative contemplation, to that point where production and knowledge were in the most wonderful interrelation, to that creative moment of actual enjoyment, of inner self-reception. If he now sinks completely into the contemplation of this primordial phenomenon, the history of nature's creation unfolds before him in newly emerging times and spaces, like an immense spectacle, and every fixed point that is set in the infinite fluid becomes to him a new revelation of the genius of love, a new bond of the You and the I. The careful description of this inner world history is the true theory of nature; through the connection of its thought world in itself, and its harmony with the universe, a system of thought forms by itself to faithfully represent and formulate the universe. But the art of quiet contemplation, of creative contemplation of the world, is difficult; incessant serious reflection and strict sobriety demands execution, and the reward will not be the applause of laborious contemporaries, but only a joy of knowing and doing, a more intimate touch with the universe.
Yes, said the second, nothing is as remarkable as the great simultaneousness in nature. Everywhere nature seems to be very present. In the flame of light all the forces of nature are active, and so it represents and transforms itself everywhere and incessantly, gathering leaves, flowers and fruit, and is present, past and future at the same time in the midst of time; and who knows in what kind of distance it also acts, and whether this natural system is not only a sun in the universe, which is linked to it by bonds, by a light and a pull, and influences which can first of all be heard more clearly in our spirit, and out of it pour out the spirit of the universe over this nature, and distribute the spirit of this nature to other natural systems.
If the thinker, said the third, rightly enters the active path as an artist, and through a skilful application of his mental movements tries to reduce the universe to a simple, enigmatic figure, one might say that nature dances, and with words rewrites the lines of the movements, then the lover of nature must admire this bold undertaking, and rejoice in the prosperity of this human arrangement. Cheaply the artist puts activity on top, for his essence is doing and producing with knowledge and will, and his art is to use his tools for everything, to be able to reproduce the world in his own way, and therefore the principle of his world becomes activity, and his world his art. Here too nature becomes visible in new glory, and only the thoughtless man throws away the illegible, whimsically mixed words with contempt. Gratefully the priest places this new, sublime art of metrology on the altar to the magnetic needle that never goes astray, leading countless ships on the pathless ocean back to inhabited coasts and the ports of the fatherland. Apart from the thinker, there are other friends of knowledge who are not so well suited to producing knowledge through thinking, and who, therefore, without a profession, would rather become students of nature, find their joy in learning, not in teaching, in experiencing, not in making, in receiving, not in giving. Some are busy and, trusting in the omnipresence and intimate relationship of nature, and thus also convinced in advance of the incompleteness and continuity of each individual, carefully record any appearance, capturing the spirit of nature, which transforms into a thousand figures, with a steady gaze, and then walk along this thread through all the hiding places of the secret workshops, in order to be able to design a complete distortion of these labyrinthine passages. When they have finished this arduous work, a higher spirit has come upon them, and it becomes easy for them to talk about the map and to dictate their path to every seeker. Immense benefit will bless their arduous work, and the outline of their map will coincide in a surprising way with the system of the thinker, and they will have, as a consolation to him, as it were, led the living proof of his abstract propositions involuntarily. The most idle among them will fondly await in a childlike way the knowledge of nature which is useful to them from the loving sharing of higher beings whom they admire with fervor. They may not devote time and attention in this short life to business, and may withdraw from the service of love. Through pious behaviour they seek only to win love, only to share in the healing of love, unconcerned about the great spectacle of forces, calmly devoted to their fate in this kingdom of power, because they are filled with the intimate awareness of their inseparability from the beloved beings, and nature moves them only in the image and likeness of the latter. What do these happy souls need to know, who have chosen the best part, and as pure flames of love in this earthly world, blaze only on the tops of temples or on drifting ships, as signs of the overflowing heavenly fire? Often these loving children experience in blissful hours wonderful things from the secrets of nature, and manifest them in unconscious simplicity. The explorer follows their steps to collect every treasure they have dropped in their innocence and joy, the compassionate poet pays homage to his love and seeks to transplant this love, this seed of golden age, into other times and countries through his songs.
Who does not move, cried the young man with a sparkling eye, his heart in jumping lust, when the innermost life of nature comes into his mind in all its fullness! When that mighty feeling, for which language has no other name than love and lust, expands in him like a mighty, all-dissolving haze, and he sinks trembling in sweet fear into the dark, tempting shocks of nature, the poor personality is consumed in the overturning waves of lust, and nothing remains but a focus of immeasurable procreative power, a swallowing vortex in the great ocean! What is the flame that appears everywhere? An intimate embrace, whose sweet fruit is shed in luscious drops. Water, this firstborn child of airy mergers, cannot deny its voluptuous origin and shows itself, as an element of love and mixing with heavenly omnipotence on earth. It is not untrue that ancient sages have sought the origin of things in water, and indeed they have spoken of a higher water than sea and spring water. In that water only the primeval liquid is revealed, as it appears in liquid metal, and therefore people may always worship it divinely. How few people have ever delved into the secrets of the liquid and some have never been able to find this punishment of the highest pleasure and life in the drunken soul. In thirst this world soul reveals itself, this enormous longing to dissolve. The intoxicated feel only too well this supernatural bliss of the liquid, and in the end, all pleasant sensations in us are the many dissolutions, the movements of those primeval waters in us. Even sleep is nothing but the tide of that invisible ocean, and awakening is the coming of low tide. How many people stand by the intoxicating rivers and do not hear the lullaby of these motherly waters, and do not enjoy the delightful play of their endless waves! Like these waves, we lived in golden time; in colourful clouds, these floating seas and primeval sources of life on earth, the human race loved and created itself in eternal games, was visited by the children of heaven, and only in that great event, which holy legends call the flood, did this flourishing world come to an end; a hostile being struck down the earth, and some people remained washed up on the cliffs of the new mountains in the strange world. How strange that the most sacred and caressing phenomena of nature are in the hands of such dead people as the divine artists are wont to be! They, who powerfully awaken the creative sense of nature, which should be only a secret of lovers, mysteries of higher humanity, are shamelessly and senselessly evoked by raw spirits who will never know what wonders surround their glasses. Only poets should be allowed to deal with the liquid and tell of it to the fervent youth; the workshops would be temples and with new love people would worship their flame and their rivers and boast of them. How happy the cities would once again seem to be, washed by the sea or a great river, and each spring would once again become the sanctuary of love and the abode of experienced and wise people. That is why nothing attracts children more than fire and water, and every stream promises to lead them into the colourful distance, into more beautiful places. It is not just a reappearance that the sky is in the water, it is a tender friendship, a sign of neighbourliness, and when the unfulfilled urge wants to reach the immeasurable heights, happy love gladly sinks into the endless depths. But it is in vain to want to teach and preach nature. A blind man does not learn to see, no matter how much one wanted to tell him about colours and lights and distant figures. Thus no one will understand nature who has no organ of nature, no internal tool that produces and secretes nature, who does not recognize and distinguish nature in everything everywhere as if by itself, and who feels himself, as it were, into all nature beings with an innate desire to procreate, in intimate and manifold relationship with all bodies, through the medium of feeling. But he who has a correct and practised sense of nature enjoys nature by studying it, and rejoices in its infinite diversity, its inexhaustibility in enjoyment, and does not need to be disturbed in his enjoyment with useless words. Rather, it seems to him that one cannot deal with nature secretly enough, cannot talk about it tenderly enough, cannot look at it undisturbed and attentively enough. He feels in her as if he were at the bosom of his chaste bride and only trusts her with his gained insights during sweet and confidential hours. Happily I praise this son, this darling of nature, to whom she bestows her in her duality, as a generating and birthing power, and in her unity, as an infinite, eternal marriage. His life will be an abundance of all pleasures, a chain of lust, and his religion will be the true, genuine naturalism.
Under this speech the teacher and his apprentices had approached society. The travellers stood up and welcomed him respectfully. A refreshing coolness spread from the dark arcades across the square and the steps. The teacher had one of those rare shining stones called carbuncles brought and a bright red, powerful light poured out over the various figures and clothes. Soon there was a friendly sharing among them. While music could be heard from afar and a cooling flame of crystalline shells blazed into the lips of the speakers, the strangers recounted strange memories of their long journeys. Full of longing and curiosity, they had set out to search for the traces of that lost primitive people, whose degenerate and overgrown remnants seemed to be today's humanity, whose high education still provides them with the most important and indispensable knowledge and tools. The sacred language, which had been the shining bond between the royal people and the supernatural regions and inhabitants, and of which some words, according to many legends, may still have been in the possession of some lucky wise men among our ancestors, had enticed them in an excellent way. Their pronunciation was a wonderful song, whose irresistible sounds penetrated deep into the heart of every nature and dissected it. Each of their names seemed to be the key word for the soul of every natural body. With creative force these vibrations excited all the images of the phenomena of the world, and it could be rightly said of them, that the life of the universe is an eternal thousand voice conversation, for in their speech all forces, all kinds of activity seemed to be united in the most incomprehensible way. To seek out the ruins of this language, or at least all the news of it, had been a main purpose of their journey, and the call of antiquity had also drawn them to Sais. Here they hoped to receive important news from the experienced heads of the temple archives, and perhaps to find information in the large collections of all kinds. They asked the teacher for permission to sleep one night in the temple and to attend his lessons for a few days. They received what they wished, and rejoiced fervently as the teacher, from the treasure of his experiences, accompanied their stories with manifold remarks, and developed a series of instructive and graceful stories and descriptions before them.
At last he came to the business of his age of awakening, practising and sharpening the different senses of nature in young minds, and of linking them with the other dispositions for higher flowering and fruits.
To be a preacher of nature is a beautiful and holy office, said the teacher. Not the mere extent and context of knowledge, not the gift of easily and purely linking this knowledge to known concepts and experiences, and of exchanging strange-sounding words with ordinary expressions, not even the skill of a rich imagination, to arrange the phenomena of nature into easily comprehensible and aptly illuminated paintings, which either stimulate and satisfy the senses through the rides of the composition and the richness of the content, or enchant the mind through a deep meaning, all this does not yet constitute the true requirement of a herald of nature. To whom it is a matter of doing something different from nature, it may be enough, but whoever feels an intimate longing for nature, who seeks everything in her, and is, as it were, a sensitive instrument of her secret doing, will only recognize the one for his teacher and for the confidant of nature, who speaks of her with devotion and faith, whose speeches have the wonderful, inimitable urgency and inseparability through which true Gospel, true inspirations are announced. The original favourable disposition of such a natural mind must be supported and trained by unceasing diligence from youth on, by solitude and silence, because much talking is not compatible with the constant attention that such a person must pay, by a childlike, humble nature and untiring patience. The time cannot be determined how soon one of its secrets will become partial. Some lucky ones reached it earlier, some only at an advanced age. A true explorer never grows old, every eternal drive is outside the realm of life, and the more the outer shell weathers, the brighter and shinier and more powerful the core becomes. Nor does this gift cling to outer beauty, or strength, or insight, or any human virtue. In every state, under every age and sex, in every eon and under every heavenly condition, there have been people who have been chosen by nature as her favourites and have been made happy by inner receptivity. Often these people seemed to be more simple-minded and clumsy than others, and remained in the darkness of the great heap throughout their lives. It is even a rarity to find the true understanding of nature in great eloquence, wisdom, and splendid behaviour, since it generally produces or accompanies the simple words, the straight sense, and a simple being. In the workshops of craftsmen and artists, and where people are in manifold contact and dispute with nature, as in agriculture, shipping, cattle breeding, ore mines, and so in many other trades, the development of this sense seems to take place most easily and often. If every art consists in the knowledge of the means to achieve a desired end, to produce a certain effect and appearance, and in the skill of choosing and applying these means, then the one who feels the inner calling to make the understanding of nature common to several people, to develop and cultivate this disposition in people in an excellent way, must first of all pay careful attention to the natural causes of this development and seek to learn the basic features of this art of nature. With the help of these gained insights he will form a system of application of these means to every given individual, based on experimentation, dissection and comparison, and will appropriate this system to the other nature, and will then enthusiastically begin his rewarding business. Only this one can rightly be called a teacher of nature, since every other mere naturalist will only accidentally and sympathetically, like a natural product itself, awaken the sense for nature.