Lafcadio Hearn

“ Thoutboui appeared upon the threshold, robed in textures of white, transparent as the dresses of those dancing women limned upon the walls of the Pharaohs' palace; and as she stood against the light, Satni, beholding the litheness of her limbs, the flexibility of her body, felt his heart cease to beat within him, so that he could not speak. But she served him with wine, and took from his hands the gifts which he had brought—and she suffered him to kiss her.
Then said Thoutboui: "Not lightly is my love to be bought with gifts. Yet will I test thee, since thou dost so desire. ”

“ Even as he was ascending the steps of the temple, he beheld a damsel descending toward him, unrobed above the hips, after the fashion of her people. Sweet as the moon was her face; her hair was like a beautiful dark cloud; her eyes were liquid and large as a wild deer's; her brows were arched like bows well bent; her delicate nose was curved like a falcon's beak; her neck was comely as a dove's; her teeth were like pomegranate seeds; her lips ruddy as the crimson gourd; her hands and feet soft as lotus-leaves. Golden-yellow was her skin, like the petals of the champa-flowers ”

“ So Viswakarman, veiling himself in mists, wrought in obedience to the Father of Gods, invisibly, awfully, with all manner of precious gems, with all colors of heaven, with all perfume of flowers, with all rays of light, with all tones of music, with all things beautiful and precious to the sight, to the touch, to the hearing, to the taste, to the sense of odors. And as vapors are wrought into leafiest lacework of frosts, as sunbeams are transmuted into gems of a hundred colors, so, all mysteriously, were ten thousand priceless things blended into one new substance of life ”

“ THE BRAHMAN AND HIS BRAHMANI
The wise will not attach themselves unto women; for women sport with the hearts of those who love them, even as with ravens whose wing-feathers have been plucked out.... There is honey in the tongues of women; there is nought in their heart save the venom halahala.... Their nature is mobile as the eddies of the sea; their affection endures no longer than the glow of gold above the place of sunset: all venom within, all fair without, women are like unto the fruit of the goundja.... ”

“ Amneris has falsely told her that her lover has fallen in battle. And the daughter of Pharaoh is strong and jealous.
As the white moon moves around the earth, as the stars circle in Egypt's rainless heaven, so circle the dancing-girls in voluptuous joy before the king—gauze-robed or clad only with jeweled girdles;—their limbs, supple as the serpents charmed by the serpent charmer, curve to the music of harpers harping upon fantastic harps. The earth quakes again; there is a sound in the distance as when a mighty tide approaches the land—a sound as of the thunder-chanting sea. ”

“ All animals of the woods, all birds of the air, hurried to hear the marvelous art of the musician, hastened to taste the sweetness of his song.
The eagle descended from the clouds; the falcon clave the airs; the white gulls rose from the far sea-marshes, the swans from the clear deeps of running water; the swift lark, the quick finch, the comely linnet, came to perch upon the shoulders of the god.
The Sun, bright virgin of the sky—the Sun, rich in her splendors—and the fair-shining Moon, had paused in their paths ”

“ The desert shall be our nuptial couch!—the silent stars the witness of our love. Let my black hair cover thee as a tent; my eyes sustain thee; my kisses console thee." And as she twines about him and he inhales the perfume of her lips and feels the beating of her heart, Radames forgets country and honor and faith and fame; and the fatal word is spoken. Napata!—Amonasro, from the shadows of the palm-trees, shouts the word in triumph! There is a clash of brazen blades; Radames is seized by priests and soldiers: Amonasro and his daughter fly under cover of the night. ”

“ So Wainamoinen passed from the kingdom of Tuoni, from the children of Death; but he had not found the magical words, nor so much as the part of a word.
Then thought Wainamoinen unto himself: "Surely I may find a hundred words, a thousand syllables of song, in the mouth of the earth-giant, in the entrails of the ancient Kalewa! Long is the way to his resting-place; one must travel awhile over the points of women's needles, and awhile upon the sharp edges of warriors' swords, and yet again awhile upon the sharp steel of the battle-axes of heroes." ”

“ In days when the great Rajah Zainu'l-Mulk reigned over the eastern kingdoms of Hindostan, it came to pass that Bakawali, the Apsaras, fell in love with a mortal youth who was none other than the son of the Rajah. For the lad was beautiful as a girl, beautiful even as the god Kama, and seemingly created for love. Now in that land all living things are sensitive to loveliness, even the plants themselves—like the Asoka that bursts into odorous blossom when touched even by the foot of a comely maiden. Yet was Bakawali fairer than any earthly creature, being a daughter of the immortals ”

“ The music of the many-toned Opera of Life envelops and absorbs the soul of the stranger—teaching him that the acting behind the Curtain is not all a mimicry of the Real, but in truth a melodrama of visible, tangible, sentient life, which must endure through many thousand scenes until that Shadow, who is stronger than Love, shall put out the lights, and ring down the vast and sable Curtain. And thus dreaming, thou findest thyself again in the streets, whitened by the moon! Lights, fairies, kings, and captains are gone. Ah! thou hast not been dreaming, friend ”

“ There the Moon becometh old and again young many times, as one that dieth often and is reanimated as often by enchantment; while the Sun moveth in a circle of pallid mists, and setteth not. But when he setteth at last, it is still light; for the dead make red fires in the sky above the icebergs until after many, many dim months he riseth again.
All things there are white, save the black sea and the wan fogs; and yet it is hard to discover where the water ends and the land begins, for that part of the world the gods forgot to finish. ”

“ All blossom-beauty tempted in her bosom; all perfume lingered in her breath; all jewel-fires made splendor for her eyes; her locks were wrought of sunlight and of gold; the flowers of heaven rebudded in her lips; the pearl and the fairy opal blended in her smile; the tones of her voice were made with the love-songs of a thousand birds. And a name was given unto her, Tilottama, which signifies in that ancient Indian tongue, spoken of gods and men, "Fair-wrought of daintiest atoms."... ”

“ Each particle of our flesh has lived before our birth through millions of transmigrations more wonderful than any poet has dared to dream of; and the life-force that throbs in the heart of each one of us has throbbed for all time in the eternal metempsychosis of the universe. Each atom of our blood has doubtless circulated, before our very civilization commenced, through the veins of millions of living creatures—soaring, crawling, or dwelling in the depths of the sea ”

“ We have long waited and watched for thee, summer by summer, in those months when the great longing comes upon us all. For thy mother was of my people; and thou who hast sucked her breasts mayst not live with the pale children of another race. The heaven is our tent; the birds guide our footsteps south and north; the stars lead us to the east and west. My people have sought word of thee even while wandering in lands of sunrise. Our blood is stronger than wine; our kindred dearer than gold. Thou wilt leave riches, pleasures, honors, and the life of cities for thy heart's sake ”

“ The priests close up the tomb; they chant their holy and awful hymn. Radames finds his Aïda [Pg 303] beside him. She had concealed herself in the darkness that she might die in his arms.
The footsteps of the priests, the sacred hymn, die away. Alone in the darkness above, at the feet of the silent gods, there is a sound as of a woman's weeping. It is Amneris, the daughter of the king. Below in everlasting gloom the lovers are united at once in love and death. And Osiris, forever impassible, gazes into the infinite night with tearless eyes of stone. ”

“ All that the beauty of youth and the love of woman can give to make joyful the hearts of men, have I possessed; no Assyrian king, no Solomon, no ruler of Samarcand, no Caliph of Bagdad, no Rajah of the most eastern East, has ever loved as I; and [Pg 265] in my myriad loves I have beheld the realization of all that human thought had conceived or human heart desired or human hand crystallized into that marble of Pentelicus called imperishable—yet less enduring than these iron limbs of mine.
And ruddy I remain like that rosy granite of Egypt on which kings carved their dreams of eternity. ”

“ And, as a mist rising from the earth, a perfumed cloud shaped itself before him; and from out the cloud reached a hand, fairer than moonlight, holding a diamond cup in which a strange water made jewel-glimmerings, while a voice sweeter than music spake to him from out the cloud, saying: "The Creator of all—be His nature forever glorified and His power forever honored!—hath sent me to thee, O Solomon, with this cup containing the waters of youth and of life without end. And He hath desired thee to choose freely whether thou wilt or wilt not drink of this draught from the Fountain of Youth. ”

“ Yet my ghost like a faint perfume still haunted the silent chamber and hovered about the flames of the waxen tapers.
Other flowers, not of my race, are blooming above her place of rest. It is her blood that lives in the rosiness of their petals; her breath that lends perfume to their leaves; her life that vitalizes their veins of diaphanous green. But in the wizard hours of the night, the merciful Spirit of the Dew, who mourns the death of summer day, bears me aloft and permits me to mingle with the crystal tears which fall upon her grave. ”

“ When the love thou hast sung of shall have passed away like a smoke of frankincense, when the dust of the heart that beat against thine own shall have long been scattered by the four winds of heaven, when the eyes that looked for thy coming shall have become a memory, when the voices grateful to thine ear shall have been eternally stilled, when thy life shall be one oasis in a universal waste of death, and thine eternal existence but a recognition of eternal absence—wilt thou indeed care to live, though the wild dove perish when its mate cometh not? ”

“ Yet it is easier to dream of two thousand years ago than to recollect that thou livest in the material present—that only a painted ceiling lies between thy vision and the amethystine heaven of stars above, and that only a wall of plastered brick separates thee from the streets of New Orleans or the gardens westward where the bananas are nodding their heads under the moon. For the genii of this inner world are weaving their spells about thee. ”

“ The aged and valiant Wainamoinen harnessed his steed to his brown sledge; he mounted upon the seat, smote the swift horse, and cracked his great whip adorned with pearls.
The steed flew over the long course, drawing the brown sledge, devouring distance. Swift as wind was the driving of Wainamoinen, until he neared the dwelling of the sorcerers, the first of the habitations of the wizards. And he halted at the threshold, and cried: "Is there in this habitation any man learned in the knowledge of iron—any man who can oppose a dike to this river, who can check this torrent of blood?" ”

“ In seeking the All-Soul, thou hast found it in thyself, and hast elevated thyself to deity, yet for thee are vows vain and oracles dumb. Hope is extinguished in everlasting night; thou mayst not claim even the consolation of prayer, for thou canst not pray to thyself. Like the Mephistopheles of thy poet, O dreamer of the Nineteenth Century, thou mayst sit between the Sphinx of the Past and the Sphinx of the Future, and question them, and open their lips of granite, and answer their mocking riddles. But thou mayst not forget how to weep, even though thy heart grow old."... ”

“ All that art could inspire, all that gold might obtain, all that the wealth of a world could create were for him—save only the sound of a human voice and the sight of a human face. To madden in the presence of unattainable loveliness, to consume his heart in wild longings to realize the ravishing myth of Pygmalion, to die of a dream of beauty—such was the sentence of the king! ”

“ This heart that has beaten unceasingly for three thousand years; these feet that have trod the soil of all parts of the earth; these hands that have moulded the destinies of nations; this brain that contains a thousandfold more wisdom than all the children of the earth ever knew, shall soon cease to be. And yet to shatter and destroy the wondrous mechanism of this brain—a brain worthy of the gods men dream of—a temple in which all the archives of terrestrial knowledge are stored! ”