Julian

“ Months passed when Julian never saw a human being. He often closed his lids and endeavored to recall his youth;--he beheld the courtyard of a castle, with greyhounds stretched out on a terrace, an armoury filled with valets, and under a bower of vines a youth with blond curls, sitting between an old man wrapped in furs and a lady with a high cap; presently the corpses rose before him, and then he would throw himself face downward on his cot and sob:
"Oh! poor father! poor mother! poor mother!" ”

“ Suddenly, half-waking, Julian remembers that he is in the heart of Persia; that he is the Roman Emperor; that he alone is responsible for the lives of sixty thousand legionaries; that the gods are no more, that he has thrown down the altar of sacrifice. He shivers, and an icy chillness invades his body. He is falling, falling through the void, with nothing, nothing in the universe to arrest his fall. ”

“ For when he first went to school, Julian was all the more dangerously circumstanced, from the fact that he was an attractive and engaging boy. With his bright eyes, beaming with innocence and trustfulness, the healthy glow of his clear and ingenuous countenance, and the noble look and manners which were the fruit of a noble mind, he could never be one of those who pass unknown and unnoticed in the common throng. And since to these advantages of personal appearance he superadded a quick intelligence, and no little activity and liveliness, he was sure to meet with flattery and observation. ”

“ So Julian stretched himself out upon the leper, lay on him, lips to lips, chest to chest.
Then the leper clasped him close and presently his eyes shone like stars; his hair lengthened into sunbeams; the breath of his nostrils had the scent of roses; a cloud of incense rose from the hearth, and the waters began to murmur harmoniously; an abundance of bliss, a superhuman joy, filled the soul of the swooning Julian, while he who clasped him to his breast grew and grew until his head and his feet touched the opposite walls of the cabin. ”

“ At daybreak, three equerries waited for him at the foot of the steps; and though the old monk leaned out of the dormer-window and made signs to him to return, Julian would not look around.
He heeded neither the broiling sun, the rain nor the storm; he drank spring water and ate wild berries, and when he was tired, he lay down under a tree; and he would come home at night covered with earth and blood, with thistles in his hair and smelling of wild beasts. He grew to be like them. ”

“ As they watched him out of the corners of their eyes, they seemed to meditate a plan of revenge, and Julian, who was deafened by the buzzing of the insects, bruised by the wings and tails of the birds, choked by the stench of animal breaths, walked with outstretched arms and closed lids, like a blind man, without even the strength to beg for mercy. ”

“ It was not strange that the devotion of Julian, the enthusiasm of his character, the fervor of his language, the ardor, the grace of his manner, should have captivated her imagination and touched her heart. I never saw any one so changed in so short a time. The contrast was almost as great, to her former self, as between a placid silver lake, and the foam of the torrent sparkling and flashing with rainbows. Her countenance had lost its air of divine repose, and varied with every emotion of her soul. She was a thousand times more beautiful, and I loved her far more than I had ever done before. ”

“ Julian. Maximus!
Maximus. There is One who ever reappears, at certain intervals, in the course of human history. He is like a rider taming a wild horse in the arena. Again and yet again it throws him. A moment, and he is in the saddle again, each time more secure and more expert; but off he has had to go, in all his varying incarnations, until this day. Off he had to go as the god-created man in Eden’s grove; off he had to go as the founder of the world-empire;—off he must go as the prince of the empire of God. Who knows how often he has wandered among us when none have recognised him? ”

“ I am Julian.”
“I know you for a base apostate,” thundered Pelistes, the great wrath within him finding sudden vent, “an apostate and a traitor. Julian, my friend, was a Christian knight, devoted, true, and valiant, but you, you have no name. Infidel, renegade, and traitor, the earth you tread abhors you. The men you lead curse you, for you have betrayed Spain and your king. Therefore, I repeat, O man unknown, if you declare you are Don Julian, you lie. He, alas! is dead, and you are some fiend from hell who wears his semblance. ”

“ Another scent floated through that imagined damp and breathing wood from another—but how different—soul-flower. No Litany of triumph murmured in the blackness where Julian sat, but a hoarse and broken solo, part despair, part fear, part anger, and all perplexed and flooded with bewilderment and with excitement. The doctor drew into him the murmur of Julian's mind until it seemed to become, for the time, the murmur of his own mind. He was conscious of a dreadful turmoil of doubt, and dread and perplexity, so strong, so painful, that it lay upon him like a dense and a suffocating burden. ”

“ Julian lives in the obscurity of retreat, and in the solitude most favourable to literary pursuits. What avocations can have called off his attention from the interests of his friend? May I be permitted however to draw one conclusion from your silence, that you do not consider my situation as critical and alarming? That although you join the prudent severity of a monitor with the candid partiality of a friend, you yet view my faults in a venial light, and are disposed to draw over them the veil of indulgence? ”

“ The shadow of the trees fell on the earth. Here and there, the moonlight flecked the glades and Julian feared to advance, because he mistook the silvery light for water and the tranquil surface of the pools for grass. A great stillness reigned everywhere, and he failed to see any of the beasts that only a moment ago were prowling around the castle. As he walked on, the woods grew thicker, and the darkness more impenetrable. ”

“ Search was made for him. He lay in hiding in the thicket of laurels at the feet of Eros. Accustomed to his fits of moroseness, they gave up the search, satisfied that he had returned to Macellum.
When all around was restored again to silence, Julian came out from his hiding-place and gazed at the temple of the goddess of love, lodged upon a gentle hill, and bare to view on all sides. The Ionic marble columns, flooded with sunshine, were softly steeped in the warmth of azure, receiving its ardent embraces with the cold purity of snow. ”

“ It seemed to Julian that the god benignly stooped still lower, to receive the 333 offering of the last adorers—the weak priest, the apostate Emperor, and the deaf-mute son of the sibyl.
"This is my reward," thought Julian. "I wish for no other glory, nor guerdon, O Apollo! I thank thee for the curses of the crowd; and for thy grace, in making me live and die alone, like thyself! There, where the populace prays, there is no god! Thou art here, in this sanctuary profaned. O god, scorned by mankind, now art thou far more beautiful than of old when they adored thee! ”

“ Julian,—a woman writing of the Revelations of Love,—the delightfully trenchant, easy address of Hilton in his counsels as to how to scale the Ladder of Perfection—counsels both wise and witty—yet Julian, too, with all her sweetness, is full of this every day vigour and common sense. And sometimes she puts things in a naïve, engaging way of her own, grave and yet light—as if with a little understanding smile to those to whom she is speaking:—"Then ween we, who be not all wise" ”

“ Julian. Of what are you speaking?
37The Philosopher. It is too late now. Farewell, my lord!
[Going.
Julian. [Seizes his hand.] Friend and brother, who are you?
The Philosopher. One who sorrows to see the God-born go to ruin.
Julian. What do you call the God-born?
The Philosopher. The Uncreated in the Ever-changing.
Julian. Still I am in the dark.
The Philosopher. There is a whole glorious world to which you Galileans are blind. In it our life is one long festival, amid statues and choral songs, foaming goblets in our hands, and our locks entwined with roses. ”

“ Julian never remarked the ugliness of the old man, seeing only the throbbing passion of a soul thrilled by grandeur and beauty.
His listener trembled, while the divine hexameters rose and shouted like waves. He saw the farewells of Andromache and Hector; the wanderings of Ulysses, weeping for Ithaca on the melancholy and sterile beach of Calypso's island. Delicious sorrow seized the heart of Julian; pains of yearning for Hellas, the country of the gods, eternally beautiful, land of all beauty-worshippers. ”

“ Thus Julian pressed on inexorably till death, endeavoring to crush the religion of Jesus, and to reinstate the gorgeous but senseless mummeries of paganism. Intellectually, Julian was a remarkable man both in native vigor of mind and in rich mental culture. Those portions of his works which have descended to us prove that he possessed talent, wit, and rhetorical ease and fluency. It seems as though God allowed such men to assail Christianity, that it might be seen that the religion of Jesus could triumph over the highest intelligence combined with unlimited despotic power. ”

“ Julian aimed his last arrow at the beast. It struck him between his antlers and stuck there.
The stag did not appear to notice it; leaping over the bodies, he was coming nearer and nearer with the intention, Julian thought, of charging at him and ripping him open, and he recoiled with inexpressible horror. But presently the huge animal halted, and, with eyes aflame and the solemn air of a patriarch and a judge, repeated thrice, while a bell tolled in the distance: "Accursed! Accursed! Accursed! some day, ferocious soul, thou wilt murder thy father and thy mother!" ”

“ All this gave deeper vexation to Julian’s heart as he went moodily to bed.
And Brogten? He sat sullenly over his fire till the last spark died from its ashes, and his lamp flickered out, and he shivered with cold. “It is of no use to conquer myself,” he thought; “it is of no use to do better or be better if this comes of it. ”

“ Julian, like all of an imaginative turn, deceived himself, and worshipped an idol which he had created rather than an object which existed: a pretty face blinds even a philosopher, and from habits of seclusion and naturally refined taste, he was peculiarly susceptible to the charm and ease of her manners. ”

“ Julian. Now Constantius has no longer a bodyguard.
Maurus. What say you, my lord?
Julian. Ah! My faithful ones! Up into the daylight to Rome, and to Greece!
The Soldiers. Long live the Emperor Julian!
Julian. We will not look back; all ways lie open before us. Up into the daylight! Through the church! The liars shall be silenced——!
[He rushes up the steps in the background. The army mine, the treasure mine, the throne mine!
The Choir. [In the church.] Lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil! ”

“ Julian and Lillyston had never shunned his society, either when he breathed the odour of sanctity, or when he sank into the slough of wretchlessness. Both of them were sufficiently conscious of the heart’s weakness to prevent them from the cold and melancholy presumption which leads weak and sinful men to desert and denounce those whom the good spirits have not yet deserted, and whom the good God has not finally condemned. ”

“ Julian, on the other hand, who knew far fewer men, could count among his new and old companions some real friends—friends who would cling to him in adversity as well as in prosperity, and who loved him for his own sake, whether his fortunes were in sunshine or in cloud. First among these newly-acquired friends he counted the names of Owen and Kennedy, among the old ones of Lillyston and De Vayne. ”

“ It was Julian’s own private Julian, a personality developed side by side with the sudden and violent re-adjustment of his conception of his relations with the world, who was looked up to, listened to, respected, and deferred to during the hour’s walk which lay between that side-street out of Piccadilly and a certain little street out of the Hammersmith Road. A vague, undefined craving for pre-eminence and admiration had risen in him with his realisation of his dependence, and the reflected nature of the light with which he shone in society. ”

“ Do you believe that Julian absolutely held the hand of some being dwelling in another sphere, some being attracted to us, or, say, enabled to come to us by such an action as our sitting at a table in the dark? ”

“ In this fashion Julian flew the heron, the kite, the crow, and the vulture.
He loved, sounding his horn, to follow his dogs as they ran along the hill-sides, leapt the brooks, climbed up to the woods; and when the stag began to sigh under their bites he struck it down swiftly, then took pleasure in the fury of the mastiffs as they devoured it, cut in pieces upon its reeking hide. ”

“ For Julian, who speaking so much of sin as a strange and troubling sight, yet gives as examples of sin only a slothful mistrusting despondency,—speaks indeed of faith and hope and charity, compassion and meekness, but scarcely exhorts except to the cheerful enduring of tribulation. So she gives counsel as to "rejoicing more in His whole love than sorrowing in our often fallings" ”