Free Goose of Hermogenes by Allen Saddler Peter Owen Ithell Colquhoun Patrick Guinness Page A
cheveu qui traine
Avarement aura noyé
Le flanc enfant d’une siréne.’
– Mallarmé.
Back at the mansion, I determined to explore more fully the interior of my Uncle’s domain; and accordingly I approached the door of the study through which, on my first evening, I had been vouchsafed the spectacle of the illuminated hands. To my surprise, the door was now slightly ajar; I pushed it open and found myself in what was no more than an ante-room giving, to the left, upon a series of chambers which housed the exhibits of a museum, and to the right, upon the immense dusky cavern of my Uncle’s library. I say ‘dusky’, and this indeed was the impression it made upon me; yet it was by no means ill-lighted, and the areas at window-level were furnished with books well-bound in, seemingly, the latest editions. It was further up, on the shelves above the windows, that shadow and festooning cobweb combined to hide a tattered array of volumes; while higher still, the rafters of the soaring roof were draped in utter darkness, and the forbidding antiquity of the treatises here stored formed but a screen for the flitter-mouse’s crannies. These upper shelves were reached by an occasional rickety ladder leaned against the wall; and temerity bade me climb, but only about half-way, up one of these.
I began to examine the titles now ranged level with my eyes, such as El Arte de los Metales of Barba, Anima Magica Abscondita, Coelum Terrae and several other of the mystical essays of Thomas Vaughan including – ironically enough, considering the place in which I found it – Aula Lucis. Not far away were The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King of Eirenaeus Philalethes, with A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby and The Fount of Chemical Light by the same author; while further on I discovered The Golden Age Restored of Henry Madathanas, A New Pearl of Great Price and The Sophic Hydrolith. But most of all it was the enigmatic Book of Lambspring by Nicholas Barnaud Delphinas that held my attention; and as I turned over its emblem-engraved leaves, a few pages of manuscript fell out, written in a crabbed hand I could only suppose my Uncle’s. I had set myself to lay open all I might of his secret researches, and accordingly had no hesitation in scrutinising the papers before me. This is what I read:
‘Everything found on land is found in the sea.’
‘Is it not time to break through that dismal convention of the scientific periodicals which orders, however suavely, that only the driest language be used? One would hardly know that these people were making discoveries from the way they have to write them up. Their particular kind of good form decrees that every experiment, no matter how dramatically successful, should be tabulated with less symptom of personal zest than the pages of a ledger can show.
‘I have been able to observe some remarkable facts about plant-life, hitherto unnoticed, particularly with regard to habitat; and I expect other biologists to give these investigations their due, despite their unusual guise and staging. Indeed I hope the more orthodox savants may even recognise here a certain justice, since the things I am going to describe seem like sports of nature; though who knows? further research may prove them to be instances of some law previously unknown.
Experiment I.
‘As I was climbing over the rocky ridges of a valley I came upon a wide fissure slanting down towards the centre of the earth. I looked in and found that its distant floor was water. I began to climb down inside, taking hold of a natural bannister here, stepping on an unhewn stair-tread there, which the uneven surfaces provided. This descent was not easy, as the rock was green with damp and patched with a viscous wine-coloured growth.
‘I had now penetrated to a vertiginous depth; if I looked upward, the walls rose above me in a cool shaft; turning downward, I could see a cave filled with water the colour of crysolite, illumined
Avarement aura noyé
Le flanc enfant d’une siréne.’
– Mallarmé.
Back at the mansion, I determined to explore more fully the interior of my Uncle’s domain; and accordingly I approached the door of the study through which, on my first evening, I had been vouchsafed the spectacle of the illuminated hands. To my surprise, the door was now slightly ajar; I pushed it open and found myself in what was no more than an ante-room giving, to the left, upon a series of chambers which housed the exhibits of a museum, and to the right, upon the immense dusky cavern of my Uncle’s library. I say ‘dusky’, and this indeed was the impression it made upon me; yet it was by no means ill-lighted, and the areas at window-level were furnished with books well-bound in, seemingly, the latest editions. It was further up, on the shelves above the windows, that shadow and festooning cobweb combined to hide a tattered array of volumes; while higher still, the rafters of the soaring roof were draped in utter darkness, and the forbidding antiquity of the treatises here stored formed but a screen for the flitter-mouse’s crannies. These upper shelves were reached by an occasional rickety ladder leaned against the wall; and temerity bade me climb, but only about half-way, up one of these.
I began to examine the titles now ranged level with my eyes, such as El Arte de los Metales of Barba, Anima Magica Abscondita, Coelum Terrae and several other of the mystical essays of Thomas Vaughan including – ironically enough, considering the place in which I found it – Aula Lucis. Not far away were The Open Entrance to the Closed Palace of the King of Eirenaeus Philalethes, with A Brief Guide to the Celestial Ruby and The Fount of Chemical Light by the same author; while further on I discovered The Golden Age Restored of Henry Madathanas, A New Pearl of Great Price and The Sophic Hydrolith. But most of all it was the enigmatic Book of Lambspring by Nicholas Barnaud Delphinas that held my attention; and as I turned over its emblem-engraved leaves, a few pages of manuscript fell out, written in a crabbed hand I could only suppose my Uncle’s. I had set myself to lay open all I might of his secret researches, and accordingly had no hesitation in scrutinising the papers before me. This is what I read:
‘Everything found on land is found in the sea.’
‘Is it not time to break through that dismal convention of the scientific periodicals which orders, however suavely, that only the driest language be used? One would hardly know that these people were making discoveries from the way they have to write them up. Their particular kind of good form decrees that every experiment, no matter how dramatically successful, should be tabulated with less symptom of personal zest than the pages of a ledger can show.
‘I have been able to observe some remarkable facts about plant-life, hitherto unnoticed, particularly with regard to habitat; and I expect other biologists to give these investigations their due, despite their unusual guise and staging. Indeed I hope the more orthodox savants may even recognise here a certain justice, since the things I am going to describe seem like sports of nature; though who knows? further research may prove them to be instances of some law previously unknown.
Experiment I.
‘As I was climbing over the rocky ridges of a valley I came upon a wide fissure slanting down towards the centre of the earth. I looked in and found that its distant floor was water. I began to climb down inside, taking hold of a natural bannister here, stepping on an unhewn stair-tread there, which the uneven surfaces provided. This descent was not easy, as the rock was green with damp and patched with a viscous wine-coloured growth.
‘I had now penetrated to a vertiginous depth; if I looked upward, the walls rose above me in a cool shaft; turning downward, I could see a cave filled with water the colour of crysolite, illumined