The Equinox (Volume I, Number II)

THE EQUINOX him, and vultures whose bald heads were clotted with rotten blood. ‘Ah! the world, the world ... the failure of the world.” And then an amber light surged round him, the fearful tapestry of torturing thought was rent asunder, the voices of many angels sang to him. ‘Master! Master!” he cried, ‘I have found Thee . . . O silver Christ. . . .” Then all was Nothingness . . . nothing... nothing... nothing; and madly his horse carried him into the night. Thus he set out on his mystic quest towards that goal which he had seen, and which seemed so near; and yet, as we shall learn, proved to be so far away. In the first volume of the diaries, we find him deep in the study of the Alchemistic philosophers. Poring over Paracelsus, Benedictus Figulus, Eugenius and Eirenzeus Philalethes, he sought the Alchemical Azoth, the Catholicon, the Sperm of the World, that Universal Medicine in which is contained all other medicines and the first principle of all substances. In agony and joy he sought to fix the volatile, and transmute the formless human race into the dual child of the mystic Cross of Light, that is to say, to solve the problem of the Perfect Man. Fludd, Bonaventura, Lully, Valentinus, Flamel, Geber, Plotinus, Ammonius, Iamblichus and Dionysius were all devoured with the avidity and greed which youth alone pos- sesses; there was no halting here— “ «Now, master, take a little rest !’—not he ! (Caution redoubled, Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly !) Not a whit troubled Back to his studies, fresher than at first, Fierce as a dragon He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) Sucked at the flagon.” 234