THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE


    FAR away towards the east, in India, which seemed in those
days the world's end, stood the Tree of the Sun; a noble tree,
such as we have never seen, and perhaps never may see.

    The summit of this tree spread itself for miles like an
entire forest, each of its smaller branches forming a complete
tree. Palms, beech-trees, pines, plane-trees, and various
other kinds, which are found in all parts of the world, were
here like small branches, shooting forth from the great tree;
while the larger boughs, with their knots and curves, formed
valleys and hills, clothed with velvety green and covered with
flowers. Everywhere it was like a blooming meadow or a lovely
garden. Here were birds from all quarters of the world
assembled together; birds from the primeval forests of
America, from the rose gardens of Damascus, and from the
deserts of Africa, in which the elephant and the lion may
boast of being the only rulers. Birds from the Polar regions
came flying here, and of course the stork and the swallow were
not absent. But the birds were not the only living creatures.
There were stags, squirrels, antelopes, and hundreds of other
beautiful and light-footed animals here found a home.

    The summit of the tree was a wide-spreading garden, and in
the midst of it, where the green boughs formed a kind of hill,
stood a castle of crystal, with a view from it towards every
quarter of heaven. Each tower was erected in the form of a
lily, and within the stern was a winding staircase, through
which one could ascend to the top and step out upon the leaves
as upon balconies. The calyx of the flower itself formed a
most beautiful, glittering, circular hall, above which no
other roof arose than the blue firmament and the sun and
stars.

    Just as much splendor, but of another kind, appeared
below, in the wide halls of the castle. Here, on the walls,
were reflected pictures of the world, which represented
numerous and varied scenes of everything that took place
daily, so that it was useless to read the newspapers, and
indeed there were none to be obtained in this spot. All was to
be seen in living pictures by those who wished it, but all
would have been too much for even the wisest man, and this man
dwelt here. His name is very difficult; you would not be able
to pronounce it, so it may be omitted. He knew everything that
a man on earth can know or imagine. Every invention already in
existence or yet to be, was known to him, and much more; still
everything on earth has a limit. The wise king Solomon was not
half so wise as this man. He could govern the powers of nature
and held sway over potent spirits; even Death itself was
obliged to give him every morning a list of those who were to
die during the day. And King Solomon himself had to die at
last, and this fact it was which so often occupied the
thoughts of this great man in the castle on the Tree of the
Sun. He knew that he also, however high he might tower above
other men in wisdom, must one day die. He knew that his
children would fade away like the leaves of the forest and
become dust. He saw the human race wither and fall like leaves
from the tree; he saw new men come to fill their places, but
the leaves that fell off never sprouted forth again; they
crumbled to dust or were absorbed into other plants.

    "What happens to man," asked the wise man of himself,
"when touched by the angel of death? What can death be? The
body decays, and the soul. Yes; what is the soul, and whither
does it go?"

    "To eternal life," says the comforting voice of religion.

    "But what is this change? Where and how shall we exist?"

    "Above; in heaven," answers the pious man; "it is there we
hope to go."

    "Above!" repeated the wise man, fixing his eyes upon the
moon and stars above him. He saw that to this earthly sphere
above and below were constantly changing places, and that the
position varied according to the spot on which a man found
himself. He knew, also, that even if he ascended to the top of
the highest mountain which rears its lofty summit on this
earth, the air, which to us seems clear and transparent, would
there be dark and cloudy; the sun would have a coppery glow
and send forth no rays, and our earth would lie beneath him
wrapped in an orange-colored mist. How narrow are the limits
which confine the bodily sight, and how little can be seen by
the eye of the soul. How little do the wisest among us know of
that which is so important to us all.

    In the most secret chamber of the castle lay the greatest
treasure on earth- the Book of Truth. The wise man had read it
through page after page. Every man may read in this book, but
only in fragments. To many eyes the characters seem so mixed
in confusion that the words cannot be distinguished. On
certain pages the writing often appears so pale or so blurred
that the page becomes a blank. The wiser a man becomes, the
more he will read, and those who are wisest read most.

    The wise man knew how to unite the sunlight and the
moonlight with the light of reason and the hidden powers of
nature; and through this stronger light, many things in the
pages were made clear to him. But in the portion of the book
entitled "Life after Death" not a single point could he see
distinctly. This pained him. Should he never be able here on
earth to obtain a light by which everything written in the
Book of Truth should become clear to him? Like the wise King
Solomon, he understood the language of animals, and could
interpret their talk into song; but that made him none the
wiser. He found out the nature of plants and metals, and their
power in curing diseases and arresting death, but none to
destroy death itself. In all created things within his reach
he sought the light that should shine upon the certainty of an
eternal life, but he found it not. The Book of Truth lay open
before him, but, its pages were to him as blank paper.
Christianity placed before him in the Bible a promise of
eternal life, but he wanted to read it in his book, in which
nothing on the subject appeared to be written.

    He had five children; four sons, educated as the children
of such a wise father should be, and a daughter, fair, gentle,
and intelligent, but she was blind; yet this deprivation
appeared as nothing to her; her father and brothers were
outward eyes to her, and a vivid imagination made everything
clear to her mental sight. The sons had never gone farther
from the castle than the branches of the trees extended, and
the sister had scarcely ever left home. They were happy
children in that home of their childhood, the beautiful and
fragrant Tree of the Sun. Like all children, they loved to
hear stories related to them, and their father told them many
things which other children would not have understood; but
these were as clever as most grownup people are among us. He
explained to them what they saw in the pictures of life on the
castle walls- the doings of man, and the progress of events in
all the lands of the earth; and the sons often expressed a
wish that they could be present, and take a part in these
great deeds. Then their father told them that in the world
there was nothing but toil and difficulty: that it was not
quite what it appeared to them, as they looked upon it in
their beautiful home. He spoke to them of the true, the
beautiful, and the good, and told them that these three held
together in the world, and by that union they became
crystallized into a precious jewel, clearer than a diamond of
the first water- a jewel, whose splendor had a value even in
the sight of God, in whose brightness all things are dim. This
jewel was called the philosopher's stone. He told them that,
by searching, man could attain to a knowledge of the existence
of God, and that it was in the power of every man to discover
the certainty that such a jewel as the philosopher's stone
really existed. This information would have been beyond the
perception of other children; but these children understood,
and others will learn to comprehend its meaning after a time.
They questioned their father about the true, the beautiful,
and the good, and he explained it to them in many ways. He
told them that God, when He made man out of the dust of the
earth, touched His work five times, leaving five intense
feelings, which we call the five senses. Through these, the
true, the beautiful, and the good are seen, understood, and
perceived, and through these they are valued, protected, and
encouraged. Five senses have been given mentally and
corporeally, inwardly and outwardly, to body and soul.

    The children thought deeply on all these things, and
meditated upon them day and night. Then the eldest of the
brothers dreamt a splendid dream. Strange to say, not only the
second brother but also the third and fourth brothers all
dreamt exactly the same thing; namely, that each went out into
the world to find the philosopher's stone. Each dreamt that he
found it, and that, as he rode back on his swift horse, in the
morning dawn, over the velvety green meadows, to his home in
the castle of his father, that the stone gleamed from his
forehead like a beaming light; and threw such a bright
radiance upon the pages of the Book of Truth that every word
was illuminated which spoke of the life beyond the grave. But
the sister had no dream of going out into the wide world; it
never entered her mind. Her world was her father's house.

    "I shall ride forth into the wide world," said the eldest
brother. "I must try what life is like there, as I mix with
men. I will practise only the good and true; with these I will
protect the beautiful. Much shall be changed for the better
while I am there."

    Now these thoughts were great and daring, as our thoughts
generally are at home, before we have gone out into the world,
and encountered its storms and tempests, its thorns and its
thistles. In him, and in all his brothers, the five senses
were highly cultivated, inwardly and outwardly; but each of
them had one sense which in keenness and development surpassed
the other four. In the case of the eldest, this pre-eminent
sense was sight, which he hoped would be of special service.
He had eyes for all times and all people; eyes that could
discover in the depths of the earth hidden treasures, and look
into the hearts of men, as through a pane of glass; he could
read more than is often seen on the cheek that blushes or
grows pale, in the eye that droops or smiles. Stags and
antelopes accompanied him to the western boundary of his home,
and there he found the wild swans. These he followed, and
found himself far away in the north, far from the land of his
father, which extended eastward to the ends of the earth. How
he opened his eyes with astonishment! How many things were to
be seen here! and so different to the mere representation of
pictures such as those in his father's house. At first he
nearly lost his eyes in astonishment at the rubbish and
mockery brought forward to represent the beautiful; but he
kept his eyes, and soon found full employment for them. He
wished to go thoroughly and honestly to work in his endeavor
to understand the true, the beautiful, and the good. But how
were they represented in the world? He observed that the
wreath which rightly belonged to the beautiful was often given
the hideous; that the good was often passed by unnoticed,
while mediocrity was applauded, when it should have been
hissed. People look at the dress, not at the wearer; thought
more of a name than of doing their duty; and trusted more to
reputation than to real service. It was everywhere the same.

    "I see I must make a regular attack on these things," said
he; and he accordingly did not spare them. But while looking
for the truth, came the evil one, the father of lies, to
intercept him. Gladly would the fiend have plucked out the
eyes of this Seer, but that would have been a too
straightforward path for him; he works more cunningly. He
allowed the young man to seek for, and discover, the beautiful
and the good; but while he was contemplating them, the evil
spirit blew one mote after another into each of his eyes; and
such a proceeding would injure the strongest sight. Then he
blew upon the motes, and they became beams, so that the
clearness of his sight was gone, and the Seer was like a blind
man in the world, and had no longer any faith in it. He had
lost his good opinion of the world, as well as of himself; and
when a man gives up the world, and himself too, it is all over
with him.

    "All over," said the wild swan, who flew across the sea to
the east.

    "All over," twittered the swallows, who were also flying
eastward towards the Tree of the Sun. It was no good news
which they carried home.

    "I think the Seer has been badly served," said the second
brother, "but the Hearer may be more successful."

    This one possessed the sense of hearing to a very high
degree: so acute was this sense, that it was said he could
hear the grass grow. He took a fond leave of all at home, and
rode away, provided with good abilities and good intentions.
The swallows escorted him, and he followed the swans till he
found himself out in the world, and far away from home. But he
soon discovered that one may have too much of a good thing.
His hearing was too fine. He not only heard the grass grow,
but could hear every man's heart beat, whether in sorrow or in
joy. The whole world was to him like a clockmaker's great
workshop, in which all the clocks were going "tick, tick," and
all the turret clocks striking "ding, dong." It was
unbearable. For a long time his ears endured it, but at last
all the noise and tumult became too much for one man to bear.

    There were rascally boys of sixty years old- for years do
not alone make a man- who raised a tumult, which might have
made the Hearer laugh, but for the applause which followed,
echoing through every street and house, and was even heard in
country roads. Falsehood thrust itself forward and played the
hypocrite; the bells on the fool's cap jingled, and declared
they were church-bells, and the noise became so bad for the
Hearer that he thrust his fingers into his ears. Still, he
could hear false notes and bad singing, gossip and idle words,
scandal and slander, groaning and moaning, without and within.
"Heaven help us!" He thrust his fingers farther and farther
into his ears, till at last the drums burst. And now he could
hear nothing more of the true, the beautiful, and the good;
for his hearing was to have been the means by which he hoped
to acquire his knowledge. He became silent and suspicious, and
at last trusted no one, not even himself, and no longer hoping
to find and bring home the costly jewel, he gave it up, and
gave himself up too, which was worse than all.

    The birds in their flight towards the east, carried the
tidings, and the news reached the castle in the Tree of the
Sun.

    "I will try now," said the third brother; "I have a keen
nose." Now that was not a very elegant expression, but it was
his way, and we must take him as he was. He had a cheerful
temper, and was, besides, a real poet; he could make many
things appear poetical, by the way in which he spoke of them,
and ideas struck him long before they occurred to the minds of
others. "I can smell," he would say; and he attributed to the
sense of smelling, which he possessed in a high degree, a
great power in the region of the beautiful. "I can smell," he
would say, "and many places are fragrant or beautiful
according to the taste of the frequenters. One man feels at
home in the atmosphere of the tavern, among the flaring tallow
candles, and when the smell of spirits mingles with the fumes
of bad tobacco. Another prefers sitting amidst the
overpowering scent of jasmine, or perfuming himself with
scented olive oil. This man seeks the fresh sea breeze, while
that one climbs the lofty mountain-top, to look down upon the
busy life in miniature beneath him."

    As he spoke in this way, it seemed as if he had already
been out in the world, as if he had already known and
associated with man. But this experience was intuitive- it was
the poetry within him, a gift from Heaven bestowed on him in
his cradle. He bade farewell to his parental roof in the Tree
of the Sun, and departed on foot, from the pleasant scenes
that surrounded his home. Arrived at its confines, he mounted
on the back of an ostrich, which runs faster than a horse, and
afterwards, when he fell in with the wild swans, he swung
himself on the strongest of them, for he loved change, and
away he flew over the sea to distant lands, where there were
great forests, deep lakes, lofty mountains, and proud cities.
Wherever he came it seemed as if sunshine travelled with him
across the fields, for every flower, every bush, exhaled a
renewed fragrance, as if conscious that a friend and protector
was near; one who understood them, and knew their value. The
stunted rose-bush shot forth twigs, unfolded its leaves, and
bore the most beautiful roses; every one could see it, and
even the black, slimy wood-snail noticed its beauty. "I will
give my seal to the flower," said the snail, "I have trailed
my slime upon it, I can do no more.

    "Thus it always fares with the beautiful in this world,"
said the poet. And he made a song upon it, and sung it after
his own fashion, but nobody listened. Then he gave a drummer
twopence and a peacock's feather, and composed a song for the
drum, and the drummer beat it through the streets of the town,
and when the people heard it they said, "That is a capital
tune." The poet wrote many songs about the true, the
beautiful, and the good. His songs were listened to in the
tavern, where the tallow candles flared, in the fresh clover
field, in the forest, and on the high-seas; and it appeared as
if this brother was to be more fortunate than the other two.

    But the evil spirit was angry at this, so he set to work
with soot and incense, which he can mix so artfully as to
confuse an angel, and how much more easily a poor poet. The
evil one knew how to manage such people. He so completely
surrounded the poet with incense that the man lost his head,
forgot his mission and his home, and at last lost himself and
vanished in smoke.

    But when the little birds heard of it, they mourned, and
for three days they sang not one song. The black wood-snail
became blacker still; not for grief, but for envy. "They
should have offered me incense," he said, "for it was I who
gave him the idea of the most famous of his songs- the drum
song of 'The Way of the World;' and it was I who spat at the
rose; I can bring a witness to that fact."

    But no tidings of all this reached the poet's home in
India. The birds had all been silent for three days, and when
the time of mourning was over, so deep had been their grief,
that they had forgotten for whom they wept. Such is the way of
the world.

    "Now I must go out into the world, and disappear like the
rest," said the fourth brother. He was as good-tempered as the
third, but no poet, though he could be witty.

    The two eldest had filled the castle with joyfulness, and
now the last brightness was going away. Sight and hearing have
always been considered two of the chief senses among men, and
those which they wish to keep bright; the other senses are
looked upon as of less importance.

    But the younger son had a different opinion; he had
cultivated his taste in every way, and taste is very powerful.
It rules over what goes into the mouth, as well as over all
which is presented to the mind; and, consequently, this
brother took upon himself to taste everything stored up in
bottles or jars; this he called the rough part of his work.
Every man's mind was to him as a vessel in which something was
concocting; every land a kind of mental kitchen. "There are no
delicacies here," he said; so he wished to go out into the
world to find something delicate to suit his taste. "Perhaps
fortune may be more favorable to me than it was to my
brothers. I shall start on my travels, but what conveyance
shall I choose? Are air balloons invented yet?" he asked of
his father, who knew of all inventions that had been made, or
would be made.

    Air balloons had not then been invented, nor steam-ships,
nor railways.

    "Good," said he; "then I shall choose an air balloon; my
father knows how they are to be made and guided. Nobody has
invented one yet, and the people will believe that it is an
aerial phantom. When I have done with the balloon I shall burn
it, and for this purpose, you must give me a few pieces of
another invention, which will come next; I mean a few chemical
matches."

    He obtained what he wanted, and flew away. The birds
accompanied him farther than they had the other brothers. They
were curious to know how this flight would end. Many more of
them came swooping down; they thought it must be some new
bird, and he soon had a goodly company of followers. They came
in clouds till the air became darkened with birds as it was
with the cloud of locusts over the land of Egypt.

    And now he was out in the wide world. The balloon
descended over one of the greatest cities, and the aeronaut
took up his station at the highest point, on the church
steeple. The balloon rose again into the air, which it ought
not to have done; what became of it is not known, neither is
it of any consequence, for balloons had not then been
invented.

    There he sat on the church steeple. The birds no longer
hovered over him; they had got tired of him, and he was tired
of them. All the chimneys in the town were smoking.

    "There are altars erected to my honor," said the wind, who
wished to say something agreeable to him as he sat there
boldly looking down upon the people in the street. There was
one stepping along, proud of his purse; another, of the key he
carried behind him, though he had nothing to lock up; another
took a pride in his moth-eaten coat; and another, in his
mortified body. "Vanity, all vanity!" he exclaimed. "I must go
down there by-and-by, and touch and taste; but I shall sit
here a little while longer, for the wind blows pleasantly at
my back. I shall remain here as long as the wind blows, and
enjoy a little rest. It is comfortable to sleep late in the
morning when one had a great deal to do," said the sluggard;
"so I shall stop here as long as the wind blows, for it
pleases me."

    And there he stayed. But as he was sitting on the
weather-cock of the steeple, which kept turning round and
round with him, he was under the false impression that the
same wind still blew, and that he could stay where he was
without expense.

    But in India, in the castle on the Tree of the Sun, all
was solitary and still, since the brothers had gone away one
after the other.

    "Nothing goes well with them," said the father; "they will
never bring the glittering jewel home, it is not made for me;
they are all dead and gone." Then he bent down over the Book
of Truth, and gazed on the page on which he should have read
of the life after death, but for him there was nothing to be
read or learned upon it.

    His blind daughter was his consolation and joy; she clung
to him with sincere affection, and for the sake of his
happiness and peace she wished the costly jewel could be found
and brought home.

    With longing tenderness she thought of her brothers. Where
were they? Where did they live? How she wished she might dream
of them; but it was strange that not even in dreams could she
be brought near to them. But at last one night she dreamt that
she heard the voices of her brothers calling to her from the
distant world, and she could not refrain herself, but went out
to them, and yet it seemed in her dream that she still
remained in her father's house. She did not see her brothers,
but she felt as it were a fire burning in her hand, which,
however, did not hurt her, for it was the jewel she was
bringing to her father. When she awoke she thought for a
moment that she still held the stone, but she only grasped the
knob of her distaff.

    During the long evenings she had spun constantly, and
round the distaff were woven threads finer than the web of a
spider; human eyes could never have distinguished these
threads when separated from each other. But she had wetted
them with her tears, and the twist was as strong as a cable.
She rose with the impression that her dream must be a reality,
and her resolution was taken.

    It was still night, and her father slept; she pressed a
kiss upon his hand, and then took her distaff and fastened the
end of the thread to her father's house. But for this, blind
as she was, she would never have found her way home again; to
this thread she must hold fast, and trust not to others or
even to herself. From the Tree of the Sun she broke four
leaves; which she gave up to the wind and the weather, that
they might be carried to her brothers as letters and a
greeting, in case she did not meet them in the wide world.
Poor blind child, what would become of her in those distant
regions? But she had the invisible thread, to which she could
hold fast; and she possessed a gift which all the others
lacked. This was a determination to throw herself entirely
into whatever she undertook, and it made her feel as if she
had eyes even at the tips of her fingers, and could hear down
into her very heart. Quietly she went forth into the noisy,
bustling, wonderful world, and wherever she went the skies
grew bright, and she felt the warm sunbeam, and a rainbow
above in the blue heavens seemed to span the dark world. She
heard the song of the birds, and smelt the scent of the orange
groves and apple orchards so strongly that she seemed to taste
it. Soft tones and charming songs reached her ear, as well as
harsh sounds and rough words- thoughts and opinions in strange
contradiction to each other. Into the deepest recesses of her
heart penetrated the echoes of human thoughts and feelings.
Now she heard the following words sadly sung,-

                "Life is a shadow that flits away
                 In a night of darkness and woe."

But then would follow brighter thoughts:

                "Life has the rose's sweet perfume
                 With sunshine, light, and joy."

And if one stanza sounded painfully-

                "Each mortal thinks of himself alone,
                 Is a truth, alas, too clearly known;"

Then, on the other hand, came the answer-

                "Love, like a mighty flowing stream,
                 Fills every heart with its radiant gleam."

She heard, indeed, such words as these-

                "In the pretty turmoil here below,
                 All is a vain and paltry show.

Then came also words of comfort-

                "Great and good are the actions done
                 By many whose worth is never known."

And if sometimes the mocking strain reached her-

                "Why not join in the jesting cry
                 That contemns all gifts from the throne on
high?"

In the blind girl's heart a stronger voice repeated-

                "To trust in thyself and God is best,
                 In His holy will forever to rest."

    But the evil spirit could not see this and remain
contented. He has more cleverness than ten thousand men, and
he found means to compass his end. He betook himself to the
marsh, and collected a few little bubbles of stagnant water.
Then he uttered over them the echoes of lying words that they
might become strong. He mixed up together songs of praise with
lying epitaphs, as many as he could find, boiled them in tears
shed by envy; put upon them rouge, which he had scraped from
faded cheeks, and from these he produced a maiden, in form and
appearance like the blind girl, the angel of completeness, as
men called her. The evil one's plot was successful. The world
knew not which was the true, and indeed how should the world
know?

               "To trust in thyself and God is best,
                In his Holy will forever to rest."

So sung the blind girl in full faith. She had entrusted the
four green leaves from the Tree of the Sun to the winds, as
letters of greeting to her brothers, and she had full
confidence that the leaves would reach them. She fully
believed that the jewel which outshines all the glories of the
world would yet be found, and that upon the forehead of
humanity it would glitter even in the castle of her father.
"Even in my father's house," she repeated. "Yes, the place in
which this jewel is to be found is earth, and I shall bring
more than the promise of it with me. I feel it glow and swell
more and more in my closed hand. Every grain of truth which
the keen wind carried up and whirled towards me I caught and
treasured. I allowed it to be penetrated with the fragrance of
the beautiful, of which there is so much in the world, even
for the blind. I took the beatings of a heart engaged in a
good action, and added them to my treasure. All that I can
bring is but dust; still, it is a part of the jewel we seek,
and there is plenty, my hand is quite full of it."

    She soon found herself again at home; carried thither in a
flight of thought, never having loosened her hold of the
invisible thread fastened to her father's house. As she
stretched out her hand to her father, the powers of evil
dashed with the fury of a hurricane over the Tree of the Sun;
a blast of wind rushed through the open doors, and into the
sanctuary, where lay the Book of Truth.

    "It will be blown to dust by the wind," said the father,
as he seized the open hand she held towards him.

    "No," she replied, with quiet confidence, "it is
indestructible. I feel its beam warming my very soul."

    Then her father observed that a dazzling flame gleamed
from the white page on which the shining dust had passed from
her hand. It was there to prove the certainty of eternal life,
and on the book glowed one shining word, and only one, the
word BELIEVE. And soon the four brothers were again with the
father and daughter. When the green leaf from home fell on the
bosom of each, a longing had seized them to return. They had
arrived, accompanied by the birds of passage, the stag, the
antelope, and all the creatures of the forest who wished to
take part in their joy.

    We have often seen, when a sunbeam burst through a crack
in the door into a dusty room, how a whirling column of dust
seems to circle round. But this was not poor, insignificant,
common dust, which the blind girl had brought; even the
rainbow's colors are dim when compared with the beauty which
shone from the page on which it had fallen. The beaming word
BELIEVE, from every grain of truth, had the brightness of the
beautiful and the good, more bright than the mighty pillar of
flame that led Moses and the children of Israel to the land of
Canaan, and from the word BELIEVE arose the bridge of hope,
reaching even to the unmeasurable Love in the realms of the
infinite.


                            THE END