Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Fullera John Frederick Charles
Title : The Star in the West
Year : 1907

Link download : Fullera_John_Frederick_Charles_-_The_Star_in_the_West.zip

“Evoe! Evoe Ho! Iacche! Iacche!” “If you hold by anything in the world more than by reason, truth, and justice; if your will be uncertain and vacillating, either in good or evil; if logic alarm you, or the naked truth make you blush; if you are hurt when accepted errors are assailed; condemn this work straight away; do not read it; let it cease to exist for you; but at the same time do not cry it down as dangerous.” ELIPHAS LÉVI. PREFACE Non mihi subtilem calamum si cedat Apelles Quae tibi sunt dotes, posse notare putem. I.N.R.I. AT first sight it may appear to the casual reader of this essay, that the superscription on its cover is both froward and perverse, and contrary to the sum of human experience. This however I trust he will find is not the case, and, as Ianthe, will discover that after the mystic union has been consummated, the beautiful daughter of Ligdus and Telethusa was as acceptable a young husband as ever wooed nymph on the shaded slopes of Ida. Much has been written concerning stars, both terrestrial and celestial, and not a little regarding that capricious star which gleamed over the humble manger-bed of the Son of Man. Dark seas of blood have long since lapped that star of the morning into the crimson oblivion of day, whose empurpled strife has also rumbled into the distance as the droning of some drowsy fire-finger on the sleeping parchment of life, murmuring and moaning as the wind-kissed mouth of a dreamy drum. Yet why should we still listen for those subtle sounds which have wearily danced out their slow saraband of sorrow. Once Orphic they arose emparadising the cavernous depths of Hell, to sink into a dirge-like Niobe death-chaunt, bewailing the thirteen children of their begetting, rising once more in the song of Ligeia, enticing men to her mire, and at length to die still-voiced as the daughter of Dis, whose ghostly fingers sinking clutch the frozen reeds of that slough in which she had so long wallowed. Long have we peered, crouching on the watch-tower of our minds, through the darkness of ignorance lit alone by the northern lights of folly, till our scorched eyes falling as slags upon our hearts, a light celestial hath arisen from out the eyeless sockets of Eternity. A day-star, to flash forth into the west, winged and wonderful. A Pharos of gleaming hope lighting our way across the boisterous ocean of life to our haven of eternal rest. The fools and the faulty, the wise and the wizened read and tremble before the might of its majesty, for into its flaming horrent hath it woven and braided the ashen locks of wisdom, the dyed curls of folly, and all the glittering circlets of golden youth. All is transcended, all is unified and transcendental; neither is there joy nor laughter, sorrow nor weeping, for all is as a divine mastery of Truth and Knowledge to those who worship the new-born God, like the Magi of the East, with gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. Above whose heptagonal cradle flashes the magic star Lusanaher, that great star Cor Leonis, which heralds and directs our reverent pilgrimage. The Star has arisen; let us like men drop the silly pretence of an ostrich-like self-delusion that the cindery asteroid still lights our way; let us rather apply our mental spectroscope to the analysis of its rays. There shall we perchance discover the blending of all opposites in one harmonious light; thence shall we travel to the holy and humble house of the heart, wherein our God is born, whose name is ineffable, a Crown of Glory, exalted forever above the Balance of Righteousness and Truth. ...