Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/91

1857.] one shoulder was sewed the semblance of a door cut out of blue cloth; on the other, a crescent cut out of green. Upon the head was set a tinsel crown, amid tangles of disordered hair. Above was a huge brass key, suspended by a tow string from the ceiling. Table and floor were littered with manuscripts and papers; under the former I observed an empty bottle.

I spoke. The figure started, and looked up. In the sallow cheeks, untrimmed beard, sunken and encircled eyes, I recognized Pendlam. A quick flush spread over his haggard features, and he made a snatch at his tinsel crown.

“Do not be disturbed,” I entreated.

He smiled, but with an air of embarrassment; and leaving the tinsel upon his uncombed head, pointed to the wall.

“You see where I am,” said Pendlam.

“I see, yet do not see.”

“I have reached the plane of symbols. You are aware that there is something in symbols?”

“A great deal! a great deal!” I said, from a sorrowful heart, as I glanced around me.

Pendlam, who had spoken doubtingly, seemed encouraged.

“Symbols are the highest expression of spiritual thought. Both words and pictures are used. They are the language of the spirit, which only the same spirit can understand. Look here, and you will see some symbols of a very astonishing character.”

“Astonishing,” said I, “is a mild word!”

“And what is equally astonishing,” added the eager reformer, “is the manner in which they are produced. The hand is moved to write or draw them spontaneously. The symbol comes first, the interpretation afterwards. Here is a vulture soaring a way with a lamb. It has a meaning.”

“A deep meaning,” I added. “We have known such a vulture!”

“Here,” he cried,—too excited to heed any words but his own,—“are swine feeding upon golden fruit.”

“Oh, the swine! Oh, the precious, wasted, golden fruit!”

“Here is one in words; it reads, Beware of falling from a balloon. It requires a peculiar experience,” added Pendlam, with a smile, “to enable one to understand that beautiful symbol.”

“Perhaps I have not had the requisite experience; but”—I laid my hand on Pendlam’s shoulder—“I know a man who has fallen from several balloons!”

“Here is one,” said Pendlam, turning to the table, which I have just drawn. “I was trying to get at its meaning when you came in.” He showed me a sketch consisting of a number of zigzag lines, joined one to another, and tending towards a circle.

“My dear John Henry,” said I, “any person who has watched your course for the last four or five years will readily see the meaning of that symbol. It is a map of your voyage of discoveries.”

“Such tacking and shifting?” queried Pendlam, with a smile commiserating my ignorance.

“Just such tacking and shifting. If you had possessed a good compass, it would have shown you.”

Pendlam caught at the word compass. “It is singular;—you must have some spiritual perception;—it was written through my hand nine days ago, Purchase a compass. here is the writing; I placed it upon the wall as a symbol; and I have intended buying a compass as soon as I could get the means.”

“Ah, John Henry,” said I, “there is more in your symbols than you suppose. You want no purchasable compass.”

Pendlam rewarded my simplicity with another pitying smile.

“Here,” said he, “you who know so much of symbols, explain this. Avoid the shores of Old Spain. I have not yet penetrated its meaning,”

“Leave it,” I replied, “with the unexplained Pythagorean symbol touching abstinence from beans. Perhaps future events will reveal it.”

Pendlam smiled as before. But was I not right? Did not lamentable events in