Chapter 9 RAVALETTE.

"Years rolled away," continued Beverly. "I had visited California; had there made friends, as I had reason to suppose, and knew that I had foresworn wealth and place in favor of usefulness, poverty and knowledge; and had there helped to found an institution which, while it was capable of diffusing infinite blessings to all around, languished for want of seven good men and true. Yet it, like all other blessings vouchsafed to man, may be so trodden down that it die; but nothing is more certain than that it will rise again to the life everlasting.

* * *

"Months passed, and a continent and an ocean lay between the Golden Gate and me. I was on my second journey toward the Orient, and had taken London and Paris on my way. My objects in the journey were triple: First, to visit the Supreme Grand Dome of the Rosicrucian Temple; to make my obeisance to its Grand Master; to study its higher doctrines, and visit the Brethren. Second, to obtain the materials, in Jerusalem, for the composition of the Elixir of Life; not that I intended to make it, but because I wanted to use them in my medical practice, which I purposed to resume on my return to America. And, third, I needed rest, relaxation, and change of scene; for I felt that if I did not go, what between the fraud I had suffered, the wretch's scandal, the woman, the dead child in the cemetery, and a variety of other troubles, I should die; and if I died-what then?-And so I went.

* * *

"The scene I now present before you is Paris; the date, any day you choose to imagine between the 16th of August, 1863, and the 11th of June, 1854. I had just contracted for an anatomical Venus and cabinet, designed for one of the Rosicrucian Lodges in America, and had paid out some fourteen hundred dollars thereon, when, being weary, I strolled to the Batignolles, from there to La Plaissance and Luxembourg, when I met a person whom I had known in London, and he advised me by all means to again visit the Emperor, and also to go to certain localities named, before I left Paris. Promising that the advice should be followed, I accordingly one day found myself in the Palace of the Louvre, not for the first time, however, but for, perhaps, the tenth. On each of these occasions my time had been mainly spent in admiring and examining the contents of the Galleries Assyrienne and Egyptienne. The bas-reliefs, or coarse engravings rather, had commanded my attention on previous occasions, along with the sphinxes of Rhampses and Menepthah, as well as the curious statues of Amenophis, Sevekhatep, Osiris, and Seti, from all of which I had learned much of that strange civilization of the long-agone, usually assigned to the past four thousand five hundred years, but which had in reality utterly perished from off the earth at least ten thousand years earlier than the first year of that date! for, but a little while before I saw those statues Mariette had exhumed from the sands of Egypt, the celebrated sarcophagi and mummy, to which the best Egyptologers, including the Chevalier Bunsen, had, with one voice, assigned an age of not less than twelve thousand years.

"On this visit I stood rapt in wonder and conjecture before the cuneiform inscriptions upon a series of tablets, and which arch?ology has never yet interpreted-Bunsen, Layard, Botta, and Champollion having all alike failed in the attempt.

"During the five or six last visits to the museum, I had observed near me, apparently engaged in the same work as myself-the attempt to cypher out the meaning of the inscriptions-an old gentleman, evidently French, and as evidently belonging to the small remnant of the old Noblesse yet surviving on the soil of le Grand Nation, judging from his carriage, air, and manner-refined, polished, yet simple in the extreme; and from the benignance that beamed from his countenance, it was clear that there was happiness and content in his breast, and that he was a benefactor to, as well as a devoted student of, all that was interesting concerning mankind.

"On previous occasions when we met there had passed between us merely the compliments of the day, and those general courtesies due between well-bred people. This time, however, as if by mutual concession and attraction, our greeting was much warmer and more prolonged; for, after saluting, we drew chairs before the tablets and began conversing about the arrow-headed characters; and the old gentleman, whose name was Ravalette, said: 'Sir, how is it that I see you daily here, taking copies, and trying to decypher letters that the best scholars in Europe have abandoned in sheer and hopeless despair? Surely a youth like you cannot hope for success where they have failed?'

"?'True,' was the reply, 'they may despair, but is that a reason why others should? I believe I shall yet correctly read these enigmas of the ages.'

"The old man smiled at my antiquarian enthusiasm, and merely remarked, that Meses and the chronologists had better be looking out for their laurels, else the parvenus of the present day would not leave many to be gathered.

"?'It is my invincible conviction,' said I, 'that these sculptures were wrought many ages prior to the making of the pottery found beneath the valley of the Nile; and that the inscriptions on yonder porphyritic tablets were engraved there a hundred centuries before the date of Adam-an individual, by the way, whom I certainly regard as having had an origin and existence in the imaginations of ancient poets, a mere myth, handed down the night of Time as an heirloom to the ages-at least all such as had a taste for things they could not comprehend-and had an existence there only!'

"?'Then you do not entertain the belief that all men sprang from only one source?'

"?'Yes-no. Yes; because God created all. No; because there are at least ten separate and distinct families of human kind!'

"?'But may not all these differences spring from climate and the diverse localizations and circumstances attending upon a wide separation of the constituents of an original family?'

"?'No; because that will not account for different languages, physical differences, and anatomical diversities. It is utterly impossible for any sane man to believe that the Jaloff and other Negroes, the Maquaas and other Indians, the Mongols and other Tartars, the Kanakas and other Islanders, the European and other Caucasians, all sprang from one pair. Indeed the thing is so plain, from a merely physical point of view, without entering at all into the mental and psychical merits of the case, that he who runs may read. Observe, I have said nothing about superiority or inferiority, merely content to let Physiology speak for herself.'

"?'Well,' said Ravalette, 'you inform me that you desire to learn, being already learned to some extent. The views you entertain upon the Past are, in some sense, consonant with my own; and if you are willing to be taught, I am willing to instruct; and in any case, no harm can come of the abrasion of ideas, but perchance much of good.'

"I was delighted to hear Ravalette talk in this manner; for I felt that he was in some sort, notwithstanding our relative disparity of years, a congenial spirit, and I longed for him to unfold to me the rich fabric of his thought and experience. I had concluded, from a word dropped here and there, that he was at heart a believer in the Faith of Christendom, but in order to silence the lingering doubt I still entertained on that point, I put to him the following questions, and attentively noted the substance of his somewhat curious responses thereto.

"1st. Question. 'You, Monsieur Ravalette, have doubtless travelled much, and seen a great deal of this world of ours?'

"Here he interrupted me by saying, 'And several others beside!' I asked for an explanation, but he merely waved his hand and motioned me to go on. I did so. 'Let me ask you if the result of your observations abroad, amongst men of different nations and faith-complexions, has not been a strengthening of your belief in the Mosaic teachings, generally, and in what is popularly known as Christianity?'

"Answer. 'No! In the many countries I have visited I found human nature essentially the same as we find it here in France. Men are ever the same at heart. Inwardly they are all alike, sincere, beautiful, good, and religious; outwardly, the same selfish, heedless, careless, and materialistic beings, as untamable, set, willful, and unreasonable as the heartiest cynic could wish.

"?'Wherever I went I found the True Religion theoretically believed, but practically ignored and set aside on the score of inexpediency.

"?'In all my travels I found but one religion, yet that religion passed current under a vast variety of names. All men alike believed in good and evil, a Heaven of some sort, and some sort of Hell likewise. I found that while at bottom Faith was everywhere the same, yet the names by which that faith was known, differed widely in different places and latitudes. For instance, I found that the Catholic or Papal, the Protestant or reformed, the Hindoo and Brahminical, the Boodhistic, Lamaic, Greek, Polytheistic, Atheistic, Deistic, Magian, Guebre, Islamic, Fetisch, and all other systems and modes of belief, were, instead of being antipodal, in fact the same at bottom. This may surprise you. Doubtless it would, were I to leave the subject just as it is. But I will explain. They are all one at bottom, inasmuch as that each and all of their respective and apparently dissimilar devotees do homage at the same shrine, of the same Great Mystery. The modes and names differ with latitude, but the meaning and the principle are everywhere the same.

"?'Popular estimate or opinion can never be a true criterion either of persons, thoughts, events, principles, or things. We grow daily beyond our yesterdays, and are ever reaching forth for the morrow. The world has had a long night, as it has had bright days; and now another morn is breaking, and we stand in the door of the dawn.

"?'I agree with you that could the dates on the tablets here before us, be revealed, they would prove that human history really extends much further back into the night of Time than the period assigned by Moses as its morning.

"?'Human monuments are in existence that indubitably prove not only that the world is much older than people give it credit for, but also that civilizations, arts, sciences, philosophy, and knowledge infinitely superior in some respects to what exists to-day, have blessed the earth in by-gone ages, and been swept away, leaving only scattered vestiges of the wreck behind to inform posterity that such things have been, but are not.

"?'But what is still stronger food for thought, is the fact that amidst these ruins of the dead Ages, we find others that are evidently relics of times and civilizations still more remote-the débris of a world-wreck remembered only by the seraphim! A demonstration of this assertion is found in the pyramids, the date and purpose even of the building of which is wrapped in conjecture, and has been for ages past. The authentic history of Egypt can be traced for over 6,000 years, yet even in that remote past the pyramids were as much a mystery as they are to-day.

"?'This is not all: The catacombs of Eleuthas contain what in these days would be called "Astronomic diagrams," showing occultations of certain stars by certain other stars. This is proved by one diagram showing the relative place in the still heaven of each star of the series; another displays an approach toward obscuration, and so on through thirteen separate stages, the last being a complete emergement of the occulted star on the opposite side.

"?'Now, it so happens that we have astronomers in our day who pique themselves on their mental power and mathematical correctness, and these inform us that a period of 57,879 years must elapse before the same phenomenon will occur again, and that not less than 19,638 years must have elapsed since it did occur! Now I foresee an objection in your mind. "How is it known that the ancient diagrams refer to any two particular stellar bodies?"

"?'The answer is: From the relative positions of known stars in the heavens whose places correspond to the positions of stars in the diagrams, for the mapping out is quite as perfect as it could be done to-day, even with all the nice appliances of micrometrical science now extant.[7]

"?'Who built Baal-bec? is a question that has been vainly asked for over 3,000 years, and then as now, men repeated "Who?" and echo said "Baal-bec!" and says "Baal-bec" still.

"?'In a barren, sterile, sandy plain, which the augurs of the artesian borers proved to have been once a rich and fertile bottom-land or prairie, a very short distance westward of the Theban ruins, there once existed a vast and magnificent city, so splendid that the modern capitals of Europe are mere hutted towns in comparison. This is proved by what has been exhumed from Earth's bosom. In that city of palaces is the wreck of one, which, from its situation with respect to other ruins, must have been merely a third or fourth-rate edifice in the golden days when Aznak flourished; yet the portico of this fourth-rate structure, situated in a suburb of the city, the name of which suburb was Karnak, consisted of 144 Porphyritic columns, 26 feet 6 inches apart. Each one was 39 feet 5 inches in circumference, and not less than 52 feet high, and every one was hewn out of a single stone!

"?'Moreover, this fourth-rate palace was two miles, five furlongs, and eight feet long, by actual measurement of the ruins, and it required a journey of quite nine miles to go around it.

"?'This palace faced the Sacred River (Nile), from which led a broad avenue lined with colossal statues on each side, as close as they could stand, for a distance of over one English league, and every one of these statues commemorated either a king or a dynasty of that more than regal country.

"?'Now, mark what I say: Proof, positive proof exists that this palace, itself so imperial, so grand, so immeasurably superior to aught of the kind attempted by man in this "Progressive age (?)" was, after all, but a mere addition, an inconsiderable wing, a sort of appendage, a kind of out-house to one of the main edifices of that immortal city.

"?'No man knows, or for four thousand years has known, who built Aznak-who laid the stones of Karnak-who cut marble monsters weighing two hundred and thirteen tons out of a single block of stone, and that stone so hard that no modern steel will cut, or even scratch it!

"?'Railways! steam power! wheels! pulleys! screws! wedges! inclined planes! levers, did you say?

"?'Sir, all these things existed long ago, else how could solid obelisks of five hundred tons weight have been transported a distance exceeding one thousand one hundred miles, from the mountains where they were hewn, to the places where they were set up, and where we find them to-day?

"?'Without all the appliances enumerated, how could these monuments, some of which measure eighty-nine feet in length, have been erected after they were brought; and take notice, that some of these stone monsters were placed upon pedestals, themselves ten or twelve feet high?

"?'It would strain the treasury of a modern state to pay the expense attendant upon the erection of half-a-dozen such-as was proved here in Paris in the case of the Obelisk of Luxor, the smallest of two that stood before the Temple of Thebes, and which cost France over two million dollars to place where it now stands. Without steam power and railways, how could such immense masses of stone have been transported over and through vast plains of shifting, burning sands, especially for such immense distances as it is certain they were brought? A single further remark on chronology, and I have done. It has been established among the learned, that it takes not less than a period of ten thousand years for a language to be perfected, and then die out, to give place to an improved but entirely different one. Now, observe: Champollion declares that he, through the assistance of modern Egyptian, was able to master ancient Egyptian. This furnished a key to certain hieroglyphs; these latter proved instrumental toward simplifying a series of three more. He concludes that he has sufficient evidence to establish the fact, that several successive languages had been spoken in the two Egypts (Upper and Lower).

"?'But let us return to the original topic of conversation. How is it that you expect a mere dream will aid you in researches of a nature so profound as these? How do you suppose that a mere idle dream, even supposing you to have one on the subject, could furnish you with the key? There might be fifty persons, or fifty thousand, for that matter, each one of whom might feel an interest and have a dream about it, and, like yourself, discover a fancied key, and yet upon comparing notes no two dreams and no two keys would be found alike amongst the whole fifty or fifty thousand!'

"Vulgarly, this was a 'poser;' still, an answer was expected, and so I said: 'Very true, there might; but the true key would be that which, whenever and wherever it was applied, would yield uniform and concordant results.'

"This reply appeared satisfactory to the old gentleman, who, after a little further conversation, invited me to attend him to his residence and partake of a dinner with him at his own table. ''Tis but a short and pleasant walk,' said he; 'my house is situated in the Rue Michel le Compte, close to the grand Rue du Temple, and we shall reach it in a very little time.' Cheerfully accepting the invitation, I took the old gentleman's arm, and together we proceeded to his residence-which I found to be one of those stately old mansions built by the nobless of the times of Louis le Grande. We entered, and in due time sat down to a repast at once rich, liberal and friendly, and which gave me a very high notion of the man who presided over it. Wine of the rarest graced his board; plate of the richest adorned it; servants most attentive served it; coffee of the best followed, and tobacco of the finest finished it; all of which strengthened Ravalette in my esteem. After partaking of his elegant hospitality, he proposed a walk, and accordingly we withdrew from the house together, and arm in arm strolled into the Rue du Temple, and kept that route until we reached the limit of Paris in that direction, and entered one of its suburbs known as Belleville.

"Before quitting the street where I dined, I had taken the precaution to mark well the locality of the house, and to note its number on my ivory tablets, which I invariably carried with me.

"And now we ascended the hills overlooking Paris; and then we descended to the plain, and gratified the eye in viewing the rich market gardens, and the conservatories of choice and rare flowers, cultured carefully for the tri-weekly markets on the esplanade de la Madeleine and the Chateau d'Eau. Again ascending the hill, we entered a café together, and together partook of some frozen coffee and other ices, after which he took me to see a guinguette-or tea garden-lately established for the common people, where the customer for ten sous might ape royalty, and sip his coffee from silver cups, and take his wine from Sèvres porcelain. Here we both talked to the proprietor concerning the novelty of his enterprise, and made inquiries as to whether his customers-who were all of the lower classes of society-did not bear a great deal of watching, and whether they did not now and then run off with a few silver spoons, a chased goblet, or a silver-gilt fruit dish?

"?'No,' replied the man, 'I have seen enough of life and mankind to warrant the step, apparently foolish, certainly quite novel, which I have taken; and I have found out that, treat a man as if you regarded him a thief, and you do much toward making him one. Watch a man closely, and you that instant suggest rascally thoughts to him, which may bear fruit, and that fruit be crime. But place full and free confidence in those you deal with, and let the fact be known, and your conduct sanction your words, and take my word for it, your confidence will very rarely be abused, if at all. My place is the resort of thousands; my invested capital is large, yet I have never lost ten francs from the costly experiment of making the poor man realize the comforts and habits of the rich at the expense of ten sous.'

"We could but admire the tact of Monsieur Popinarde, and frankly told him so as we left his place, for we felt that there was a rich vein of truth at the bottom of his philosophy of confidence, as he chose to call it. After leaving this place, Ravalette and myself, still arm in arm, pursued our walk in the environs of Belleville, and there, amidst the sweet music of nature, the melody of the sunshine, the warblings of birds, the quietude of the deep green canopy of leaves, the humming of distant sounds, and the serenity of unruffled spirits, we entered upon the discussion of a topic of singular interest. That topic was, 'The human soul, and its resources.' I shall only record the latter part of this conversation. Said the old gentleman-

"?'Then you really believe, as did a very ancient society of philosophers, known to some students of the past as the Sacred Twenty-four, that there is a kind of natural magic in existence, far more wonderful in its results than the lamp of Aladdin, or the ring of the Genii?'

"?'Most certainly I do.'

"?'How have you learned of its existence, and how do you propose to become a noviciate, and avail yourself thereof for certain contemplated translations? Perhaps you believe in Elfins, Fairies, Genii and Magicians?' said he, half laughingly.

"?'I do not absolutely know,' I replied, 'that such a magic exists, yet firmly believe it does. The idea came to me I know not how. By striving, perhaps, it may be found. There are steps leading to it, doubtless, and, if we can discover the first (which I think we have already in Mesmerism), we can follow till we reach the great goal. I do not believe that Elfins, Fairies, Genii and Magicians are altogether mythical personages. There must, it seems to me, be a foundation of truth underlying the rich and varied accounts of such beings that have filled, and still do fill the reading world with wonder.'

"?'Very good. But, tell me, have you an idea that such things belong to this world or the world of spirits?'

"At that instant it seemed as if I lost my self-hood, and that a power foreign to my soul for a moment seized my organs and answered for me-

"?'They belong to neither, but to a different world!'

"Ravalette, at this answer, looked in astonishment; and, after gazing attentively at me for nearly a minute, muttered, in an almost indistinguishable tone, the words, 'It shall be!' You spoke of Mesmerism as the first step toward the true magic, which you believe, and I know exists; and you thought it might be made successful use of in the obtainment of knowledge not to be arrived at by or through ordinary means, methods or agencies. Tell me in what manner? Surely not through ordinary clairvoyance, which ever reveals foregone facts, and none other; and, therefore, can be of little use to the true student? You believe, as I do myself, that all ancient history, as it comes to us, is at best a mere fable, or bundle of myths generally, albeit, certain portions are composed of romance, that is to say, are tales of fiction founded on a basis of fact, the superstructure being ten thousand times larger than the foundations would justify, provided things went at their proper value and importance. How, then, through the mesmeric force, do you expect to dive beneath this superincumbent ocean of fancy, and fetch up what few grains of truth yet sparkle at the bottom? Can you answer me that?'

"Ravalette smiled, gazed sorrowfully at me, and then went on-

"?'Believe me, my excellent young friend, that Mesmerism is a fine thing for inducing a "superior condition," enabling one to write books which send their readers to suicides' graves; to discover the art of marrying other people's spouses; for procuring "Air-line" dispatches, and filling lunatic asylums with poor reason-bereft creatures; for stultifying a man's conscience, and for emboldening one to pass for a philosopher when one is but an ass!' and Ravalette smiled gravely. 'Distrust all mesmeric railways,' said he, 'for many of the passengers, like Andrew Jackson Davis, after riding on that train for many years, have landed either in the swamps and mires of fantasy, or on the sides of moonshine mountains, called "Mornia," and "Hornia," "Forlornia," and "Starnos," and "Sternas," and "Cor," and "Hor," and "Bore," "Gupturion," and "Spewrion," and forty thousand more!'

"I bit my lip with vexation; for I had devoutly believed in and loved the subject and its advocates. I had always loved Davis, and highly admired his philosophy and writings, especially since a great free convention he once held in Central New York. I was aware that he had foes-people who refused to believe that God had appointed him his mouthpiece; who pointed to the graveyard in Quincey, Massachusetts, where lie the bodies of John and Hannah Grieves, surmounted by a stone that tells that these poor suicides came there, lost, ruined, from reading his books. I was well aware that there were painful rumors concerning a couple of divorces, and that some friends of mine had cut their throats in order to all the quicker reach the 'Summer-land' which he so elegantly described; but still I loved-still love him dearly. But now, when Ravalette suggested that he was a humbug, it struck me that Ravalette was right; for I suddenly recollected that once the great clairvoyant lost a little dog named 'Dick,' which his seership could not trace. I remembered that nineteen-twentieths of his prophecies from the 'superior condition' never came to pass, while the twentieth any school-boy could guess at. I recalled the fact that his philosophy was most decidedly medical-highly emetic, and very cathartic-and that his followers soon lost what little common-sense they formerly had, else it were impossible for them to accept the teachings of one who constantly contradicted himself. Still, I respected and loved him dearly, albeit Ravalette had utterly demolished his pretensions; and I saw clearly that, in believing the stuff he wrote and talked, I was like one who reads 'Jack the Giant-killer,' or 'Gulliver's Travels,' or 'Baron Munchaussen,' and believes the stories real and true."

FOOTNOTE:

[7] For the fullest and most extremely interesting proof-nay, demonstration of human antiquity-that Adam was not the first man, but that men built cities over 50,000 years ago, read "Pre-Adamite Man," S. Tousey, N. Y.