Rosa Alchemica | Page 3

and quoting Greek, in simpler days, before men's
minds, subtilized and complicated by the romantic movement in art and literature, began
to tremble on the verge of some unimagined revelation. I felt that my hand shook, and
saw that the light of the candle wavered and quivered more than it need have upon the
Maenads on the old French panels, making them look like the first beings slowly shaping
in the formless and void darkness. When the door had closed, and the peacock curtain,
glimmering like many- coloured flame, fell between us and the world, I felt, in a way I
could not understand, that some singular and unexpected thing was about to happen. I
went over to the mantlepiece, and finding that a little chainless bronze censer, set, upon
the outside, with pieces of painted china by Orazio Fontana, which I had filled with
antique amulets, had fallen upon its side and poured out its contents, I began to gather the
amulets into the bowl, partly to collect my thoughts and partly with that habitual
reverence which seemed to me the due of things so long connected with secret hopes and
fears. 'I see,' said Michael Robartes, 'that you are still fond of incense, and I can show you
an incense more precious than any you have ever seen,' and as he spoke he took the
censer out of my hand and put the amulets in a little heap between the athanor and the
alembic. I sat down, and he sat down at the side of the fire, and sat there for awhile
looking into the fire, and holding the censer in his hand. 'I have come to ask you
something,' he said, 'and the incense will fill the room, and our thoughts, with its sweet
odour while we are talking. I got it from an old man in Syria, who said it was made from
flowers, of one kind with the flowers that laid their heavy purple petals upon the hands
and upon the hair and upon the feet of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, and folded
Him in their heavy breath, until he cried against the cross and his destiny.' He shook
some dust into the censer out of a small silk bag, and set the censer upon the floor and lit
the dust which sent up a blue stream of smoke, that spread out over the ceiling, and
flowed downwards again until it was like Milton's banyan tree. It filled me, as incense
often does, with a faint sleepiness, so that I started when he said, 'I have come to ask you
that question which I asked you in Paris, and which you left Paris rather than answer.'
He had turned his eyes towards me, and I saw them glitter in the firelight, and through the
incense, as I replied: 'You mean, will I become an initiate of your Order of the
Alchemical Rose? I would not consent in Paris, when I was full of unsatisfied desire, and
now that I have at last fashioned my life according to my desire, am I likely to consent?'
'You have changed greatly since then,' he answered. 'I have read your books, and now I
see you among all these images, and I understand you better than you do yourself, for I
have been with many and many dreamers at the same cross-ways. You have shut away

the world and gathered the gods about you, and if you do not throw yourself at their feet,
you will be always full of lassitude, and of wavering purpose, for a man must forget he is
miserable in the bustle and noise of the multitude in this world and in time; or seek a
mystical union with the multitude who govern this world and time.' And then he
murmured something I could not hear, and as though to someone I could not see.
For a moment the room appeared to darken, as it used to do when he was about to
perform some singular experiment, and in the darkness the peacocks upon the doors
seemed to glow with a more intense colour. I cast off the illusion, which was, I believe,
merely caused by memory, and by the twilight of incense, for I would not acknowledge
that he could overcome my now mature intellect; and I said: 'Even if I grant that I need a
spiritual belief and some form of worship, why should I go to Eleusis and not to
Calvary?' He leaned forward and began speaking with a slightly rhythmical intonation,
and as he spoke I had to struggle again with the shadow, as of some older night than the
night of the sun, which began to dim the light of the candles and to blot out the little
gleams