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one of the things that had to be banished
from her neighbourhood. She must know
nothing of him but the purely magical side,
when, clothed in robes suitable to the
invocations of Luna and with word and
gesture concentrated wholly upon the
work, he sank Cyril Grey utterly in the
Priest of Artemis -- "thy shrine, thine
oracle, thine heat of pale-mouthed prophet
dreaming." [144]
CHAPTER XI
OF THE MOON OF HONEY, AND ITS EVENTS;
WITH SUNDRY REMARKS ON MAGICK; THE
WHOLE ADORNED WITH MORAL
REFLECTIONS USEFUL TO THE YOUNG
THE many-terraced garden of the villa
was planted with olive and tamarind,
orange and cypress; but in the lowest of
them all, a crescent over whose wall one
could look down upon one of the paths that
threaded the hillside, there was a
pavement of white marble. A spring wept
from the naked rock, and fell into a
circular basin; from this small streamlets
issued, and watered the terrace in narrow
grooves, between the slabs. This garden
was sacred to lilies; and because of its apt
symbolism, Cyril Grey had chosen it for the
scene of Lisa's dedication to Artemis. He
had set up a small triangular altar of silver;
and it was upon this that Sister Clara and
her disciples came thrice nightly to make
their incantations. The ritual of the moon
might never be celebrated during daylight.
Upon the evening of Monday, after the
adoration of the setting sun, Sister Clara
called Lisa aside, and led her to this
garden.
There she and the hand-maidens
unclothed her, and washed her from head
to foot in the waters of the sacred spring.
Then she put upon her a solemn oath that
she would follow out the rules of the ritual,
not speaking to any man except her
chosen, not leaving the protection of the
circle, not communicating with the outer
and uninitiated world; but, on the other
[145] hand, devoting herself wholly to the
invocation of the Moon.
Then she clothed her in a specially
prepared and consecrated garment. It was
not of the same pattern as those of the
Order; it was a loose vestment of pale blue
covered with silver tissue; and the secret
sigils of the moon were woven cunningly
upon its hem. It was frail, but of great
volume; and the effect was that the wearer
seemed to be wrapped in a mist of
moonlight.
In a languid and mysterious chant Sister
Clara raised her voice, and her acolytes
kept accord on their mandolines; it was an
incantation of fervour and of madness, the
madness of things chaste, remote, and
inscrutable. At the conclusion she took Lisa
by the hand, and gave her a new name, a
mystic name, engraved upon a moonstone,
set in a silver ring which she put upon her
finger. This name was Iliel. It had been
chosen on account of its sympathy of
number to the moon; for the name is
Hebrew, in which language its characters
have the value of 81, the square of 9, the
sacred number of the moon. But other
considerations helped to determine the
choice of this name. The letter L in Hebrew
refers to Libra, the sign under which she
had been born; and it was surrounded with
two letters, I, to indicate her envelopment
by the force of creation and chastity which
the wise men of old hid in that hieroglyph.
The final "EL" signified the divinity of
her new being; for this is the Hebrew word
for God, and is commonly attached by the
sages to divers roots, to imply that these
ideas have been manifested in individuals
of angelic nature.
This instruction had been given to Lisa
in advance; now that it was ceremonially
conferred upon her, she was struck to the
heart by its great meaning. Her passion for
Cyril Grey had been gross and vehement,
[146] almost vulgar; he had translated it
into terms of hunger after holiness, of
awful aspiration, of utter purity. Nor Rhea
Silvia, nor Semele, nor any other mortal
virgin had ever glowed to inherit more
glorious a destiny, to feel such infinite
exaltation of chastity. Even the thought of
Cyril himself fell from her like a stain. He
had become no more than a necessary evil.
At that moment she could have shaken off
the trammels of humanity itself, and joined
Sister Clara in her ecstatic mood, passed
on, imperial votaress, in maiden meditation
fancy-free. Only the knowledge of her
sublime task inured her to its bitter taste.
From these meditations she was awakened
by the voice of Sister Clara.
"Oh, Iliel! Oh, Iliel! Oh, Iliel! there is a
cloud upon the sea."
The, two girls chimed in with the music
of their mandolins.
"It is growing dark. I am afraid," cried
Sister Clara.
The girls quavered in their melody.
"We are alone in the sacred grove. Oh,
Artemis, be near us, protect us from all
evil!"
"Protect us from all evil!" echoed the
two children.
"There is a shape in the cloud; there is a
stirring in the darkness; there is a stranger
in the sacred grove!"
"Artemis! Artemis! Artemis!" shrilled the
girls, their instruments fierce and agitated.
At that moment a great cry arose from
the men, who were in waiting on the upper
Terrace. It was a scream of abject fear,
inarticulate, save for the one word "Pan!"
They fled shrieking in every direction as
Cyril Grey, clad in a rough dress of
goatskins, bounded from the topmost
terrace into their midst. In another
moment, leaping down the garden, he
[147] reached the parapet that overlooked
the little terrace where the girls crouched,
moaning.
He sprang down among them; Sister
Clara and her disciples fled with cries like
startled sea-birds; but he crushed Iliel to
his breast, then flung her over his shoulder,
and strode triumphant to the house.
Such was the magical ceremony devised
by the adept, a commemoration or
dramatic representation of the legend of
the capture of Diana by Pan. It is, of
course, from such rites that all dramatic
performance developed. The idea is to
identify oneself, in thought by means of
action, with the deities whom one desires
to invoke.
The idea of presenting a story
ceremonially may have preceded the ritual,
and the Gods may have been mere
sublimations of eponymous heroes or
personifications of abstract ideas; but
ultimately it is much the same. Admit that
the genius of man is divine, and the
question "Which is the cart, and which the
horse?" becomes as pointless as if one asked
it about an automobile.
The ensuing month, from the middle of
November until the week before Christmas,
was a honeymoon. But animal appetite was
scarce more than an accidental adjunct;
the human love of Cyril and Lisa had been
raised to inconceivable heights by the
backbone of spirituality and love of
mankind that hay behind its
manifestations. Moreover, everything was
attuned to it; nothing detracted from it.
The lovers never lost sight of each other for
an hour; they had their fill and will of love;
but in a way, and with an intensity, of
which worldly lovers never dream. Even
sleep was to them but as a veil of many
colours cast upon their rapture; in their
dreams they still pursued each other, and
attained each other, beneath bluer skies,
upon seas that laughed more [148]
melodiously than that which lay between
them and Capri, through gardens of more
gladness than their own, and upon slopes
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