green and covered with flowers. Everywhere it was like a blooming
meadow or a lovely garden. Here were birds from all quarters of the
world assembled together; birds from the primeval forests of
America, from the rose gardens of Damascus, and from the deserts of
Africa, in which the elephant and the lion may boast of being the only
rulers. Birds from the Polar regions came flying here, and of course
the stork and the swallow were not absent. But the birds were not
the only living creatures. There were stags, squirrels, antelopes, and
hundreds of other beautiful and light-footed animals here found a
home.
The summit of the tree was a wide-spreading garden, and in the
midst of it, where the green boughs formed a kind of hill, stood a
castle of crystal, with a view from it towards every quarter of
heaven. Each tower was erected in the form of a lily, and within the
stern was a winding staircase, through which one could ascend to the
top and step out upon the leaves as upon balconies. The calyx of the
flower itself formed a most beautiful, glittering, circular hall,
above which no other roof arose than the blue firmament and the sun
and stars.
Just as much splendor, but of another kind, appeared below, in the
wide halls of the castle. Here, on the walls, were reflected
pictures of the world, which represented numerous and varied scenes of
everything that took place daily, so that it was useless to read the
newspapers, and indeed there were none to be obtained in this spot.
All was to be seen in living pictures by those who wished it, but
all would have been too much for even the wisest man, and this man
dwelt here. His name is very difficult; you would not be able to
pronounce it, so it may be omitted. He knew everything that a man on
earth can know or imagine. Every invention already in existence or yet
to be, was known to him, and much more; still everything on earth
has a limit. The wise king Solomon was not half so wise as this man.
He could govern the powers of nature and held sway over potent
spirits; even Death itself was obliged to give him every morning a
list of those who were to die during the day. And King Solomon himself
had to die at last, and this fact it was which so often occupied the
thoughts of this great man in the castle on the Tree of the Sun. He
knew that he also, however high he might tower above other men in
wisdom, must one day die. He knew that his children would fade away
like the leaves of the forest and become dust. He saw the human race
wither and fall like leaves from the tree; he saw new men come to fill
their places, but the leaves that fell off never sprouted forth again;
they crumbled to dust or were absorbed into other plants.
"What happens to man," asked the wise man of himself, "when
touched by the angel of death? What can death be? The body decays, and
the soul. Yes; what is the soul, and whither does it go?"
"To eternal life," says the comforting voice of religion.
"But what is this change? Where and how shall we exist?"
"Above; in heaven," answers the pious man; "it is there we hope to
go."
"Above!" repeated the wise man, fixing his eyes upon the moon
and stars above him. He saw that to this earthly sphere above and
below were constantly changing places, and that the position varied
according to the spot on which a man found himself. He knew, also,
that even if he ascended to the top of the highest mountain which
rears its lofty summit on this earth, the air, which to us seems clear
and transparent, would there be dark and cloudy; the sun would have
a coppery glow and send forth no rays, and our earth would lie beneath
him wrapped in an orange-colored mist. How narrow are the limits which
confine the bodily sight, and how little can be seen by the eye of the
soul. How little do the wisest among us know of that which is so
important to us all.
In the most secret chamber of the castle lay the greatest treasure
on earth- the Book of Truth. The wise man had read it through page
after page. Every man may read in this book, but only in fragments. To
many eyes the characters seem so mixed in confusion that the words
cannot be distinguished. On certain pages the writing often appears so
pale or so blurred that the page becomes a blank. The wiser a man
becomes, the more he will read, and those who are wisest read most.
The wise man knew how to unite the sunlight and the moonlight with
the light of reason and the hidden powers of nature; and through
this stronger light, many things in the pages were made clear to
him. But in the portion of the book entitled "Life after Death" not
a single point could he see distinctly. This pained him. Should he
never be able here on earth to obtain a light by which everything
written in the Book of Truth should become clear to him? Like the wise
King Solomon, he understood the language of animals, and could
interpret their talk into song; but that made him none the wiser. He
found out the nature of plants and metals, and their power in curing
diseases and arresting death, but none to destroy death itself. In all
created things within his reach he sought the light that should
shine upon the certainty of an eternal life, but he found it not.
The Book of Truth lay open before him, but, its pages were to him as
blank paper. Christianity placed before him in the Bible a promise
of eternal life, but he wanted to read it in his book, in which
nothing on the subject appeared to be written.
He had five children; four sons, educated as the children of
such a wise father should be, and a daughter, fair, gentle, and
intelligent, but she was blind; yet this deprivation appeared as
nothing to her; her father and brothers were outward eyes to her,
and a vivid imagination made everything clear to her mental sight. The
sons had never gone farther from the castle than the branches of the
trees extended, and the sister had scarcely ever left home. They
were happy children in that home of their childhood, the beautiful and
fragrant Tree of the Sun. Like all children, they loved to hear
stories related to them, and their father told them many things
which other children would not have understood; but these were as
clever as most grownup people are among us. He explained to them
what they saw in the pictures of life on the castle walls- the
doings of man, and the progress of events in all the lands of the
earth; and the sons often expressed a wish that they could be present,
and take a part in these great deeds. Then their father told them that
in the world there was nothing but toil and difficulty: that it was
not quite what it appeared to them, as they looked upon it in their
beautiful home. He spoke to them of the true, the beautiful, and the
good, and told them that these three held together in the world, and
by that union they became crystallized into a precious jewel,
clearer than a diamond of the first water- a jewel, whose splendor had
a value even in the sight of God, in whose brightness all things are
dim. This jewel was called the philosopher's stone. He told them that,
by searching, man could attain to a knowledge of the existence of God,
and that it was in the power of every man to discover the certainty
that such a jewel as the philosopher's stone really existed. This
information would have been beyond the perception of other children;
but these children understood, and others will learn to comprehend its
meaning after a time. They questioned their father about the true, the
beautiful, and the good, and he explained it to them in many ways.
He told them that God, when He made man out of the dust of the
earth, touched His work five times, leaving five intense feelings,
which we call the five senses. Through these, the true, the beautiful,
and the good are seen, understood, and perceived, and through these
they are valued, protected, and encouraged. Five senses have been
given mentally and corporeally, inwardly and outwardly, to body and
soul.
The children thought deeply on all these things, and meditated
upon them day and night. Then the eldest of the brothers dreamt a
splendid dream. Strange to say, not only the second brother but also
the third and fourth brothers all dreamt exactly the same thing;
namely, that each went out into the world to find the philosopher's
stone. Each dreamt that he found it, and that, as he rode back on
his swift horse, in the morning dawn, over the velvety green
meadows, to his home in the castle of his father, that the stone
gleamed from his forehead like a beaming light; and threw such a
bright radiance upon the pages of the Book of Truth that every word
was illuminated which spoke of the life beyond the grave. But the
sister had no dream of going out into the wide world; it never entered
her mind. Her world was her father's house.
"I shall ride forth into the wide world," said the eldest brother.
"I must try what life is like there, as I mix with men. I will
practise only the good and true; with these I will protect the
beautiful. Much shall be changed for the better while I am there."
Now these thoughts were great and daring, as our thoughts
generally are at home, before we have gone out into the world, and
encountered its storms and tempests, its thorns and its thistles. In
him, and in all his brothers, the five senses were highly
cultivated, inwardly and outwardly; but each of them had one sense
which in keenness and development surpassed the other four. In the
case of the eldest, this pre-eminent sense was sight, which he hoped
would be of special service. He had eyes for all times and all people;
eyes that could discover in the depths of the earth hidden
treasures, and look into the hearts of men, as through a pane of
glass; he could read more than is often seen on the cheek that blushes
or grows pale, in the eye that droops or smiles. Stags and antelopes
accompanied him to the western boundary of his home, and there he
found the wild swans. These he followed, and found himself far away in
the north, far from the land of his father, which extended eastward to
the ends of the earth. How he opened his eyes with astonishment! How
many things were to be seen here! and so different to the mere
representation of pictures such as those in his father's house. At
first he nearly lost his eyes in astonishment at the rubbish and
mockery brought forward to represent the beautiful; but he kept his
eyes, and soon found full employment for them. He wished to go
thoroughly and honestly to work in his endeavor to understand the
true, the beautiful, and the good. But how were they represented in
the world? He observed that the wreath which rightly belonged to the
beautiful was often given the hideous; that the good was often
passed by unnoticed, while mediocrity was applauded, when it should
have been hissed. People look at the dress, not at the wearer; thought
more of a name than of doing their duty; and trusted more to
reputation than to real service. It was everywhere the same.
"I see I must make a regular attack on these things," said he; and
he accordingly did not spare them. But while looking for the truth,
came the evil one, the father of lies, to intercept him. Gladly
would the fiend have plucked out the eyes of this Seer, but that would
have been a too straightforward path for him; he works more cunningly.
He allowed the young man to seek for, and discover, the beautiful
and the good; but while he was contemplating them, the evil spirit
blew one mote after another into each of his eyes; and such a
proceeding would injure the strongest sight. Then he blew upon the
motes, and they became beams, so that the clearness of his sight was
gone, and the Seer was like a blind man in the world, and had no
longer any faith in it. He had lost his good opinion of the world,
as well as of himself; and when a man gives up the world, and
himself too, it is all over with him.
"All over," said the wild swan, who flew across the sea to the
east.
"All over," twittered the swallows, who were also flying
eastward towards the Tree of the Sun. It was no good news which they
carried home.
"I think the Seer has been badly served," said the second brother,
"but the Hearer may be more successful."
This one possessed the sense of hearing to a very high degree:
so acute was this sense, that it was said he could hear the grass
grow. He took a fond leave of all at home, and rode away, provided
with good abilities and good intentions. The swallows escorted him,
and he followed the swans till he found himself out in the world,
and far away from home. But he soon discovered that one may have too
much of a good thing. His hearing was too fine. He not only heard
the grass grow, but could hear every man's heart beat, whether in
sorrow or in joy. The whole world was to him like a clockmaker's great
workshop, in which all the clocks were going "tick, tick," and all the
turret clocks striking "ding, dong." It was unbearable. For a long
time his ears endured it, but at last all the noise and tumult
became too much for one man to bear.
There were rascally boys of sixty years old- for years do not
alone make a man- who raised a tumult, which might have made the
Hearer laugh, but for the applause which followed, echoing through
every street and house, and was even heard in country roads. Falsehood
thrust itself forward and played the hypocrite; the bells on the
fool's cap jingled, and declared they were church-bells, and the noise
became so bad for the Hearer that he thrust his fingers into his ears.
Still, he could hear false notes and bad singing, gossip and idle
words, scandal and slander, groaning and moaning, without and
within. "Heaven help us!" He thrust his fingers farther and farther
into his ears, till at last the drums burst. And now he could hear
nothing more of the true, the beautiful, and the good; for his hearing
