It lives as well, and thrives luxuriantly, ripe for the full vintage, in
the minds of many people to whom this or that trivial incident or
accident of life is an omen of good or evil fortune with a mysterious
parentage. Its roots strike deep in that strange element in human nature
which dreads whatsoever is weird and uncanny in common experiences, and
sees strange portents and dire chimeras in all that is unexplainable to
the senses. It is made most virile in the desire for knowledge of the
invisible and intangible, that must ever elude the keenest inquiry, a
phase of thought always to be reckoned with when imagination runs riot,
and potent in its effect, though evanescent as a vision the brain
sometimes retains of a dream, and as senseless in the cold light of
reason as Monna Sidonia's invocation at the Witches' Sabbath: (_Romance
of Leonardo da Vinci_, p. 97, MEREJKOWSKI.)
"Emen Hetan, Emen Hetan, Palu, Baalberi,
Astaroth help us Agora, Agora, Patrisa,
Come and help us."
"Garr-r: Garr-r, up: Don't knock
Your head: We fly: We fly:"
And who may count himself altogether free from the subtle power of the
old mystery with its fantastic imageries, when the spirit of unrest is
abroad? Who is not moved by it in the awesome stillness of night on the
plains, or in the silence of the mountains or of the somber forest
aisles; in wild winter nights when old tales are told; in fireside
visions as tender memories come and go? And who, when listening to the
echoes of the chambers of the restless sea when deep calleth unto deep,
does not hear amid them some weird and haunting refrain like Leland's
sea song?
"I saw three witches as the wind blew cold
In a red light to the lee;
Bold they were and overbold
As they sailed over the sea;
Calling for One Two Three;
Calling for One Two Three;
And I think I can hear
It a ringing in my ear,
A-calling for the One, Two, Three.
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