Kelley’s strength grows with my weakness. I have left the direction of all matters to him. My wife Jane endures it in silence; for months now she has looked on my distraught features with sorrow and pity. It is her courage alone that has kept me going. She is a delicate creature of no great bodily strength, and yet for my sake she does not flinch before the approach of our ruin. My salvation is her only concern. She will be a loyal companion on the hard and toilsome road. – – – I am often struck by the thought that as I become more tired, weak and weary, Kelley flourishes daily more and more not only in physical health, but also in his undeniable psychical powers – just as the Green Angel of the West Window and the spectral child that precedes it take on clearer, fuller form! I cannot get the words of John the Baptist from the Bible out of my mind: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Is this secret law of a spiritual world also valid for the dark beings of the Abyss? If it be so, then God have mercy on my soul! For Kelley is the one that does increase and I – – –. And the Green Angel would be – – – no! no! I will not even think it. – – –
My nights are consumed with restless dreams; but the more my days are frittered away on vain hopes, the more splendid does the Green Angel appear when the moon is in the descendant: its raiment is ever more rich and glorious, covered in gold and jewels. So great is the glory of its appearance that were it to disappear and leave but a fragment of its cloak behind, we would be free from material cares for the rest of our lives.
Most recently its forehead has been decorated with gems of a fiery ruby red, like huge drops of blood, so that I seem to see the head of the Saviour torn by the crown of thorns in its otherworldly radiance. And drops of sweat, formed by the most brilliant diamonds, shine out from its forehead, just as they have stood on mine in many a sleepless night. – O God, let me not blaspheme, but why does not one single drop of this immeasurably precious blood and sweat fall to the floor of my chamber.
I wait – – – wait – – – wait – –.
Time for me has become like a woman in labour who cannot give birth and who pleads for relief in an unending scream. My meat is hope, but it is a food which tears at my body; my drink is assurance, and I am parched. When shall I say: it is finished?! – – –
Now we spent all our time with the preparation of the tincture of gold and scarcely a sitting passes but that the Green Angel assures us that on the next day or at the next suitable conjunction of the stars it will reveal to us the secret of the Stone and the formula that will crown all our labours. And each time there is a new condition, a new preparation, one more last call on skill and wealth, one new sacrifice, one more plunge into the black abyss of hope and trust.
The wildest rumours are circulating amongst the local people at what is supposed to be going on in Mortlake, so that it seems best to let them – whether they wish us well or ill – know what is the purpose of my studies and experiments. Better, at least, than to allow calumny a free rein and suddenly find myself one day unexpectedly exposed to the fury, the enmity and blood-lust of the mob. It is for that reason that yesterday I gave way to the request from Lord Leicester, who still seems well-disposed toward me for old time’s sake, and have invited him, together with several of the gentlemen of the court who are curious to see our marvels, to visit me at Mortlake.
And now Lord Leicester and his entourage, together with the Polish prince, Albert Lasky, are at the castle, filling every corner of house and yard with their noise, not to mention the costs of lodging and a well-supplied table. It has cost us another good pinch from St. Deniol’s salt-cellar, but Kelley just laughed his mocking laugh and mumbled into his beard something about there being plenty of birds to pluck. I clenched my teeth in fury, for I knew what he was about. I have been spared nothing in my restless search for truth. How much filth, baseness, iniquity and evil has this travelling quack not brought into my life.
In my notebooks I have recorded what happened at the sittings the gentlemen from London organised at Mortlake. Both my house and my soul grow daily more confused. What is there for me to say of the recent change in the mystical exchanges between Kelley and the green spectral child? Their subject is no longer Immortality and “Greenland” and the Queen and the Crowning Glory of the person and all the celestial favours accorded the chosen ones; they no longer even talk of the preparation of the salt and the essence. With the worldly ambition and superficial chatter of the courtiers and the scheming little Polish chieftain, all meditation and self-examination have been turned into their opposites and the sittings echo with the questions of these people as to the prospects for all their little intrigues and personal aspirations, as if they were in the cave of the witch of Uxbridge, or listening to prophecies read from the dregs of their cups by fairground gypsies. But still Kelley is rapt in the same trance as when questions about the spiritual life were put to Aristotle, Plato and King Solomon – only now it is
