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Far away towards the east, in India, which seemed in those days the
world's end, stood the Tree of the Sun; a noble tree, such as we
have never seen, and perhaps never may see.
The summit of this tree spread itself for miles like an entire
forest, each of its smaller branches forming a complete tree. Palms,
beech-trees, pines, plane-trees, and various other kinds, which are
found in all parts of the world, were here like small branches,
shooting forth from the great tree; while the larger boughs, with
their knots and curves, formed valleys and hills, clothed with
velvety 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.
Click Here for Part 2 of The Philosopher's Stone
The Philosopher's Stone
A Classic Children's Short Story
by
Hans Christian Andersen |
