H35 
 
 W^ HE BOOK OF SYMBOLS 
 , HENRY A. WISE WOOD 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 $B Eb3 74D 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of California. 
 
 (J 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/bookofsymbolsOOwoodrich 
 
IHEBOOKOF 
 
 SYMBOLS 
 
 BY HENRY A 
 V/^ISE WOOD 
 
 WILLIAM^©? 
 ««>RITCHIE 
 NEW YORK 
 A D MCMIV 
 
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 f OF THE 
 
 I UNIVERSITY 
 

 CopTrfght, 1904, 
 
 ~ Henry A. Wise Wood, 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall» 
 
 Printed at Boeton, U. S. A„ by the Plimpton Preee. 
 
fii? WM^^ BOOK OF ypi.^ 
 
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 N early youth I 
 had from my 
 Mother a Qisket 
 curiously fash- 
 ioned^ and of 
 many precious 
 metals^ Quaint^ animate carvings 
 of ancient scenes were upon its 
 sides: the Garden of Eden; an 
 elaborate edifice which seemed to 
 span the void between earth 
 
and heaven; the Crucifixion. 
 These, showing the labor and the 
 wear of ages, were wrought with 
 exquisite skills 
 
 Upon the cover of the Gisket 
 were carven a firebrand and a 
 stake, and between them the 
 mouth of a pit* The latter was con- 
 ceived in so singular a fashion that 
 looking never so far into its depths 
 one could not fathom it* Above 
 ran the words: This is Hell, ap- 
 proach it not, for they 9jt)ho dis- 
 close its mystery are taken of a 
 sickness^ and all things change in 
 their sight. To me this inscription 
 seemed terrible ; I dared not gaze 
 into the pit, and, when the box 
 rested with its cover uppermost, I 
 
 10 
 
held my hand over it, for I was 
 afraid* 
 
 Underneath, also, the box was 
 of strange designing* Out of 
 the center of the bottom peered an 
 eye, like the sun, and from it rays 
 shot to all of the corners of the 
 Casket, and round about its sides, 
 and upwardly over the edges of 
 its top; while from aflof the sides 
 of the cover these rays gathered, 
 and poured into the very mouth 
 ofheU. 
 
 Into the eye I feared to look, 
 for over it, too, was an inscrip- 
 tion that made me shrink in 
 terror from its words: The Eye 
 of God sees, but it may not be 
 seen; peer not into its depths, 
 
 n 
 
nor attempt the mysteries Hinth- 
 in it, for he <who reveals the Un- 
 known shall be cast out of the 
 haunts of men. The cruelty of 
 the punishment shock me; I 
 feared lest I might see^ and so I 
 ever held the box with its bottom 
 from me* If, inadvertently,! should 
 meet the eye, and penetrate its 
 mysteries — how awful would be 
 the cost I 
 
 So I bore the Casket close be- 
 tween my hands ; the one above, 
 the other beneath it. I would have 
 hidden it, had I not been charged 
 to bear it reverently, patiently, 
 faithfully; or have wrapped it 
 out of sight in the folds of my gar- 
 ments, had the scenes upon its 
 
 (2 
 
sides not held me so bound that 
 I could not withdraw myself from 
 the strange influences which they 
 wielded* 
 
 3K4!(W PON one panel it bore 
 ■K5^l ^ cystic nature scene: 
 H^^M a deep forest crowned 
 3SS®two roDing hills; be- 
 tween the hills a valley of luxuri- 
 ant undergrowth, part lighted, 
 part dark; and in the midst there- 
 of a clear, cool stream, with slop- 
 ing green borders of moss* Over- 
 head, the outreaching branches 
 of the wood waved in the wind, 
 
 13 
 
and in waving shook the long 
 strands of sunlight which kind- 
 led the many hues of the depths 
 beneath. Here^ by the water, 
 half screened by the glistening 
 foliage of its brink, rested a man 
 and a woman; and as their voices 
 mingled with the r-u-u-I-I of the 
 brook, there came to me out of the 
 picture its transcendent meanings^ 
 The woman and the man had 
 lived, wandered, and dreamed; 
 together they had come through 
 the lowlands, over the highlands, 
 into the forest; had seen the clouds 
 and the sea, the sunrise and the 
 noon, the sunset and the coming 
 of the stars ; they had plucked the 
 flowers of the earth and trod the 
 
 14 
 
gardens of the sky, and now they 
 had come by the brook and were 
 resting* They had seen all, and 
 it had wearied them* 
 
 The woman said: Howbeauti- 
 ful it ist — and their eyes drank 
 the glories of the valley — andho^o) 
 peacefuU The swirl of the water 
 made music of the thought, and 
 they listened. 
 
 Said the man: Ho<a) good is 
 the shade,-^the shafts of sunlight 
 sped afar off down the stream — 
 and the sotitude, how deep! — the 
 sounds of the wood fell away — 
 How soft the moss, — the tendrils 
 of their couch pressed tiny fingers 
 to his side — and how sweet is 
 the odor of your hair ! 
 
 J5 
 
The woman sighed* It is all 
 so beautiful, and you are a part of 
 it, . , * and I am a part of it ^ 
 I seem to see you, and yet to see 
 with you ; <u)e are alike, yet un- 
 alike. You please me, as all else 
 pleases me, and — the Hvarmth of 
 your body attracts me* 
 
 Her words floated off; the 
 woman and the man lay close 
 together^ and the breeze bore her 
 hair across the intervening space* 
 The clouds as they passed un- 
 noticed overhead varied the 
 shadows cast by her limbs upon 
 the moss. 
 
 The man watched her; the 
 dark background of the forest 
 threw into relief the delicately 
 
 )6 
 
modelled outlines of her form. 
 Where the perception of compan- 
 ionship alone had reigned^ there 
 now stole in upon him a sense of 
 something overlooked* The soft 
 hues of the woman, the rhythm 
 of the undulations of her body, the 
 beauty of the hand that lay palm- 
 uppermost between them — un- 
 folding, like a lily upon the green 
 surface of a lake — the glistening 
 arm, the shoulder, the neck; the 
 warmth and the fuflness of life 
 which they bespoke; these, all of 
 these, stole in upon the man, — and 
 he knew that there were secrets 
 in the unopened volume of 
 woman, which awaited but the 
 turning of the title-page. 
 
 J7 
 
 p\f\ B H A It^^ 
 or TMr- 
 
 UNIVERSITY * 
 
 OF 
 
A tense, unbroken silence drew 
 about them ; the wood seemed to 
 gather its children and stand afar 
 off, the sky and its filmy cloud- 
 forms faded into the realms of the 
 unseen, the moist, soft bank upon 
 which they lay passed from their 
 senses, and the r-u-u-I-1 of the 
 stream as it swept from their hear- 
 ing lent its throb to the flood that 
 was coursing their veins* 
 
 The woman understood, and 
 trembled, and the petals of her 
 hand quivered in the green moss: 
 the current of a new yearning had 
 sprung within her ; she felt it flood 
 her lips, her throat, her breasts ; 
 felt it thrust aside the conscious- 
 ness of all outward being, and^ 
 
 18 
 
thrilled with a supreme joy , timidly 
 she awaited the moment of initial 
 ecstacy.* And the brook sang a 
 paean to Nature, as it wandered 
 away to the sea. 
 
 This scene, I loved; and was 
 never weary of looking at iU 
 Nevertheless, it was evil, for an 
 inscription called it the Beginning 
 of Evil, and said: Having peace, 
 Man sought pleasure — and, find- 
 ing pleasure, ne^er again had 
 peace. 
 
PON another side of 
 the Casket was a knoU^ 
 to which a squalid^ 
 dreary looking city of 
 the East lent a background of Iow> 
 primitive dwellings; and upon the 
 knoll was gathered a curious array 
 of people* In the midst of them rose 
 a stake, upon which hung a man 
 writhing in the agonies of death ; 
 while about him, impassively 
 holding at bay a swaying, tumult- 
 uous rabble, stood a cordon of 
 Roman soldiers* 
 
 Within the circle of the guard, 
 
 20 
 
their faces strained and their eyes 
 streaming, a group of men in an- 
 guish watched the sufferings of 
 their leader, and at his feet, shak- 
 en with grief, there knelt a woman 
 weepings Passing to and fro, in- 
 tent upon their duties, stolidly 
 moved those of the soldiery who 
 were charged with the work of 
 execution. 
 
 Over this scene there hung an 
 atmosphere of suspense, accent- 
 uated by the cries of the throng, 
 by the low-spoken words of the 
 executioners, by the sobs of the 
 woman, or by the moans of 
 the now scarce struggling figure 
 at the stake. As the laughter and 
 jeers of the mob died away, and 
 
 2} 
 
more distant sounds made them- 
 selves heard^ the tension seemed 
 to grow unendurable, and many 
 of those who mutely watched 
 turned from the sufferings they 
 beheld. The baying of dogs in 
 the town, the herd-cries from the 
 hills round about, the routine 
 noises from distant habitations, 
 all these served to throw over 
 the cruel spectacle a veil of utter 
 commonplace, and to lend to the 
 killing of this man, the world's 
 gentle Egotist, an aspect of infinite 
 dreariness. 
 
 The inscription of this picture 
 I could neither clearly see, nor 
 wholly understand; it was of 
 strange characters, in part effaced, 
 
 22 
 
but this much was I able to read: 
 and he who would uplift, first 
 humbly must yield* 
 
 This carving, my Mother had 
 said, was of the Atonement, an ex- 
 piation of the evil of the world, of 
 which the root was depicted upon 
 another side of the Casket* This 
 was not plain to me, but I accepted 
 it, and regarded the subject with 
 reverent awe, as a matter that was 
 not to be scrutinized, nor inquired 
 into* Nevertheless, like the altar- 
 lamp at a shrine, burned without 
 ceasing the question : // beauty be 
 truth, and love be right, and to 
 live be good, <why needed to be 
 atoned that <u)hich I had seen upon 
 an opposite panel of the box} 
 
 23 
 
ETWEEN the forest 
 and the tragedy, upon 
 a third surface of the 
 ® Casket, was a far, wide 
 plain, that seemed to reach to- 
 wards me from out the dusk of 
 the very beginning of things hu- 
 man. Dotting its horizon were 
 rude heaps of fallen stones, shat- 
 tered temples of long-forgotten 
 cults, whose blocks and pillars^ 
 scarce shapen by hand, were but 
 dimly visible through the gray 
 mists shrouding the plain upon 
 which they lay. 
 
 24 
 
Strewn hither and thither over 
 its dim expanse^ their cloisters 
 fantastically interwoven^ in the 
 distance crude and timid in de- 
 sign, but ever as they neared 
 me growing in power and beauty, 
 pile succeeded to pile, structure 
 to structure, bespeaking Faith^s 
 many culminations^ Each seemed 
 to have risen upon the ground of 
 Man's necessity, and proudly in 
 turn to have trumpeted the chal- 
 lenge: I SHALL SATISFY I 
 
 Among these ruins was every 
 fashion of Man's art of building; 
 in each he had expressed, as in 
 him best it lay, his awe in the 
 presence of the AH -Mysterious. 
 By thrusting toward the skies 
 
 25 
 
with all his might his loftiest 
 deeds of beauty, he had sought 
 to do obeisance, and to propi- 
 tiate the dreaded Hand, which 
 he felt, but could not see. 
 Blood, treasure, and thought, fe- 
 verishly he had spent, and out of 
 his very abasement, springing 
 from his humility, and nurtured 
 while he lay prone upon earth, 
 one hand beating his breast, the 
 other timidly fashioning, blos- 
 somed and bloomed the exotic 
 which we call Art* 
 
 Forth from every portion of the 
 plain ; from each fallen pile, from 
 structures shaken with Time's 
 ague, and from others of more 
 modern mould, the while I 
 
 26 
 
watched, came spirits dumbly 
 moving into line* Each bore, in 
 hands, on back, or dragged be- 
 hind with ropes, a brick, a stone, 
 a piflar, to a spot where other 
 spirits dumbly set these up, and 
 builded, wide and high, in its 
 thews a bit of every ancient fane, 
 a towering edifice whose rising 
 bastions cleft the mists, to shame 
 the dazzling splendor of our noon- 
 day sun. 
 
 Round about this temple wailed 
 the World, and lavished upon its 
 altars bIood,and goId,and thought; 
 and daily the World slew itself 
 that the crimson-bannered battle- 
 ments might greet the sun full rich 
 in Man^s life-color, thus vaunting 
 
 27 
 
its God's debt to Man, for Man's 
 self-sacrifice. 
 
 So ran the strange fancy 
 wrought by this picture, which I 
 had been taught to revere, to love, 
 and to cleave to in hours of trou- 
 ble. Its edifice had been called the 
 Rock upon <cvhich is founded all 
 good; the World's refuge from 
 evil, and, within its archives 
 only, I had been told, lay all of the 
 past that bore worth for the future^ 
 Bent upon seeking asylum, many 
 times had my spirit approached 
 its open portals, but the sounds 
 within — the clank of golden 
 chains — had startled it, and each 
 time wearily my spirit withdrew^ 
 
 28 
 
( ONIVERSJ 
 
 THF \ 
 
 O, I continued to wan- 
 der, my Mother^s gift 
 carefully borne between 
 my hands, yearningly 
 ooking upon the woodland pic- 
 ture, notwithstanding I had been 
 taught that it was the root of all 
 pain. 
 
HE fourth surface of 
 the box was polished; 
 in it, as in a mirror, of- 
 ten, uncannily, I saw 
 things which resembled my own 
 thoughts, and could watch them 
 struggling out of the huge chaos 
 of youth, into the simple order 
 of maturity* 
 
 This side of the Casket unceas- 
 ingly held me in its magic spell, 
 and the transformations which it 
 reflected blenched me at times 
 with horror. In its mysterious 
 depths I could see a cold finger 
 
 30 
 
touch, one after another, things 
 long held dear to my heart and 
 passionately cherished by me ; 
 things which, at its approach, 
 drooped or vanished, or, suddenly 
 sprang into new shape, and took 
 their places as mere elements in 
 the tremendous hypothesis which 
 was forming within me — forming 
 at the cost of such heavy tra- 
 vails 
 
 Loved conceptions would be- 
 come misconceptions, while in- 
 herited beliefs, affectionately nur- 
 tured, fled at the chill touch of 
 that inexorable f ingen Heartsick 
 and weary, with all my souths 
 strength, often I prayed to possess 
 once again youth^s sunlit, trustful 
 
 31 
 
hours, and its mother-taught^ 
 safe-guarding formulas ; and, fi- 
 nally, one day, I thrust from me 
 the haunting mirror with its phan- 
 tom hand I 
 
 But the finger drew me back 
 to the dread phantasmagoria; I 
 could not escape it; the threads 
 of the hypothesis must be spun, 
 each must take its place, and, al- 
 though it serve as shroud to the 
 dearest heart-held belief that lay 
 hidden in my breast, the fabric 
 must be fully woven^ Then, weak 
 with dread, again I looked, and, 
 lol it was finished; the hypoth- 
 esis was formed, and it lay be- 
 fore me complete in every element. 
 The phantasms had fled, and in 
 
 II 
 
their stead was a sweep of tran- 
 quil sky; my travail was spent^ 
 and, freed by the magic touch of 
 thought from the puny thraldom 
 of a Plan, in the clear light of the 
 Indisputable — which men call 
 Truth — I saw, with a fierce joy, 
 fierce as the joy of battle, which 
 is sweeter than all youth^s ecsta- 
 cies. Nature^ the Juggemaxxt, un- 
 hasting, unthinking^ heedlessly 
 on^^vard-rolling upon its inexor- 
 able mission of consequence^ 
 
 33 
 
was now 
 quivering in my grasp, 
 the crimson-bannered, 
 j sun-shot battlements 
 were crumbling to the ground; 
 the Castle of Fear had fallen, and, 
 as through a golden mist, up from 
 its shattered corridors arose the 
 wondrous arts of Color, Form, 
 and Sound, the World^s inheri- 
 tance, its richest legacies of Faith* 
 The scene of the Crucifixion had 
 vanished — in vain had the twin 
 spirits Ignorance and Intolerance 
 striven to quench in the hearts of 
 
 34 
 
men the spark out of which 
 Thought and Compassion were 
 summoning the love of kind — and 
 in its stead stood there the spirit 
 of Eternal Kindness, saying: 
 Condemn not, test the flames of 
 resentment consume the vessel in 
 which they bum* Ye cannot reach 
 the ancestry of this day^s mis- 
 deeds, but the morrow^s "worth 
 <waits upon its inheritance — 
 therefore, gamer ye all good* 
 
 Then, with a wrench, as if it 
 were being torn from me by all 
 of the hands of Time, the Casket 
 leapt from my grasp, and lay at 
 my feet, open* The ground trem- 
 bled and rocked, as if in the throes 
 of convulsion, and out of the Cas- 
 
 35 
 
kct there sprang a Man, facing the 
 level rays of the new-day's sun, 
 firm-eyed and strong, one hand 
 aloft to command his fate, while 
 with the other he thrust back to 
 their graves the grim hordes of 
 the past, hugging their implements 
 of terror, worship, and propitiation* 
 And up from their knees to 
 Man's full height rose other men, 
 stripping from death its hideous jest 
 of Itfe, and gazing withfearless eyes 
 into the sun. Unawed by the men- 
 ace of the Universe, these grasped 
 the earth and bent it to their need; 
 wrung from its tardy lips new, 
 frank, replies, and conjured from 
 every firmamental star its seething 
 tribute to Man's master mind. 
 
 36 
 
From its slumber of untold cen- 
 turies the World seemed suddenly 
 to have waked^ and at a bound 
 to have passed from beneath the 
 sombre clouds of savagery, bar- 
 barism, and civilization, out into 
 the clear dawn of the god-un- 
 needing age of enlightenment* 
 
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