Boehme wrote, “The wisdom of God is an eternal virgin—not a wife, but rather chastity and purity without flaw, who stands as an image of God. . . . She is the wisdom of miracles without number. In her, the Holy Spirit beholds the image of the angels. . . . Although she give the body to all the fruits, she is not the corporeality of the fruits, but rather the gracefulness and beauty within them.”
None of this made sense to Alma. A good deal of it irritated her. It certainly did not make her long to stop eating, or studying, or speaking, or to give up the pleasures of the body and live upon sunlight and rain. On the contrary, Boehme’s writing made her long for her microscope, for her mosses, for the comforts of the palpable and the concrete. Why was the material world not sufficient for people such as Jacob Boehme? Was it not wonderful enough, what one could see and touch and know to be real?
“True life stands in the fire,” Boehme wrote, “and then one mystery takes hold of the other.”
Alma had been taken hold of, to be sure, but her mind did not ignite. Nor, however, did it settle. Her reading of Boehme led her to other works in the White Acre library—other dusty treatises on the intersection of botany and divinity. She felt both skeptical and provoked. She paged through all the old theologians and the quaint, extinct thaumaturges. She examined Albertus Magnus. She dutifully studied what monks had written four hundred years earlier about mandrakes and unicorn horns. The science was all so flawed. There were holes in their logic so gaping that one could feel gusts of wind blowing through the arguments. They had believed such outlandish notions in the past—that bats were birds, that storks hibernated under water, that gnats sprang from the dew, that geese hatched from barnacles, and that barnacles grew on trees. As a purely historical matter it was interesting enough—but why honor it? she wondered. Why would Ambrose have been seduced by medieval scholarship? It was a fascinating trail, yes, but it was a trail of errors.
In the middle of one hot night at the end of July, Alma was in the library with a lamp before her and her spectacles upon the tip of her nose, looking at a seventeenth-century copy of the Arboretum sacrum—whose author, like Boehme, had tried to read sacred messages into all the plants mentioned in the Bible—when Ambrose entered the room. She was startled when she saw him, but he seemed undisturbed. If anything, he appeared concerned about her. He sat beside her at the long table in the center of the great room. He was wearing his daytime clothes. Either he had changed out of his nightclothes, out of deference to Alma, or he had never gone to bed that evening at all.
“You cannot pass so many nights in a row without sleep, my dear Alma,” he said.
“I am using the quiet hours to conduct research,” she replied. “I hope I have not disturbed you.”
He looked at the titles of the great old books lying open before them. “But you are not reading about mosses,” he said quietly. “What is your interest in all this?”
She found it difficult to lie to Ambrose. In general, she was not adept at untruths, and he, in particular, was not a person she wished to deceive. “I cannot make sense of your story,” she confessed. “I am looking for answers in these books.”
He nodded, but said nothing in reply.
“I started with Boehme,” Alma went on, “whom I find simply incomprehensible, and now I’ve moved on to . . . all the others.”
“I’ve troubled you by what I’ve told you about myself. I was afraid that might occur. I ought to have said nothing.”
“No, Ambrose. We are the dearest of friends. You may always confide in me. You may even trouble me at times. I was honored by your confidences. But in my desire to better understand you, I am afraid I am falling quite out of my depth.”
“And what do these books tell you about me?”
“Nothing,” Alma replied. She could not help but laugh, and Ambrose laughed with her. She was quite exhausted. He looked weary as well.
“Then why do you not ask me yourself?”
“Because I do not wish to gall you.”
“You could never gall me.”
“But it needles me, Ambrose—the errors in these books. I wonder why the errors do not needle you. Boehme makes such leaps, such contradictions, such confusions of thought. It is as though he wishes to vault directly into heaven upon the strength of his logic, but his logic is deeply impaired.” She reached across the table for a book and flung it open. “In this chapter here, for instance, he is trying to find keys to God’s secrets hidden inside the plants of the Bible—but what are we to make of it, when his information is simply incorrect? He spends a full chapter interpreting ‘the lilies of the field’ as mentioned in the book of Matthew, dissecting every letter of the word ‘lilies,’ looking for revelation within the syllables . . . but Ambrose, ‘the lilies of the field’ itself is a mistranslation. It would not have been lilies that Christ discussed in his Sermon on the Mount. There are only two varieties of lily native to Palestine, and both are exceedingly rare. They would not have flowered in such abundance as to have ever filled a meadow. They would not have been familiar enough to the common man. Christ, tailoring his lesson to the widest possible audience, would more likely have referred to a ubiquitous flower, in order that his listeners would comprehend his metaphor. For that reason, it is exceedingly probable that Christ was talking about the anemones of the field—probably Anemone coronaria—though we cannot be certain . . .”
Alma trailed off. She sounded didactic, ridiculous.
Ambrose laughed again. “What a poet you would have made, dear Alma! I would enjoy to see your translation of the Holy Scripture: ‘Consider the lilies of the field; they neither toil nor spin—though most probably they were not lilies, in any case, but rather Anemone coronaria, though we cannot be certain, but regardless, we can all agree that they neither toil nor spin.’ What a hymn that would make, to fill the rafters of any church! One would love to hear a congregation sing it. But tell me, Alma, while we are on the subject, what do you make of the willows of Babylon, upon which the Israelites hung their harps and wept?”
“Now you are baiting me,” said Alma, her pride both stung and stirred. “But I suspect, given the region, that they were probably poplars.”
“And Adam and Eve’s apple?” he probed.
She felt like a fool, but she could not stop herself. “It was either an apricot or a quince,” she said. “More likely an apricot, because quince is not so sweet as to have attracted a young woman’s desire. One way or another, it could not have been an apple. There were no apples in the Holy Land, Ambrose, and the tree in Eden is often described as having been shady and inviting, with silvery leaves, which could describe most varietals of apricot . . . so when Jacob Boehme speaks of apples and God and Eden . . .”
Now Ambrose was laughing so hard that he had to wipe his eyes. “My dear Miss Whittaker,” he said, with utmost tenderness. “What a marvel is your mind. This sort of dangerous reasoning, by the way, is precisely what God feared would happen, if a woman were allowed to eat from the tree of knowledge. You are a cautionary example to all womankind! You must cease at once all this intelligence and immediately take up the mandolin, or mending, or some other useless activity!”
“You think me absurd,” she said.
“No, Alma, I do not. I think you remarkable. I am touched that you are trying to comprehend me. A friend could not be more loving. I am more touched, still, that you are trying to understand—through rational thought—that which cannot be understood at all. There is no exact principle to be found here. The divine, as Boehme said, is unground—unfathomable, something outside the world as we experience it. But this is a difference of our minds, dearest one. I wish to arrive at revelation on wings, while you advance steadily on foot, magnifying glass in hand. I am a smattering wanderer, seeking God within the outer contours, searching for a new way of knowing. You stand upon the ground, and consider the evidence inch by inch. Your way is more rational and more methodical, but I cannot change my way.”
“I do have a dreadful lo
ve for understanding,” Alma admitted.
“Indeed you do love it, though it is not dreadful,” Ambrose replied. “It is the natural result of having been born with a mind so exquisitely calibrated. But for me, to experience life through mere reason is to feel about in the dark for God’s face while wearing heavy gloves. It is not enough only to study and depict and describe. One must sometimes . . . leap.”
“Yet I simply do not comprehend the Lord toward whom you are leaping,” Alma said.
“Why must you, though?”
“Because I would wish to better know you.”
“Then question me directly, Alma. Do not look for me within these books. I sit here before you, and I shall tell you anything you like about myself.”
Alma shut the dense volume before her. She might have shut it a touch too firmly, for it closed with a thud. She turned her chair to face Ambrose, folded her hands in her lap and said, “I do not understand your interpretation of nature, and this, in turn, fills me with a sense of alarm about the condition of your mind. I do not understand how you can overlook the points of contradiction and the sheer foolishness in these discredited old theories. You presume that our Lord is a benevolent botanist, hiding clues for our betterment within every variety of plant, yet I see no consistent evidence for that. There are just as many plants in our world that poison us as heal us. Why does your botanist deity give us the fetterbush and the privet, for instance, to kill off our horses and cows? Where is the hidden revelation there?”
“But why should our Lord not be a botanist?” Ambrose asked. “What occupation would you prefer your deity to have?”
Alma considered the question seriously. “Perhaps a mathematician,” she decided. “Scratching and erasing at things, you know. Adding and subtracting. Multiplying and dividing. Toying with theories and new calculations. Discarding earlier mistakes. It appears a more sensible idea to me.”
“But the mathematicians I have met, Alma, are not particularly compassionate souls, nor do they nourish life.”
“Precisely,” said Alma. “This would go a long way toward explaining the suffering of mankind and the random nature of our fates—as God adds and subtracts us, divides and erases us.”
“What a grim view! I wish you did not consider our lives so bleakly. On the whole of things, Alma, I still see more wonder in the world than suffering.”
“I know you do,” said Alma, “and that is why I worry for you. You are an idealist, which means that you are destined to be disappointed, and perhaps even wounded. You seek a gospel of benevolence and miracle, which leaves no room for the sorrows of existence. You are like William Paley, arguing that the perfection of every design in the universe is proof of God’s love for us. Do you recall Paley’s claim that the mechanism of the human wrist—so exquisitely suited to gathering food and creating works of artistic beauty—is the very imprint of the Lord’s affection toward man? But the human wrist is also perfectly suited to swinging a murderous ax at one’s neighbor. What proof of love, therein? Moreover, you make me feel like a horrid little marplot, because I sit here making such dull arguments and because I cannot live in the same shining city upon the hill that you inhabit.”
They sat quietly for a spell, then Ambrose asked, “Are we arguing, Alma?”
Alma considered the question. “Perhaps.”
“But why must we quarrel?”
“Forgive me, Ambrose. I am weary.”
“You are weary because you have been sitting in this library every night, asking questions of men who have been dead for hundreds of years.”
“I have spent most of my life conversing with such men, Ambrose. Older ones, as well.”
“Yet because they do not answer questions to your liking, you now assail me. How can I offer you satisfactory answers, Alma, if far superior minds than my own have already disappointed you?”
Alma put her head in her hands. She felt strained.
Ambrose continued, but now in a more tender voice. “Only imagine what we could learn, Alma, if we could unshackle ourselves from argument.”
She looked up at him again. “I cannot unshackle myself from argument, Ambrose. Recall that I am Henry Whittaker’s daughter. I was born into argument. Argument was my first nursemaid. Argument is my lifelong bedfellow. What’s more, I believe in argument and I even love it. Argument is our most steadfast pathway toward truth, for it is the only proven arbalest against superstitious thinking, or lackadaisical axioms.”
“But if the end result is only to drown in words, and never to hear . . .” Ambrose trailed off.
“To hear what?”
“Each other, perhaps. Not each other’s words, but each other’s thoughts. Each other’s spirit. If you ask me what I believe, I shall tell you this: the whole sphere of air that surrounds us, Alma, is alive with invisible attractions—electric, magnetic, fiery and thoughtful. There is a universal sympathy all around us. There is a hidden means of knowing. I am certain of this, for I have witnessed it myself. When I swung myself into the fire as a young man, I saw that the storehouses of the human mind are rarely ever fully opened. When we open them, nothing remains unrevealed. When we cease all argument and debate—both internal and external—our true questions can be heard and answered. That is the powerful mover. That is the book of nature, written neither in Greek nor in Latin. That is the gathering of magic, and it is a gathering that, I have always believed and wished, can be shared.”
“You speak in riddles,” Alma said.
“And you speak too much,” Ambrose replied.
She could find no reply to this. Not without speaking more. Offended, confused, she felt her eyes sting with tears.
“Take me someplace where we can be silent together, Alma,” Ambrose said, leaning in to her. “I trust you so thoroughly, and I believe that you trust me. I do not wish to quarrel with you any longer. I wish to speak to you without words. Allow me to try to show you what I mean.”
This was a most startling request.
“We can be silent together right here, Ambrose.”
He looked around the vast, elegant library. “No,” he said. “We cannot. It is too large and too loud in here, with all these dead old men arguing around us. Take me somewhere hidden and quiet, and let us listen to each other. I know it sounds mad, but it is not mad. I know this one thing to be true—that all we need for communion is our consent. I have come to believe that I cannot reach communion on my own because I am too weak. Since I have met you, Alma, I feel stronger. Do not make me regret what I have told you already of myself. I ask so little of you, Alma, but I must beg of you this request, for I have no other way to explain myself, and if I cannot show you what I believe to be true, then you will always think me deranged or idiotic.”
She protested, “No, Ambrose, I could never think such things of you—”
“But you do already,” he interrupted, with desperate urgency. “Or you will eventually. Then you will come to pity me, or detest me, and I shall lose the companion whom I hold most dear in the world, and this would bring me tribulation and sorrow. Before that sad event occurs—if it has not already occurred—permit me to try to show you what I mean, when I say that nature, in her limitlessness, has no concern for the boundaries of our mortal imaginations. Allow me to try to show you that we can speak to each other without words and without argument. I believe that enough love and affection passes between us, my dearest friend, that we can achieve this. I have always hoped to find somebody with whom I can communicate silently. Since meeting you, I have hoped it even more—for we share, it seems, such a natural and sympathetic understanding of each other, which extends far beyond the crass or the common affections . . . do we not? Do you not also feel as though you are more powerful when I am near?”
This could not be denied. Nor, however, out of dignity, could it be admitted.
“What is it that you wish from me?” Alma asked.
“I wish for you to listen to my mind and my spirit. And I wish to listen to yours.”
br /> “You are speaking of mind reading, Ambrose. This is a parlor game.”
“You may call it whatever you wish. But I believe that without the impediment of language, all will be revealed.”
“But I do not believe in such a thing,” Alma said.
“Yet you are a woman of science, Alma—so why not try? There is nothing to be lost, and perhaps much to be learned. But for this to succeed, we shall need deepest stillness. We shall need freedom from interference. Please, Alma, I will ask this of you only once. Take me to the most quiet and secret place that you know, and let us attempt communion. Let me show you what I cannot tell you.”
What choice did she have?
She took him to the binding closet.
* * *
Now, this was not the first that Alma had heard of mind reading. If anything, it was a bit of a local fashion. Sometimes it felt to Alma that every other lady in Philadelphia was a divine medium these days. There were “spirit ambassadors” everywhere one looked, ready to be hired by the hour. Sometimes their experiments leaked into the more respectable medical and scientific journals, which appalled Alma. She had recently seen an article on the subject of pathetism—the idea that chance could be induced by suggestion—which seemed to her like mere carnival games. Some people called these explorations science, but Alma, irritated, diagnosed them as entertainment—and a rather dangerous variety of entertainment, at that.
In a way, Ambrose reminded her of all these spiritualists—yearning and susceptible—yet at the same time, he was not like them in the least. For one thing, he had never heard of them. He lived in far too much isolation to have noticed the mystical manias of the moment. He did not subscribe to the phrenology journals, with their discussions of the thirty-seven different faculties, propensities, and sentiments represented by the bumps and valleys of the human skull. Nor did he visit mediums. He did not read The Dial. He had never mentioned to Alma the names of Bronson Alcott or Ralph Waldo Emerson—because he had never encountered the names of Bronson Alcott or Ralph Waldo Emerson. For solace and fellowship, he looked to medieval writers, not contemporary ones.