Ancient Capital (1694-1695)
Spring had come to the Wissahickon and Brother Kelpius was walking high along its banks when he chanced upon another hermit, an Englishman—their kind becoming common in the area—digging a rude shelter among the rocks and roots of that place. The air was perfumed with magnolia blossoms and they had fallen rampant along the footpath and among the piles of excavated earth. The banks fell away steeply to the water and Brother Kelpius had no choice but to meet the man on the way or else backtrack a good distance. He came forward. The two hermits greeted each other cordially, discussed the mild weather, and brought up the increasing population of the area. Brother Kelpius described his own difficulties finding a solitude for himself and his Society. Despite all that, he went on to say, this hermitage was well sited, as was his own, away from established trails, on the far side of the water from the Germantown settlements. The hermit considered this awhile and then asked if he had seen any other person in that place. Brother Kelpius answered that he had only seen him. Upon hearing this, the hermit took up a great stone in his hands and dashed his face against it. He crumpled to the ground, while the stone itself rolled freely down the steep slope to the water. After a time, the hermit rose again. A quantity of blood had surged from his nose and his face was streaked with wet clay. “Have you seen another person in this place?” he asked Brother Kelpius once more.
Later on, not long after the solstice, the glorious anniversary of the Society’s arrival, Brother Seelig was heading home late past sundown and, while crossing that very same Wissahickon, encountered a group of boys upstream, sporting in the moonlight. One of them, quite a bit younger than the rest, no more than three years of age, was reaching into the creek. He wished to seize the reflected moonlight with his hands. The older boys encouraged this folly, shouting at him to grab and grab again, though the image, naturally enough, remained fixed on the motive face of the water. The younger boy happily participated, laughing alongside the rest, yet Brother Seelig was disturbed in his heart. The day after, he asked Brother Kelpius whether he should have intervened or whether it was right to preserve the child’s innocence. “He was not in error,” answered Brother Kelpius, “and reaching down into the water, he will eventually find, among the other crude elements, a seam hidden from his companions, and pulling on that, he will unravel the earth itself.”
The Brother Dr. Witt had been in Philadelphia buying forceps and other instruments of his trade. Professional obligation kept him in the city—a fatty tumor had to be excised—and the goods he purchased went ahead of him. But not wishing to stay overnight, the Brother Dr. Witt set off in the afternoon and caught in the open by nightfall. Having no money for lodging and no people known to him in the vicinity, he found a dry watercourse bedded with sand and fallen leaves. He laid himself down and prepared for sleep. Exhausted though he was, he could doze only in short intervals. Later on, around midnight by the orientation of the Bear, he was jolted awake by a powerful thirst. Thick clouds had set over the moon; it was very dark, but chance had aided him: searching about, he found a drinking gourd had been set down on the sand, its wholesome water infused with the taste of mint and other herbs. As soon as he had drunk his fill, a drowsiness overcame him, and the Brother Dr. Witt fell into an untroubled sleep. But he was horrified to find, immediately upon awakening, that the vessel he had drunk from was not a gourd but a human skull, with a hole bored in its crown to dispense the water. He vomited forth the contents of his stomach and ran, panicked, back to the Saal, where he found Brother Kelpius and told him what had happened. It was unaccountable how he, so versed in anatomy, had failed to identify what he had been drinking from, if not by sight then by touch. A malefactor or some demon must have set it there for him. “That might be so,” Kelpius reasoned, “but it was your virtue that turned the water wholesome.” This council seemed to alleviate the doubts of Brother Dr. Witt, but only for a time, and left the Society when Kelpius came down with his fatal illness. He began a practice in Germantown, took a wife and fathered children, which were said to be, naturally enough, quite numerous and healthy.
Those of the Society once asked Brother Kelpius why he, who was otherwise scrupulous in his personal habits, carried a lantern so ramshackle and begrimed that it barely illuminated the path ahead. They had been burning a solstice fire the day and night long, as they did twice yearly, and were returning to the Saal when the question was posed. Venus and the Messenger were paling against the horizon, visible now through the bare trees. Brother Kelpius’ lantern cast dim whorls among the moldering leaves. He halted their march and gestured at the ground beneath him. Despite the weakness of the light, the path ahead was still visible to everyone. Then Brother Kelpius answered, betraying some impatience, that if he could not find his way among lesser lights, then he would never find his way at all. That following year, two members of the Society fractured their legs, a grievous misfortune but one that did not happen in the presence of their erstwhile leader.
Matthew Spencer is a writer, translator, and publisher. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
minor literature[s] 