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diff --git a/1044-h/1044-h.htm b/1044-h/1044-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f2e6529 --- /dev/null +++ b/1044-h/1044-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2165 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven, by Mark Twain</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to +Heaven, by Mark Twain, Illustrated by Albert Levering + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven + + +Author: Mark Twain + + + +Release Date: February 14, 2013 [eBook #1044] +[This file was first posted on September 26, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXTRACT FROM CAPTAIN STORMFIELD'S +VISIT TO HEAVEN*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" +src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>Extract from<br /> +Captain Stormfield’s<br /> +Visit to Heaven</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +Mark Twain</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" +src="images/p0s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">NEW YORK AND +LONDON</span><br /> +HARPER & BROTHERS</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">Copyright, 1909, by <span +class="smcap">Mark Twain Company</span></p> +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Printed in the United States of +America</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/fpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Captain Stormfield" +title= +"Captain Stormfield" +src="images/fps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<p>Well, when I had been dead about thirty years I begun to get a +little anxious. Mind you, had been whizzing through space +all that time, like a comet. <i>Like</i> a comet! +Why, Peters, I laid over the lot of them! Of course there +warn’t any of them going my way, as a steady thing, you +know, because they travel in a long circle like the loop of a +lasso, whereas I was pointed as straight as a dart for the +Hereafter; but I happened on one every now and then that was +going my way for an hour or so, and then we had a bit of a brush +together. But it was generally pretty one-sided, because I +sailed by them the same as if they were standing still. An +ordinary comet don’t make more than about 200,000 miles a +minute. Of course when I came across one of that +sort—like Encke’s and Halley’s comets, for +instance—it warn’t anything but just a flash and a +vanish, you see. You couldn’t rightly call it a +race. It was as if the comet was a gravel-train and I was a +telegraph despatch. But after I got outside of our +astronomical system, I used to flush a comet occasionally that +was something <i>like</i>. <i>We</i> haven’t got any +such comets—ours don’t begin. One night I was +swinging along at a good round gait, everything taut and trim, +and the wind in my favor—I judged I was going about a +million miles a minute—it might have been more, it +couldn’t have been less—when I flushed a most +uncommonly big one about three points off my starboard bow. +By his stern lights I judged he was bearing about +northeast-and-by-north-half-east. Well, it was so near my +course that I wouldn’t throw away the chance; so I fell off +a point, steadied my helm, and went for him. You should +have heard me whiz, and seen the electric fur fly! In about +a minute and a half I was fringed out with an electrical nimbus +that flamed around for miles and miles and lit up all space like +broad day. The comet was burning blue in the distance, like +a sickly torch, when I first sighted him, but he begun to grow +bigger and bigger as I crept up on him. I slipped up on him +so fast that when I had gone about 150,000,000 miles I was close +enough to be swallowed up in the phosphorescent glory of his +wake, and I couldn’t see anything for the glare. +Thinks I, it won’t do to run into him, so I shunted to one +side and tore along. By and by I closed up abreast of his +tail. Do you know what it was like? It was like a +gnat closing up on the continent of America. I forged +along. By and by I had sailed along his coast for a little +upwards of a hundred and fifty million miles, and then I could +see by the shape of him that I hadn’t even got up to his +waistband yet. Why, Peters, <i>we</i> don’t know +anything about comets, down here. If you want to see comets +that <i>are</i> comets, you’ve got to go outside of our +solar system—where there’s room for them, you +understand. My friend, I’ve seen comets out there +that couldn’t even lay down inside the <i>orbits</i> of our +noblest comets without their tails hanging over.</p> +<p>Well, I boomed along another hundred and fifty million miles, +and got up abreast his shoulder, as you may say. I was +feeling pretty fine, I tell you; but just then I noticed the +officer of the deck come to the side and hoist his glass in my +direction. Straight off I heard him sing +out—“Below there, ahoy! Shake her up, shake her +up! Heave on a hundred million billion tons of +brimstone!”</p> +<p>“Ay-ay, sir!”</p> +<p>“Pipe the stabboard watch! All hands on +deck!”</p> +<p>“Ay-ay, sir!”</p> +<p>“Send two hundred thousand million men aloft to shake +out royals and sky-scrapers!”</p> +<p>“Ay-ay, sir!”</p> +<p>“Hand the stuns’ls! Hang out every rag +you’ve got! Clothe her from stem to +rudder-post!”</p> +<p>“Ay-ay, sir!”</p> +<p>In about a second I begun to see I’d woke up a pretty +ugly customer, Peters. In less than ten seconds that comet +was just a blazing cloud of red-hot canvas. It was piled up +into the heavens clean out of sight—the old thing seemed to +swell out and occupy all space; the sulphur smoke from the +furnaces—oh, well, nobody can describe the way it rolled +and tumbled up into the skies, and nobody can half describe the +way it smelt. Neither can anybody begin to describe the way +that monstrous craft begun to crash along. And such another +powwow—thousands of bo’s’n’s whistles +screaming at once, and a crew like the populations of a hundred +thousand worlds like ours all swearing at once. Well, I +never heard the like of it before.</p> +<p>We roared and thundered along side by side, both doing our +level best, because I’d never struck a comet before that +could lay over me, and so I was bound to beat this one or break +something. I judged I had some reputation in space, and I +calculated to keep it. I noticed I wasn’t gaining as +fast, now, as I was before, but still I was gaining. There +was a power of excitement on board the comet. Upwards of a +hundred billion passengers swarmed up from below and rushed to +the side and begun to bet on the race. Of course this +careened her and damaged her speed. My, but wasn’t +the mate mad! He jumped at that crowd, with his trumpet in +his hand, and sung out—</p> +<p>“Amidships! amidships, you—! <a +name="citation9"></a><a href="#footnote9" +class="citation">[9]</a> or I’ll brain the last idiot of +you!”</p> +<p>Well, sir, I gained and gained, little by little, till at last +I went skimming sweetly by the magnificent old +conflagration’s nose. By this time the captain of the +comet had been rousted out, and he stood there in the red glare +for’ard, by the mate, in his shirt-sleeves and slippers, +his hair all rats’ nests and one suspender hanging, and how +sick those two men did look! I just simply couldn’t +help putting my thumb to my nose as I glided away and singing +out:</p> +<p>“Ta-ta! ta-ta! Any word to send to your +family?”</p> +<p>Peters, it was a mistake. Yes, sir, I’ve often +regretted that—it was a mistake. You see, the captain +had given up the race, but that remark was too tedious for +him—he couldn’t stand it. He turned to the +mate, and says he—</p> +<p>“Have we got brimstone enough of our own to make the +trip?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“Sure?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir—more than enough.”</p> +<p>“How much have we got in cargo for Satan?”</p> +<p>“Eighteen hundred thousand billion quintillions of +kazarks.”</p> +<p>“Very well, then, let his boarders freeze till the next +comet comes. Lighten ship! Lively, now, lively, +men! Heave the whole cargo overboard!”</p> +<p>Peters, look me in the eye, and be calm. I found out, +over there, that a kazark is exactly the bulk of a <i>hundred and +sixty-nine worlds like ours</i>! They hove all that load +overboard. When it fell it wiped out a considerable raft of +stars just as clean as if they’d been candles and somebody +blowed them out. As for the race, that was at an end. +The minute she was lightened the comet swung along by me the same +as if I was anchored. The captain stood on the stern, by +the after-davits, and put his thumb to his nose and sung +out—</p> +<p>“Ta-ta! ta-ta! Maybe <i>you’ve</i> got some +message to send your friends in the Everlasting +Tropics!”</p> +<p>Then he hove up his other suspender and started for’ard, +and inside of three-quarters of an hour his craft was only a pale +torch again in the distance. Yes, it was a mistake, +Peters—that remark of mine. I don’t reckon +I’ll ever get over being sorry about it. I’d +’a’ beat the bully of the firmament if I’d kept +my mouth shut.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>But I’ve wandered a little off the track of my tale; +I’ll get back on my course again. Now you see what +kind of speed I was making. So, as I said, when I had been +tearing along this way about thirty years I begun to get +uneasy. Oh, it was pleasant enough, with a good deal to +find out, but then it was kind of lonesome, you know. +Besides, I wanted to get somewhere. I hadn’t shipped +with the idea of cruising forever. First off, I liked the +delay, because I judged I was going to fetch up in pretty warm +quarters when I got through; but towards the last I begun to feel +that I’d rather go to—well, most any place, so as to +finish up the uncertainty.</p> +<p>Well, one night—it was always night, except when I was +rushing by some star that was occupying the whole universe with +its fire and its glare—light enough then, of course, but I +necessarily left it behind in a minute or two and plunged into a +solid week of darkness again. The stars ain’t so +close together as they look to be. Where was I? Oh +yes; one night I was sailing along, when I discovered a +tremendous long row of blinking lights away on the horizon +ahead. As I approached, they begun to tower and swell and +look like mighty furnaces. Says I to myself—</p> +<p>“By George, I’ve arrived at last—and at the +wrong place, just as I expected!”</p> +<p>Then I fainted. I don’t know how long I was +insensible, but it must have been a good while, for, when I came +to, the darkness was all gone and there was the loveliest +sunshine and the balmiest, fragrantest air in its place. +And there was such a marvellous world spread out before +me—such a glowing, beautiful, bewitching country. The +things I took for furnaces were gates, miles high, made all of +flashing jewels, and they pierced a wall of solid gold that you +couldn’t see the top of, nor yet the end of, in either +direction. I was pointed straight for one of these gates, +and a-coming like a house afire. Now I noticed that the +skies were black with millions of people, pointed for those +gates. What a roar they made, rushing through the +air! The ground was as thick as ants with people, +too—billions of them, I judge.</p> +<p>I lit. I drifted up to a gate with a swarm of people, +and when it was my turn the head clerk says, in a business-like +way—</p> +<p>“Well, quick! Where are you from?”</p> +<p>“San Francisco,” says I.</p> +<p>“San Fran—<i>what</i>?” says he.</p> +<p>“San Francisco.”</p> +<p>He scratched his head and looked puzzled, then he +says—</p> +<p>“Is it a planet?”</p> +<p>By George, Peters, think of it! +“<i>Planet</i>?” says I; “it’s a +city. And moreover, it’s one of the biggest and +finest and—”</p> +<p>“There, there!” says he, “no time here for +conversation. We don’t deal in cities here. +Where are you from in a <i>general</i> way?”</p> +<p>“Oh,” I says, “I beg your pardon. Put +me down for California.”</p> +<p>I had him <i>again</i>, Peters! He puzzled a second, +then he says, sharp and irritable—</p> +<p>“I don’t know any such planet—is it a +constellation?”</p> +<p>“Oh, my goodness!” says I. +“Constellation, says you? No—it’s a +State.”</p> +<p>“Man, we don’t deal in States here. +<i>Will</i> you tell me where you are from <i>in general—at +large</i>, don’t you understand?”</p> +<p>“Oh, now I get your idea,” I says. +“I’m from America,—the United States of +America.”</p> +<p>Peters, do you know I had him <i>again</i>? If I +hadn’t I’m a clam! His face was as blank as a +target after a militia shooting-match. He turned to an +under clerk and says—</p> +<p>“Where is America? <i>What</i> is +America?”</p> +<p>The under clerk answered up prompt and says—</p> +<p>“There ain’t any such orb.”</p> +<p>“<i>Orb</i>?” says I. “Why, what are +you talking about, young man? It ain’t an orb; +it’s a country; it’s a continent. Columbus +discovered it; I reckon likely you’ve heard of <i>him</i>, +anyway. America—why, sir, America—”</p> +<p>“Silence!” says the head clerk. “Once +for all, where—are—you—<i>from</i>?”</p> +<p>“Well,” says I, “I don’t know anything +more to say—unless I lump things, and just say I’m +from the world.”</p> +<p>“Ah,” says he, brightening up, “now +that’s something like! <i>What</i> world?”</p> +<p>Peters, he had <i>me</i>, that time. I looked at him, +puzzled, he looked at me, worried. Then he burst +out—</p> +<p>“Come, come, what world?”</p> +<p>Says I, “Why, <i>the</i> world, of course.”</p> +<p>“<i>The</i> world!” he says. +“H’m! there’s billions of them! . . . +Next!”</p> +<p>That meant for me to stand aside. I done so, and a +sky-blue man with seven heads and only one leg hopped into my +place. I took a walk. It just occurred to me, then, +that all the myriads I had seen swarming to that gate, up to this +time, were just like that creature. I tried to run across +somebody I was acquainted with, but they were out of +acquaintances of mine just then. So I thought the thing all +over and finally sidled back there pretty meek and feeling rather +stumped, as you may say.</p> +<p>“Well?” said the head clerk.</p> +<p>“Well, sir,” I says, pretty humble, “I +don’t seem to make out which world it is I’m +from. But you may know it from this—it’s the +one the Saviour saved.”</p> +<p>He bent his head at the Name. Then he says, +gently—</p> +<p>“The worlds He has saved are like to the gates of heaven +in number—none can count them. What astronomical +system is your world in?—perhaps that may +assist.”</p> +<p>“It’s the one that has the sun in it—and the +moon—and Mars”—he shook his head at each +name—hadn’t ever heard of them, you +see—“and Neptune—and Uranus—and +Jupiter—”</p> +<p>“Hold on!” says he—“hold on a +minute! Jupiter . . . Jupiter . . . Seems to me we had a +man from there eight or nine hundred years ago—but people +from that system very seldom enter by this gate.” All +of a sudden he begun to look me so straight in the eye that I +thought he was going to bore through me. Then he says, very +deliberate, “Did you come <i>straight here</i> from your +system?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” I says—but I blushed the least +little bit in the world when I said it.</p> +<p>He looked at me very stern, and says—</p> +<p>“That is not true; and this is not the place for +prevarication. You wandered from your course. How did +that happen?”</p> +<p>Says I, blushing again—</p> +<p>“I’m sorry, and I take back what I said, and +confess. I raced a little with a comet one day—only +just the least little bit—only the tiniest +lit—”</p> +<p>“So—so,” says he—and without any sugar +in his voice to speak of.</p> +<p>I went on, and says—</p> +<p>“But I only fell off just a bare point, and I went right +back on my course again the minute the race was over.”</p> +<p>“No matter—that divergence has made all this +trouble. It has brought you to a gate that is billions of +leagues from the right one. If you had gone to your own +gate they would have known all about your world at once and there +would have been no delay. But we will try to accommodate +you.” He turned to an under clerk and says—</p> +<p>“What system is Jupiter in?”</p> +<p>“I don’t remember, sir, but I think there is such +a planet in one of the little new systems away out in one of the +thinly worlded corners of the universe. I will +see.”</p> +<p>He got a balloon and sailed up and up and up, in front of a +map that was as big as Rhode Island. He went on up till he +was out of sight, and by and by he came down and got something to +eat and went up again. To cut a long story short, he kept +on doing this for a day or two, and finally he came down and said +he thought he had found that solar system, but it might be +fly-specks. So he got a microscope and went back. It +turned out better than he feared. He had rousted out our +system, sure enough. He got me to describe our planet and +its distance from the sun, and then he says to his +chief—</p> +<p>“Oh, I know the one he means, now, sir. It is on +the map. It is called the Wart.”</p> +<p>Says I to myself, “Young man, it wouldn’t be +wholesome for you to go down <i>there</i> and call it the +Wart.”</p> +<p>Well, they let me in, then, and told me I was safe forever and +wouldn’t have any more trouble.</p> +<p>Then they turned from me and went on with their work, the same +as if they considered my case all complete and shipshape. I +was a good deal surprised at this, but I was diffident about +speaking up and reminding them. I did so hate to do it, you +know; it seemed a pity to bother them, they had so much on their +hands. Twice I thought I would give up and let the thing +go; so twice I started to leave, but immediately I thought what a +figure I should cut stepping out amongst the redeemed in such a +rig, and that made me hang back and come to anchor again. +People got to eying me—clerks, you know—wondering why +I didn’t get under way. I couldn’t stand this +long—it was too uncomfortable. So at last I plucked +up courage and tipped the head clerk a signal. He +says—</p> +<p>“What! you here yet? What’s +wanting?”</p> +<p>Says I, in a low voice and very confidential, making a trumpet +with my hands at his ear—</p> +<p>“I beg pardon, and you mustn’t mind my reminding +you, and seeming to meddle, but hain’t you forgot +something?”</p> +<p>He studied a second, and says—</p> +<p>“Forgot something? . . . No, not that I know +of.”</p> +<p>“Think,” says I.</p> +<p>He thought. Then he says—</p> +<p>“No, I can’t seem to have forgot anything. +What is it?”</p> +<p>“Look at me,” says I, “look me all +over.”</p> +<p>He done it.</p> +<p>“Well?” says he.</p> +<p>“Well,” says I, “you don’t notice +anything? If I branched out amongst the elect looking like +this, wouldn’t I attract considerable +attention?—wouldn’t I be a little +conspicuous?”</p> +<p>“Well,” he says, “I don’t see anything +the matter. What do you lack?”</p> +<p>“Lack! Why, I lack my harp, and my wreath, and my +halo, and my hymn-book, and my palm branch—I lack +everything that a body naturally requires up here, my +friend.”</p> +<p>Puzzled? Peters, he was the worst puzzled man you ever +saw. Finally he says—</p> +<p>“Well, you seem to be a curiosity every way a body takes +you. I never heard of these things before.”</p> +<p>I looked at the man awhile in solid astonishment; then I +says—</p> +<p>“Now, I hope you don’t take it as an offence, for +I don’t mean any, but really, for a man that has been in +the Kingdom as long as I reckon you have, you do seem to know +powerful little about its customs.”</p> +<p>“Its customs!” says he. “Heaven is a +large place, good friend. Large empires have many and +diverse customs. Even small dominions have, as you +doubtless know by what you have seen of the matter on a small +scale in the Wart. How can you imagine I could ever learn +the varied customs of the countless kingdoms of heaven? It +makes my head ache to think of it. I know the customs that +prevail in those portions inhabited by peoples that are appointed +to enter by my own gate—and hark ye, that is quite enough +knowledge for one individual to try to pack into his head in the +thirty-seven millions of years I have devoted night and day to +that study. But the idea of learning the customs of the +whole appalling expanse of heaven—O man, how insanely you +talk! Now I don’t doubt that this odd costume you +talk about is the fashion in that district of heaven you belong +to, but you won’t be conspicuous in this section without +it.”</p> +<p>I felt all right, if that was the case, so I bade him good-day +and left. All day I walked towards the far end of a +prodigious hall of the office, hoping to come out into heaven any +moment, but it was a mistake. That hall was built on the +general heavenly plan—it naturally couldn’t be +small. At last I got so tired I couldn’t go any +farther; so I sat down to rest, and begun to tackle the queerest +sort of strangers and ask for information, but I didn’t get +any; they couldn’t understand my language, and I could not +understand theirs. I got dreadfully lonesome. I was +so down-hearted and homesick I wished a hundred times I never had +died. I turned back, of course. About noon next day, +I got back at last and was on hand at the booking-office once +more. Says I to the head clerk—</p> +<p>“I begin to see that a man’s got to be in his own +Heaven to be happy.”</p> +<p>“Perfectly correct,” says he. “Did you +imagine the same heaven would suit all sorts of men?”</p> +<p>“Well, I had that idea—but I see the foolishness +of it. Which way am I to go to get to my +district?”</p> +<p>He called the under clerk that had examined the map, and he +gave me general directions. I thanked him and started; but +he says—</p> +<p>“Wait a minute; it is millions of leagues from +here. Go outside and stand on that red wishing-carpet; shut +your eyes, hold your breath, and wish yourself there.”</p> +<p>“I’m much obliged,” says I; “why +didn’t you dart me through when I first arrived?”</p> +<p>“We have a good deal to think of here; it was your place +to think of it and ask for it. Good-by; we probably +sha’n’t see you in this region for a thousand +centuries or so.”</p> +<p>“In that case, <i>o revoor</i>,” says I.</p> +<p>I hopped onto the carpet and held my breath and shut my eyes +and wished I was in the booking-office of my own section. +The very next instant a voice I knew sung out in a business kind +of a way—</p> +<p>“A harp and a hymn-book, pair of wings and a halo, size +13, for Cap’n Eli Stormfield, of San Francisco!—make +him out a clean bill of health, and let him in.”</p> +<p>I opened my eyes. Sure enough, it was a Pi Ute Injun I +used to know in Tulare County; mighty good fellow—I +remembered being at his funeral, which consisted of him being +burnt and the other Injuns gauming their faces with his ashes and +howling like wildcats. He was powerful glad to see me, and +you may make up your mind I was just as glad to see him, and feel +that I was in the right kind of a heaven at last.</p> +<p>Just as far as your eye could reach, there was swarms of +clerks, running and bustling around, tricking out thousands of +Yanks and Mexicans and English and Arabs, and all sorts of people +in their new outfits; and when they gave me my kit and I put on +my halo and took a look in the glass, I could have jumped over a +house for joy, I was so happy. “Now <i>this</i> is +something like!” says I. “Now,” says I, +“I’m all right—show me a cloud.”</p> +<p>Inside of fifteen minutes I was a mile on my way towards the +cloud-banks and about a million people along with me. Most +of us tried to fly, but some got crippled and nobody made a +success of it. So we concluded to walk, for the present, +till we had had some wing practice.</p> +<p>We begun to meet swarms of folks who were coming back. +Some had harps and nothing else; some had hymn-books and nothing +else; some had nothing at all; all of them looked meek and +uncomfortable; one young fellow hadn’t anything left but +his halo, and he was carrying that in his hand; all of a sudden +he offered it to me and says—</p> +<p>“Will you hold it for me a minute?”</p> +<p>Then he disappeared in the crowd. I went on. A +woman asked me to hold her palm branch, and then <i>she</i> +disappeared. A girl got me to hold her harp for her, and by +George, <i>she</i> disappeared; and so on and so on, till I was +about loaded down to the guards. Then comes a smiling old +gentleman and asked me to hold <i>his</i> things. I swabbed +off the perspiration and says, pretty tart—</p> +<p>“I’ll have to get you to excuse me, my +friend,—<i>I</i> ain’t no hat-rack.”</p> +<p>About this time I begun to run across piles of those traps, +lying in the road. I just quietly dumped my extra cargo +along with them. I looked around, and, Peters, that whole +nation that was following me were loaded down the same as +I’d been. The return crowd had got them to hold their +things a minute, you see. They all dumped their loads, too, +and we went on.</p> +<p>When I found myself perched on a cloud, with a million other +people, I never felt so good in my life. Says I, “Now +this is according to the promises; I’ve been having my +doubts, but now I am in heaven, sure enough.” I gave +my palm branch a wave or two, for luck, and then I tautened up my +harp-strings and struck in. Well, Peters, you can’t +imagine anything like the row we made. It was grand to +listen to, and made a body thrill all over, but there was +considerable many tunes going on at once, and that was a drawback +to the harmony, you understand; and then there was a lot of Injun +tribes, and they kept up such another war-whooping that they kind +of took the tuck out of the music. By and by I quit +performing, and judged I’d take a rest. There was +quite a nice mild old gentleman sitting next me, and I noticed he +didn’t take a hand; I encouraged him, but he said he was +naturally bashful, and was afraid to try before so many +people. By and by the old gentleman said he never could +seem to enjoy music somehow. The fact was, I was beginning +to feel the same way; but I didn’t say anything. Him +and I had a considerable long silence, then, but of course it +warn’t noticeable in that place. After about sixteen +or seventeen hours, during which I played and sung a little, now +and then—always the same tune, because I didn’t know +any other—I laid down my harp and begun to fan myself with +my palm branch. Then we both got to sighing pretty +regular. Finally, says he—</p> +<p>“Don’t you know any tune but the one you’ve +been pegging at all day?”</p> +<p>“Not another blessed one,” says I.</p> +<p>“Don’t you reckon you could learn another +one?” says he.</p> +<p>“Never,” says I; “I’ve tried to, but I +couldn’t manage it.”</p> +<p>“It’s a long time to hang to the +one—eternity, you know.”</p> +<p>“Don’t break my heart,” says I; +“I’m getting low-spirited enough already.”</p> +<p>After another long silence, says he—</p> +<p>“Are you glad to be here?”</p> +<p>Says I, “Old man, I’ll be frank with you. +This <i>ain’t</i> just as near my idea of bliss as I +thought it was going to be, when I used to go to +church.”</p> +<p>Says he, “What do you say to knocking off and calling it +half a day?”</p> +<p>“That’s me,” says I. “I never +wanted to get off watch so bad in my life.”</p> +<p>So we started. Millions were coming to the cloud-bank +all the time, happy and hosannahing; millions were leaving it all +the time, looking mighty quiet, I tell you. We laid for the +new-comers, and pretty soon I’d got them to hold all my +things a minute, and then I was a free man again and most +outrageously happy. Just then I ran across old Sam +Bartlett, who had been dead a long time, and stopped to have a +talk with him. Says I—</p> +<p>“Now tell me—is this to go on forever? +Ain’t there anything else for a change?”</p> +<p>Says he—</p> +<p>“I’ll set you right on that point very +quick. People take the figurative language of the Bible and +the allegories for literal, and the first thing they ask for when +they get here is a halo and a harp, and so on. Nothing +that’s harmless and reasonable is refused a body here, if +he asks it in the right spirit. So they are outfitted with +these things without a word. They go and sing and play just +about one day, and that’s the last you’ll ever see +them in the choir. They don’t need anybody to tell +them that that sort of thing wouldn’t make a +heaven—at least not a heaven that a sane man could stand a +week and remain sane. That cloud-bank is placed where the +noise can’t disturb the old inhabitants, and so there +ain’t any harm in letting everybody get up there and cure +himself as soon as he comes.</p> +<p>“Now you just remember this—heaven is as blissful +and lovely as it can be; but it’s just the busiest place +you ever heard of. There ain’t any idle people here +after the first day. Singing hymns and waving palm branches +through all eternity is pretty when you hear about it in the +pulpit, but it’s as poor a way to put in valuable time as a +body could contrive. It would just make a heaven of +warbling ignoramuses, don’t you see? Eternal Rest +sounds comforting in the pulpit, too. Well, you try it +once, and see how heavy time will hang on your hands. Why, +Stormfield, a man like you, that had been active and stirring all +his life, would go mad in six months in a heaven where he +hadn’t anything to do. Heaven is the very last place +to come to <i>rest</i> in,—and don’t you be afraid to +bet on that!”</p> +<p>Says I—</p> +<p>“Sam, I’m as glad to hear it as I thought +I’d be sorry. I’m glad I come, now.”</p> +<p>Says he—</p> +<p>“Cap’n, ain’t you pretty physically +tired?”</p> +<p>Says I—</p> +<p>“Sam, it ain’t any name for it! I’m +dog-tired.”</p> +<p>“Just so—just so. You’ve earned a good +sleep, and you’ll get it. You’ve earned a good +appetite, and you’ll enjoy your dinner. It’s +the same here as it is on earth—you’ve got to earn a +thing, square and honest, before you enjoy it. You +can’t enjoy first and earn afterwards. But +there’s this difference, here: you can choose your own +occupation, and all the powers of heaven will be put forth to +help you make a success of it, if you do your level best. +The shoemaker on earth that had the soul of a poet in him +won’t have to make shoes here.”</p> +<p>“Now that’s all reasonable and right,” says +I. “Plenty of work, and the kind you hanker after; no +more pain, no more suffering—”</p> +<p>“Oh, hold on; there’s plenty of pain +here—but it don’t kill. There’s plenty of +suffering here, but it don’t last. You see, happiness +ain’t a <i>thing in itself</i>—it’s only a +<i>contrast</i> with something that ain’t pleasant. +That’s all it is. There ain’t a thing you can +mention that is happiness in its own self—it’s only +so by contrast with the other thing. And so, as soon as the +novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it +ain’t happiness any longer, and you have to get something +fresh. Well, there’s plenty of pain and suffering in +heaven—consequently there’s plenty of contrasts, and +just no end of happiness.”</p> +<p>Says I, “It’s the sensiblest heaven I’ve +heard of yet, Sam, though it’s about as different from the +one I was brought up on as a live princess is different from her +own wax figger.”</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Along in the first months I knocked around about the Kingdom, +making friends and looking at the country, and finally settled +down in a pretty likely region, to have a rest before taking +another start. I went on making acquaintances and gathering +up information. I had a good deal of talk with an old +bald-headed angel by the name of Sandy McWilliams. He was +from somewhere in New Jersey. I went about with him, +considerable. We used to lay around, warm afternoons, in +the shade of a rock, on some meadow-ground that was pretty high +and out of the marshy slush of his cranberry-farm, and there we +used to talk about all kinds of things, and smoke pipes. +One day, says I—</p> +<p>“About how old might you be, Sandy?”</p> +<p>“Seventy-two.”</p> +<p>“I judged so. How long you been in +heaven?”</p> +<p>“Twenty-seven years, come Christmas.”</p> +<p>“How old was you when you come up?”</p> +<p>“Why, seventy-two, of course.”</p> +<p>“You can’t mean it!”</p> +<p>“Why can’t I mean it?”</p> +<p>“Because, if you was seventy-two then, you are naturally +ninety-nine now.”</p> +<p>“No, but I ain’t. I stay the same age I was +when I come.”</p> +<p>“Well,” says I, “come to think, +there’s something just here that I want to ask about. +Down below, I always had an idea that in heaven we would all be +young, and bright, and spry.”</p> +<p>“Well, you can be young if you want to. +You’ve only got to wish.”</p> +<p>“Well, then, why didn’t you wish?”</p> +<p>“I did. They all do. You’ll try it, +some day, like enough; but you’ll get tired of the change +pretty soon.”</p> +<p>“Why?”</p> +<p>“Well, I’ll tell you. Now you’ve +always been a sailor; did you ever try some other +business?”</p> +<p>“Yes, I tried keeping grocery, once, up in the mines; +but I couldn’t stand it; it was too dull—no stir, no +storm, no life about it; it was like being part dead and part +alive, both at the same time. I wanted to be one thing or +t’other. I shut up shop pretty quick and went to +sea.”</p> +<p>“That’s it. Grocery people like it, but you +couldn’t. You see you wasn’t used to it. +Well, I wasn’t used to being young, and I couldn’t +seem to take any interest in it. I was strong, and +handsome, and had curly hair,—yes, and wings, +too!—gay wings like a butterfly. I went to picnics +and dances and parties with the fellows, and tried to carry on +and talk nonsense with the girls, but it wasn’t any use; I +couldn’t take to it—fact is, it was an awful +bore. What I wanted was early to bed and early to rise, and +something to <i>do</i>; and when my work was done, I wanted to +sit quiet, and smoke and think—not tear around with a +parcel of giddy young kids. You can’t think what I +suffered whilst I was young.”</p> +<p>“How long was you young?”</p> +<p>“Only two weeks. That was plenty for me. +Laws, I was so lonesome! You see, I was full of the +knowledge and experience of seventy-two years; the deepest +subject those young folks could strike was only <i>a-b-c</i> to +me. And to hear them argue—oh, my! it would have been +funny, if it hadn’t been so pitiful. Well, I was so +hungry for the ways and the sober talk I was used to, that I +tried to ring in with the old people, but they wouldn’t +have it. They considered me a conceited young upstart, and +gave me the cold shoulder. Two weeks was a-plenty for +me. I was glad to get back my bald head again, and my pipe, +and my old drowsy reflections in the shade of a rock or a +tree.”</p> +<p>“Well,” says I, “do you mean to say +you’re going to stand still at seventy-two, +forever?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know, and I ain’t particular. +But I ain’t going to drop back to twenty-five any +more—I know that, mighty well. I know a sight more +than I did twenty-seven years ago, and I enjoy learning, all the +time, but I don’t seem to get any older. That is, +bodily—my mind gets older, and stronger, and better +seasoned, and more satisfactory.”</p> +<p>Says I, “If a man comes here at ninety, don’t he +ever set himself back?”</p> +<p>“Of course he does. He sets himself back to +fourteen; tries it a couple of hours, and feels like a fool; sets +himself forward to twenty; it ain’t much improvement; tries +thirty, fifty, eighty, and finally ninety—finds he is more +at home and comfortable at the same old figure he is used to than +any other way. Or, if his mind begun to fail him on earth +at eighty, that’s where he finally sticks up here. He +sticks at the place where his mind was last at its best, for +there’s where his enjoyment is best, and his ways most set +and established.”</p> +<p>“Does a chap of twenty-five stay always twenty-five, and +look it?”</p> +<p>“If he is a fool, yes. But if he is bright, and +ambitious and industrious, the knowledge he gains and the +experiences he has, change his ways and thoughts and likings, and +make him find his best pleasure in the company of people above +that age; so he allows his body to take on that look of as many +added years as he needs to make him comfortable and proper in +that sort of society; he lets his body go on taking the look of +age, according as he progresses, and by and by he will be bald +and wrinkled outside, and wise and deep within.”</p> +<p>“Babies the same?”</p> +<p>“Babies the same. Laws, what asses we used to be, +on earth, about these things! We said we’d be always +young in heaven. We didn’t say <i>how</i> +young—we didn’t think of that, perhaps—that is, +we didn’t all think alike, anyway. When I was a boy +of seven, I suppose I thought we’d all be twelve, in +heaven; when I was twelve, I suppose I thought we’d all be +eighteen or twenty in heaven; when I was forty, I begun to go +back; I remember I hoped we’d all be about <i>thirty</i> +years old in heaven. Neither a man nor a boy ever thinks +the age he <i>has</i> is exactly the best one—he puts the +right age a few years older or a few years younger than he +is. Then he makes that ideal age the general age of the +heavenly people. And he expects everybody <i>to stick</i> +at that age—stand stock-still—and expects them to +enjoy it!—Now just think of the idea of standing still in +heaven! Think of a heaven made up entirely of hoop-rolling, +marble-playing cubs of seven years!—or of awkward, +diffident, sentimental immaturities of nineteen!—or of +vigorous people of thirty, healthy-minded, brimming with +ambition, but chained hand and foot to that one age and its +limitations like so many helpless galley-slaves! Think of +the dull sameness of a society made up of people all of one age +and one set of looks, habits, tastes and feelings. Think +how superior to it earth would be, with its variety of types and +faces and ages, and the enlivening attrition of the myriad +interests that come into pleasant collision in such a variegated +society.”</p> +<p>“Look here,” says I, “do you know what +you’re doing?”</p> +<p>“Well, what am I doing?”</p> +<p>“You are making heaven pretty comfortable in one way, +but you are playing the mischief with it in another.”</p> +<p>“How d’you mean?”</p> +<p>“Well,” I says, “take a young mother +that’s lost her child, and—”</p> +<p>“Sh!” he says. “Look!”</p> +<p>It was a woman. Middle-aged, and had grizzled +hair. She was walking slow, and her head was bent down, and +her wings hanging limp and droopy; and she looked ever so tired, +and was crying, poor thing! She passed along by, with her +head down, that way, and the tears running down her face, and +didn’t see us. Then Sandy said, low and gentle, and +full of pity:</p> +<p>“<i>She’s</i> hunting for her child! No, +<i>found</i> it, I reckon. Lord, how she’s +changed! But I recognized her in a minute, though +it’s twenty-seven years since I saw her. A young +mother she was, about twenty two or four, or along there; and +blooming and lovely and sweet? oh, just a flower! And all +her heart and all her soul was wrapped up in her child, her +little girl, two years old. And it died, and she went wild +with grief, just wild! Well, the only comfort she had was +that she’d see her child again, in +heaven—‘never more to part,’ she said, and kept +on saying it over and over, ‘never more to +part.’ And the words made her happy; yes, they did; +they made her joyful, and when I was dying, twenty-seven years +ago, she told me to find her child the first thing, and say she +was coming—‘soon, soon, <i>very</i> soon, she hoped +and believed!’”</p> +<p>“Why, it’s pitiful, Sandy.”</p> +<p>He didn’t say anything for a while, but sat looking at +the ground, thinking. Then he says, kind of mournful:</p> +<p>“And now she’s come!”</p> +<p>“Well? Go on.”</p> +<p>“Stormfield, maybe she hasn’t found the child, but +<i>I</i> think she has. Looks so to me. I’ve +seen cases before. You see, she’s kept that child in +her head just the same as it was when she jounced it in her arms +a little chubby thing. But here it didn’t elect to +<i>stay</i> a child. No, it elected to grow up, which it +did. And in these twenty-seven years it has learned all the +deep scientific learning there is to learn, and is studying and +studying and learning and learning more and more, all the time, +and don’t give a damn for anything <i>but</i> learning; +just learning, and discussing gigantic problems with people like +herself.”</p> +<p>“Well?”</p> +<p>“Stormfield, don’t you see? Her mother knows +<i>cranberries</i>, and how to tend them, and pick them, and put +them up, and market them; and not another blamed thing! Her +and her daughter can’t be any more company for each other +<i>now</i> than mud turtle and bird o’ paradise. Poor +thing, she was looking for a baby to jounce; <i>I</i> think +she’s struck a disapp’intment.”</p> +<p>“Sandy, what will they do—stay unhappy forever in +heaven?”</p> +<p>“No, they’ll come together and get adjusted by and +by. But not this year, and not next. By and +by.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p>I had been having considerable trouble with my wings. +The day after I helped the choir I made a dash or two with them, +but was not lucky. First off, I flew thirty yards, and then +fouled an Irishman and brought him down—brought us both +down, in fact. Next, I had a collision with a +Bishop—and bowled him down, of course. We had some +sharp words, and I felt pretty cheap, to come banging into a +grave old person like that, with a million strangers looking on +and smiling to themselves.</p> +<p>I saw I hadn’t got the hang of the steering, and so +couldn’t rightly tell where I was going to bring up when I +started. I went afoot the rest of the day, and let my wings +hang. Early next morning I went to a private place to have +some practice. I got up on a pretty high rock, and got a +good start, and went swooping down, aiming for a bush a little +over three hundred yards off; but I couldn’t seem to +calculate for the wind, which was about two points abaft my +beam. I could see I was going considerable to looard of the +bush, so I worked my starboard wing slow and went ahead strong on +the port one, but it wouldn’t answer; I could see I was +going to broach to, so I slowed down on both, and lit. I +went back to the rock and took another chance at it. I +aimed two or three points to starboard of the bush—yes, +more than that—enough so as to make it nearly a +head-wind. I done well enough, but made pretty poor +time. I could see, plain enough, that on a head-wind, wings +was a mistake. I could see that a body could sail pretty +close to the wind, but he couldn’t go in the wind’s +eye. I could see that if I wanted to go a-visiting any +distance from home, and the wind was ahead, I might have to wait +days, maybe, for a change; and I could see, too, that these +things could not be any use at all in a gale; if you tried to run +before the wind, you would make a mess of it, for there +isn’t anyway to shorten sail—like reefing, you +know—you have to take it <i>all</i> in—shut your +feathers down flat to your sides. That would <i>land</i> +you, of course. You could lay to, with your head to the +wind—that is the best you could do, and right hard work +you’d find it, too. If you tried any other game, you +would founder, sure.</p> +<p>I judge it was about a couple of weeks or so after this that I +dropped old Sandy McWilliams a note one day—it was a +Tuesday—and asked him to come over and take his manna and +quails with me next day; and the first thing he did when he +stepped in was to twinkle his eye in a sly way, and +say,—</p> +<p>“Well, Cap, what you done with your wings?”</p> +<p>I saw in a minute that there was some sarcasm done up in that +rag somewheres, but I never let on. I only says,—</p> +<p>“Gone to the wash.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” he says, in a dry sort of way, “they +mostly go to the wash—about this time—I’ve +often noticed it. Fresh angels are powerful neat. +When do you look for ’em back?”</p> +<p>“Day after to-morrow,” says I.</p> +<p>He winked at me, and smiled.</p> +<p>Says I,—</p> +<p>“Sandy, out with it. Come—no secrets among +friends. I notice you don’t ever wear wings—and +plenty others don’t. I’ve been making an ass of +myself—is that it?”</p> +<p>“That is about the size of it. But it is no +harm. We all do it at first. It’s perfectly +natural. You see, on earth we jump to such foolish +conclusions as to things up here. In the pictures we always +saw the angels with wings on—and that was all right; but we +jumped to the conclusion that that was their way of getting +around—and that was all wrong. The wings ain’t +anything but a uniform, that’s all. When they are in +the field—so to speak,—they always wear them; you +never see an angel going with a message anywhere without his +wings, any more than you would see a military officer presiding +at a court-martial without his uniform, or a postman delivering +letters, or a policeman walking his beat, in plain clothes. +But they ain’t to <i>fly</i> with! The wings are for +show, not for use. Old experienced angels are like officers +of the regular army—they dress plain, when they are off +duty. New angels are like the militia—never shed the +uniform—always fluttering and floundering around in their +wings, butting people down, flapping here, and there, and +everywhere, always imagining they are attracting the admiring +eye—well, they just think they are the very most important +people in heaven. And when you see one of them come sailing +around with one wing tipped up and t’other down, you make +up your mind he is saying to himself: ‘I wish Mary Ann in +Arkansaw could see me now. I reckon she’d wish she +hadn’t shook me.’ No, they’re just for +show, that’s all—only just for show.”</p> +<p>“I judge you’ve got it about right, Sandy,” +says I.</p> +<p>“Why, look at it yourself,” says he. +“<i>You</i> ain’t built for wings—no man +is. You know what a grist of years it took you to come here +from the earth—and yet you were booming along faster than +any cannon-ball could go. Suppose you had to fly that +distance with your wings—wouldn’t eternity have been +over before you got here? Certainly. Well, angels +have to go to the earth every day—millions of them—to +appear in visions to dying children and good people, you +know—it’s the heft of their business. They +appear with their wings, of course, because they are on official +service, and because the dying persons wouldn’t know they +were angels if they hadn’t wings—but do you reckon +they fly with them? It stands to reason they +don’t. The wings would wear out before they got +half-way; even the pin-feathers would be gone; the wing frames +would be as bare as kite sticks before the paper is pasted +on. The distances in heaven are billions of times greater; +angels have to go all over heaven every day; could they do it +with their wings alone? No, indeed; they wear the wings for +style, but they travel any distance in an instant by +<i>wishing</i>. The wishing-carpet of the Arabian Nights +was a sensible idea—but our earthly idea of angels flying +these awful distances with their clumsy wings was foolish.</p> +<p>“Our young saints, of both sexes, wear wings all the +time—blazing red ones, and blue and green, and gold, and +variegated, and rainbowed, and ring-streaked-and-striped +ones—and nobody finds fault. It is suitable to their +time of life. The things are beautiful, and they set the +young people off. They are the most striking and lovely +part of their outfit—a halo don’t +<i>begin</i>.”</p> +<p>“Well,” says I, “I’ve tucked mine away +in the cupboard, and I allow to let them lay there till +there’s mud.”</p> +<p>“Yes—or a reception.”</p> +<p>“What’s that?”</p> +<p>“Well, you can see one to-night if you want to. +There’s a barkeeper from Jersey City going to be +received.”</p> +<p>“Go on—tell me about it.”</p> +<p>“This barkeeper got converted at a Moody and Sankey +meeting, in New York, and started home on the ferry-boat, and +there was a collision and he got drowned. He is of a class +that think all heaven goes wild with joy when a particularly hard +lot like him is saved; they think all heaven turns out +hosannahing to welcome them; they think there isn’t +anything talked about in the realms of the blest but their case, +for that day. This barkeeper thinks there hasn’t been +such another stir here in years, as his coming is going to +raise.—And I’ve always noticed this peculiarity about +a dead barkeeper—he not only expects all hands to turn out +when he arrives, but he expects to be received with a torchlight +procession.”</p> +<p>“I reckon he is disappointed, then.”</p> +<p>“No, he isn’t. No man is allowed to be +disappointed here. Whatever he wants, when he +comes—that is, any reasonable and unsacrilegious +thing—he can have. There’s always a few +millions or billions of young folks around who don’t want +any better entertainment than to fill up their lungs and swarm +out with their torches and have a high time over a +barkeeper. It tickles the barkeeper till he can’t +rest, it makes a charming lark for the young folks, it +don’t do anybody any harm, it don’t cost a rap, and +it keeps up the place’s reputation for making all comers +happy and content.”</p> +<p>“Very good. I’ll be on hand and see them +land the barkeeper.”</p> +<p>“It is manners to go in full dress. You want to +wear your wings, you know, and your other things.”</p> +<p>“Which ones?”</p> +<p>“Halo, and harp, and palm branch, and all +that.”</p> +<p>“Well,” says I, “I reckon I ought to be +ashamed of myself, but the fact is I left them laying around that +day I resigned from the choir. I haven’t got a rag to +wear but this robe and the wings.”</p> +<p>“That’s all right. You’ll find +they’ve been raked up and saved for you. Send for +them.”</p> +<p>“I’ll do it, Sandy. But what was it you was +saying about unsacrilegious things, which people expect to get, +and will be disappointed about?”</p> +<p>“Oh, there are a lot of such things that people expect +and don’t get. For instance, there’s a Brooklyn +preacher by the name of Talmage, who is laying up a considerable +disappointment for himself. He says, every now and then in +his sermons, that the first thing he does when he gets to heaven, +will be to fling his arms around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and +kiss them and weep on them. There’s millions of +people down there on earth that are promising themselves the same +thing. As many as sixty thousand people arrive here every +single day, that want to run straight to Abraham, Isaac and +Jacob, and hug them and weep on them. Now mind you, sixty +thousand a day is a pretty heavy contract for those old +people. If they were a mind to allow it, they +wouldn’t ever have anything to do, year in and year out, +but stand up and be hugged and wept on thirty-two hours in the +twenty-four. They would be tired out and as wet as muskrats +all the time. What would heaven be, to <i>them</i>? +It would be a mighty good place to get out of—you know +that, yourself. Those are kind and gentle old Jews, but +they ain’t any fonder of kissing the emotional highlights +of Brooklyn than you be. You mark my words, Mr. T.’s +endearments are going to be declined, with thanks. There +are limits to the privileges of the elect, even in heaven. +Why, if Adam was to show himself to every new comer that wants to +call and gaze at him and strike him for his autograph, he would +never have time to do anything else but just that. Talmage +has said he is going to give Adam some of his attentions, as well +as A., I. and J. But he will have to change his mind about +that.”</p> +<p>“Do you think Talmage will really come here?”</p> +<p>“Why, certainly, he will; but don’t you be +alarmed; he will run with his own kind, and there’s plenty +of them. That is the main charm of +heaven—there’s all kinds here—which +wouldn’t be the case if you let the preachers tell +it. Anybody can find the sort he prefers, here, and he just +lets the others alone, and they let him alone. When the +Deity builds a heaven, it is built right, and on a liberal +plan.”</p> +<p>Sandy sent home for his things, and I sent for mine, and about +nine in the evening we begun to dress. Sandy +says,—</p> +<p>“This is going to be a grand time for you, Stormy. +Like as not some of the patriarchs will turn out.”</p> +<p>“No, but will they?”</p> +<p>“Like as not. Of course they are pretty +exclusive. They hardly ever show themselves to the common +public. I believe they never turn out except for an +eleventh-hour convert. They wouldn’t do it then, only +earthly tradition makes a grand show pretty necessary on that +kind of an occasion.”</p> +<p>“Do they an turn out, Sandy?”</p> +<p>“Who?—all the patriarchs? Oh, +no—hardly ever more than a couple. You will be here +fifty thousand years—maybe more—before you get a +glimpse of all the patriarchs and prophets. Since I have +been here, Job has been to the front once, and once Ham and +Jeremiah both at the same time. But the finest thing that +has happened in my day was a year or so ago; that was Charles +Peace’s reception—him they called ‘the +Bannercross Murderer’—an Englishman. There were +four patriarchs and two prophets on the Grand Stand that +time—there hasn’t been anything like it since Captain +Kidd came; Abel was there—the first time in twelve hundred +years. A report got around that Adam was coming; well, of +course, Abel was enough to bring a crowd, all by himself, but +there is nobody that can draw like Adam. It was a false +report, but it got around, anyway, as I say, and it will be a +long day before I see the like of it again. The reception +was in the English department, of course, which is eight hundred +and eleven million miles from the New Jersey line. I went, +along with a good many of my neighbors, and it was a sight to +see, I can tell you. Flocks came from all the +departments. I saw Esquimaux there, and Tartars, Negroes, +Chinamen—people from everywhere. You see a mixture +like that in the Grand Choir, the first day you land here, but +you hardly ever see it again. There were billions of +people; when they were singing or hosannahing, the noise was +wonderful; and even when their tongues were still the drumming of +the wings was nearly enough to burst your head, for all the sky +was as thick as if it was snowing angels. Although Adam was +not there, it was a great time anyway, because we had three +archangels on the Grand Stand—it is a seldom thing that +even one comes out.”</p> +<p>“What did they look like, Sandy?”</p> +<p>“Well, they had shining faces, and shining robes, and +wonderful rainbow wings, and they stood eighteen feet high, and +wore swords, and held their heads up in a noble way, and looked +like soldiers.”</p> +<p>“Did they have halos?”</p> +<p>“No—anyway, not the hoop kind. The +archangels and the upper-class patriarchs wear a finer thing than +that. It is a round, solid, splendid glory of gold, that is +blinding to look at. You have often seen a patriarch in a +picture, on earth, with that thing on—you remember +it?—he looks as if he had his head in a brass +platter. That don’t give you the right idea of it at +all—it is much more shining and beautiful.”</p> +<p>“Did you talk with those archangels and patriarchs, +Sandy?”</p> +<p>“Who—<i>I</i>? Why, what can you be thinking +about, Stormy? I ain’t worthy to speak to such as +they.”</p> +<p>“Is Talmage?”</p> +<p>“Of course not. You have got the same mixed-up +idea about these things that everybody has down there. I +had it once, but I got over it. Down there they talk of the +heavenly King—and that is right—but then they go +right on speaking as if this was a republic and everybody was on +a dead level with everybody else, and privileged to fling his +arms around anybody he comes across, and be hail-fellow-well-met +with all the elect, from the highest down. How tangled up +and absurd that is! How are you going to have a republic +under a king? How are you going to have a republic at all, +where the head of the government is absolute, holds his place +forever, and has no parliament, no council to meddle or make in +his affairs, nobody voted for, nobody elected, nobody in the +whole universe with a voice in the government, nobody asked to +take a hand in its matters, and nobody <i>allowed</i> to do +it? Fine republic, ain’t it?”</p> +<p>“Well, yes—it <i>is</i> a little different from +the idea I had—but I thought I might go around and get +acquainted with the grandees, anyway—not exactly splice the +main-brace with them, you know, but shake hands and pass the time +of day.”</p> +<p>“Could Tom, Dick and Harry call on the Cabinet of Russia +and do that?—on Prince Gortschakoff, for +instance?”</p> +<p>“I reckon not, Sandy.”</p> +<p>“Well, this is Russia—only more so. +There’s not the shadow of a republic about it +anywhere. There are ranks, here. There are viceroys, +princes, governors, sub-governors, sub-sub-governors, and a +hundred orders of nobility, grading along down from grand-ducal +archangels, stage by stage, till the general level is struck, +where there ain’t any titles. Do you know what a +prince of the blood is, on earth?”</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>“Well, a prince of the blood don’t belong to the +royal family exactly, and he don’t belong to the mere +nobility of the kingdom; he is lower than the one, and higher +than t’other. That’s about the position of the +patriarchs and prophets here. There’s some mighty +high nobility here—people that you and I ain’t worthy +to polish sandals for—and <i>they</i> ain’t worthy to +polish sandals for the patriarchs and prophets. That gives +you a kind of an idea of their rank, don’t it? You +begin to see how high up they are, don’t you? just to get a +two-minute glimpse of one of them is a thing for a body to +remember and tell about for a thousand years. Why, Captain, +just think of this: if Abraham was to set his foot down here by +this door, there would be a railing set up around that foot-track +right away, and a shelter put over it, and people would flock +here from all over heaven, for hundreds and hundreds of years, to +look at it. Abraham is one of the parties that Mr. Talmage, +of Brooklyn, is going to embrace, and kiss, and weep on, when he +comes. He wants to lay in a good stock of tears, you know, +or five to one he will go dry before he gets a chance to do +it.”</p> +<p>“Sandy,” says I, “I had an idea that +<i>I</i> was going to be equals with everybody here, too, but I +will let that drop. It don’t matter, and I am plenty +happy enough anyway.”</p> +<p>“Captain, you are happier than you would be, the other +way. These old patriarchs and prophets have got ages the +start of you; they know more in two minutes than you know in a +year. Did you ever try to have a sociable improving-time +discussing winds, and currents and variations of compass with an +undertaker?”</p> +<p>“I get your idea, Sandy. He couldn’t +interest me. He would be an ignoramus in such +things—he would bore me, and I would bore him.”</p> +<p>“You have got it. You would bore the patriarchs +when you talked, and when they talked they would shoot over your +head. By and by you would say, ‘Good morning, your +Eminence, I will call again’—but you +wouldn’t. Did you ever ask the slush-boy to come up +in the cabin and take dinner with you?”</p> +<p>“I get your drift again, Sandy. I wouldn’t +be used to such grand people as the patriarchs and prophets, and +I would be sheepish and tongue-tied in their company, and mighty +glad to get out of it. Sandy, which is the highest rank, +patriarch or prophet?”</p> +<p>“Oh, the prophets hold over the patriarchs. The +newest prophet, even, is of a sight more consequence than the +oldest patriarch. Yes, sir, Adam himself has to walk behind +Shakespeare.”</p> +<p>“Was Shakespeare a prophet?”</p> +<p>“Of course he was; and so was Homer, and heaps +more. But Shakespeare and the rest have to walk behind a +common tailor from Tennessee, by the name of Billings; and behind +a horse-doctor named Sakka, from Afghanistan. Jeremiah, and +Billings and Buddha walk together, side by side, right behind a +crowd from planets not in our astronomy; next come a dozen or two +from Jupiter and other worlds; next come Daniel, and Sakka and +Confucius; next a lot from systems outside of ours; next come +Ezekiel, and Mahomet, Zoroaster, and a knife-grinder from ancient +Egypt; then there is a long string, and after them, away down +toward the bottom, come Shakespeare and Homer, and a shoemaker +named Marais, from the back settlements of France.”</p> +<p>“Have they really rung in Mahomet and all those other +heathens?”</p> +<p>“Yes—they all had their message, and they all get +their reward. The man who don’t get his reward on +earth, needn’t bother—he will get it here, +sure.”</p> +<p>“But why did they throw off on Shakespeare, that way, +and put him away down there below those shoe-makers and +horse-doctors and knife-grinders—a lot of people nobody +ever heard of?”</p> +<p>“That is the heavenly justice of it—they +warn’t rewarded according to their deserts, on earth, but +here they get their rightful rank. That tailor Billings, +from Tennessee, wrote poetry that Homer and Shakespeare +couldn’t begin to come up to; but nobody would print it, +nobody read it but his neighbors, an ignorant lot, and they +laughed at it. Whenever the village had a drunken frolic +and a dance, they would drag him in and crown him with cabbage +leaves, and pretend to bow down to him; and one night when he was +sick and nearly starved to death, they had him out and crowned +him, and then they rode him on a rail about the village, and +everybody followed along, beating tin pans and yelling. +Well, he died before morning. He wasn’t ever +expecting to go to heaven, much less that there was going to be +any fuss made over him, so I reckon he was a good deal surprised +when the reception broke on him.”</p> +<p>“Was you there, Sandy?”</p> +<p>“Bless you, no!”</p> +<p>“Why? Didn’t you know it was going to come +off?”</p> +<p>“Well, I judge I did. It was the talk of these +realms—not for a day, like this barkeeper business, but for +twenty years before the man died.”</p> +<p>“Why the mischief didn’t you go, then?”</p> +<p>“Now how you talk! The like of me go meddling +around at the reception of a prophet? A mudsill like me +trying to push in and help receive an awful grandee like Edward +J. Billings? Why, I should have been laughed at for a +billion miles around. I shouldn’t ever heard the last +of it.”</p> +<p>“Well, who did go, then?”</p> +<p>“Mighty few people that you and I will ever get a chance +to see, Captain. Not a solitary commoner ever has the luck +to see a reception of a prophet, I can tell you. All the +nobility, and all the patriarchs and prophets—every last +one of them—and all the archangels, and all the princes and +governors and viceroys, were there,—and <i>no</i> small +fry—not a single one. And mind you, I’m not +talking about only the grandees from <i>our</i> world, but the +princes and patriarchs and so on from <i>all</i> the worlds that +shine in our sky, and from billions more that belong in systems +upon systems away outside of the one our sun is in. There +were some prophets and patriarchs there that ours ain’t a +circumstance to, for rank and illustriousness and all that. +Some were from Jupiter and other worlds in our own system, but +the most celebrated were three poets, Saa, Bo and Soof, from +great planets in three different and very remote systems. +These three names are common and familiar in every nook and +corner of heaven, clear from one end of it to the +other—fully as well known as the eighty Supreme Archangels, +in fact—where as our Moses, and Adam, and the rest, have +not been heard of outside of our world’s little corner of +heaven, except by a few very learned men scattered here and +there—and they always spell their names wrong, and get the +performances of one mixed up with the doings of another, and they +almost always locate them simply <i>in our solar system</i>, and +think that is enough without going into little details such as +naming the particular world they are from. It is like a +learned Hindoo showing off how much he knows by saying Longfellow +lives in the United States—as if he lived all over the +United States, and as if the country was so small you +couldn’t throw a brick there without hitting him. +Between you and me, it does gravel me, the cool way people from +those monster worlds outside our system snub our little world, +and even our system. Of course we think a good deal of +Jupiter, because our world is only a potato to it, for size; but +then there are worlds in other systems that Jupiter isn’t +even a mustard-seed to—like the planet Goobra, for +instance, which you couldn’t squeeze inside the orbit of +Halley’s comet without straining the rivets. Tourists +from Goobra (I mean parties that lived and died +there—natives) come here, now and then, and inquire about +our world, and when they find out it is so little that a streak +of lightning can flash clear around it in the eighth of a second, +they have to lean up against something to laugh. Then they +screw a glass into their eye and go to examining us, as if we +were a curious kind of foreign bug, or something of that +sort. One of them asked me how long our day was; and when I +told him it was twelve hours long, as a general thing, he asked +me if people where I was from considered it worth while to get up +and wash for such a day as that. That is the way with those +Goobra people—they can’t seem to let a chance go by +to throw it in your face that their day is three hundred and +twenty-two of our years long. This young snob was just of +age—he was six or seven thousand of his days old—say +two million of our years—and he had all the puppy airs that +belong to that time of life—that turning-point when a +person has got over being a boy and yet ain’t quite a man +exactly. If it had been anywhere else but in heaven, I +would have given him a piece of my mind. Well, anyway, +Billings had the grandest reception that has been seen in +thousands of centuries, and I think it will have a good +effect. His name will be carried pretty far, and it will +make our system talked about, and maybe our world, too, and raise +us in the respect of the general public of heaven. Why, +look here—Shakespeare walked backwards before that tailor +from Tennessee, and scattered flowers for him to walk on, and +Homer stood behind his chair and waited on him at the +banquet. Of course that didn’t go for much +<i>there</i>, amongst all those big foreigners from other +systems, as they hadn’t heard of Shakespeare or Homer +either, but it would amount to considerable down there on our +little earth if they could know about it. I wish there was +something in that miserable spiritualism, so we could send them +word. That Tennessee village would set up a monument to +Billings, then, and his autograph would outsell +Satan’s. Well, they had grand times at that +reception—a small-fry noble from Hoboken told me all about +it—Sir Richard Duffer, Baronet.”</p> +<p>“What, Sandy, a nobleman from Hoboken? How is +that?”</p> +<p>“Easy enough. Duffer kept a sausage-shop and never +saved a cent in his life because he used to give all his spare +meat to the poor, in a quiet way. Not tramps,—no, the +other sort—the sort that will starve before they will +beg—honest square people out of work. Dick used to +watch hungry-looking men and women and children, and track them +home, and find out all about them from the neighbors, and then +feed them and find them work. As nobody ever saw him give +anything to anybody, he had the reputation of being mean; he died +with it, too, and everybody said it was a good riddance; but the +minute he landed here, they made him a baronet, and the very +first words Dick the sausage-maker of Hoboken heard when he +stepped upon the heavenly shore were, ‘Welcome, Sir Richard +Duffer!’ It surprised him some, because he thought he +had reasons to believe he was pointed for a warmer climate than +this one.”</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>All of a sudden the whole region fairly rocked under the crash +of eleven hundred and one thunder blasts, all let off at once, +and Sandy says,—</p> +<p>“There, that’s for the barkeep.”</p> +<p>I jumped up and says,—</p> +<p>“Then let’s be moving along, Sandy; we don’t +want to miss any of this thing, you know.”</p> +<p>“Keep your seat,” he says; “he is only just +telegraphed, that is all.”</p> +<p>“How?”</p> +<p>“That blast only means that he has been sighted from the +signal-station. He is off Sandy Hook. The committees +will go down to meet him, now, and escort him in. There +will be ceremonies and delays; they won’t he coming up the +Bay for a considerable time, yet. It is several billion +miles away, anyway.”</p> +<p>“<i>I</i> could have been a barkeeper and a hard lot +just as well as not,” says I, remembering the lonesome way +I arrived, and how there wasn’t any committee nor +anything.</p> +<p>“I notice some regret in your voice,” says Sandy, +“and it is natural enough; but let bygones be bygones; you +went according to your lights, and it is too late now to mend the +thing.”</p> +<p>“No, let it slide, Sandy, I don’t mind. But +you’ve got a Sandy Hook <i>here</i>, too, have +you?”</p> +<p>“We’ve got everything here, just as it is +below. All the States and Territories of the Union, and all +the kingdoms of the earth and the islands of the sea are laid out +here just as they are on the globe—all the same shape they +are down there, and all graded to the relative size, only each +State and realm and island is a good many billion times bigger +here than it is below. There goes another blast.”</p> +<p>“What is that one for?”</p> +<p>“That is only another fort answering the first +one. They each fire eleven hundred and one thunder blasts +at a single dash—it is the usual salute for an +eleventh-hour guest; a hundred for each hour and an extra one for +the guest’s sex; if it was a woman we would know it by +their leaving off the extra gun.”</p> +<p>“How do we know there’s eleven hundred and one, +Sandy, when they all go off at once?—and yet we certainly +do know.”</p> +<p>“Our intellects are a good deal sharpened up, here, in +some ways, and that is one of them. Numbers and sizes and +distances are so great, here, that we have to be made so we can +<i>feel</i> them—our old ways of counting and measuring and +ciphering wouldn’t ever give us an idea of them, but would +only confuse us and oppress us and make our heads +ache.”</p> +<p>After some more talk about this, I says: “Sandy, I +notice that I hardly ever see a white angel; where I run across +one white angel, I strike as many as a hundred million +copper-colored ones—people that can’t speak +English. How is that?”</p> +<p>“Well, you will find it the same in any State or +Territory of the American corner of heaven you choose to go +to. I have shot along, a whole week on a stretch, and gone +millions and millions of miles, through perfect swarms of angels, +without ever seeing a single white one, or hearing a word I could +understand. You see, America was occupied a billion years +and more, by Injuns and Aztecs, and that sort of folks, before a +white man ever set his foot in it. During the first three +hundred years after Columbus’s discovery, there +wasn’t ever more than one good lecture audience of white +people, all put together, in America—I mean the whole +thing, British Possessions and all; in the beginning of our +century there were only 6,000,000 or 7,000,000—say seven; +12,000,000 or 14,000,000 in 1825; say 23,000,000 in 1850; +40,000,000 in 1875. Our death-rate has always been 20 in +1000 per annum. Well, 140,000 died the first year of the +century; 280,000 the twenty-fifth year; 500,000 the fiftieth +year; about a million the seventy-fifth year. Now I am +going to be liberal about this thing, and consider that fifty +million whites have died in America from the beginning up to +to-day—make it sixty, if you want to; make it a hundred +million—it’s no difference about a few millions one +way or t’other. Well, now, you can see, yourself, +that when you come to spread a little dab of people like that +over these hundreds of billions of miles of American territory +here in heaven, it is like scattering a ten-cent box of +homoeopathic pills over the Great Sahara and expecting to find +them again. You can’t expect us to amount to anything +in heaven, and we <i>don’t</i>—now that is the simple +fact, and we have got to do the best we can with it. The +learned men from other planets and other systems come here and +hang around a while, when they are touring around the Kingdom, +and then go back to their own section of heaven and write a book +of travels, and they give America about five lines in it. +And what do they say about us? They say this wilderness is +populated with a scattering few hundred thousand billions of red +angels, with now and then a curiously complected <i>diseased</i> +one. You see, they think we whites and the occasional +nigger are Injuns that have been bleached out or blackened by +some leprous disease or other—for some peculiarly rascally +<i>sin</i>, mind you. It is a mighty sour pill for us all, +my friend—even the modestest of us, let alone the other +kind, that think they are going to be received like a long-lost +government bond, and hug Abraham into the bargain. I +haven’t asked you any of the particulars, Captain, but I +judge it goes without saying—if my experience is worth +anything—that there wasn’t much of a hooraw made over +you when you arrived—now was there?”</p> +<p>“Don’t mention it, Sandy,” says I, coloring +up a little; “I wouldn’t have had the family see it +for any amount you are a mind to name. Change the subject, +Sandy, change the subject.”</p> +<p>“Well, do you think of settling in the California +department of bliss?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know. I wasn’t calculating on +doing anything really definite in that direction till the family +come. I thought I would just look around, meantime, in a +quiet way, and make up my mind. Besides, I know a good many +dead people, and I was calculating to hunt them up and swap a +little gossip with them about friends, and old times, and one +thing or another, and ask them how they like it here, as far as +they have got. I reckon my wife will want to camp in the +California range, though, because most all her departed will be +there, and she likes to be with folks she knows.”</p> +<p>“Don’t you let her. You see what the Jersey +district of heaven is, for whites; well, the Californian district +is a thousand times worse. It swarms with a mean kind of +leather-headed mud-colored angels—and your nearest white +neighbor is likely to be a million miles away. <i>What a +man mostly misses</i>, <i>in heaven</i>, <i>is +company</i>—company of his own sort and color and +language. I have come near settling in the European part of +heaven once or twice on that account.”</p> +<p>“Well, why didn’t you, Sandy?”</p> +<p>“Oh, various reasons. For one thing, although you +<i>see</i> plenty of whites there, you can’t understand any +of them, hardly, and so you go about as hungry for talk as you do +here. I like to look at a Russian or a German or an +Italian—I even like to look at a Frenchman if I ever have +the luck to catch him engaged in anything that ain’t +indelicate—but <i>looking</i> don’t cure the +hunger—what you want is talk.”</p> +<p>“Well, there’s England, Sandy—the English +district of heaven.”</p> +<p>“Yes, but it is not so very much better than this end of +the heavenly domain. As long as you run across Englishmen +born this side of three hundred years ago, you are all right; but +the minute you get back of Elizabeth’s time the language +begins to fog up, and the further back you go the foggier it +gets. I had some talk with one Langland and a man by the +name of Chaucer—old-time poets—but it was no use, I +couldn’t quite understand them, and they couldn’t +quite understand me. I have had letters from them since, +but it is such broken English I can’t make it out. +Back of those men’s time the English are just simply +foreigners, nothing more, nothing less; they talk Danish, German, +Norman French, and sometimes a mixture of all three; back of +<i>them</i>, they talk Latin, and ancient British, Irish, and +Gaelic; and then back of these come billions and billions of pure +savages that talk a gibberish that Satan himself couldn’t +understand. The fact is, where you strike one man in the +English settlements that you can understand, you wade through +awful swarms that talk something you can’t make head nor +tail of. You see, every country on earth has been overlaid +so often, in the course of a billion years, with different kinds +of people and different sorts of languages, that this sort of +mongrel business was bound to be the result in heaven.”</p> +<p>“Sandy,” says I, “did you see a good many of +the great people history tells about?”</p> +<p>“Yes—plenty. I saw kings and all sorts of +distinguished people.”</p> +<p>“Do the kings rank just as they did below?”</p> +<p>“No; a body can’t bring his rank up here with +him. Divine right is a good-enough earthly romance, but it +don’t go, here. Kings drop down to the general level +as soon as they reach the realms of grace. I knew Charles +the Second very well—one of the most popular comedians in +the English section—draws first rate. There are +better, of course—people that were never heard of on +earth—but Charles is making a very good reputation indeed, +and is considered a rising man. Richard the Lion-hearted is +in the prize-ring, and coming into considerable favor. +Henry the Eighth is a tragedian, and the scenes where he kills +people are done to the very life. Henry the Sixth keeps a +religious-book stand.”</p> +<p>“Did you ever see Napoleon, Sandy?”</p> +<p>“Often—sometimes in the Corsican range, sometimes +in the French. He always hunts up a conspicuous place, and +goes frowning around with his arms folded and his field-glass +under his arm, looking as grand, gloomy and peculiar as his +reputation calls for, and very much bothered because he +don’t stand as high, here, for a soldier, as he expected +to.”</p> +<p>“Why, who stands higher?”</p> +<p>“Oh, a <i>lot</i> of people <i>we</i> never heard of +before—the shoemaker and horse-doctor and knife-grinder +kind, you know—clodhoppers from goodness knows where that +never handled a sword or fired a shot in their lives—but +the soldiership was in them, though they never had a chance to +show it. But here they take their right place, and +Cæsar and Napoleon and Alexander have to take a back +seat. The greatest military genius our world ever produced +was a brick-layer from somewhere back of Boston—died during +the Revolution—by the name of Absalom Jones. Wherever +he goes, crowds flock to see him. You see, everybody knows +that if he had had a chance he would have shown the world some +generalship that would have made all generalship before look like +child’s play and ’prentice work. But he never +got a chance; he tried heaps of times to enlist as a private, but +he had lost both thumbs and a couple of front teeth, and the +recruiting sergeant wouldn’t pass him. However, as I +say, everybody knows, now, what he <i>would</i> have +been,—and so they flock by the million to get a glimpse of +him whenever they hear he is going to be anywhere. +Cæsar, and Hannibal, and Alexander, and Napoleon are all on +his staff, and ever so many more great generals; but the public +hardly care to look at <i>them</i> when <i>he</i> is +around. Boom! There goes another salute. The +barkeeper’s off quarantine now.”</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Sandy and I put on our things. Then we made a wish, and +in a second we were at the reception-place. We stood on the +edge of the ocean of space, and looked out over the dimness, but +couldn’t make out anything. Close by us was the Grand +Stand—tier on tier of dim thrones rising up toward the +zenith. From each side of it spread away the tiers of seats +for the general public. They spread away for leagues and +leagues—you couldn’t see the ends. They were +empty and still, and hadn’t a cheerful look, but looked +dreary, like a theatre before anybody comes—gas turned +down. Sandy says,—</p> +<p>“We’ll sit down here and wait. We’ll +see the head of the procession come in sight away off yonder +pretty soon, now.”</p> +<p>Says I,—</p> +<p>“It’s pretty lonesome, Sandy; I reckon +there’s a hitch somewheres. Nobody but just you and +me—it ain’t much of a display for the +barkeeper.”</p> +<p>“Don’t you fret, it’s all right. +There’ll be one more gun-fire—then you’ll +see.”</p> +<p>In a little while we noticed a sort of a lightish flush, away +off on the horizon.</p> +<p>“Head of the torchlight procession,” says +Sandy.</p> +<p>It spread, and got lighter and brighter: soon it had a strong +glare like a locomotive headlight; it kept on getting brighter +and brighter till it was like the sun peeping above the +horizon-line at sea—the big red rays shot high up into the +sky.</p> +<p>“Keep your eyes on the Grand Stand and the miles of +seats—sharp!” says Sandy, “and listen for the +gun-fire.”</p> +<p>Just then it burst out, “Boom-boom-boom!” like a +million thunderstorms in one, and made the whole heavens +rock. Then there was a sudden and awful glare of light all +about us, and in that very instant every one of the millions of +seats was occupied, and as far as you could see, in both +directions, was just a solid pack of people, and the place was +all splendidly lit up! It was enough to take a body’s +breath away. Sandy says,—</p> +<p>“That is the way we do it here. No time fooled +away; nobody straggling in after the curtain’s up. +Wishing is quicker work than travelling. A quarter of a +second ago these folks were millions of miles from here. +When they heard the last signal, all they had to do was to wish, +and here they are.”</p> +<p>The prodigious choir struck up,—</p> +<blockquote><p>We long to hear thy voice,<br /> +To see thee face to face.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It was noble music, but the uneducated chipped in and spoilt +it, just as the congregations used to do on earth.</p> +<p>The head of the procession began to pass, now, and it was a +wonderful sight. It swept along, thick and solid, five +hundred thousand angels abreast, and every angel carrying a torch +and singing—the whirring thunder of the wings made a +body’s head ache. You could follow the line of the +procession back, and slanting upward into the sky, far away in a +glittering snaky rope, till it was only a faint streak in the +distance. The rush went on and on, for a long time, and at +last, sure enough, along comes the barkeeper, and then everybody +rose, and a cheer went up that made the heavens shake, I tell +you! He was all smiles, and had his halo tilted over one +ear in a cocky way, and was the most satisfied-looking saint I +ever saw. While he marched up the steps of the Grand Stand, +the choir struck up,—</p> +<blockquote><p>“The whole wide heaven groans,<br /> +And waits to hear that voice.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There were four gorgeous tents standing side by side in the +place of honor, on a broad railed platform in the centre of the +Grand Stand, with a shining guard of honor round about +them. The tents had been shut up all this time. As +the barkeeper climbed along up, bowing and smiling to everybody, +and at last got to the platform, these tents were jerked up aloft +all of a sudden, and we saw four noble thrones of gold, all caked +with jewels, and in the two middle ones sat old white-whiskered +men, and in the two others a couple of the most glorious and +gaudy giants, with platter halos and beautiful armor. All +the millions went down on their knees, and stared, and looked +glad, and burst out into a joyful kind of murmurs. They +said,—</p> +<p>“Two archangels!—that is splendid. Who can +the others be?”</p> +<p>The archangels gave the barkeeper a stiff little military bow; +the two old men rose; one of them said, “Moses and Esau +welcome thee!” and then all the four vanished, and the +thrones were empty.</p> +<p>The barkeeper looked a little disappointed, for he was +calculating to hug those old people, I judge; but it was the +gladdest and proudest multitude you ever saw—because they +had seen Moses and Esau. Everybody was saying, “Did +you see them?—I did—Esau’s side face was to me, +but I saw Moses full in the face, just as plain as I see you this +minute!”</p> +<p>The procession took up the barkeeper and moved on with him +again, and the crowd broke up and scattered. As we went +along home, Sandy said it was a great success, and the barkeeper +would have a right to be proud of it forever. And he said +we were in luck, too; said we might attend receptions for forty +thousand years to come, and not have a chance to see a brace of +such grand moguls as Moses and Esau. We found afterwards +that we had come near seeing another patriarch, and likewise a +genuine prophet besides, but at the last moment they sent +regrets. Sandy said there would be a monument put up there, +where Moses and Esau had stood, with the date and circumstances, +and all about the whole business, and travellers would come for +thousands of years and gawk at it, and climb over it, and +scribble their names on it.</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote9"></a><a href="#citation9" +class="footnote">[9]</a> The captain could not remember +what this word was. He said it was in a foreign tongue.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EXTRACT FROM CAPTAIN STORMFIELD'S +VISIT TO HEAVEN***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 1044-h.htm or 1044-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/4/1044 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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