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diff --git a/old/cptsf10h.htm b/old/cptsf10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..535487b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/cptsf10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1807 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven, by Mark Twain</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven, by Twain +(#11 in our series by Mark Twain) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven + +Author: Mark Twain + +Release Date: September, 1997 [EBook #1044] +[This file was first posted on September 26, 1997] +[Most recently updated: June 25, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<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="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</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</i> <i>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="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></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</i> <i>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 shoe-maker 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="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<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</i> <i>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="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></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</i> <i>mostly misses, in heaven, 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 Caesar 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. Caesar, 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="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>We long to hear thy voice,<br />To see thee face to face.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The whole wide heaven groans,<br />And waits to hear that voice.”</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<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> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Footnotes:</p> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> The captain +could not remember what this word was. He said it was in a foreign +tongue.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, CAPTAIN STORMFIELD'S VISIT TO HEAVEN ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named cptsf10h.htm or cptsf10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, cptsf11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, cptsf10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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