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Randolph. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + .poem span.i27 {display: block; margin-left: 27em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i40 {display: block; margin-left: 40em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i44 {display: block; margin-left: 44em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i6 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i10 {display: block; margin-left: 10em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i20 {display: block; margin-left: 20em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Tom Clark and His Wife, by Paschal Beverly Randolph + +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: Tom Clark and His Wife + Their Double Dreams, And the Curious Things that Befell + Them Therein; Being the Rosicrucian's Story + +Author: Paschal Beverly Randolph + +Release Date: February 23, 2011 [EBook #35366] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM CLARK AND HIS WIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +produced by the Wright American Fiction Project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1>TOM CLARK AND HIS WIFE,</h1> + +<h2>THEIR DOUBLE DREAMS, AND THE CURIOUS THINGS THAT BEFELL THEM THEREIN; +BEING THE ROSICRUCIAN'S STORY.</h2> + +<h2>BY DR. P. B. RANDOLPH,</h2> + +<h3>"THE DUMAS OF AMERICA,"</h3> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF "WAA, GU-MAH," "PRE-ADAMITE MAN," "DEALINGS WITH THE DEAD," +"IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT," "THE UNVEILING OF SPIRITISM," "THE GRAND SECRET," +"HUMAN LOVE—A PHYSICAL SUBSTANCE," ETC., ETC., ETC.</h3> + +<h3>NEW YORK:<br /> +SINCLAIR TOUSEY, 121 NASSAU STREET.<br /> +1863.</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#PART_I">PART I. THE MAN.</a><br /> +<a href="#PART_II">PART II. THE DOUBLE DREAM.</a><br /> +<a href="#PART_III">PART III. THE MAGIC SPELL.</a><br /> +<a href="#PART_IV">PART IV. THE DREAM OF BETSEY CLARK.</a><br /> +<a href="#PART_V">PART V. TOM CLARK DREAMS AGAIN.</a><br /> +<a href="#PART_VI">PART VI. WHAT BECAME OF THOMAS CLARK.</a><br /> +<a href="#PART_VII">PART VII. BETSEY CLARK IN DREAM-LAND.</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#From_SINCLAIR_TOUSEY">From SINCLAIR TOUSEY</a><br /> +<a href="#BY_DR_P_B_RANDOLPH">By DR. P. B. RANDOLPH,</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Charles</span> T——s:</p> + +<p>Since we parted at the "Golden Gate," the weight of a world has rested +on your shoulders, and I have suffered much, in my journeyings up and +down the world, as wearily I wandered over Zahara's burning sands and +among the shrines and monuments of Egypt, Syria, and Araby the blessed; +separated in body, but united in soul, we have each sought knowledge, +and, I trust, gained wisdom. <i>Our work</i> is just begun. One portion of +that work consists in the endeavor to unmask villainy, and vindicate the +sanctity and perpetuity of marriage. In this little work I have tried to +do this, and believe that if the magic talisman herein recommended as a +sovereign balm for the strifes and ills of wedlock, be faithfully used, +that the great married world will adopt your motto and my own, and +become convinced that in spite of much contrary seeming "<span class="smcap">WE MAY BE HAPPY +YET</span>!"</p> + +<p>To you, and to such this book is</p> + +<p>Affectionately dedicated by your friend and the world's,</p> + +<p>P. B. RANDOLPH.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>THE ROSICRUCIAN'S STORY.</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_I" id="PART_I"></a>PART I.</h2> + +<h3>THE MAN.</h3> + + +<p>He used to pace rapidly up and down the deck for a minute or two, and +then, suddenly striking his forehead, as if a new thought were just +pangfully coming into being at the <i>major foci</i> of his soul, he would +throw himself prone upon one of the after seats of the old "Uncle Sam," +the steamer in which we were going from San Francisco to Panama, and +there he would lie, apparently musing, and evidently enjoying some sort +of interior life, but whether that life was one of reverie, dream, or +disembodiedness, was a mystery to us all, and would have remained so, +but that on being asked, he very complaisantly satisfied our doubts, by +informing us that on such occasion he, in spirit, visited a place not +laid down in ordinary charts, and the name of which was the realm of +"Wotchergifterno," which means in English, "Violinist's Meadow" (very +like "Fiddler's Green"). When not pacing the deck, or reclining, or +gazing at the glorious sunsets on the sea, or the still more gorgeous +sun-risings on the mountains, he was in the habit of—<i>catching flies</i>; +which flies he would forthwith proceed to dissect and examine by means +of a microscope constructed of a drop of water in a bent broom wisp. +Gradually the man became quite a favorite with both passengers and +officers of the ship, and not a day passed but a crowd of ladies and +gentlemen would gather around him to listen to the stories he would not +merely recite, but compose as he went along, each one containing a moral +of more than ordinary significance. It was apparent from the first that +the man was some sort of a mystic, a dreamer, or some such +out-of-the-ordinary style of person, because everything he said or did +bore an unmistakable ghostly impress. He was sorrowful withal, at times, +and yet no one on the ship had a greater or more humorous flow of +spirits. In the midst, however, of his brightest sallies, he would +suddenly stop short, as if at that moment his listening soul had caught +the jubilant cry of angels when God had just pardoned some sinful, +storm-tossed human soul.</p> + +<p>One day, during the progress of a long and interesting conversation on +the nature of that mysterious thing called the human soul, and in which +our fellow passenger had, as usual, taken a leading part, with the +endeavor to elicit, as well as impart, information, he suddenly changed +color, turned almost deathly pale, and for full five minutes, perhaps +more, looked straight into the sky, as if gazing upon the awful and +ineffable mysteries of that weird Phantom-land which intuition +demonstrates, but cold reason utterly rejects or challenges for +tangible proof. Long and steadily gazed the man; and then he +shuddered—shuddered as if he had just received some fearful solution of +the problem near his heart. And I shuddered also—in pure sympathy with +what I could not fairly understand. At length he spoke; but with bated +breath, and in tones so low, so deep, so solemn, that it seemed as +though a dead, and not a living man, gave utterance to the sounds: +"Lara! Lara! Ah, Lovely! would that I had gone <i>then</i>—that I were with +thee now!" and he relapsed into silence.</p> + +<p>Surprised, both at his abruptness, change of manner and theme—for ten +minutes before, and despite the solemnity of the conversational topic, +he had been at a fever heat of fun and hilarity—I asked him what he +meant. Accustomed, as we had been, to hear him break in upon the most +grave and dolorous talk with a droll observation which instantly +provoked the most unrestrainable, hilarious mirth; used, as we had been +to hear him perpetrate a joke, and set us all in a roar in the very +midst of some heart-moving tale of woe, whereat our eyes had moistened, +and our pulses throbbed tumultuously, yet I was not, even by all this, +prepared for the singular characteristic now presented. In reply to my +question, he first wiped away an involuntary tear, as if ashamed of his +weakness; then raised his head, and exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Lara! Lara! The Beautiful One!"</p> + +<p>"What of her?" asked Colbert, who sat opposite him, and who was deeply +moved at his evident distress, and whose curiosity, as that of us all, +was deeply piqued.</p> + +<p>"Listen," said he, "and I will tell you;" and then, while we eagerly +drank in his words, and strove to drink in their strange and wondrous +meaning (first warning us that what he was about to say was but the text +of something to be thereafter told), he leaned back upon the taffrail, +and while the steamer gently plowed her way toward Acapulco and far-off +Panama, said:</p> + +<p>"Fleshless, yet living, I strode through the grand old hall of a mighty +temple. I had been compelled to climb the hills to reach the wall that +bars the Gates of Glory, and now within my heart strange pulses beat the +while. I found myself upon the verge of a vast extended plain, +stretching out to the Infinitudes, as it seemed, through the narrow +spaces wherein the vision was not obstructed by certain dense, +convolving vapor-clouds that ever and anon rose from off the murky +breast of the waters of the river of Lethe, that rolled hard by and +skirted the immense prairie on and over which I proposed to travel, on +my way from Minus to Plus—from Nothing to Something, from Bad to Good, +and from Better to <span class="smcap">Best</span>—travelling toward my unknown, unimagined +Destiny—travelling from the <i>Now</i> toward the <i>Shall Be</i>. And I stood +and mutely gazed—gazed at the dense, dark shadows rolling murkily, +massily over the plain and through the spaces—dim shadows of dead +worlds. No sound, no footfall, not even mine own—not an echo broke the +Stillness. I was alone!—alone upon the vast Solitude—the tremendous +wastes of an unknown, mysterious, unimagined Eterne—unimagined in all +its fearful stillitude! Within my bosom there was a heart, but no pulse +went from it bounding through my veins; no throb beat back responsive +life to my feeling, listening spirit. I and my Soul were there alone; we +only—the Thinking self, and the Self that ever knows, but never +thinks—were there. My heart was not cold, yet it was more: it was, I +felt, changed to solid stone—changed all save one small point, distant, +afar off, like unto the vague ghost of a long-forgotten fancy; and this +seemed to have been the penalty inflicted for things done by me while on +the earth; for it appeared that I was dead, and that my soul had begun +an almost endless pilgrimage—to what?—to where? A penalty! And yet no +black memory of red-handed crime haunted me, or lurked in the +intricacies of the mystic wards of my death-defying soul; and I strode +all alone adown the uncolumned vistas of the grand old temple—a temple +whose walls were builded of flown Seconds, whose tesselated pavements +were laid in sheeted Hours, whose windows on one side opened upon the +Gone Ages, and on the other upon the Yet to Be; and its sublime turrets +pierced the clouds, which roll over and mantle the hoary summits of the +grey Mountains of Time! And so I and my Soul walked through this temple +by ourselves—alone!</p> + +<p>"With clear, keen gaze, I looked forth upon the Vastness, and my vision +swept over the floors of all the dead years; yet in vain, for the things +of my longing were not there. I beheld trees, but all their leaves were +motionless, and no caroling bird sent its heart-notes forth to waken the +dim solitudes into life and music—which are love. There were stately +groves beneath the arching span of the temple's massy dome, but no +amphian strains of melody fell on the ear, or filled the spaces, from +their myriad moveless branches, or from out their fair theatres. All was +still. It was a palace of frozen tones, and only the music of Silence +(which is vocal, if we listen well) prevailed; and I, Paschal the +Thinker, and my Thought—strange, uncouth, yet mighty but moveless +thought—were the only living things beneath the expansive dome. Living, +I had sacrificed all things—health, riches, honor, fame, ease, even +Love itself, for Thought, and by Thought had overtopped many who had +started on the race for glory long ere my soul had wakened to a +consciousness of itself—which means Power. In life I had, so it seemed, +builded stronger than I thought, and had reached a mental +eminence—occupied a throne so lofty—that mankind wondered, stood +aloof, and gazed at me from afar off; and by reason of my thought had +gathered from me, and thus condemned the Thinker to an utter solitude, +even in the most thronged and busy haunts of men; and I walked through +earth's most crowded cities more lonely than the hermit of the desert, +whose eyes are never gladdened by the sight of human form, and through +the chambers of whose brain no human voice goes ringing. Thus was it on +earth; and now that I had quitted it forever, with undaunted soul, +strong purpose, and fearless tread, assured of an endless immortality, +and had entered upon the life of Thinking, still was I alone. Had my +life, my thinking, and my action on thought been failures? The +contemplation of such a possibility was bitter, very bitter—even like +unto painful death—and yet it seemed true that failure had been +mine—failure, notwithstanding men by thousands spoke well of me and of +my works—the children of my thought—and bought my books in thousands. +Failure? My soul rejected the idea in utter loathing. For a moment the +social spirit, the heartness of my nature over-shadowed Reason, and +caused me to forget that, even though confined by dungeon walls, +stricken with poverty, deformity, sin or disease—even though left out +to freeze in the cold world's spite—yet the thinker is ever the world's +true and only King. I had become, for a moment, oblivious of the fact +that failure was an impossibility. <i>Rosicrucians never fail!</i>"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"But now, as I slowly moved along, I felt my human nature was at war +with the God-nature within, and that Heart for a while was holding the +Head in duress. I longed for release from Solitude; my humanity yearned +for association, and would have there, on the breast of the great +Eterne, given worlds for the company of the lowliest soul I had ever +beheld—and despised, as I walked the streets of the cities of the +far-off earth. I yearned for human society and affection, and could even +have found blissful solace with—a dog! just such a dog as, in times +past, I had scornfully kicked in Cairo and Stamboul. Even a dog was +denied me now—all affection withheld from me—and in the terrible +presence of its absence I longed for death, forgetting again that Soul +can never die. I longed for that deeper extinguishment which should +sweep the soul from being, and crown it with limitless, eternal +Night—forgetful, again, that the Memories of Soul must live, though the +rememberer cease to be, and that hence Horrors would echo through the +universe—children mourning for their suicidal parent, and that parent +myself!</p> + +<p>"And I lay me down beneath a tree in despair—a tree which stood out all +alone from its fellows, in a grove hard by—a tree all ragged and +lightning-scathed—an awful monument, mute, yet eloquently proclaiming +to the wondering on-looker that God had passed that way, in fierce, +deific wrath, once upon a time, in the dead ages, whose ashes now +bestrewed the floors of the mighty temple of Eterne.</p> + +<p>"It was dreadful, very dreadful, to be all alone. True, the pangs of +hunger, the tortures of thirst, the fires of ambition, and the raging +flames of earthly passion no longer marred my peace. Pain, such as +mortals feel, was unknown; no disease racked my frame, or disturbed the +serenity of my external being—for I was immortal, and could laugh all +these and Death itself to scorn; and yet a keener anguish, a more +fearful suffering, was mine. I wept, and my cries gave back no outer +sound, but they rang in sombre echoes through the mighty arches, the +bottomless caverns, the abyssmal deeps of Soul—my soul—racking it with +torments such as only thinking things can feel. Such is the lot, such +the discipline of the destined citizens of the Farther Empyrean—a +region known only to the Brethren of the Temple of Peerless Rosicrucia!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Sleep came—sweet sleep—deep and strange; and in it I dreamed. +Methought I still wandered gloomily beneath the vast arches of the grand +old hall, until at last, after countless cycles of ripe years had been +gathered back into the treasury of the <i>Etre Supreme</i>, I stood before a +solid, massive door, which an inscription thereabove announced as being +the entrance to the Garden of the Beatitudes. This door was secured by a +thousand locks, besides one larger than all the rest combined. Every one +of these locks might be opened, but the opener could not pass through +unless he unfastened the master-lock having ten thousand bolts and +wards.</p> + +<p>"Once more despair seized on my soul, in this dream which was not all a +dream; for to achieve an entrance through the gate without the +master-key was a task, so said the inscription, that would defy the +labors of human armies for periods of time utterly defying man's +comprehension—so many were the difficulties, so vastly strong the +bolts.</p> + +<p>"Sadly, mournfully, I turned away, when, as if by chance—forgetting +that there is no such thing as Chance—my eye encountered a rivetless +space upon the solid brazen door—a circular space, around the periphery +of which was an inscription running thus: '<span class="smcap">Man only Fails through +Feebleness of Will</span>!' Within this smooth circle was the semblance of a +golden triangle, embracing a crystalline globe, winged and beautiful, +crowned with a Rosicrucian cypher, while beneath it stood out, in fiery +characters, the single word, '<span class="smcap">Try</span>!' The very instant I caught the magic +significance of these divine inscriptions, a new Hope was begotten in my +soul; Despair fled from me, and I passed into</p> + +<h4>"A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM.</h4> + +<p>"What a change! During my slumber it seemed that I had been transported +to the summit of a very lofty mountain, yet still within the Temple. By +my side stood an aged and saintly man, of regal and majestic presence. +He was clad in an oriental garb of the long-gone ages, and his flowing +robes were bound to his waist by a golden band, wrought into the +similitude of a shining serpent—the sacred emblem of eternal wisdom. +Around his broad and lofty brow was a coronet of silver, dusted with +spiculæ of finest diamond. On the sides of the centre were two scarabei, +the symbol of immortality; and between them was a pyramid, on which was +inscribed a mystical character which told, at the same time, that his +name was Ramus the Great.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p> + +<p>"This royal personage spake kindly to me, and his soft tones fell upon +the hearing of my soul like the words of pardon to the sense of sinners +at the Judgment Seat. 'Look, my son,' said he, at the same time pointing +toward a vast procession of the newly-risen dead—a spectral army on the +sides of the mountain, slowly, steadily, mournfully wending their way +toward the part of the temple I had quitted previous to the commencement +of this dream within a dream. Said the man at my side: 'Yonder host of +pilgrims are men and women who are seeking, as thou hast sought, to +unbar the Gates of Glory, that they may pass through them into the +delightful Garden of the Beatitudes. It is one thing to be endowed with +Intellectual Strength, Knowledge and Immortality; it is another to be +Wise and Happy. The first is a boon granted to all the children of earth +alike; the last can only be attained by integral development—by +self-endeavor, by innate goodness and God-ness continually +manifested—and this in material and aromal worlds alike. Man is man and +woman is woman, wherever they may be! The true way to the garden lies +not through Manifestation Corridor, but through the Hall of Silence! and +each Aspirant must open the door for himself alone. Failing to enter, as +thou hast failed, each must turn back, and, like thee, come hither to +Mount Retrospect, and entering into the labyrinths within its sides, +must search for the triple key, which alone can unbar the Gate, and +admit to the Beautiful Garden! Remember! Despair not! Try!' and in an +instant the Phantom-man turned from me, and with outstretched arms, and +benignance beaming from every feature, hied him toward the ascending +army.</p> + +<p>"Again I stood alone, not now in despondency and gloom, but in all the +serene strength of noble, conscious Manhood—not the actual, but the +certain and glorious possibility thereof. My soul had grown. It was +aware of all its past short-comings, failures, and its hatreds toward +two men who had done me deadly wrong. This feeling still +survived—stronger than ever, now that I was across the Bridge of +Hours, and had become a citizen of the inner land—a wanderer through +Eternity. That hate was as immortal as my deathless soul. Will it ever +be? And yet I had ever meant well. All was calm in my spirit, save this +single awful thing. In this spirit, with this consciousness—not of deep +malignance, but of outraged Justice—I began to look for the mysterious +key; and as I looked, an instinct told me that the key must consist of +certain grand human virtues, and corresponding good deeds, held and done +before I left the shores of time and embarked upon the strange and +mystic sea whereon my soul's fortunes were now cast.</p> + +<p>"And so I searched, and at last seemed to have found what I sought; and +thereupon I wished myself once more before the brazen Gate. Instantly, +as if by magic, the wish was realized, and I stood before at, on the +same spot formerly occupied. The first inscription, the symbols and +circle had disappeared, and in their stead was another circle, +containing these lines: 'Speak, for thou shalt be heard! Tell what thou +hast done to elevate thy fellow men, and to round out the angles of +thine own soul. Whom hast thou uplifted, loved, hated? Speak, and when +the words containing the key are spoken, the door will yield, and thou +mayest pass the Threshold.'</p> + +<p>"The writing slowly faded, and left naught but a surface, but that +surface as of molten gold. I spoke aloud my claim to entrance, and, to +my astonishment, my voice rang out shrill and clear, through the vaults +and arches of the mighty dome towering far above my head. 'I have +suffered from infancy—been opposed from the cradle to maturity—been +hated, robbed, slandered on all sides, yet pushed forward in defiance of +all, until I reached all that I desired—all that earth could give me. +Self-educated, I achieved triumphs where others failed; have reaped +laurels and grasped the keys of fame, and laughed at my folly +afterwards, because what is fame? A canker, gnawing out one's life when +living, disturbing his repose when dead—not worth a straw! But, in all +this, despite the ending, I have set an example, by following which man +might elevate himself, society be improved, and its constituents realize +the bliss of moving in loftier spheres of usefulness!' While giving +voice to these truths, I firmly expected to see the gate fly open at +their conclusion. But what was my horror and dismay to see that it moved +not at all, while the echoes of my speech gave back in frightfully +resonant waves of sound the last word, '<span class="smcap">Usefulness!</span>'</p> + +<p>"Not being able to think of any nobler achievements, I cast my eyes +groundward, and, on again raising them, I beheld, across the clear space +on the door, the single word, '<span class="smcap">Try!</span>'</p> + +<p>"Taking heart again, I said, 'Alone I sought the secret of restoring +health to the sick, and gave it freely to the world, without money, +without price. I have made grand efforts to banish sloth, sin, +ignorance; have ever upheld the honor of the Cross, and the sweet +religion it symbolizes. Striving ever to upraise the veil that hides man +from himself, in the effort I have been misapprehended, my motives +impugned, and my reward has been poverty, slander, disgrace. In the +strife, I have been heedless to every call save that of human duty, +and, in obeying the behests of a nobler destiny, have been regardless of +all worldly distinction; have ignored wealth, fame, honorable place in +the world's esteem, and even been deaf to the calls of love!'</p> + +<p>"I ceased, and again the vault threw back my last word, and all the +arches echoed '<span class="smcap">Love!</span>'</p> + +<p>"The gate moved not, but once more appeared upon the golden lozenge on +the door the word '<span class="smcap">Try!</span>' in greater brightness than before, while it +seemed to the hearing sense of my spirit that a thousand velvet +whispers—low, <i>so</i> low, gently cadenced back '<span class="smcap">Love!</span>'</p> + +<p>"'I have rebuked the immoral, humbled the lofty and overbearing, exposed +deception, comforted the mourner, redeemed the harlot, reformed the +thief, fed the orphan and upheld the rights and dignity of Labor!'</p> + +<p>"Still the door moved not, but again the echoes gave back the last word, +'<span class="smcap">Labor!</span>'</p> + +<p>"'I have preached immortality to thousands, and prevailed on them to +believe it; have written of, and everywhere proclaimed its mighty +truths. I have beaten the sceptic, confirmed the wavering, reassured the +doubting, and through long and bitter years, in both hemispheres of the +globe, have declared that if a man die, he shall live again; thus +endeavoring to overthrow error, establish truth, banish superstition, +and on their ruins lay the deep and broad foundations of a better +faith!'</p> + +<p>"As if a myriad voices chimed out my last syllable, there rang through +the spacious halls and corridors of the Temple, the sublime word, +'<span class="smcap">Faith!</span>' and instantly the bolts appeared to move within their iron +wards. Continuing, I said: 'I have ever endeavored, save in one single +instance, to foster, and in all cases have a spirit of forgiveness.'</p> + +<p>"This time there was no mistake. The thousand bolts flew back, the +ponderous brazen gate moved forward and back, like a vast curtain, as if +swayed by a gentle wind; while a million silvery voices sang gloriously, +'<span class="smcap">In all cases have a spirit of forgiveness!</span>'</p> + +<p>"Joyously I tried again, intuition plainly telling me that only one +thing more was necessary to end my lonely pilgrimage, and exalt me to +the blessed companionship of the dear ones whom I so longed to join in +their glory-walks adown the celestial glades and vistas of God's Garden +of the Beatitudes. I spoke again:</p> + +<p>"'I have fallen from man's esteem in pursuance of what appeared to be my +duty. A new faith sprung up in the land, and unwise zealots brought +shame and bitter reproach against and upon it. Lured by false reasoning, +I yielded to the fascinations of a specious sophistry, and for awhile my +soul languished under the iron bondage of a powerful and glittering +falsehood. At length, seeing my errors, I strove to correct them, and to +sift the chaff from the true and solid grain; but the people refused to +believe me honest, and did not, would not understand me; but they +insisted that in denouncing Error, I ignored the living truths of God's +great economy; yet still I labored on, trying to correct my faults, and +to cultivate the queen of human virtues, Charity!' Scarcely had this +last word escaped my lips, than the massive portals flew wide open, +disclosing to my enraptured gaze such a sight of supernal and celestial +beauty, grandeur, and magnificence, as human language is totally +inadequate to describe; for it was such, as it stood there revealed +before my ravished soul; and I may not here reveal the wondrous things I +saw and heard.... Lara, Lara, my beautiful one, the dear dead maiden of +the long agone, stood before me, just within the lines of Paradise. She +loved me still—aye, the dear maiden of my youth had not forgotten the +lover of her early and her earthly days—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'When I was a boy, and she was a girl,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the city by the sea,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>ere the cruel Death had snatched her from my arms, and love, a long, +long time ago; for the love of the Indian, as <i>his hatred, survives the +grave</i>.... And she said, 'Paschal, my beloved—lone student of the weary +world—I await thy entrance here. But thou mayest not enter now, because +no hatred can live inside these gates of Bliss. Wear it out, discard it. +Thou art yet incomplete, thy work is still unfinished. Thou hast found +the keys! Go back to earth, and give them to thy fellow-men. Teach, +first <i>thyself</i>, and <i>then</i> thy brethren, that Usefulness, Love, Labor, +Forgiveness, Faith and Charity, are the only keys which are potent to +cure all ill, and unbar the Gates of Glory.'</p> + +<p>"'Lara! Beautiful Lara, I obey thee! Wait for me, love. I am coming +soon!' I cried, as she slowly retreated, and the gate closed again. 'Not +yet, not yet,' I cried, as with extended arms I implored the beauteous +vision to remain—but a single instant longer. But she was gone. I fell +to the ground in a swoon. When I awoke again, I found the night had +grown two hours older than it was when I sat down in the chair in my +little chamber in Bush street, the little chamber which I occupied in +the goodly city of the Golden Gate."</p> + +<p>Thus spake the Rosicrucian. We were all deeply moved at the recital, and +one after the other we retired to our rooms, pondering on the story and +its splendid moral. Next day we reached Acapulco, and not till we had +left and were far on our way toward Panama, did we have an opportunity +of listening to the sermon to the eloquent text I have just recounted.</p> + +<p>At length he gave it, as nearly as it can possibly be reproduced, in the +following words:</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_II" id="PART_II"></a>PART II.</h2> + +<h3>THE DOUBLE DREAM.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">——"and saw within the moonlight of his room——<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An angel, writing in a book of gold."—<span class="smcap">Leigh Hunt.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>"And so you like the text, do you? Very well, I will now see how much +better you will be pleased with the sermon. Listen:</p> + +<p>"'I cannot and will not stand this any longer. Here am I, yet a young +man—in the very prime and heyday of life, and I do believe that I shall +be a regular corpse in less than no time, if a change for the better +don't very soon take place in my family; that's just as certain as "open +and shut." She, ah, <i>she</i>, is killing me by inches—the vampire! Would +that I had been thirty-five million of miles the other side of nowhere +the day I married her. Don't I though, Betsey—Betsey Clark is killing +me! No love, no kindness, not a soft look, never a gentle smile. Oh, +don't I wish somebody's funeral was over; but not mine; for I feel quite +capable of loving, of being happy yet, and of making somebody's daughter +happy likewise. People may well say that marriage is a lottery—a great +lottery; for, if there's one thing surer than another, then it is +perfectly certain that I have drawn the very tallest kind of a blank; +and hang me, if it wasn't for the disgrace of the thing, if I wouldn't +run off and hitch myself for life to one of the Hottentots I have read +about; for anything would be better than this misery, long strung out. +Oh, don't I wish I was a Turk! When a fellow's a Turk he can have ever +so many wives—and strangle all of 'em that don't suit him or come to +Taw—as they ought to. Bully for the Turks! I wish I knew how to turn +myself into one. If I did, I'd be the biggest kind of a Mohammedan afore +mornin'!'</p> + +<p>"Such was the substance of about the thousandth soliloquy on the same +subject, to the same purport, delivered by Mr. Thomas W. Clark, during +the last seven years of his wedded life.</p> + +<p>"The gentleman named delivered himself of the contented and +philanthropic speech just recited, on the morning of a fine day, just +after the usual morning meal—and quarrel with his—wife, <i>de +jure</i>—female attendant would better express the relation <i>de facto</i>. +Mr. Clark was not yet aware that a woman is ever just what her husband's +conduct makes her—a thing that some husbands besides himself have yet +to learn.</p> + +<p>"Every day this couple's food was seasoned with sundry and divers sorts +of condiments other than those in the castor. There was a great deal of +pickle from his side of the gay and festive board, in the shape of +jealous, spiteful innuendoes; and from her side much delicate <i>sauce +piquante</i>, in the form of sweet allusions to a former husband, whom she +declared to have been 'the very best husband that was ever sent to'—a +premature grave by a vixen—she might have added, truthfully, but did +not, finishing the sentence with, 'to be loved by a tender, gentle +wife'—like her! The lady had gotten bravely over all her amiable +weaknesses long ago. Gentle! what are tigresses? Tender! what is a +virago? So far the man. Now for his mate.</p> + +<p>"Scarcely had her lord—'Mr. Thomas W.,' as she was wont to call +him—gone out of the house, and slammed the door behind him, at the same +time giving vent to the last bottleful of spleen distilled and concocted +in his soul, than 'Mrs. Thomas W.,' or poor Betsey Clark, as I prefer to +call her—for she was truly, really pitiable, for more reasons than one, +but mainly because she had common sense and would not exercise it +sufficiently to make the best of a bad bargain—threw herself upon the +bed, where she cried a little, and raved a good deal, to the self-same +tune as of yore. Getting tired of both these delightful occupations very +soon, she varied them by striking an attitude before a portrait of the +dear defunct—badly executed—the portrait, not the man—whose name she +bore when she became Mistress Thomas W. This picture of a former husband +Tom Clark had not had courage or sense enough to put his foot through, +but did have bad taste sufficient to permit to hang up in the very room +where he lived and ate, and where its beauties were duly and daily +expatiated upon, and the virtues of its original lauded to the skies, of +course to the intense delight of Mr. Clark.</p> + +<p>"Madam had a tongue—a regular patent, venom-mounted, back-spring and +double-actioned tongue, and, what is more, knew well how to use it when +the fit was on, which, to do her justice, was not more than twenty-three +hours and a half each day. Never did an opportunity offer that she did +not avail herself of to amplify the merits of the deceased, especially +in presence of such visitors as chance or business brought to their +house, all to the especial delectation of her living spouse, Mr. Thomas +W. Clark.</p> + +<p>"Just look at her now! There she is, <i>kneeling</i> at her shrine, my lady +gay, vehemently pouring forth the recital of her wrongs—forgetful of +any one else's, as usual with the genus grumbler—dropping tears and +maledictions, now on her own folly, then on the devoted head of him she +had promised to love, honor, and obey, Mr. Clark, fruit-grower, farmer, +and horse-dealer. Exhausted at length, she winds up the dramatic scene +by invoking all the blessings of all the saints in all the calendars on +the soul of him whose counterfeit presentment hangs there upon the wall.</p> + +<p>"If this couple did not absolutely hate each other, they came so near it +that a Philadelphia lawyer would have been puzzled to tell t'other from +which, and yet nobody but themselves had the least idea of the real +state of things—those under-currents of married life that only +occasionally breach through and extensively display themselves in the +presence of third parties. In the very nature of the case, how absurd it +is for outsiders to presume to know the real <i>status</i> of affairs—to +comprehend the actual facts which exist behind the curtains of every or +any married couple in the land. Hymen is a fellow fond of wearing all +sorts of masks and disguises; and it often happens that tons of salt +exist where people suppose nothing but sugar and lollypops are to be +found.</p> + +<p>"Tom and his wife—the latter, especially—pretended to a vast deal of +loving-kindness—oh, how great—toward each other—and they were +wise—in the presence of other people. You would have thought, had you +seen them billing and cooing like a pair of 'Turkle Doves'—to quote the +'Bard of Baldwinsville'—that there never was so true, so perfect a +union as their own; and would not have entertained the shadow of a doubt +but that they had been expressly formed for each other from the +foundations of the world, if not before. No sooner did they meet—before +folks, even after the most trifling absence—than they mutually fell to +kissing and 'dearing,' like two swains just mated, all of which made +fools wonder, but wise people to grieve. Physical manifestations are not +quite Love's methods; and it is a safe rule that those who most ape love +externally, have less of it within—and in private, so great a +difference is there between Behind and Before, in these matters of the +heart. Billing and cooing before folks acts as a nauseant upon sensible +men and women, and in this case it did upon a few of the better class of +the city of Santa Blarneeo, within a few miles of which Clark lived.</p> + +<p>"Betsey Clark gave a last, long, lingering look at the portrait, saying +the while: 'Don't I wish you were alive and back here again, my love, my +darling, my precious duck?' Lucky for him was it that such could not be; +for had it been possible, and actualized, he would have been finely +plucked, not to say roasted, stewed, perpetually broiled, and in every +way done brown. 'If you were here, I should be happy, because you <i>was</i> +a man; but this one (meaning Tom), bah!' and the lady bounced upon her +feet and kicked the cat by way of emphasis. She resumed: 'I can't stand +it, and I won't, there! that's flat! I'm still young, and people of +sense tell me I am handsome—at least, good-looking. I'm certain the +glass does, and no doubt there are plenty who would gladly link their +lot with mine if he was only dead!' And she shuddered as the fearful +thought had birth. 'Dead! I wish he was; and true as I live, I've a +great good mind to accomplish my wish!' And again she shuddered. Poor +woman, she was indeed tempted of the devil! As the horrible suggestion +flashed across the sea of her soul, it illumined many a deep chasmal +abyss, of whose existence, up to that moment she had been utterly +unaware.</p> + +<p>"The human soul is a fearful thing, especially when it stands bare +before the Eternal Eye, with myriad snake-forms—its own abnormal +creation, writhing round and near it. A fearful thing! And Betsey Clark +trembled in the ghastly presence of Uncommitted Murder, whose glance of +lurid flame set fire to her heart, and scorched and seared it with +consuming heat. Its flashful light lasted but for a moment; but even +that was a world too long, for it illumined all the dark caverns of her +soul, and disclosed to the horrified gaze of an aërial being +which that instant chanced to pass that way—an abyssmal deep of +Crime-possibility, so dense, black and terrible, that it almost +shrivelled the eyeballs and shrouded the vision of the peerless citizen +of the upper courts of Glory.</p> + +<p>"Suddenly the radiant Heaven-born ceased its flight through the azure, +looked pityingly earth and heaven-ward, heaved a deep and soul-drawn +sigh, and stayed awhile to gaze upon the Woman and the Man. Long it +gazed, at first in sorrow, but presently a smile passed across its face, +as if a new and good thought had struck it, and then it darted off into +space, as if intent upon discovering a cure for the desperate state of +things just witnessed. 'Did it succeed?' Wait awhile and see.</p> + +<p>"Human nature is a very curious and remarkable institution; so is woman +nature, only a great deal more so—especially that of the California +persuasion. Still it was not a little singular that Tom's wife's mind +should have engendered (of Hate and Impatience) the precise thought that +agitated his own at that very minute—that very identical crime-thought +which had just rushed into being from the deeps of his own spirit—twin +monsters, sibilating 'Murder!' in both their ears.</p> + +<p>"There is as close a sympathy between opposites and antagonists, indeed +far greater, than between similarities—as strong attractions between +opposing souls as in those fashioned in the same mould. True, this +affirmation antagonizes many notions among current philosophies and +philosophers; but it is true, notwithstanding, and therefore so much the +worse for the philosophers.</p> + +<p>"The same fearful thought troubled two souls at the same time, and each +determined to do a little private killing on their own individual and +separate accounts. As yet, however, only the intent existed. The plans +were yet crude, vague, immature, and only the crime loomed up +indistinctly, like a grim, black mountain through a wintry fog.</p> + +<p>"The day grew older by twelve hours, but when the sunset came, ten years +had fastened themselves upon the brows of both the Woman and the Man +since last they had parted at rosy morn.</p> + +<p>"Bad thoughts are famous for making men grow old before the weight of +years has borne them earthward. They wrinkle the brow and bring on +decrepitude, senility and grey hairs faster than Time himself can +possibly whirl bodies graveward. The rolling hours and the circling +years are less swift than evil thoughts of evil doing. Right doing, +innocence, and well-wishing make us young; bad thoughts rob us of youth, +vivacity, and manhood! Let us turn to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W.:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Night was on the mountain,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Darkness in the valley,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And only stars could guide them now<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In the doubtful rally.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"There <i>was</i> a star hung out in the sky, and she had already determined +to watch their destinies; with what success, and in what manner, will be +apparent before finishing my story, every word of which is true in one +sense, if not precisely in another.</p> + +<p>“The sun had set, and slowly the moon was uprising—blessed moon! God's +Left Eye, wherewith He at night overlooketh the thoughts and deeds of +solitary men and solitary women—for only such are capable of +crime—those only who are, and live alone—and many such there be, even +at their own firesides, surrounded by their own families, own flesh, own +blood—fathers, mothers, wives (as times go), husbands (as they are +conventionally called). Many there be who exist in dreadful solitudes in +the very midst of human crowds—who live alone and pass through life, +from the cradle to the grave, perfect strangers, perfect hermits, wholly +unknowing, totally unknown, like interlopers on the globe, whose very +right to be here all the world disputes. Friends, I have seen many +such—have you? These lonely people, these exotics, these insulars in +the busy haunts of men—the teeming hives of commerce—alone in earth's +well-paced market-towns—in the very saturnalia of <span class="smcap">Trade's</span> gala days; +and they are to be pitied, because they all have human, yearning hearts, +filled to the brim with great strangling sorrows; and they have high and +holy aspirations, only that the world chokes them down—crushes out the +pure, sweet life God gave them. These are the Unloved ones; yet ought +not to be, for are they not somebody's sons and daughters? Yes! Then +they have rights; and the first, greatest, highest right of all is the +right of being loved—loved by the people of the land—our +world-cousins, for what we do, are doing, or have done; and to be loved, +for the sake of the dear soul within, by somebody else's son or +daughter.</p> + +<p>"So think we of the Rosicrucian Order; so, one day, will think the +world."</p> + +<p>At this point of the Rosicrucian's narrative, Captain Jones, one of his +auditory, interrupted him with:</p> + +<p>"Why, I thought the Rosicrucian system had been dead, buried, and +forgotten two centuries ago."</p> + +<p>He replied: "The false or pseudo-Rosicrucian system has ceased to be. +Truth herself is deathless. I cannot now stop to explain what interests +you concerning the revived system of Rosicrucianism. You will now please +to allow me to proceed with my story," said he, and then resumed, +saying:</p> + +<p>"I repeat that only those who live alone, unloved, unloving, are they +who, becoming morbid, having all their kindly feelings driven back upon +themselves, daily, hourly eating up their own hearts—brooding over +their wrongs, their social and other misfortunes—at length engender +crime, if not against their fellow-men, then against themselves.</p> + +<p>"Oh, for something to love, and be loved by, if but a little pet dog! +The unloved ever are wrecked, the unloving ever wreck others. It is +sweet to be loved by even a dumb brute! But, ah, how inexpressibly, how +infinitely better to be endeared for yourself alone!—for your integral +wealth of soul—by a Man, a full, true Man; by a Woman, a full, +gushing-hearted Woman; or, sweeter, dearer still, a child—some glorious +hero of a hobby-horse, some kitten-torturing Cora! Ah, what a chord to +touch! I am very fond of children—dear little Godlings of the Ages. +Those who reciprocate affection truly, are too full of God to keep a +devil's lodging-house. It is a dear thing to feel the great truth—one +of Rosicrucia's truths—that nothing is more certain than that +somewhere, perhaps on earth, perhaps in some one of the innumerable +aromal worlds—star-spangles on God's diadem—or from amidst the +mournful monodies in material creation—some one loves us; and that +there goeth up a prayer, sweet-toned as seraph-harps, to Him for you, my +weary brother, for you, my sister of the dark locks turning prematurely +grey; for all of us whose paths through life have been thickly strewn +with thorns and rocks, sharp boulders and deep and frightful +pit-falls—great threatening, yawning gulfs:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Oh, the little birds sing east, and the little birds sing west,<br /></span> +<span class="i20">Toll slowly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I smile to think God's greatness flows around our incompleteness,<br /></span> +<span class="i10">Round our restlessness His rest.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Somebody loves us for ourselves' sake. Thank God for that!</p> + +<p>"And the pale, silver shield of the moon hangs out in the radiant blue, +and myriad gods look down, through starry eyes, upon this little world, +as it floats, a tiny bubble, on Space's vast ocean; and they speak +through their eyes, and bid us all love the Supreme, by loving one +another; and they say, 'Love much! Such is the whole duty of man.' The +moon, God's night-eye, takes note of all ye do, and is sometimes forced +to withdraw behind cloud-veils, that ye may not behold her sweet +features while she weeps at the sad spectacle of thy wrong doing! Luna, +gentle Luna, does not like to peer down into human souls, and there +behold the slimy badness, which will ere long breed deeds of horror to +make her lovely face more pale—things which disfigure the gardens of +man's spirit, and transform them into tangled brakes, where only weeds +and unsightly things do grow. And Luna has a recording angel sitting on +her shield, whose duty is to flash all intelligence up to His deific +brain, in whose service she hath ever been. He is just, inexorably just, +ever rewarding as man sinneth or obeys. And so it is poor policy to sin +by night. It is equally so to sin by day; for then the Sun—God's Right +Eye—fails not to behold you, for he is always shining, and his rays +pierce the clouds and light up the world, even though thick fogs and +dense vapors conceal his radiant countenance from some. He sees man, +though man beholds him not; and he photographs all human thoughts and +deeds upon the very substance of the soul, and that, too, so well and +deeply, that nothing will destroy the picture; no sophistical 'All +Right' lavements can wash it away, no philosophic bath destroy it. They +are indelible, these sun-pictures on the spirit, and they are, some of +them, very unsightly things to hang in the grand Memory-Galleries of the +imperishable human soul; for, in the coming epochs of existence, as man +moves down the corridors of Time, these pictures will still hang upon +the walls, and if evil, will peer down sadly and reproachfully, and +fright many a joy away, when man would fain be rid, but cannot, of +pain-provoking recollections, when his body shall be stranded on the +shores of the grave, and his spirit is being wafted over strange and +mystic seas on the farther brink of Time!</p> + +<p>"Night had come down, and Mr. and Mrs. Thomas W. retired to bed, each +with thoughts of murder rankling in their hearts. Not a word was spoken, +but they lay with throbbing pulses, gazing out upon the night, through a +little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down—gazing +out upon the starry lamps that skirt the highways of the sky, beacons of +safety placed there to recall and guide all stray and wandering souls +back on their way to Heaven! and they silently looked at the stars as +they twinkled and shimmered in the azure.</p> + +<p>"The stars shone; and strange, horrible, ghastly thoughts agitated the +woman and the man. 'Tom <i>might</i> get sick, and he might <i>die</i>! Isn't it +possible to feed him with a little arsenic, or some other sort of +poison, and not get caught at it? I think it <i>is</i>. He, once dead, I +shall be free—free as the air, and happy as the birds!' Happy! Think of +it!</p> + +<p>"'Is it not possible to push Betsey over the cliff, <i>accidentally</i>, of +course, and thus rid myself of her and misery together, and forever!' +Forever! Picture it! And thus they lay as the night wore on, two +precious immortal souls, with rank Murder for a bed-fellow.</p> + +<p>"At the end of an hour's cogitation, both had reached the desperate +resolution to carry their wishes into execution, and attempt the fearful +crime.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Come down in thy profoundest gloom—<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Without one radiant firefly's light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beneath thine ebon arch entomb<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Earth from the gaze of Heaven, O Night.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A deed of darkness must be done,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Put out the moon, roll back the sun.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Betsey was to 'season' Tom's coffee; he was very fond of coffee. Tom +was to treat Betsey to a ride in a one-horse shay, and topple the shay, +horse, and Mrs. Thomas W.—all except his mother's only son—over a most +convenient and inviting little precipice, a trifle over four hundred +feet deep, with boulders at the bottom rather thicker than autumn leaves +in Vallambrossa, and a good deal harder. All this was to be the result +of 'accident,' and 'inscrutible Providence,' as a matter of course. +Afterwards he was to buy a 'slashing suit' of mourning, bury what was +left of her in grand style, erect a fine headstone of marble, announcing +that—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'The Lord gave, and the Lord took away,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blessed be the name of the Lord!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>an inscription many a spouse would like to read in their own cases!</p> + +<p>"The proposed locality of the fall of woman 'luckily' lay right on the +road between their house and Santa Blarneeo. Each thought, 'I may not be +able to achieve the exploit upon which I am bent, but one thing is +certain, which is, that it shall not fail for want of trying. Once +fairly accomplished, freedom comes, and then for a high old time!' So +thought the woman; so thought the man.</p> + +<p>"Night has various and strange influences, which are altogether unknown +to the day. The Magi, on the plains of Chaldea, the astrologers of early +Egypt, and the whole ancient world duly acknowledged the power of the +astral bodies. The whole interest of Bulwer's 'Zanoni' hinges on the +soul-expanding potentiality of a star upon Clarence Glyndon, one of the +heroes of that Rosicrucian story. Indeed, the whole august fraternity, +from the neophyte of last week to Ross and Henri More, down to +Appolonius of Tyanæ, and away through the Ages to Thothmes, and down +beyond all the Egyptian dynasties to Zytos, and still away into the very +heart of the Pre-Adamite Eras, we know, held strange doctrines +concerning stars; and if the historian of the Order, the great +Mirandolo, be not mistaken, our Brotherhood possesses the key that +reveals the nature of the starry influences, and how they may be gained. +Of my own knowledge—for I am but in the fifth degree, therefore do not +know all these mysteries—there are Destinies in the stars. Well, on +this particular night, the star known as Hesper, she of the pale mild +eye, was looking straight into the room where lay the precious pair, and +it shone through the little window at the foot of the bed. The night was +sultry—a little window—summer was in the ascendant—and the upper sash +was down. Remember this, <i>the upper sash</i> was down.</p> + +<p>"And now a strange thing occurred, a very strange and mysterious thing. +Just as Tom Clark and his wife had been magnetized into a sort of +restless sleep from gazing at the star—an uneasy, disturbed, nervous, +but dreamless sleep—as if a heavy, thick and murky cloud just floated +off a stagnant marsh, there descended upon the house a pestilent, slimy +mist, and it gathered over and about the roof; and it entered, rolling +heavily, into the chamber, coming through that little window at the foot +of the bed.</p> + +<p>"It was a thick, dense, iron-greyish mist, approaching blackness, only +that there was a sort of turgid redness, not a positive color, but as if +it had floated over the depths of hell, and caught a portion of its +infernal luminosity. And it was thick and dark, and dense and very +heavy; and it swept and rolled, and poured into the room in thick, +voluminous masses—into the very room, and about the couch where tossed +in uneasy slumber the woman and the man. And it filled the apartment, +and hung like a pall about their couch; and its fetor oppressed their +senses; and it made their breath come thick, and difficult, and wheezing +from their lungs. It was dreadful! And their breath mingled with the +strange vapor, apparently endowing it with a kind of horrid life, a sort +of semi-sentience; and gave it a very peculiar and fearful +movement—orderly, systematic, gyratory, pulsing movement—the quick, +sharp breath of the woman, the deep and heavy breath of the man. And it +had come through the window at the foot of the bed, for the upper sash +was down.</p> + +<p>"Slowly, and with regular, spiracular, wavy motion, with gentle +undulations, like the measured roll of the calm Pacific Sea, the gentle +sea on which I am sailing toward the Pyramids and my Cora—six years +old, and so pretty! Pyramids ten thousand years old, and so grand! Like +the waves of that sea did the cloud begin to move gyrally around the +chamber, hanging to the curtains, clinging to the walls, but as if +dreading the moonlight, <i>carefully</i> avoiding the window through which it +had come, the little window at the foot of the bed—whose upper sash was +down.</p> + +<p>"Soon, very soon, the cloud commenced to change the axis of its +movement, and to condense into a large globe of iron-hued nebulæ; and it +began a contrary revolution; and it floated thus, and swam like a +dreadful destiny over the unconscious sleepers on the bed, after which +it moved to the western side of the room, and became nearly stationary +in an angle of the wall, where for a while it stood or floated, silent, +appalling, almost motionless, changeless, still.</p> + +<p>"At the end of about six minutes it moved again, and in a very short +time assumed the gross but unmistakable outline of a gigantic human +form—an outline horrible, black as night—a frowning human form—cut +not sharply from the vapor, but still distinctly human in its +<i>shapeness</i>—but very imperfect, except the head, which was too +frightfully complete to leave even a lingering doubt but that some black +and hideous devilry was at work in that little chamber. And the head was +infamous, horrible, gorgonic; and its glare was terrible, infernal, +blasting, ghastly—perfectly withering in its expression, proportions +and aspect.</p> + +<p>"The <span class="smcap">THING</span>, this pestilent thing was bearded with the semblance of a +tangled mass of coarse, grey iron wire. Its hair was as a serried coil +of thin, long, venom-laden, poison-distilling snakes. The nose, mouth, +chin and brows were ghastly, and its sunken cheeks were those of Famine +intensified. The face was flat and broad, its lips the lips of incarnate +hate and lust combined. Its color was the greenish blue of corpses on a +summer battle-field, suffused with the angry redness of a demon's spite, +while its eyes—great God!—<i>its</i> eye—for there was but one, and that +one in the very centre of its forehead, between the nose and brow—was +bloodshot and purple, gleaming with infernal light, and it glamored down +with more than fiendish malignance upon the woman and the man.</p> + +<p>"Nothing about this Thing was clearly cut or defined, except the +head—its hideous, horrible head. Otherwise it was incomplete—a sort of +spectral Formlessness. It was unfinished, as was the awful crime-thought +that had brought it into being. It was on one side apparently a male, on +the other it looked like a female; but, taken as a whole, it was neither +man nor woman, it was neither brute nor human, but it was a monster and +a ghoul—born on earth of human parents. There are many such things +stalking our streets, and invisibly presiding over festal scenes, in +dark cellars, by the lamp, in the cabinet and camp; and many such are +daily peering down upon the white paper on the desks where sit grave and +solemn Ministers of State, who, for Ambition's sake and greed of gold, +play with an Empire's destiny as children do with toys, and who, with +the stroke of a pen, consign vast armies to bloody graves—brave men, +glorious hosts, kept back while victory is possible—kept back till the +foeman has dug their graves just in front of his own stone walls and +impenetrable ramparts—and then sent forward to glut the ground with +human blood. Do you hear me, Ministers of State? I mean you! you who +practically regard men's lives as boys regard the minnows of a brook. I +mean you who sit in high places, and do murder by the wholesale—you who +treat the men as half foes, half friends, tenderly; men whose hands are +gripped with the iron grip of death around the Nation's throat—the +Nation's throat—do you hear?—and crushing out the life that God and +our fathers gave it. Remember Milliken's Bend, Port Hudson, Fort Wagner, +and the Black Heroes of the war—Noble men—Black, too, but the bravest +of the brave—yet treated not as heroes ought to be. Forget not +Fredericksburg! and bear in mind that this gorgon of your own creation +will not quit you, day or night—not even on your dying day, when it +will hiss into your ears, 'Father, behold, embrace me!'—and its slime +will fall upon and choke you, as you have choked our country. And the +sheeted ghosts of six hundred thousand heroes, slaughtered by a whim, +will mournfully upbraid, and—perhaps—forgive you. Will the weeping +widows and the countless orphans—pale, blue-cast women, pale with +grief, blue with want; orphans, poor little shrivelled, half-starved +orphans—will they forgive you? will your own conscience? will the +Eternal God of Heaven? Why did you sacrifice these six hundred thousand +men? Why did you not put your guns and swords in the hands of six +hundred thousand men—men who had God's best gifts to fight for and +maintain—Liberty and their wives? Black men, too—brawny, brave, +strong-hearted, Freedom-nerved, God-inspired black men. <i>No black man +yet ever sold his country!</i> Why don't you first remove their +disabilities here in the North? Why don't you bid them rise and be men? +Why grudge freemen the pay of other free men; the bounty, the pension, +of other heroes of the same rank? Do this, let the Negro understand that +you concede his manhood, and appreciate his prowess; let him once know +that you are grateful for all he does for the country, and proclaim it +to the world, and Black men will flock to your standard, not only from +your own soil, but from every spot on earth where civilized black men +exist.</p> + +<p>"See, yonder is a plain, miles in extent. In its centre there stands an +obelisk. Go, Ministers of State, and plant on its top a banner, upon +which shall be emblazoned this magic sentence: 'Freedom—Personal, +Political, and Social, to the Black man—and protection of his Rights +forever,' and there will be more magnetic power in it than in ten +thousand Ministers, with their little whims; ten thousand 'Fancy +Generals,' with their 'pretty little games,'—and such would be +History's record when she handed you down the ages. If you would live in +the sacred page, and have your names shine brightly, act, act at once, +cut the cords that now bind the Black man. Say to him: 'Come as a man, +not as a chattel! Come with me to Enfranchisement and Victory! Let us +save the Nation!' and the swift-winged winds will bear the sound from +pole to pole, from sea to sea, and from continent, island, and floating +barks, from hills, valleys, and mountains, from hut, hovel, and dismal +swamps, will come a vast and fearful host, in numbers like unto the +leaves of the forest; and they will gather in that plain around that +obelisk, rallying around that banner, and before their victorious march +Rebellion will go down as brick walls before the storm of iron; and if +France, or England, or Austria, or all, combine against them—they, too, +will go out of the battle, nevermore to enter it again.</p> + +<p>"This is possible destiny! Think of it, O Ministers of State!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"And so the fearful spectre in Tom Clark's room had its origin then and +there—had been created by the morning's wicked thought—a creature +fashioned by their human wills, and drawing its vitality from their life +and pulses—drawing its very soul from out those two beating human +hearts. Tell me not that I am painting a picture, limning the creature +of a distorted fancy. I know better, you know better, we all know that +just such hideous creatures, just such monstrosities, move, viewless, +daily, up and down the crowded streets of Santa Blarneeo, up and down +the streets of the Empire City and Puritanic Boston; but there are +crowds of them in Pennsylvania Avenue, and they wear phantom epaulettes +upon their spectral shoulders! You and I know that just such and other</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Monstrous, horrid things that creep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From out a slimy sea,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>exist all over the land—but principally in high places begotten of +Treason and lust of Gold.</p> + +<p>"Soon the lips began to move; it spoke: 'Father! mother! I am yet weak; +be quick; make me strong! feed me; I am hungry; give me blood—hot +streams—great gouts of blood! It is well. Kill, poison, die; it is +well! Ha! ha! It is well; ho! ho!' and then the Thing began to dissolve +into a filmy mist, until at last only the weight of its presence was +felt, for it floated invisibly but heavily through the room, and, except +the gleam—the fiery gleam of its solitary eye—nothing else of it was +discernible.</p> + +<p>"Ten minutes elapsed after it had found voice, and faded away, when +suddenly a fleecy cloud that had for some time past obscured the sky in +the direction of Hesper, shutting out her silvery smiles, broke away, +and permitted her beams and those of the moon to once more enter the +chamber and flood it with a sheeted silver glory—the room where still +lingered the hateful Thing, and where still slept the woman and the man.</p> + +<p>"Simultaneously with this auspicious event there came sighing over the +landscape, the musical notes of such a song as only seraphs sing—came +over the wastes like the mystical bells that I have heard at sunset +often while sailing on the Nile—mystical bells which thousands have +heard and marvelled at—soft bells, silvery bells, church bells—bells, +however, not rung by human hands. I have often heard them chiming over +Egypt's yellow, arid sands, and I believe they are rung by angel hands +on the other side of Time. And such a sound, only sweeter, came +floating o'er the lea, and through the still air into the little +chamber. Was it a call to the angels to join in prayer—midnight prayer, +for the sinful souls of men? But it came. Low it was, and clear; pure it +was, and full of saintly pity, like unto the dying cadence of the prayer +that was prayed by the Sufferer on the stony heights of Calvary; that +same Calvary where I have stood within a year, 'midst devout lovers of +their Lord, and the jeering scoffs of Mussulmans! And the music came—so +sweetly, as if 'twould melt the stony heart of Crime itself. And it +proclaimed itself the overture of another act of the eventful drama then +and there performing. And see! look there! the curtain rises. Woman, +Man, behold! Alas! they slumber insensibly on. Gaze steadily at that +upper sash—above it—for it is down; see, the clear space is again +obscured by a cloud; but this time it is one of silver, lined with +burnished gold, and flecked and edged with amethyst and purple. Look +again! What is that at the window? It is a visible music—a glorious +sheet of silvery vapor, bright, clear, and glittering as an angel's +conscience! It is a broad and glowing mantle of woven gossamer, suffused +with rose-blushes, and sprinkled with star-beams; and it flows through +the space, and streams into the chamber, bathing all things in holy +tremulous light, soft, sweet, balmy, and pure as the tears of virgin +innocence weeping for the early dead! That light! It was just such a +light as beamed from your eyes, Woman—beamed from out your soul, when, +after your agony, your eye first fell upon the angel you had borne—the +man-child whom God gave to your heart a little while ago; just such a +light as flashed fitfully from your soul, and fell upon the cradle, O +father of the strong and hopeful heart, wherein the little stranger lay; +just such light as beamed from your eyes, in pride, and hope, and +strange, deep prophecies, as you bent over her languishing form, +heartfully pressing her first-born to her dear woman's bosom, when you +looked so tenderly, kindly, lovingly down through her eyes into +her spirit—the true heart beating for you and it, beneath +folded—contentedly folded, arms—contented, too, through all the deep +anguish, such, O man, as only a woman and a mother can undergo. That +light! It was like that which fell upon the babe she had given you, and +the great Man-wanting world—given first for its coming uses, and then +to Him who doeth all things very well—well, even when He taketh the +best part of our souls away, and transplants the slips in His eternal +and infinite gardens, across the deep dark gulfs that hide the dead; +just such a light as gleamed from her eyes and thine own, when your +hearts felt calm and trustful once more, after the great, deep grief +billows had rolled over them—grief for the loss of one who stayed but a +little while on earth—all too coarse and rough for her—some little, +cooing Winnie—like mine—whose soul nestles afar off, on His breast, in +the blue sky, and whose body they laid in the cold grave, there in +Utica, after they—<i>he</i>—had let her starve, perish sadly for want of +proper food and medicine, while I was on the deep—winsome Winnie! child +of my soul, gone, lost, but not forever!—just such a light played in +that little room as streams from angel eyes when God takes back at the +hands of Azrael and Sandalphon, the beautiful angels of Death and of +Prayer, the things you had learned to love too well—to forgetfulness of +God and all true human duty. But they will give back what they took: +they will give back all, more in the clear sunshine of a brighter and a +purer day, than these earthly ones of ours!</p> + +<p>"And the light streamed through and into the chamber where lay the woman +and the man; and it radiated around, and bathed every object in a +crystalline luminescence; and it carried a sadness with it—just such a +sadness as we feel when parting from those who love us very well; as I +felt on the day I parted from ——, Brother of my soul! when we parted +at the proud ship's side—the ocean courser, destined to bear me over +the steaming seas to Egypt's hoary shrines. It bore a sadness with it +like unto that which welled up from my soul, tapping the fountains of +friendship—and tears upon its way, in the memorable hour wherein I left +the Golden Gate, and began my perilous journey to the distant +Orient—across the bounding seas. What an hour!—that wherein our bodies +move away, but leave our sorrowing souls behind!</p> + +<p>"Well, a holy light, sadness-bearing light, like this now rested on the +bodies of the sleeping pair. At first, this silvery radiance filled the +room, and then the fleecy vapor began to condense slowly. Presently it +formed into a rich and opalescent cloud-column, which speedily changed +into a large globe, winged, radiant and beautiful. Gradually there +appeared in the centre of this globe a luminous spot, momentarily +intensifying its brilliance, until it became like unto a tiny sun, or as +the scintillæ of a rare diamond when all the lamps are brightly shining. +Slowly, steadily, the change went on in this magic crystal globe, until +there appeared within it the diminutive figure of a female, whose +outlines became more clear as time passed on, until, at the end of a few +minutes, the figure was perfect, and stood fully revealed and +complete—about eighteen inches high, and lovely—ah, how lovely!—that +figure; it was more than woman is—was all she may become—<i>petite</i>, but +absolutely perfect in form, feature and expression; and there was a +love-glow radiating from her presence sufficiently melting to subdue the +heart of Sin itself, though robed in Nova Zembla's icy shroud. Her +eyes!—ah, her eyes!—they were softer than the down upon a ring-dove's +breast!—not electric, not magnetic—such are human eyes; and she was +not of this earth—they were something more, and higher—they were +tearful, anxious, solicitous, hopeful, tender, beaming with that snowy +love which blessed immortals feel. Her hair was loose, and hung in +flowing waves adown her pearly neck and shoulders. Such a neck and +shoulders!—polished alabaster, dashed with orange blossoms, is a very +poor comparison; it would be better to say that they resembled petrified +light, tinted with the morning blush of roses! Around her brow was a +coronet of burnished, rainbow hues; or rather the resplendent tints of +polarized light. In its centre was the insignia of the Supreme Temple of +the Rosie Cross—a circle inclosing a triangle—a censer on one side, an +anchor fouled on the other, the centre-piece being a winged globe, +surmounted by the sacred trine, and based by the watchword of the Order, +'<span class="smcap">Try</span>,' the whole being arched with the blazon, '<span class="smcap">Rosicrucia</span>.' To attempt +a minute description of this peerless fay, on my part, would be +madness:—her chin, her mouth, her bust, her lips! No! I am not so vain +as to make the essay. I may be equal to such a task a century or two +from this, but am not equal to it now.</p> + +<p>"There, then, and thus stood the crowned beauty of the Night, gazing +down with looks of pity upon the restless occupants of that humble +couch; for during all these transactions they had been asleep. She stood +there, the realization and embodiment of Light; and there, directly +facing her, glowered, and floated the eye of that hateful, scowling, +frowning Thing—scowling with malignant joy upon the woman and the man. +Thus stood the Shadow: thus stood the Light. But soon there came a +change o'er the spirit of the scene; for now an occurrence took place of +a character quite as remarkable as either of those already recounted; +for in a very short time after the two Mysteries had assumed their +relative positions, there came through the window—the same little +window at the foot of the bed—the tall and stately figure of a man—a +tall and regal figure, but it was light and airy—buoyant as a summer +cloud pillowed on the air—the figure of a man, but not solid, for it +was translucent as the pearly dew, radiant as the noontide sun, majestic +as a lofty mountain when it wears a snowy crown!—the royal form of a +man, but evidently not a ghost, or wraith, or a man of these days, or +of this earth, or of the ages now elapsing. He was something more than +man; he was supramortal; a bright and glorious citizen of a starry land +of glory, whose gates I beheld, once upon a time, when Lara bade me +wait; he was of a lineage we Rosicrucians wot of, and only we!—a +dweller in a wondrous city, afar off, real, actual—whose gates are as +the finest pearl—so bright and beautiful are they.... The stately +figure advanced midway of the room until he occupied the centre of a +triangle formed by the shadowy Thing, the female figure, and the bed; +and then he waved his hand, in which was a staff or truncheon—winged at +top and bottom; and he spake, saying:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'I, Otanethi, the Genius of the Temple, Lord of the Hour, and +servant of the Dome, am sent hither to thee, O Hesperina, +Preserver of the falling; and to thee, dark Shadow, and to +these poor blind gropers in the Night and gloom. I am sent to +proclaim that man ever reacheth Ruin or Redemption through +himself alone—strengthened by Love of +Him—self-sought—reacheth either Pole of Possibility as he, +fairly warned, and therefore fully armed, may elect! Poor, weak +man!—a giant, knowing not his own tremendous power!—Master +both of Circumstance and the World—yet the veriest slave to +either!—weak, but only through ignorance of himself!—forever +and forever failing in life's great race through slenderness of +Purpose!—through feebleness of Will! Virtue is not virtue +which comes not of Principle within—that comes not of will +and aspiration. That abstinence from wrong is not virtue which +results from external pressure—fear of what the speech of +people may effect! It is false!—that virtue which requires +bolstering or propping up, and falls when left to try its +strength alone! Vice is not vice, but weakness, that springs +not from within—which is the effect of applied force. Real +vice is that which leaves sad marks upon the soul's escutcheon, +which the waters of an eternity may not lave away or wash out; +and it comes of settled purpose—from within, and is the thing +of Will. The virtue that has never known temptation—and +withstood it, counts but little in the great Ledger of the Yet +to Be! True virtue is good resolve, better thinking, and action +best of all! That man is but half completed whom the world has +wholly made. They are never truly made who fail to make +themselves! Mankind are not of the kingdom of the Shadow, nor +of the glorious realm of Light, but are born, move along, and +find their highest development in the path which is bounded on +either side by those two eternal Diversities—the Light upon +this side—the Shadow upon that:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'The road to man and womanhood lies in the mean:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Discontent on either side—happiness between.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"'Life is a triangle, and it may be composed of Sorrow, Crime, +Misery; or Aspiration, Wisdom, Happiness. These, O peerless +Hesperina, are the lessons I am sent to teach. Thou art here to +save two souls, not from loss, assailings or assoilings from +without, but from the things engendered of morbid +thought—monstrous things bred in the cellars of the soul—the +cesspools of the spirit—crime-caverns where moral newts and +toads, unsightly things and hungry, are ever devouring the +flowers that spring up in the heart-gardens of man—pretty +flowers, wild—but which double and enhance in beauty and aroma +from cultivation and care. We are present—I to waken the wills +of yonder pair; thou to arouse a healthy purpose and a normal +action; and the Shadow is here to drag them to Perdition. Man +cannot reach Heaven save by fearlessly breasting the waves of +Hell! Listen! Thou mayest not act directly upon the woman or +the man, but are at liberty to effect thy purpose through the +instrumentality of <span class="smcap">Dream</span>! And thou,' addressing the Thing, +'thou grim Shadow—Angel of Crime—monstrous offspring of man's +begetting—thou who art permitted to exist, art also allowed to +flourish and batten on human hearts. I may not prevent +thee—dare not openly frustrate thee—for thus it is decreed. +Thou must do thy work. Go; thou art free and unfettered. Do thy +worst; but I forbid thee to appear as thou really art—before +their waking senses, lest thy horrible presence should strike +them dumb and blind, or hurl Will and Reason from their +thrones. Begone! To thy labor, foul Thing, and do thy work also +through the powerful instrumentality of <span class="smcap">Dream</span>!'</p> + +<p>"Thus spoke the genius of the Order and the Hour; and then, +turning him toward the couch, he said, yearningly, with tearful +mien and outstretched arms: 'Mortals, hear me in thy +slumber—let thy souls, but not thy senses, hear and +understand. Behold, I touch thee with this magic wand of +Rosicrucia, and with it wake thy sleeping wills—thus do I +endow thee with the elements, Attention, Aspiration, +Persistence—the seeds of Power—of resistless Might, which, +will—if such be thy choice, enable thee to realize a moral +fortress, capable of defying the combined assaults of all the +enginery Circumstance can bring to bear against thee. The +citadel is Will. Intrenched within it, thou art safe. But +beware of turning thy assaulting power against thyselves. Will, +normal, ever produceth Good: Abnormal, it hurls thee to the +Bad! Remember! Wake not to the external life, but in thy +slumber seize on the word I whisper in thine ears; it is a +magic word—a mighty talisman, more potent than the seal of +Solomon—more powerful than the Chaldean's wand—but it is +potential for ill as for Good. See to it, therefore, that it is +wisely used. The word is,</p> + +<p>"TRY!" As thou shalt avail thyselves of its power, so be it +unto thee. I now leave thee to thy fate, and the fortunes that +may befall thee. <span class="smcap">Two</span> dreams each shalt thou have this night; +one of them shall be overruled by thy good, the other by thy +evil genius. God help thee! Farewell!' and in another instant, +the tall and stately figure passed through the moonlight, out +upon the deep bosom of the Night; and he floated, accompanied +by the same soft music heard before, away off into the blue +empyrean; and he passed through the window—the little window +at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down.</p></blockquote> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_III" id="PART_III"></a>PART III.</h2> + +<h3>THE MAGIC SPELL.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In the Kingdom of Dream strange things are seen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the Fate of the Nations are there, I ween."<br /></span> +<span class="i8"><i>From</i> "<i>The Rosie Cross</i>," <i>an unpublished Poem by</i> <span class="smcap">P. B. Randolph</span>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>"The regal being was scarcely gone from the chamber ere Hesperina and +the Shadow—which had once more become visible, approached the sleeping +pair—drew nigh unto the woman and the man; and the Fay gently breathed +upon their heads, as if to establish a magnetic <i>rapport</i> between +herself and them. She then calmly took her stand near the bedside, and +folded her beautiful arms across her still more beautiful bosom, and +awaited the action of the tempter. She had not long to wait, for +straightway the Black Presence advanced, and hovered over the +bed—hovered scowlingly over them, glaring down into their souls, as +doth the vampire upon the man she would destroy—the spirit of Wrong +peering wistfully at all beautiful things, and true! Such was the +posture of affairs; and thus they remained until the Thing had also +established some sort of connection with the sleepers. It soon became +evident, from their nervous, uneasy movements and postures, that the +twain were rapidly crossing the mystic boundaries that divide our own +from Dream-land—that they were just entering the misty mid-region—the +Shadow, the Thing, the monstrous <span class="smcap">It</span>, ruling the hour, and guiding them +through the strange realm—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'That lieth sublime, out of Space and out of Time.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"The man who says that dreams are figments is a fool. Half of our +nightly experiences are, in their subsequent effects upon us, far more +real and positive than our daily life of wakefulness. Dreams are, as a +general thing, save in rare instances, sneered at by the wise ones of +this sapient age. Events, we of Rosicrucia hold, are pre-acted in other +spheres of being. Prophetic dreaming is no new thing. Circumstances are +constantly occurring in the outer life that have been pre-viewed in +Dream-land. Recently, while in Constantinople, I became acquainted with +a famous Dongolese negro, near the Grand Mosque of St. Sophia, in one of +the narrow streets on the left, as you enter the square from toward the +first bridge, and this man had reduced the interpretation of dreams to a +science almost; and many a long hour have I rapidly driven the pen, in +the work of recording what was translated to me from Dongolese and +Arabic into Turkish and English, from his lips, obtaining in this way +not merely the principles upon which his art was founded, but also +explicit interpretations of about twenty-nine hundred different dreams.</p> + + +<h4>"THE DREAM OF THOMAS W.</h4> + +<p>"Tom Clark was dreaming; and, lo! great changes had taken place in the +fortunes of the sleeping man. No longer a toiler at the anvil or the +plow, he had become a rich and, as times go, therefore an honored +man—honored by the crowd which, as a general thing, sees the most +virtue in the heaviest sack of dollars.</p> + +<p>"The wealth of Mr. Thomas W. had come to him in a very singular and +mysterious manner, all since he had become a widower; for Mrs. Thomas +was dead, poor woman, having some time previously met her fate through a +very melancholy accident. An extract from the 'Daily Truth-Teller,' of +Santa Blarneeo, a copy of which paper Tom Clark carried in his pocket +all the time, and which pocket I shall take the liberty of picking of +the journal aforesaid, and of quoting, will tell the story—sad +story—but not the whole of it, quite:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"'<span class="smcap">Fearful and Fatal Catastrophe!</span>—We learn with deep, sincere, +and very profound regret, that another of those fearful +calamities, which no human prudence can guard against, no +foresight prevent, has just occurred, and by means of which a +most estimable woman, an exemplary and loving wife, an +excellent Christian, firm friend, and esteemed person, has been +suddenly cut off in her prime, and sent prematurely to her +final account. It appears that the late heavy rains have +rendered all the roads leading from Santa Blarneeo nearly +impassable, by reason of the rifts, rocks, boulders, and +slides of clay—very dangerous and slippery clay—which they +have occasioned.</p> + +<p>"'Especially is this the case along the cliff road, and more +particularly where it skirts the side of the Bayliss Gulch. Of +late it has been exceedingly unsafe to pass that way in broad +daylight, and much more so after dark.</p> + +<p>"'At about ten o'clock yesterday morning, as Mr. Ellet, the +Ranchero, was passing that road, along the brink of what is +known as the Scott ravine, his horse shied at some objects in +the path, which proved to be a man's hat and woman's shawl, on +the very edge of the precipice—a clear fall of something like +four hundred feet. It immediately occurred to Farmer Ellet, +that if anybody had tumbled over the cliff, that there was a +great probability that whoever it was must have been +considerably hurt, if nothing more, by the time they reached +the bottom, as he well remembered had been the case with a yoke +of steers of his that had run off at the same spot some years +before, and both of which were killed, very dead, indeed, by +the accident. So, at least, he informed our reporter, who took +down the statement phonographically. Mr. Ellet discovered the +remains of a horse and buggy at the bottom of the ravine, and +at a little to the left, about ten feet down the bank, where he +had, by a miracle, been thrown when the horse went over, Mr. +Ellet found the insensible body of a man, desperately hurt, but +still breathing. His fall had been broken by some stout young +trees and bushes, amidst the roots of which he now lay. Mr. E. +soon rescued the sufferer, who proved to be Mr. Thomas W. +Clark, a well-known, honest, sober man, and a neighbor as well. +Mr. Clark's injuries are altogether internal, from the shock of +falling, otherwise he is almost unscathed. His pains inwardly +are very great, besides which he is nearly distracted and +insane from the loss of his wife and horse, but mainly for the +former. It seems that they had been riding out on a visit to a +sick friend, and the horse had slipped on the wet clay, had +taken fright, and leaped the bank, just as Clark was hurled +from the buggy, and landed where Ellet found him. The horse, +carriage, and the precious freight, instantly plunged headlong +down through four hundred feet of empty air.</p> + +<p>"'We learn that the couple were most devotedly attached to each +other, as is notorious from the fact, among others, that +whenever they met, after a day's absence, and no matter where, +nor in what company, they invariably embraced and kissed each +other, in the rich, deep fullness of their impassioned and +exhaustless conjugal love. Poor Clark's loss is irreparable. +His wife had been twice married, but her affection for her +first husband was but as a shallow brook compared to the deep, +broad ocean of love for him who now mourns, most bitterly +mourns, her untimely fate!'</p></blockquote> + +<p>"There! What d'ye think o' that, my lady?—what d'ye think o' that, my +man? That's a newspaper report, the same that Tom Clark carried in his +pocket, and read so often in his dream. Singular, isn't it, that the +ruling passion triumphs, especially Reporters'—even in Death or +Dream-land.</p> + +<p>"At the end of two days Mr. Clark recovered sufficiently to go to the +foot of the cliff, and when there his first work was to carefully bury +what was left of his wife—and her first husband's portrait at the same +time—for he had placed that canvas across the backs of two chairs, and +amused himself by jumping through it—like a sensible man.</p> + +<p>"There is—do you know it?—an almost uncontrollable fascination in +Danger. Have you never been seized with the desire to throw yourself +down some yawning chasm, into some abyss, over into the ready jaws of a +shark, to handle a tiger, play with a rattlesnake, jump into a foundery +furnace, write a book, edit a paper, or some other such equally wise and +sensible thing? Well, I know many who have thus been tempted—and to +their ruin. Human nature always has a morbid streak, and that is one of +them, as is also the horrible attraction to an execution—to visit the +scene of a homicide or a conflagration—especially if a few people have +been burnt up—and the more the stronger the curiosity; or to look at +the spot where a score or two of Pat-landers have been mumified by the +weakness of walls—and contractors' consciences. With what strange +interest we read how the monarch of some distant lovely isle dined with +his cabinet, off <i>Potage aux têet de missionaire</i>—how they banqueted on +delicate slices of boiled evangelist, all of which <i>viandes</i> were +unwillingly supplied by the Rev. Jonadab Convert-'em-all, who had a call +that way to supply the bread of life, not slices of cold missionary—and +did both! So with Tom Clark. One would have thought that the last scene +he would willingly have looked upon, would have been the bottom of the +ravine. Not a bit of it. An uncontrollable desire seized him, and for +his life he could not keep away from the foot of the cliff. He went +there, and day by day searched for every vestige of the poor woman, +whose heart, and head likewise, he at last had succeeded in breaking +into very small fragments. These relics he buried as he found them, yet +still could not forsake his daily haunt. Of course, for a time the +people observed his action, attributed it to grief and love, forbore to +watch or disturb, and finally cared nothing about the matter whatever. +Such things are nothing in California. Well was it for Clark that it was +so—that they regarded him as mildly insane, and let his vagaries have +full swing, for it gave him ample time and opportunity to fully improve +one of the most astounding pieces of good luck that ever befell a human +being since the year One.</p> + +<p>"It fell out upon a certain day, that, after attending to other duties, +Tom Clark, as usual, wound his way, by a zig-zag and circuitous path, to +the foot of the hill, and took his accustomed seat near by the rock +where it was evident Mrs. C. had landed—the precise spot where her +flight had been so rudely checked. There he sat for a while, like +Volney, in deep speculative reverie and meditation—not upon the ruins +of Empires, but upon those of his horse, his buggy, and his wife. +Suddenly he started to his feet, for a very strange fancy had struck +upon his brain. I cannot tell the precise spot of its impingement, but +it hit him hard. He acted on the idea instantly, and forthwith resolved +to dig up all the soil thereabouts, that had perchance drank a single +drop of her blood. It was not conscience that was at work, it was +destiny. This soil, that had been imbrued with the blood of the horse +and buggy—no, the woman, I mean—he resolved to bury out of sight of +man and brute, and sun and moon, and little peeping stars; for an +instinct told him that the gore-stained soil could not be an acceptable +spectacle to anything on earth, upon the velvet air, or in the blue +heaven above it; and so he scratched up the mould and buried it out of +sight, in a rift hard by, between two mighty rocks, that the earthquake +had split asunder a million years before.</p> + +<p>"And so he threw it in, and then tried to screen it from the sun with +leaves and grass, great stones and logs of wood; after which he again +sat down upon the rock to rest.</p> + +<p>"Presently he arose to go, when, as he did so, a gleam of sunshine +flashed back upon his eyes from a minute spiculæ of, he knew not what. +He stooped; picked up the object, and found, to his utter astonishment, +that he held in his hand a lump of gold, solid gold—an abraded, +glittering lump of actual, shining gold.</p> + +<p>"Tom Clark nearly fainted! The lump weighed not less than a pound. Its +sides had been scratched by him as he dug away the earth at the foot of +the cliff where his wife had landed, after a brief flight through four +hundred feet of empty air—a profitable journey for him—but not for +her, nor the horse, nor buggy!</p> + +<p>"For a minute Clark stood still, utterly bewildered, and wiping the +great round beads of sweat from off his brow. He wept at every pore. But +it was for a minute only: in the next he was madly, wildly digging with +the trowel he always carried with him, for Tom was Herb-Doctor in +general for the region roundabout, and was great at the root and herb +business, therefore went prepared to dig them wherever chance disclosed +them.</p> + +<p>"Five long hours did he labor like a Hercules, in the soft mould, in the +crevices of the rocks—everywhere—and with mad energy, with frantic +zeal. Five long hours did he ply that trowel with all the force that the +hope of sudden wealth inspired, and then, exhausted, spent, he sank +prostrate on the ground, his head resting on a mass of yellow gold—gold +not in dust, or flecks, or scales, but in great and massy lumps and +wedges, each one large enough for a poor man's making.</p> + +<p>"That morning Thomas Clark's worldly wealth, all told, could have been +bought thrice over for any five of the pieces then beneath his head, and +there were scores of them. His brain reeled with the tremendous +excitement. He had struck the richest 'Lead' ever struck by mortal man +on the surface of the planet, for he had already collected more than he +could lift, and he was a very strong and powerful man. There was enough +to fill a two-peck measure, packed and piled as close and high as it +could be; and yet he had just begun. Ah, Heaven, it was too much!</p> + +<p>"Alas, poor Tom! poor, doubly poor, with all thy sudden, boundless +wealth! Thou art even poorer than Valmondi, who, the legends say, gave +his soul to the service of the foul fiend—for he, like thee, had riches +inexhaustible; but, unlike Valmondi, and the higher Brethren of the +Rosie Cross, thou hast not the priceless secret of Perpetual youth. Thou +wilt grow old, Tom Clark—grow old, and sick, and grey hairs and +wrinkles will overtake thee. And see! yonder is an open grave, and it +yearns for thee, Tom Clark, it yearns for thee! And there's Blood upon +thy hands, Tom Clark, red gouts of Blood—and gold cannot wash it off.</p> + +<p>"Valmondi repented, and died a beggar, but thy heart is cased in golden +armor, and the shafts of Mercy may not reach its case, and wake thee up +to better deeds, and high and lofty daring for the world and for thy +fellow-men. Gold! Ah, Tom, Tom, thou hadst better have been a humble +Rosicrucian—better than I, for weakness has been mine. It is better to +labor hard with brain and tongue and hands, for mere food and raiment, +than be loaded down with riches, that bear many a man earthward, and +fill untimely graves! It is better to live on bread, and earn it, than +to be a millionaire. Better to have heaped up wealth of Goodness, than +many bars of Gold. Poor Tom! Rich you are in what self-seeking men call +wealth; but poor, ah, how poor! in the better having, which whetteth the +appetite for knowledge, and its fruitage, Wisdom, and which sendeth man, +at night, to Happy Dream land, upon the viewless pinions of sweet and +balmy Sleep! Every dollar <i>above</i> labor brings ten thousand evils in its +train.</p> + +<p>"Well, night was close at hand, and Tom buried his God, and went home. +Home, did I say? Not so. He went to his bed, to sleep, and in that sleep +he dreamed that it was raining double eagles, while he held his hat +beneath the spout. But he was not home, for home is where the heart is, +and we have seen the locality of Clark's.</p> + +<p>"For days, weeks, months, he still worked at his 'Lead,' studiously +keeping his own counsel, and managing the affair, from first to last, +with the most consummate tact; so that no one even suspected that the +richest man in California, and on the entire continent, was Mr. Thomas +W. By degrees he conveyed to, and had vast sums coined at the mint, as +agent for some mining companies. A few hogsheads he buried here and +there, and sprinkled some dozens of barrels elsewhere about the ground. +This he continued to do until at last even <i>his</i> appetite for gold was +doubly, <i>triply</i> glutted; and then he sprung the secret, sold his claim +for three millions, cash in hand, and forthwith moved, and set up an +establishment close under Telegraph Hill, in the best locality in all +Santa Blarneeo.</p> + +<p>"And now everybody and his wife bowed to Mr. Thomas W., and did homage +to—his money. Curious, isn't it, how long some gods <i>will</i> live? About +three thousand years ago a man of Israel fashioned one out of borrowed +jewelry, fashioned it in the form of a <i>veal</i>, after which he proclaimed +it, and all the human calves fell down straightway, and a good many are +still bent on worshipping at the self-same shrine. That calf has +retained to this day '<i>eleven-tenths</i>' of earth's most zealous +adoration! So now did men reverence Clark's money. Women smiled upon +him, ambitious spinsters ogled, and hopeful maidens set their caps to +enthrall him. He could carry any election, gave tone to the Money +Market, reigned supreme and undisputed king on ''Change,' and people +took him for a happy man; and so he was, as long as daylight lasted, and +he was steadily employed; but, somehow or other, his nights were +devilishly unpleasant! He could not rest well, for in the silence of the +night, when deep sleep falleth upon man, an unsheeted ghost passed +before his face, bearing a most damnably correct similitude to a former +female acquaintance of his, now, alas! deceased; and not unfrequently, +as he hurried along the streets, did he encounter persons who bore +surprising and unmistakable resemblances to the 'dear departed.'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Black clouds come up, like sinful visions,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To distract the souls of solitary men.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Was Tom Clark mistaken? Was it Fancy? Was it Fear?... One night he went +to a theatre, but left it in a hurry, when the actor, who was playing +Macbeth, looked straight into his private box and said:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'The times have been that, when the brains were out<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The man would die—and there an end;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But <i>now</i> they rise again, with twenty mortal murders<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On their crowns, to push us from our seats!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And the words pushed Clark out of the house, deadly sick—fearfully +pale; for the avenging furies, roused at last, were at that very moment +lashing his guilty soul to madness—and Shakspeare's lines, like +double-edged daggers, went plunging, cutting, leaping, flying through +every vault and cavern of his spirit. He rushed from the place, reached +his house, and now: 'The bowl, the bowl! Wine, give me wine, ruby wine.' +They gave it, and it failed! Stronger drink, much stronger, now became +his refuge, and in stupefying his brain he stultified his conscience. +His torture was not to last forever, for by dint of debauchery his +sensitive soul went to sleep, and the brute man took the ascendant. +Conscience slept profoundly. His heart grew case-hardened, cold and +callous as an ice-berg. He married a Voice, and a Figure, as heartless +as himself; became a politician—which completely finished him; but +still, several handsome donations to a fashionable church—just think of +it!—had the effect of procuring him the reputation of sanctity, which +lie he, by dint of repetition, at last prevailed upon himself to +believe. Thus we leave him for awhile, and return to the chamber in +which was the little window whose upper sash was down.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_IV" id="PART_IV"></a>PART IV.</h2> + +<h3>THE DREAM OF BETSEY CLARK.</h3> + + +<p>"Madame, awake, it will be remembered, had come to the conclusion to +settle Tom's coffee—and hash, at the same time, with a dose or two of +ratsbane, or some similar delicate condiment; and now, in her dream, she +thought all her plans were so well and surely made as to defy detection, +and laugh outright at failure.</p> + +<p>"In California there is a small but very troublesome rodent known to +Science as '<i>Pseudo-stoma bursarius</i>,' and to the vulgar world as +'gopher'—a sort of burrowing rat, nearly as mischievous and quite as +wicked, for the little wretches have a settled and special penchant for +boring holes in the ground, particularly in the vicinity of fruit trees. +My friend, Mr. Rumford, who has a very fine orchard in Fruit Vale, +Contra Costa, just across the bay from Santa Blarneeo, recently assured +me that the rascals make it a point to destroy young trees, not only +without compunction, but even without saying, 'By your leave.' Now it so +happened that Clark's place was overstocked with the pestilent animals +alluded to, and the proprietors had, time and again, threatened the +whole race with extermination, by means of arsenic, phosphor-paste, or +some other effective poison, but had never carried the resolution into +practice. This fact was seized on by Mrs. Clark, as a capital <i>point +d'appui</i>. Accordingly, with a dull hand-saw, the lady hacked a few dozen +of the very choicest young trees, in such a way as to make them look +like unmistakable gopher-work, thus subjecting the brutes to charges +whereof they were as innocent as <i>two</i> unborn babes. Gophers and the +Devil have to answer for a great deal that properly belong to other +parties. Her act was a grand stroke of policy. She meant that Tom should +voluntarily get the poison, which she intended he—not the +gophers—should take at the very earliest possible opportunity. <i>She</i> +didn't mean to purchase arsenic—oh, no, she knew too much for <i>that</i>! +The ravage was speedily discovered by Clark. He raved, stamped his foot +in his wrath, turned round on his heel, pulled his cap over his eyes, +ejaculated, 'Dod dern 'em!' started for the city, and that very night +returned, bearer of six bits' worth of the strongest and deadliest kind +of poison—quite as deadly, almost as strong, as that which stupid fools +drink in corner stores at six cents a glass.</p> + +<p>"That night about half the poison was mixed and set. Twelve hours +thereafter there was great tribulation and mourning in Gopherdom; for +scores of the little gentry ate of it, liked the flavor, tried a little +more—got thirsty—they drank freely (most fools do!), felt +uncomfortable, got angry, swelled—with indignation and poisoned meal! +and not a few of them immediately (to quote Mr. Clark), 'failed in +business; that is to say, they burst—burst all to thunder! Alas, poor +rodents!</p> + +<p>"Next morning Tom's coffee was particularly good. Betsey fairly +surpassed herself, in fact she came it rather too strong. About ten +o'clock he felt thirsty, and inclined toward cold water; for the weather +was hot, and so were his 'coppers,' to quote the Ancient Mariner. He +would have taken much water, only that Betsey dissuaded him, and said: +'It was just like him, to go and get sick by drinking ever so much cold +water! Why didn't he take switchel, or, what was much better, cold +coffee, with plenty of milk in it—and sugar, of course;' and so he +(Tom) tried her prescription, liked it, took a little more, and that +night followed the Gophers!</p> + +<p>"Three days afterwards a kindly neighbor handed Mrs. Clark a fresh copy +of the 'Santa Blarneeo Looking Glass,' wherein she read, with tearful +eyes, the following true and veracious account of</p> + +<h4>"'A MOST DISTRESSING AND FATAL SUICIDE!</h4> + +<blockquote><p>"'We regret to announce the fearful suicide, while laboring +under a fit of temporary insanity, caused by the bite of a +gopher, of Mr. Thomas W. Clark. It appears, that in order to +destroy the vermin, he purchased some arsenic, gave some to the +animals, got bitten by them, ran stark mad in consequence, and +then swallowed the balance (about a pound) himself. His +unfortunate wife now lies at the point of death, by reason of +the dreadful shock. She is utterly distracted by the +distressing and heart-rending event, which is all the more +poignant from the fact, that probably no married pair that ever +lived were more ardently and devotedly attached than were they. +The coroner and a picked jury of twelve men sat for two hours +in consultation, after which they found a verdict of "Death by +his own act, while insane from the bite of a gopher!"'</p></blockquote> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"In due time the body of the victim who had been killed so exceedingly +dead, by cruel, cold poison—(if it had been warm he might have stood +it, but cold!)—was consigned to the grave—and forgetfulness at the +same time; and after a brief season of mourning, materially assisted +before company by a peeled onion (one of the rankest kind) in a +handkerchief, applied to the eyes—my Lady Gay, our disconsolate +relict—fair, forty, and somewhat fat—gave tokens, by change of dress, +that she was once more in the market matrimonial,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'With her tacks and sheets, and her bowlines, too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And colors flying—red, white, and blue,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>She was once more ready to dare and do for husband number three. To do +her justice, she <i>was</i> good-looking—all women are, when they choose to +be. Her face was fair and intelligent; she possessed a voluptuous degree +of what Monsieur de Fillagre calls 'om-bong-pong' (<i>embonpoint</i>), could +sing—at a mark; and if not O fat! was <i>au fait</i>—a little of both, +perhaps—on the light, fantastic toe—of the California Order; while as +an invaluable addition, there was no woman on the coast who could equal +her in getting up either linen, a dinner, or a quarrel. She excelled all +rivals in the really divine art of cooking a husband—beefsteak, I mean. +Her pastry and bread were excellent, her tea was fine, and her coffee +was all that man could wish, and more so, for it was good—perfectly +killing—as we have seen.</p> + +<p>"Betsey took matters coolly; was in no apparent hurry, for she had +resolved to shoot only at high game, and, accordingly, after a time, +deigned to smile upon the Reverend Doctor Dryasdust, the honored head of +the new sect recently sprung up in the land, and which was known as the +'Wotcher Kawlums,' and who rejoiced in repudiating everything over five +years old in the shape of doctrine, tenet and discipline, but who went +in strongly for Progress and pantaloons—for women; for Honduras and the +<i>naked</i> truth; for Socialism and sugar estates; mahogany and +horticulture—a patent sort.</p> + +<p>"Now, the pastor of this promising body felt that it was not good for +man to be alone, and therefore cast about for a rib whereof to have +fashioned a help meet unto him. He saw the widow, fell in love, +proposed, was accepted, and in due time she became the wife of the +Newlight preacher. I like the old lights best; she didn't.</p> + +<p>"Betsey achieved a 'position'—a thing for which her sex almost +proverbially sacrifice all they have on earth—happiness, health, long +life, usefulness. She enjoyed herself quite well, and only two things +disturbed her peace of mind: First, she could not bear the smell or +sight of coffee, which drink her new lord was strongly addicted to, and +insisted on her making for him with her own hands; thereby inflicting +daily tortures upon her, compared to which all physical pain was +pleasure. The second disturbing cause was this: by a very strange +fatality their house was overrun with rats, and their garden fairly +swarmed with gophers—which, with infernal malice and pertinacity, +became quite tame, semi-domesticated, and intruded themselves upon her +notice a dozen times a day, thereby fetching up from memory's storehouse +fearful reminiscences of other days—horrible recollections of the +gophers of the long-agone. It is hard to be weaned of your fears; +nevertheless, after a while she conquered herself, brazened down her +horrors, weighed herself, applied a false logic, tried herself by it, +and returned a clear verdict of 'Justifiable all the way,' and concluded +that her present happiness, what there was of it, fairly outweighed the +crime by which it had been reached. She was materially justified in her +conclusions by an accidental development of character on the part of her +present husband, who had, in a fit of petulance, unfolded a leaf from +the inner volume of the soul within.</p> + +<p>"Not caring to recapitulate the whole story (for reticence is sometimes +wisdom), I will merely observe that at the end of a somewhat heated +controversy, her husband had smashed a mirror, with one of Webster's +quarto dictionaries, and roundly declared that he 'preached for pay. +Hang it, Madame, the salary's the thing!—you <i>Bet</i>! How can souls be +saved without a salary? That's a plain question. They are not now, at +all events, whatever may have been the case with the Old Lights, who +had a great deal more zeal than discretion—more fools they! It can't be +done in these days of high prices and costly raiment—with the +obligation of feeding well and dressing better. What's life without +money? What's talent without brass? What's genius without gold? They +won't pay! No, no, Madame; in the game of life, diamonds are always +trumps, and hearts are bound to lose. What's the result?</p> + +<p>"'Listen! Five years ago, up in the mountains, I thought I had +a call. I did, and went—and preached the new doctrines of +Do-as-you-feel-a-mind-to-provided-you-don't-get-catched-at-it-ism—the +regular out and out All-Right-ite-provided-you-don't-tread-on-my-corns +religion. Well, I preached it, had large houses, converted many—and +nearly starved! What's the consequence? Why, I left, and now hear only +the loudest kind of calls! What's the loudest call? Why, the biggest +salary! that's what's the matter! Do you see the point—the place where +the laugh comes in? It's as plain as A B C to me, or any other man! and +all the rest is leather and prunella—stuff, fudge—Hum!'</p> + +<p>"Honest, out-spoken Dryasdust! How many of the world's teachers sail in +the same boat! His eloquence—not all false, perhaps—was not lost upon +his wife. The Dryasdusts are not all dead; there's a few more left of +the same sort—only they keep their own counsel, even from their wives. +New Lights!</p> + +<p>"As a result of this conversation, Madame became a sort of cross between +an Atheist and—God knows what; for she was neither one thing nor +'tother, but a sort of pseudo-philosophical nondescript, without any set +principle of belief whatever. Her conscience froze.</p> + +<p>"'Who knoweth the spirit of a man that it goeth upward, or of a beast +that it goeth downward? The Spiritualists?—a pack of fanatics! I don't +believe in ghosts'—but she shuddered as she gave utterance to the +words, and her hair crawled upon her head as if touched with spectral +fingers. No man disbelieves his immortality—the thing is impossible, +<i>per se</i>; for although he may differ with that class of people who +pretend to very extensive ghostly acquaintanceship and commerce, as many +do—yet he doubtless always whistles as he passes a graveyard in the +night! I certainly do! Why? Because I disbelieve in ghosts!—of course.</p> + +<p>"She resumed her soliloquy: 'I'm nervous—that's all! I mean to eat, +drink and be merry, for to-morrow I die—<span class="smcap">DIE!</span> What of it—isn't Death an +eternal sleep? My husband says that it is, to all except the New Lights; +but he's a fool, in some things, that's certain.... And after death the +<i>Judgement</i>!' And she shuddered again, for a cold wind passed by her, +and she thought it best to light two more candles and run her fingers +over the piano, and take a glass of Sainsevain's best Angelica. 'Bah! +who knows anything about a judgment? There's no such thing. He's dead. +What of it? He can't talk! If he could, what of it? Ghosts can't testify +in court! Besides, it was to be—and it's done. Fate is responsible, not +I—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'In spite of Reason, erring Reason's spite,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One truth is clear, Whatever <i>is</i> is right.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"'Tom was to die. The conditions that surrounded him were just such as +had determined the results that followed. I was but the proxy of eternal +Fate. Am I to blame? Certainly <i>not</i>, for I acted in precise accordance +with the conditions that surrounded me—that made me do as I +did—tempted me beyond my strength; and, for that reason, the crime, if +crime it be, was a foregone conclusion from the foundation of the world! +Hereafter?</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Come from the grave to-morrow with that story,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And I may take some softer path to glory.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"'Parrhasius was a true philosopher—or Willis. Pshaw! I guess I'll take +another drop of Angelica!'</p> + +<p>"Poor Betsey! she had been reading Pope and Leibnitz, and Ben +Blood—bad, worse and worst, unfairly interpreted; good, better and +best, rightly understood—and as the respective writers probably meant. +Weak people read a book as children do Swift's Gulliver—on the surface; +others read the great book whose letters are suns, whose words are +starry systems, in the self-same manner; and there is still a greater +volume—the first edition, to be continued—the Human Soul—which they +never read at all. All of these must go to school; they will graduate +by-and-by, when Death turns over a new leaf. It is best to study +now—there may not be so good a chance presently.</p> + +<p>"Betsey Clark believed, or thought she did, that because God made all +things, therefore there could be no wrong in all the world. She accepted +Pope's conclusions literally, misread them, and totally overlooked the +sublime teachings of the third author named; and her mind went to rest, +and her conscience slumbered under the sophisms—for such they are, from +one point of view. The opiate acted well. And so she slept for +years—long years of peace, wealth, all the world could give her—slept +in the belief that there would never be a waking. Was she right? Wait. +Let us see.</p> + +<p>"We are still in the little chamber, near the window—the little window +at the foot of the bed—whose upper sash was down."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_V" id="PART_V"></a>PART V.</h2> + +<h3>TOM CLARK DREAMS AGAIN.</h3> + + +<p>"And now the Shadow—the terrible, monstrous Thing, that had so +strangely entered the room through the window—the little window at the +foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down—hovered no longer over the +heads of the woman and the man—the unhappy woman, the misery-laden man, +who, when the last sun had set, went to bed with Murder and Revenge—and +Hatred—this wretched couple, who had contemplated such dreadful crimes, +and who, within the past two hours, had had such strange and marvellous +dreams! Only two hours! and yet in that space had been crowded the +events of a lifetime. They say there are no miracles! What, then, is +this? What are these strange experiences of soul which we are constantly +having—fifty years compressed in an hour of ordinary Dream!—thirty +thousand ages in a moment of time, while under the accursed spells of +Hasheesh? The soul flying back over unnumbered centuries; scanning the +totality of the Present, and grasping a myriad Futurities—sweeping the +vortex of unborn epochs by the million!—and all in an instant of the +clock, while under the influence of the still more accursed Muust. What +are the frogs and bloody waves of Egypt, compared to these miracles of +the human soul—these Dream-lives that are not Dreams?</p> + +<p>"And so the Thing took the glare of its horrible Eye from off the woman +and the man. Its mission—its temptations were over. And it floated from +off the bed, frown-smiling at Hesperina as it did so; and it passed +lazily, gloomily, scowlingly through the window at the foot of the bed, +through which it had a little previously entered; and it moved through +the starlight with a rush and a roar—a sullen rush and roar—as if each +star-beam stabbed it with a dagger of flame; and the Thing seemed +consciously angry, and it sullenly roared, as doth the wintry blast +through the tattered sails of a storm-tossed bark, toilsomely laboring +thro' the angry deep: a minute passed, and IT was gone; thank God! IT +was gone—at last—that horrible Incubus—that most fearful Thing!</p> + +<p>"Simultaneously the sleepers evinced by their movements that their +souls, if not their senses, had been relieved by the presence of its +absence; and they were apparently on the point of waking, but were +prevented by the magic, or magnetic action of the angelic figure at that +moment leaning o'er their couch; for she gently, soothingly waved her +snowy hands, and, in a voice sweeter than the tones of love, whispered: +'Sleep on; still sleep—softly—sweetly sleep—and dream. Peace, +troubled hearts! Peace; be still!' and they slumbered on.</p> + +<p>"Tom Clark's dream had changed. All the former troubled and exciting +scene had vanished into thin air, leaving only vague, dim memories +behind, to remind his soul of what it had been, and what it had seen and +suffered. In the former dream he had been on dry, solid land; but now +all this was strangely altered, and he found himself tossed on a rough, +tumultuous sea; his lot was cast upon the deep—upon a wild and dreary +waste of waters. In his dream the rain—great round and heavy drops of +rain—fell in torrents; the mad winds and driving sleet—for the rain +froze as it fell—raved and roared fiercely, fitfully; and the good ship +bent and bellied to the hurricane, and she groaned as if loath to give +up the ghost. And she drove before the blast, and she plunged headlong +into the foaming billows, and ever and anon shook her head—brave ship! +as if she knew that ruin was before her, and had determined to meet it +as a good ship should—bravely, fairly in the face.</p> + +<p>"I have yet to disbelieve that every perfect work of man—ship, watch, +engine—has a semi-conscious life of its own—a life derived from the +immortal soul that gave its idea birth—for all these things—these +ships, watches, engines, are ideas, spiritual, subtle, invisible, till +man hides their nakedness with wood, iron, steel, brass—the fig-leaves +of the Ideal World. Some people cannot feel an idea, or be introduced to +one, unless it be dressed up in matter. Sometimes we lay it on paper or +canvas, and draw pencil lines around, or color it, and then it can be +seen; else we take one and plant it out of doors, and then put brick and +iron, marble and glass sides to it, rendering the spirit visible, and +then the people see the Idea's Clothing, and fancy they behold the thing +itself, just as others, when looking at a human body, imagine they +behold the man, the woman, or the child. A mistake! None but God ever +yet beheld a human Soul, and this it is, and not the body or its +accidents, that constitutes the Ego.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"And the ship surged through the boiling seas, and her timbers strained +and cracked in the combat, and her cordage shrieked as the blast tore +through, and the tattered sails cried, almost humanly—like a man whose +heart is breaking because his wife loves him not, and all the world for +him is robed in mourning—and they cried, as if in deadly fear they were +craving mercy at the Storm-King's hands. He heard the cries, but he +laughed 'ho! ho!' and he laughed 'ha! ha!' and he tore away another sail +and hurled it in the sea, laughing madly all the while; and he blew, and +he rattled, and he roared in frightful glee; and he laughed 'ha! ha!' +and he laughed 'ho! ho!' as the bridegroom laughs in triumph.</p> + +<p>"And still the storm came down; and the yards bent before the gale, and +then snapped asunder, like pipe-clay stems, and the billows leaped and +dashed angrily at her sides, like a trained blood-hound at the throat of +the mother, whose crime is being black—Chivalrous, well-trained +blood-hounds! And the waves swept the decks of the bark—swept them +clean, and whirled many a man into the weltering main, and sent their +souls to heaven by water, and their bodies to the coral caves of Ocean. +Poor Sailors! The Storm-King's spirit was roused, and his soul up in +arms; and the angry waves danced attendance; the lightning held high +revelry, and flashed its applause in the very face of heaven, and lit up +the night with terrible, ghastly smiles; and the sullen growl of distant +thunder was the only requiem over the dead upon that dismal deep.</p> + +<p>"It was night. Day had long left the earth, and gone to renew his youth +in his Western bath of fire—as we all must—for death is our West—and +the gloomy eidolon had usurped Day's throne, arrayed in black garments, +streaked with flaming red, boding no good, but only ill to all that +breathed the upper air. And the turmoil woke the North, and summoned him +to the wassail; and he leaped from his couch of snow, with icebergs for +his pillow, and he stood erect upon his throne at the Pole, and he blew +a triumphant, joyous blast, and sent ten thousand icy deaths to +represent him at the grand, tempestuous revel. They came, and as the +waters leaped into the rigging, they lashed them there with +frost-fetters; and they loaded the fated ship with fantastic robes of +pearly, heavy, glittering ice—loaded her down as sin loads down the +transgressor.</p> + +<p>"And still the noble ship wore on—still refused the bitter death. +Enshrouded with massy sheets and clumps of ice, the good craft nearly +toppled with the weight, or settled forever in the yawning deep; for +despite her grand endeavors—her almost human will and resolution—her +desperate efforts to save her precious freight of human souls—she +nearly succumbed, and seemed ready to yield them to the briny waters +below. Lashed to staunch timbers, the trembling remnant of the crew soon +found out, while terror crowned their pallid brows, that the tornado was +driving them right straight upon a rock-bound coast—foaming and +hopeless for them, notwithstanding that from the summit of the bold +cliffs, a light-house gleamed forth its eye coldly—cynically upon the +night—in mockery lighting the way to watery death and ruin. Steadily, +clearly it glimmered out upon the darkness, distinctly showing them the +white froth at the foot of the cliff—the anger-foam of the demon of the +storm. Ah, God! Have mercy! have mercy!</p> + +<p>"Look yonder, at the stern of the ship! What frightful gorgon is that? +You know not! Well, that is Death sitting on the taffrail. See, he moves +about. Death is standing at the cabin door; he is gazing down below, +looking up aloft, glaring out over the bleak, into the farther night. +See! he is stalking about the deck—the icy deck—very slippery it is, +and where you fall you die, for he has trodden on the spot. Ah, me! ah, +me! Woe, woe, a terrible woe is here, Tom Clark! Tom Clark, don't you +hear? Death stands glamoring on you! Hark! he is whistling in the +rigging; he is swinging on the snapping ends of yonder loosened +halliards; if they strike you you are dead, for they are Whips, and +Death is snapping them! He is calling you, Tom Clark; don't you hear +him?—calling from his throne, and his throne is the Tempest, Tom +Clark—the Tempest. Now he is watching you—don't his glance trouble +you? Don't you know that he is gazing down into your eyes? How cold is +his glance! how colder his breath! It is very, very cold. Ah! I shiver +as I think—and Death is freezing you, Tom Clark;—he is freezing your +very heart, and turning your blood to ice. He is freezing you, and has +tried to freeze me, in various ways. But I bade him stand back—to stay +his breath—for, unlike you, Tom Clark, I am a Brother of the Rosie +Cross, and I have been over Egypt, and Syria, and Turkey; on the borders +of the Caspian, and Arabia's shores; over sterile steppes, and weltered +through the Deserts—and all in search of the loftier knowledge of the +Soul, that can only there be found; and I found what I sought, Tom +Clark—the nature of the Soul, its destiny, and how it may be trained to +any end or purpose. And the History and Mystery of Dream, Tom Clark, +from the lips of the Oriental Dwellers in the Temple—and Pul Ali +Beg—Tom Clark—our Persian Ramus and our lordly Chief—and I learned +the worth of Will, and how to say, and <i>mean</i>,—'I <i>will</i> be well, and +not sick—alive, and not dead!' and achieve the purpose. How? That is +our secret—the Rosicrucians'—strange order of men; living all along +the ages, <i>till they are ready to die</i>—for Death comes only because man +will not beat him back. <span class="smcap">They die through feebleness of will.</span> But not so +with us, Tom Clark; we leave not until our work is done, and mine is not +yet finished. We exercise our power over others, too, but ever for their +good. Well do I remember, how, when I lived in Charlestown, there was an +old man dying, but I bade him live. He exists to-day. And long years +before that, there reached me—lightning borne, on the banks of the +Hudson, a message saying, 'Come, she is dying!' and I went, and stood +beside the bed of the sick child, and I prayed, and I invoked the Adonim +of the Upper Temple; and they came and bade her live. And she liveth +yet—but how ungrateful!</p> + +<p>"Till our work is done! What work? you ask me, and from over the +steaming seas I answer, and I tell you through the boundless air that +separates us: Our work is to help finish that begun lang syne upon the +stony heights of Calvary; in the shade beneath the olive in Gethsemane, +where I have stood and wept—begun when Time was thousands of years +younger than to-day. Our work, Tom Clark, is to make men, by teaching +them to make themselves. We strive to impress a sense upon the world of +the priceless value of a <span class="smcap">MAN</span>!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"And the vessel drove before the gale straight upon the cliff. All hope +was at an end; all hope of rescue was dead. There was great sorrowing on +board that fated bark. Heads were downcast, hearts beat wildly, ears +drank in the mournful monody of the scene, and lo! the strong man lifted +up his voice and wept aloud. Did you ever see a man in tears—tears +tapped from his very soul? When they laugh at his misery, whose lives he +has saved? When he discovers that the man he has loved as a brother, and +for whom he has sacrificed his all during long years, was all the while +a traitor and a foe, a mean and conscienceless traitor, and a secret, +bitter Judas Iscariot, yet wearing a smile on his face continually? God +grant you never may.</p> + +<p>"The strong man wept! the very man, too, who, a few brief hours before, +had heaped up curses, for trifling reasons, upon the heads of others; +but now, in this hour of agony and mortal terror, fell upon his knees in +the sublime presence of God's insulted majesty; who now, in the deadly +peril, lashed to the pump, trembling to his soul's deep centre, cried +aloud to Him for—Mercy! God's ears are never deaf! At that moment one +of His Angels—Sandalphon—the Prayer-bearer, in passing by that way, +chanced to behold the sublime and moving spectacle. And his eyes flashed +gladness, even through his tears; and he could scarcely speak for the +deep emotion that stirred his angel heart; but still he pointed with one +hand at the prostrate penitent, and with the other he placed the golden +trumpet to his lips, and blew a blast that woke the sleeping echoes +throughout the vast Infinitudes; and he cried up, cried up from his very +soul: 'Behold! he prayeth!' And the Silence of the upper courts of +Heaven started into Sound at the glad announcement, 'Behold! he +prayeth!' And the sentence was borne afar on the fleecy pinions of the +Light, from Ashtoreth to Mazaroth, star echoing to star. And still the +sound sped on, nor ceased its flight until it struck the pearly Gates of +Glory—where was an Angel standing—the Recording Angel—writing in a +Book; and, oh! <i>how</i> eagerly he penned the sentence, right opposite Tom +Clark's name: 'Behold! he prayeth!' and the tears—great, hot, scalding +tears, such as, at this moment, I am shedding—rolled out from the +angel's eyes, so that he could scarcely see the book—mine own eyes are +very dim—but still he wrote the words. God grant that he may write +them opposite your name and mine—opposite everybody's, and everybody's +son and daughter—opposite <span class="smcap">ALL</span> our names!</p> + +<p>"'Behold! he prayeth!' And lo! the Angels and the Cherubim, the Seraphs +and the Antarphim, caught up the sound, and sung through the Dome; sung +it till it was echoed back from Aidenn's golden walls, from the East to +the West, and the North and South thereof; until it echoed back in low, +melodious cadence from the Veiled Throne, on which sitteth in majesty +the Adonai of Adonim, the peerless and ineffable Over Soul, the gracious +Lord of both the Living and the Dead! Are there any <i>Dead</i>? No! except +in sin and guiltiness!... And there was much joy in the Starry World +over one sinner that had in very truth repented.</p> + +<p>"And still the ship drove on, and on, and on—great heaven! right on to +a shelving ledge of rock, where she was almost instantly dashed into a +million fragments; masts, hull, sails, freight, men, all, all swept and +whirled with relentless fury into one common gulf of waters; and yet, +despite the din and roar, there rose upon the air, high and clear, and +shrill:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'The startling shriek—the bubbling cry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of one strong swimmer in his agony.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"And that swimmer was Tom Clark. Thrice had he been thrown by the surf +upon a jutting ledge of rock; thrice had he, with the strength of +despair, clung to it, and seized upon the sea-weed growing on its edges, +with all the energy of a drowning man. In vain; the relentless sea +swept him off again, broke his hold, and whirled him back into the +brine. His strength was almost gone; exhaustion was nigh at hand; and he +floated, a helpless, nerveless mass at the mercy of the tide. And yet, +so wonderful a thing is a human soul!—in that dreadful moment, when +Hope herself was dead, and he was about to quit forever and forever this +earth of sin and sorrow, and yet an earth so fair and bright, so lovely +and so full of love, teeming so with all that is heroic and true, so +friendly and so kind; his soul, even then, his precious and immortal +soul, just pluming its wings for a flight to the far-off regions of the +Living Dead—that soul for which God Himself had put forth all His +redemptive energy—had abundant time to assert its great prerogative, +and bid Death himself a haughty, stern defiance. With the speed of Light +his mental vision flashed back along and over the valley of the dead +years, and saw arrayed before it all the strange phasmaramas of the +foretime. Deeds, Thoughts, and Intuitions never die! They are as +immortal as the imperishable souls that give them life and being!</p> + +<p>"And in that wondrous vision Tom Clark was young again; his childhood, +youth, maturity; his sins, sorrows, virtues, and his aspirations, all, +all were there, phototyped upon the walls of the mystic lane through +which his soul was gazing—a lane not ten inches long, yet stretching +away into the immeasurable deeps of a vast Infinitude. A Paradox! I am +speaking of the Soul!—a thing whereof we talk so much, and know so very +little.</p> + +<p>"The spectres of all his hours were there, painted on the Wall of +Memory's curved lane; his joys, his weary days of grief—few of the +first, many of the latter—were there, like green and smiling oases, +standing out in quick relief against the desert of his life. His anxious +eyes became preternaturally acute, and seemed to take cognizance both of +fact and cause—effect and principle at the same glance. His marriage +life—even to its minutest circumstance—stood revealed before him. He +saw Betsey as she had been—a girl, spotless, artless, intelligent, +ambitious; beheld her married; then saw her as she was when she joined +her lot with his own. He beheld her as she had become—anything but a +true wife and woman, for only her surface had been reached by either +husband. There was a fountain they had neither tapped nor known. Her +heart had been touched, indeed; but her soul, never. He was amazed to +find that a woman can give more than a husband is supposed to seek and +find. More, did I say? My heaven! not one man in ten thousand can think +of a line and plummet long enough to fathom the vast ocean of a woman's +affection; cannot imagine the height and depths—the unfathomable riches +of a woman's Love. Not a peculiar woman's—but any, every woman's love; +your sister's, sir, or your wife's, sir, or mine, or anybody's sister or +wife—anybody's daughter.</p> + +<p>"It appeared to Clark's vision that a vast deal of his time had been +worse than wasted, else had he devoted a portion of it to the attentive +study of the woman whom he had, in the presence of God and man, sworn to +love, honor, and protect; for no man is fit for Heaven who does not +love his wife, and no man can love his wife unless he carefully studies +her nature; and he cannot study her nature unless he renders himself +lovable, and thus calls out <i>her</i> love; and until her love <i>is</i> thus +called out, the office of husband is a suicidal sham. Thus saith the +canons of the Rosicrucian philosophy. Are they bad?</p> + +<p>"And he gazed in the depths of her spirit, surprised beyond measure to +find that God had planted so many goodly flowers therein—even in virago +Betsey's soul! And he said to himself—as many another husband will, +before a hundred years roll by—'What a precious fool I've been! +spending all my time in cultivating thistles—getting pricked and +cursing them—when roses smell so very well, and are so easily raised? +fool! I wish'——and he blamed his folly for not having nurtured +roses—for not having duly cultivated the rich garden God had intrusted +him with; execrated himself for not having cherished and nursed this +garden, and availed himself of its golden, glorious fruitage. It was as +a man who had willfully left down the bars for the free entrance of his +neighbor's cattle, and then wondering that his harvest of hay was not +quite so heavy as desired.... Clark saw that it had been in his +power—as it unquestionably is in that of every married man—by a few +kind acts, a few tender, loving words, to have thawed and melted forever +the ice collected by ill-usage—and every woman is ill-used who is not +truly, purely, loyally loved! He saw that he might easily have warmed +her spirit toward himself, therefore toward the world, and consequently +toward the Giver. He might have made their life a constant +summer-time—that very life that had been by his own short-sighted +externalism, confirmed into freezing, stormy, chilling winter.</p> + +<p>"Wheat and lentils I have seen in Egypt, taken from a mummy's hand, +where they had lain three thousand and four hundred years. Some of that +wheat I still possess; some of it I planted in a flower-pot, and it +forthwith sprung up, green and beautiful, into life and excellence. The +mummy's hand was crisp; the tombs of Beni-Hassan were not the places for +wheat to grow, for they are very dry. Do you see the point, the +place—the thing I am aiming at? It is to show that the ills of marriage +life are to be corrected not by a recourse to law-courts and referees, +but by each party resolutely trying to correct them in the heart, the +head, the home. Another thing I aim at is to seal the lips—to strike to +the earth the brawlers for Divorce—the breakers-up of families, who +preach—or prate of—what they have neither brains to comprehend, nor +manhood to appreciate—Marriage!</p> + +<p>"Clark saw, in the soul of his wife, in an instant, that which takes me +an hour to describe; for the soul sees faster than the hand can indite, +or the lips utter. He beheld many a gem, pure and translucent as a +crystal, shut up in the caverns of her nature; shut up, and barred from +the light, all the while yearning for day. What seeds of good, what +glorious wheat was there. The milk of human kindness had been changed to +ice-froth—sour, and sugar-less, not fit to be tasted. Inestimable +qualities had been left totally unregarded, until they were covered up, +nearly choked out by noxious weeds. God plants excellent gardens, and it +is man's express business to keep them and dress them, and just as +surely as he neglects them, and leaves the bars down, or the gates open, +just so surely along comes the Tare-sower, whether his name be +'Harmonial Philosopher,' 'All-Right' preacher, Tom, Harry, Dick, +Devil—or something worse.</p> + +<p>"Many good things, saw Tom, that might have been developed into Use and +Beauty, that had, in fact, become frightfully coarse and abnormal; and +all for want of a little Trying.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'The saddest words of tongue or pen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are these sad words: <span class="smcap">It might have been!</span>'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"But that he was not kind, tractable, and confiding; and that he was the +reverse of all this. Faults of his own—great and many; tremendous +faults they were. He had been curt, short, sarcastic, selfish, exacting, +petulant, <i>offish</i>, arbitrary, tyrannical, suspicious, peremptory—all +of which are contained in the one word <span class="smcap">MEAN</span>!—and he <i>was</i> mean. Too +late he realized that he might have brought to the surface all the +delicious, ripe sweets of her woman, and her human nature, instead of +the cruel and the bitter. He saw, what every husband ought to see—but +don't—that no woman can be truly known who is not truly loved!—and +that, too, not with mere lip-homage, nor with nervous, muscular, +demonstrative, show-love—for no female on the earth but will soon +detect all such—and reckon you up accordingly—at your proper +value—less than a straw! She demands true homage, right straight from +the heart; from the bottom of the heart—whence springs the rightful +homage due from man to woman—right straight from the heart—without +deflection. Mind this. Give her <i>that</i>, and ah, then, <i>then</i>, what a +heaven is her presence! and what a fullness she returns! compound +interest, a thousand-fold repeated!—a fullness of affection so great +that God's love only exceedeth it!—a love so rich and vast, that man's +soul can scarce contain the half thereof. <i>This truth I know.</i> This +truth I tell, because it is such. You will bless me for it by-and-by, +when I am Over the River—if not before—will bless and thank +me—despite of what 'They say.' Remember that!</p> + +<p>"Tom Clark was drowning, yet he realized all this. He regretted that he +had treated his wife as if she were soulless, or a softer sort of man. +He could have so managed as to have been all the world to Betsey—all +the world, and something more and better, for there are leaves in +wedlock's book which only those can turn and read who truly love each +other. Marriage is, to some, a coarse brown paper volume, with rough +binding, bad ink, and worse type, poorly composed, and badly adjusted, +without a page corrected. It may be made a super-royal volume, on tinted +paper, gilt-edged, clear type, and rich and durable covers, the whole +constituting the History of two happy lives spent on Hymen Island: +Profusely illustrated, in full tints, with scenes of Joy in all its +phases. Price, The <span class="smcap">Trying</span>! Very cheap, don't you think so?</p> + +<p>"He saw, as he floated there in the brine, that he had never done aught +to call out his wife's affection, in which he resembled many another +whiskered ninny, who insanely expect women to doat upon them merely +because they happen to be married. Dolts! Not one in a host comprehends +woman's nature; not one in two hosts will take the trouble to find it +out; consequently, not one man in three hosts but goes down to the grave +never having tasted life's best nectar—that of loving and being loved.</p> + +<p>"'O Betsey, Betsey, I know you <i>now</i>! <i>What</i> a stupid I have been, to be +sure!'</p> + +<p>"Profound ejaculation!</p> + +<p>"'I've been an out-and-out fool!'</p> + +<p>"Sublime discovery!</p> + +<p>"Thus thought the dying man, in the dreadful hour of his destiny—that +solemn hour wherein the soul refuses to be longer enslaved or deceived +by the specious warp and woof of the sophistical robe it may have +voluntarily worn through many a year, all the while believing it to be +Truth, as some people do Davis' and Joe Smith's 'Philosophy.' It is not +till a dose of Common Sense has caused us to eject from our moral +stomachs the nice philosophical sweetmeats we have indulged in for +years, until at last they have disturbed our digestion—sweets, very +pleasant to the palate—like the 'All Right-ism' of the 'Hub of the +Universe'—but which, like boarding-house hash, is very good in small +quantities—seldom presented—and not permanently desirable—that we +begin to have true and noble views of life, especially married life, +its responsibilities and its truly royal joys and pleasures. Clark had +reached this crisis, and in an instant the scales fell from his +eyes—the same that blinds so many of us during the heyday and vigor of +life.</p> + +<p>"'If I could be spared, Betsey, I'd be a better man.'</p> + +<p>"Bravo! Glorious Thomas Clark! Well said, even though the waters choke +thine utterance.</p> + +<p>"'I would. O wife, I begin to see your value, and what a treasure I have +lost—lost—<i>lost</i>!'</p> + +<p>"And the poor dying wretch struggled against the brine—struggled +bravely, fiercely to keep off the salt death—the grim, scowling Death +that had sat upon the taffrail; that had stalked about the deck, and +stood at the cabin door; the same fearful Death that had whistled +through the rigging, and ridden on the storm, and which had followed but +had not yet touched him with his cold and icy sceptre."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_VI" id="PART_VI"></a>PART VI.</h2> + +<h3>WHAT BECAME OF THOMAS CLARK.</h3> + + +<p>Our entertainer ceased to speak, for the evening meal was nearly ready, +and the golden sun was setting in the West, and he rose to his feet to +enjoy the glowing scene. Never shall I forget the intense interest taken +by those who listened to the tale—and doubtless these pages will fall +in the hands of many who heard it reported from his own lips, on the +quarter-deck of the steamer "Uncle Sam," during the voyage begun from +San Francisco to Panama, on the twenty-first day of November, 1861. At +first his auditors were about ten in number, but when he rose to look at +the crimson glories of the sky, fifty people were raptly listening. We +adjourned till the next day, when, as agreed upon the night before, we +convened, and for some time awaited his appearance. At last he came, +looking somewhat ill, for we were crossing the Gulf of California, and +Boreas and Neptune had been elevating Robert, or in plainer English, +"Kicking up a bobbery," all night long. We had at least a thousand +passengers aboard, consisting of all sorts of people—sailors, soldiers, +and divers trades and callings, and yet not one of us appreciated the +blessing of the epigastrial disturbances—caused by the "bobbery" +aforesaid. Many could successfully withstand any amount of qualms of +conscience—but those of the stomach were quite a different thing +altogether! and not a few of us experienced strong yearnings toward "New +York," and many "reachings forth" went in that direction. Indeed the +weather was so rough, that scarce one of us in the cabin fully enjoyed +our breakfasts. As for me, I'm very fond of mush and molasses, but I +really <i>couldn't</i> partake thereof on that occasion. No, <i>sir</i>! The +gentleman from Africa who stood behind us at table to minister to our +gustatory wants, found his office a perfect sinecure that morning; and +both I and the Rosicrucian, in whose welfare that official took an +especial interest—because, in a fit of enthusiasm, we had each given +him four bits (ten dimes)—seemed to challenge his blandest pity and +commiseration, for we both sat there, looking as if we had been +specially sent for and couldn't go. The waiter—kind waiter!—discerned, +by a wonderful instinct, that we didn't feel exactly "O fat," and he +therefore, in dulcet tones, tried to persuade us to take a little +coffee. Coffee! Only think of it! Just after Mrs. Thomas W. had poisoned +her husband through that delectable medium. He suggested pork! "Pork, +avaunt! We're sea-sick." "Beef." Just then I had a splendid proof of +Psychological infiltration and transmission of thought; for my friend +and I instantaneously received a strong impression—which we directly +followed—to arise from our seats, go on deck, and look over the lee +rail. Toward the trysting time, however, the sea smoothed its wrinkles, +and the waters smiled again. Presently the expected one came, took his +accustomed seat, and began the conclusion of</p> + +<h4>TOM CLARK'S DREAM</h4> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There's a tide in the affairs of men, which,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Shakspeare.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There's a tide in the affairs of women, which,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Taken at the flood, leads—God knows where."<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Byron.</span><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Neither do I! Last night, my friends, we left poor Tom in a desperate +situation, from which it seems necessary that I should relieve him, but +really without exactly knowing how—not feeling particularly well from +the motion of the ship last night, it is not easy to think under such +circumstances; still, believing as I do, in the sterling motto, Try, +why, I will endeavor to gratify your curiosity, especially as I perceive +we are honored with the presence of the ladies, and, for their sakes, if +not for our own, I feel it incumbent to do something for him.</p> + +<p>"Tom Clark had, by the waves, been already taken in, and by this time +was nearly done for, so far as easy breathing was concerned. Slowly, but +surely, his vision was fading away, and he felt that he was fast sinking +into Night.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Deep the gulf that hides the dead—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Long and dark the road they tread.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That road he felt that he was rapidly going; for his senses were +becoming numb, and a nauseant sensation proved that if he was not +sea-sick, he was remarkably sick of the sea, even to the point of +dissolution.</p> + +<p>"All dying persons hear musical sounds: all dying persons see strange, +fitful gleams of marvellous light, and so did Thomas Clark—low, sweet +music and soft and pearly light it was, but while he drank it in, and +under its influence was being reconciled to Death, there suddenly rose +high and shrill above the midnight tempest, a loud and agonizing +shriek—the wild, despairing, woeful shriek of a woman—and it was more +shrill and piercing than the ziraleet of Egyptian dame or Persian houri; +and it broke upon the ear of the perishing man, like a summons back to +life and hope. Well and instantly did he recognize its tones. 'It must +be—yet no!—still it can be no other than <i>her</i> v-voice! It cannot +be—and I am dy-ing!' and an angry wave dashed over him, drowning his +utterance, and hurling his body, like a wisp of straw, high upon the +ledge of rocks, whence the recoil, or undertow, was about to whirl it +out again into the foaming waters, when it was prevented by a most +wonderful piece of good fortune, which at that instant, intervened to +save him, at what certainly was the most interesting and critical +juncture of his entire earthly existence. Again that sharp voice rang +out upon the storm, and a hand, small, soft, yet nerved with all a +woman's desperate energy—desperate in Love! clutched him by the hair, +and dragged—triumphantly dragged him to the hard and solid land, just +over the ledge, on a winding path at the foot of the overhanging cliff. +It was Betsey Clark's voice; it was Betsey Clark's hand; it was she who +saved him; and thus he received a new lease of life at the hands of the +very woman whom, in a former dream, he had sent so gaily sailing down +the empty air—down through four hundred feet of unobstructed +space—with boulders at the bottom—solid boulders of granite and +quartz—gold-bearing quartz at that, and very rich, too, but still quite +solid and considerably harder than was agreeable to either the woman, +the buggy, or the horse, for not one of them was</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Soft as downy pillows are'—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>not even Governor Downie's of California.</p> + +<p>"It was, indeed, his wife's voice that he heard; it was she that rescued +him from what, in very truth, was a most unfortunate pickle—or +<i>brine</i>—as you choose, or <i>both</i>—but at all events one into which he +would never have got had he not been far greener than a cucumber.</p> + +<p>"In a dream strange things come to pass. And in strict accordance with +the proprieties of that weird life and Realm—a life and Realm no less +real than weird—Tom was speedily cared for, and emptied of the overplus +of salt water he had involuntarily imbibed, while Mrs. Clark carefully +attended upon him, and a score or two of good people busied themselves +in saving all they could from the wreck. After this they all retreated +to a comfortable mansion, situated on the summit of this cliff, in the +regions of Dream, and there the following explanations took place: It +appeared that Betsey had been on a visit to her uncle, who kept the +light-house, and had for several days been on the look-out for the +arrival of the vessel—the wrecked one—in which, some time previous, +Tom had sailed on a voyage to Honey-Lu-Lu, the Bay of Fun-dee, or some +other such place that vessels trade to. The ship had at last been +descried, laboring in the midst of a violent storm, just before dark, +and under such circumstances as rendered it positively certain that she +would drive headlong upon the rocks at the foot of the very cliff on +which the light-house stood.</p> + +<p>"But by a singular coincidence, perfectly unaccountable anywhere else, +save in Dream-land, Betsey Clark had learned to love Tom dearly, at the +precise instant that he had discovered, and repented his own great +error. At the instant that Tom had declared that, could he be spared, he +would be a better man, she saw his deadly peril; the icicles began to +melt around her heart—melt very fast—so that by the time she reached +him her soul was in a glow of pure affection for the man she had until +that moment hated. She now saw, with unmitigated astonishment, that, +with all his faults, there was a mine of excellent goodness; that God +had not made anything either perfect or imperfect; and that, after all +was said or done, he was of priceless consequence and value to her.</p> + +<p>"Human nature and woman nature are very remarkable institutions, +especially the latter. We seldom value either a man or woman, until they +are either dead or a long way off, and then—'Who'd a'thought it?'</p> + +<p>"When Clark awoke from the gentle sleep into which he had fallen after +the kind people had made him comfortable, he found his head pillowed on +a bosom a great deal softer than down or Downie's—that of his loving +and tender wife—for she was so now, and no mistake, in the full, true +sense—A Wife!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Tom Clark got well. He never grew rich, and never wanted to. He went to +Santa Blarneeo, and had both their pictures taken in a single frame, on +one canvas, and he hung it over the window in the little room—the +little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Years rolled by. Long did they live in the enjoyment of a domestic +bliss too great for expression or description—a happiness unsullied by +an unworthy thought, unstained by any blot; for it was full, pure, +husbandly, wifely; and daily, hourly, did they bless and learn to love +each other more.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"'Cease dreaming,' said Hesperina—the beautiful Hesperina, the Genius +of the Garden and the Star—'cease thy <i>dream</i> of Perpetual Peace, and +live to actualize it on thy way through the World! Cease dreaming, but +awaken not. Remember the counsel of Otanethi, the radiant, Lord of the +Temple, the Spirit of the Hour; and when thou wakest, <span class="smcap">TRY</span> to be a nobler +and a better man. Waken not yet, O frail and weak! but still +sleep—sweetly, soundly sleep, yet awhile, and only wake to be a full, +true, loving man, forgiving and forgiven!' And then the peerless being +waved her hand over the prostrate woman, and, lo! her movements gave +token that the strange and mighty magic was felt, and that she was +swiftly passing the mystic Threshold of that sphere of new and +marvellous activities where the Dream Fay reigns supreme."</p> + +<p>At this point of the story, a lady, Mrs. V., invoked the narrator's +attention, saying: "Thus far, sir, your story is an excellent one, and +its moral is all that could be desired; yet how comes it that you, who +so strongly deprecate all human hatreds and unkindness, are yet, in a +measure, amenable to the very thing you decry? In the proem to the +remarkable story you have been reciting, you have admitted that there +was one man toward whom your soul felt bitter. Is this right? Is it just +to yourself, your foe, the world, or God? Answer me!"</p> + +<p>The Rosicrucian studied awhile, and then replied: "It is <i>not</i> right or +just, and yet it is very hard to forgive, much less to forget, a cool, +deliberate injury, such as I suffered at the pen, and hand, and tongue +of the man alluded to. It is hard to forget"——</p> + +<p>"And still harder to forgive," said one of our company, a rather +young-looking man, who had been one of the speaker's most attentive +auditors. He spoke with much passion.</p> + +<p>Said the Stranger: "It is hard to forgive or forget. Few people in the +world are capable of long-continued love in a single direction, unless +self-trained; fewer still of deliberate, long-continued hatred, and +fewer still are competent to full, free, unqualified forgiveness. <i>I am +not.</i> In all my experience, I never knew but one man in whom unqualified +Hatred was a paramount King-passion, over-riding and surviving all +others whatsoever. I will tell you that man's story as he told it to me, +for he was a friend of mine whom I dearly loved, and who loved me in +return. One day I asked him to open his heart to me, which, after a +while, he did as follows, saying: 'Listen, while I briefly sketch the +story of my life. There was a man who, because I differed with him on +questions of Philosophy—for he claimed to be Nature's private +secretary, which claim all sensible people laughed at, and only +weaklings listened to and believed—he, this man, for this cause, called +in question, not only my own, but the fair fame of the mother who bore +me—that mother being already dead; and for this I hate him, as roses +hate the foul malarious swamps of earth. The blazoned motto of that man +was—Let no man call God his Father, who calls not man his brother. I +rose in the world, and he hated me for the talent God gave me. Envy! I +was in a sense his rival, and as such, this man, snake-like, used his +very utmost influence and power, by tongue and pen, to injure me—and +did—for he took the bread from my children by depriving me of +employment. I wrote a pamphlet, under a <i>nom de plume</i>, and he joyfully +exposed my secret. Jealousy! He attacked me personally, grossly in his +paper, misrepresented well known facts—<span class="smcap">LIED</span>! Robbing me of fair fame, +as he had my dead mother before me. It is impossible for A to forgive B +for a crime against C. I hated him for the dead one's sake; that hate I +once thought would survive my death, and be the thing next my heart +through all the Eternities. Perhaps it will not. He crushed me for a +time, but "<i>Je renais de mes cendres!</i>" We two are yet in the World. He +will not forget it! Will I? Never!—for the sake of my dead mother. I +can overlook his crimes toward me, but before the Bar I hold him ever +accountable for the injury to her—and to my little ones, who nearly +starved, while this fiend of hell, in the garb of heaven, triumphed in +<i>my</i> misery, and gloated over <i>their</i> wrongs. I am the watchful +proxy—the rightful Nemesis, of the living and the Dead! I put forth +books to the world. This demon in saint's garb, and his minions, howled +them down as blood-hounds do the panting slave. More bread lost to my +hungry ones, more stern calling for reprisals. All men have foes. I had; +and this man—this impostor, this conscienceless outrager of the dead +and starver of little children, listened gladly, and covertly published +their statements—and that when he morally knew them to be as false as +his own black, polygamous, scoundrel heart. More wrong done, more little +pale hands reaching vainly forth for bread; and more hatred laid up for +him and his minions at the bottom of my heart of hearts, the core and +centre of my soul!'</p> + +<p>"Thus he spake, and the man's eyes flashed fire as the words escaped +him, proving that they were not the impulsive utterances of temper, but +the deep and cherished results of long and bitter years of feeling. Said +I: 'And does this feeling demand a physical atonement?' With a look of +ineffable scorn, he replied: 'Not for an empire's sceptre would I harm +a single hair of that man's head. Were his wife in a burning building, I +would rescue her, or perish in the trial; were his children—but, thank +God, he cannot propagate his species—Monsters never do!—but had he +such, and they were hungry, I would work till I fell from exhaustion, in +the effort to procure them bread: were the man himself in want or +danger, I would joyously risk my life to save or serve him. Why? Because +my revenge is one that could not be appeased by blood. It is too +vast—too deep—and I will wreak it in other worlds, a myriad ages from +now. To this I pledge my very soul; and when hereafter I point him to +what I am, and what he has brought me to, I will thunder, in the ears of +his spirit, in the very presence of the Judge, "<span class="smcap">Thou art the Man!</span>" +Wherever he may be, in the Vault, or in the Space, there will I be also. +Nor can this feeling die before he shall undo his doing, and—no matter +what. At length this feeling of mine grew strong. I loved. It drowned +all love. I was ambitious, and ambition paled before it. I had wealth +within my reach, and turned from the shining gold to the superior +brilliance of the pole star of my passion against the soul of this man, +not against his body. And then I said:—I will rise from my ashes. I +will win fame and name. I, the Angular Character, will rise, and in my +dealings with this fiend will be as remorseless and bitter as the +quintessence of Hate; I will suffer patiently, and mount the steeps of +fame, and I will ring the bells at the door of the world till all the +peoples wake, and then, <i>then</i> will I launch him down the tide of time +in his own true colors—stripped to the centre, and show him to the +Ages for the monster that he is. This is a revenge worthy of an immortal +being; one that merely extends to the physical person is such as brutes +enjoy, but is not full, broad, deep and enduring enough for a man. As +for his minions they are too contemptible to engage my attention for a +moment; but in their master's soul will I fix my talons so deep, that an +eternity shall not witness their extraction; and henceforth I dedicate +all my life to the one purpose of <i>avenging the dead</i>!'</p> + +<p>"Five years rolled by after this recital, when again, in a foreign land, +we met each other. In the meantime he had grown grey. His foe still +attacked him; he had never once replied, but his hatred had crystallized +in the centre of his soul, and, said he, 'I can wait a million years; +but revenged I will be yet, by the Life of God!' That is my story; I +believe my friend will keep his oath," said the young man as he turned +from the company on the quarter-deck, and slowly walked toward the bow +of the steamer.</p> + +<p>The words he had spoken were bitter ones, and they were expressed with +such a <i>verve</i>—such a vehemence of vigor, intensity and passion, that +not one man or woman on the quarter-deck of the steamer doubted for an +instant that himself was the injured one, himself the vehement hater, +notwithstanding his implied disclaimer. We saw that he fully, deeply, +felt all he gave utterance to; and never, until that moment, did I +comprehend the awful depths and capacity of the human soul for either +love or hatred; nor had any of us, even the Rosicrucian, the faintest +idea but that every word of his awful threat came from his heart; nor +the slightest doubt that if there were a possibility of wreaking his +revenge in the World to come, that he would find that possibility, and +remorselessly execute it. Said the Rosicrucian, as the man finished his +terrible recital: "This episode comes in quite <i>apropos</i> to my own +story's moral. It is well to beware, lest we, by some act or word of +ours, so deeply plant the germ of hatred, that in after years it spring +up to annoy us, and mar our peace of mind. Now, I have some knowledge of +the soul, and am firmly convinced that the man who has just left us +means all that he says; nor would I incur so dreadful a penalty as that +man's hatred, for all the diadems on the terraqueous globe. His passion +is not merely external, else he would, by an assault, or by slander, +seek its satisfaction. But his feeling is the offspring of a sense of +outraged justice. I have not the least doubt that the object of his +spleen laughs at the man. But Revenge will outlive laughter, wealth, +position, influence—all things, when of the nature of the present case. +Thus, Madame, your question, I hope, has been answered to your +satisfaction. Of course, I deprecate hatred, but demand justice.</p> + +<p>"But see, the sun is setting again, and the conclusion of our story must +be deferred until after supper, when, if you will again assemble here +upon the quarter-deck, you shall learn what befell Mr. Thomas W., and +what other events transpired in the little chamber with a window at the +foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PART_VII" id="PART_VII"></a>PART VII.</h2> + +<h3>BETSEY CLARK IN DREAM-LAND.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Could I with ink the ocean fill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Were all the earth of parchment made;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were every blade of grass a quill,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And every man a scribe by trade—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To tell the love of God above<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Would drain the briny oceans dry:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor would a scroll contain the whole,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Though covering all the arching sky.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>"I believe just as did the writer of these lines," said the Rosicrucian, +as he began his recital in the cabin of the "Uncle Sam," after partaking +of what the purveyors of that steamship line, in the rich exuberance of +their facetious imaginations were pleased to call a supper.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Betsey Clark was dreaming: It was morning, and the glorious face of the +sun shone in unclouded splendor over the world—this world, which, to +the good man and woman, is ever a world of Good and Beauty, viewed from +the God-side, whatever it may be from the human. All things were +praising Him—at least all dumb things were, for men so intently adore +their Lares and Penates—Dollars and Dimes—that they have scarcely +time to devote a worshipful thought to Him who is King of kings, and +regnant God of gods.</p> + +<p>"Nature was arrayed in gala robes; she had put aside her frowns, and now +smiled sweetly on the world, decked gaily in pearls and light; she was +on her way to attend the weddings of the flowers and the birds. Betsey +Clark was a blythe young girl again. In her dream she was gaily tripping +o'er the lea, her happy heart swelling and palpitating with strange +emotions—she was a budding virgin now, and her heart overflowed with +innocence and love, accompanied with that pure, but strange, wild +discontent, and longing for, she knew not what, but something, which all +young women feel, and are conscious of, as they pass the golden barrier +that divides their youth from womanhood. It is, and was, the holy and +chaste desire to love, and be loved in return—from the heart, sir, +right straight from the heart! Ah, how I sometimes wish I had been +created a girl instead of a boy. Bah! What's the use of wishing? +especially when all the girls desire an opposite transmigration.</p> + +<p>"Betsey's bloom outrivalled the blushes of the newly-wedded roses—roses +just married to sunlight, in the morning dew, with all the trees for +witnesses, and all the birds to swell the sounding chorus! And she was +happy; ah, how full of happiness! and yet it was slightly dashed with +bitterness—just a taste of gall in her cup of honey—for she imagined a +more perfect state, had vague dreamings of something still higher. So +have we all. We have it! and that is a certain sign that that higher +something is attainable, if we only try. Some one said he wanted to eat +his friend. Good! but I want to lose myself in another self—to make of +them twain a unit, which is better! or to thus blend, and then lose +<i>ourself</i> in the great God-life, which is Best!</p> + +<p>"And she gaily tripped over the lea. She was going with a pitcher of +cream, and a basket of fresh eggs, toward a hole in the rock, not a +great way off, to present them to the strange 'Hermit of the Silver +Girdle,' who dwelt within a little grotto just upon the edge of a forest +wild, hard by her girlhood's home.</p> + +<p>"Now, be it henceforth known to everybody, and to everybody's son and +daughter—if the fact is not already patent unto them—that every female +between the ages of fifteen and twenty-three, is naturally, +spontaneously, and inevitably, in love; and all that is then wanting, is +a suitable, and worthy object to lavish it upon. If she finds such, well +and good; but whether she does, or not, still she must, and will pour it +out—either healthily, or otherwise—on a cat or a man; a poodle or +politics; marriage or a mirror. Between those ages the female heart is +just as full of love as an egg is full of meat; nor can she help it; it +is the birth of affection, love, romance—the endeared and endearing +spring-tide of life and emotion. Alas! that the tide too often ebbs, +never, never to rise again this side of the grave! Then, in the rich +exuberance of her innocence and purity, woman, unlike man at the same +age, thinks no wrong, fears no harm. Gentle, trustful, noble girl! +Blessed is he who then calls her to himself—who, in the morning of his +life, and her own, shall win, and worthily wear, her heart; and abased +indeed is he who then shall gaze upon her with unhallowed eyes, and seek +to lure her from the path of honorable womanhood!</p> + +<p>"Presently the girl reached the hermit's abode, saluted the reverend +man, presented her welcome gift, and received on bended knee his +blessing in return.</p> + +<p>"They conversed awhile, did that fair girl and that strange recluse; the +hermit stood on this side, the maiden stood on that. 'Daughter,' said +he, as he placed his white palms upon her beaming forehead, 'the world +and all it contains amounts to but little, if it, and they, be not +improved to the utmost—the attainment of the soul's aliment, knowledge, +which it assimilates and digests into Wisdom. I have partaken of that +food for fourscore years and ten—have converted it into wisdom, and +expect to be thus engaged during long centuries to come. Thou seest me +living here alone, dependent upon the charities of such as thou: poor in +California, where even the rocks are retained by golden wedges in their +places, and where diamonds sparkle in a hundred valleys. Thou seest me +shut out from the busy world, and drawing life from Charity—and Heaven. +Such an existence is suitable for me, but not for such as thee. I am a +student and professor of a strange and mighty magic, for I possess the +marvellous Mirror, and the still more wondrous Crystal Globe—both of +which are heirlooms of the early foretime, handed down the ages to me, +as I in turn shall bequeath them to the ages yet to be. But thou! thou +art a woman, and cannot afford to shut thyself out from life, society, +and pleasure, as Rosicrucians do, and must, if they would obtain the +kingdom, the password—that uplifts the sable curtains that hide a dozen +worlds—and the key, by which the doors of Mystery are opened. Child, +for thee there are more fitting things in store than the upper +knowing—better than solitude; higher charms than study, and abstruse +pondering over recondite lore, and subtle laws of Being and of Power. +Thou in thy way, I in mine, are, and must be, soldiers in the strife for +holy peace; toilers for the millions yet unborn; mechanics for +redemption of the world; active bees in the busy hive—thou of active +human life, I that of human destiny; together, marchers in the grand +army whose movement is ever onward, and which never looks behind. I +strive for the True; thy destiny tends toward the Beautiful; together, +we shall reach the goal of Good, moving over thorny roads, albeit, on +the way; for there are many dangerous pit-falls, deep morasses, dismal +swamps, gloomy forest-solitudes, and stony mountains, steep and +slippery, that bar man's path to happiness. "Prepare ye the way.... Make +His paths straight!" Such is thy business—and mine. To accomplish this +duty I am here; but a different field is thine to labor in. To achieve +thy destiny thou must place thine affections upon a son of man—thy +soul's great love on God alone. You must wed, bear children in great +agony, yet gloriously, to your husband, your country, and to Him.</p> + +<p>"'I will now, by means of the higher magic, which I am able to use in +thy behalf, show the figure of a man whom you will hereafter marry. You +shall behold him <i>as he is; as he will be</i>, and <i>and as he may +become</i>—provided you choose to make him so; for a husband is <i>ever and +always just what a woman makes him</i>! I am now about to display a +phantarama of the future before you. Observe, and note well all thou +mayest behold. Speak not thereof to vain worldlings, who cannot +comprehend deep mysteries, such as these; above all, utter not one +single word while thou sittest at yonder table, gazing into the +Future-revealing Crystal Globe.'</p> + +<p>"And so saying, the grey-clad hermit of the Silver Girdle, who dwelt in +a forest wild, led the way to a recess of the grotto, where the light +was very subdued, very dim, and exceedingly religious. There he seated +her before a tripod, supporting a triangular shelf or table, himself +taking a seat directly opposite. Upon this table he then placed a small, +square, dark-leathern box, opening on brass hinges across the sides and +top. He opened it, while reiterating his caution, and disclosed to the +enraptured gaze of the doubly-delighted girl—all girls are delighted +before they get their husbands—and many of them are considerably +delighted, if not more so, to get rid of them afterwards!—a magnificent +globe of pure crystal, clear as a dew-drop, radiant as a sunbeam. It was +not over four inches in diameter, was a perfect sphere, and was +altogether beautiful—in this respect, infinitely transcending that of a +soap-bubble of the same size—a humble comparison, but a just one—for +there are few things more beautiful than these self-same soap-bubbles!</p> + +<p>"The first impulse of the girl was to handle this beautiful trinue—as +it was called; and she made a movement with that intent, but was +instantly prevented by the hermit in grey, who said: 'Not for a hundred +husbands, should mortal fingers touch that sphere; for such contact +would instantly rob it of its virtues, perhaps never to be regained! +Look, my daughter, look, but touch not!'</p> + +<p>"She obeyed, and withdrew her hand, but reluctantly; for her fingers +itched severely—as what young woman's would not, under similar +circumstances. <i>Vide</i> the Apple and Eve—by means of which, man +fell—but fell <i>up-hill</i> nevertheless! A great trait is this curiosity. +It is woman's nature; it is her great prerogative! Eve looked into +matters and things generally, induced Adam to follow her example, and +thus was the main lever that lifted the race out of Barbarism, and into +civilization and decency. So much for this much-abused 'Female +curiosity.' But for it, man had remained a brute. With it, he has risen +to a position a long way below the angels, to be sure, but then he is +'Coming Up.'</p> + +<p>"The twain now began to gaze steadily at the magic globe, maintaining +perfect silence for the space of ten minutes. All was still, hushed, +silent as the grave, and only the wild throbbings of the young girl's +heart could be heard. Presently the crystal began to change, and to emit +faint streams of pale light, which gradually became more pronounced and +distinct, until finally there was a most magnificent play of colors all +over its surface. Presently the rich, effulgent scintillas, the +concentric, iridescent flashings previously observed, ceased entirely, +and in their stead the girl began to notice two very strange and +extraordinary appearances, which, to her and to all save those who are +familiar with such mysteries (and which, although nearly unknown in this +country, are still quite common in the farther East), are totally +unaccountable. In the first place, she became conscious that she was +breathing an atmosphere highly charged with a subtle aura that +manifestly emanated from the body of the crystal itself. This air was +entirely different from that which floated in the grotto an hour before, +when she entered with her offering, because it was unmistakably charged, +and that, too, very heavily, with a powerful magnetic aura. I said +'magnetic;' I should have said 'magnetoid,' for whereas the former +induces drowsy feeling and somnolence, the latter had a purely opposite +effect, for it provoked wakefulness, and promoted greater and +intensified vigilance on the part of both the woman and the man.</p> + +<p>"In the second place, there came a remarkable change in the crystal +itself; for, having lost its brilliant, diamond-like colors and +interchanging rainbow spray, it now became decidedly opalescent, +speedily passing into the similitude of a ball of clear glass, with a +disk of pearly opal transversely through its centre. Very soon even this +changed, until it became like a dead-white wall, upon the surface of +which the eye rested, without the power of penetration as before. Gazing +steadily upon this opaque frame, the girl in a short time distinctly and +perfectly beheld, slowly moving across that pearly shield, as if +instinct with life, numerous petite, but unmistakable <i>human +figures</i>!—figures of men and women, tiny to the last degree, but +absolutely perfect in outline and movement. And they moved hither and +thither across the field of vision; she saw them moving through the +streets of a city. A little closer!—'as I live, they are going up and +down Bush street!'—an aristocratic thoroughfare in the great city known +in this story as Santa Blarneeo. This fact she instantly recognized, +with that strange and inexplicable anachronism peculiar to Dreams, and +the still stranger inconsistency peculiar to dreamers and voyagers to +the 'Summer Land.'</p> + +<p>"Gradually these tiny figures appeared to enlarge, or rather, she saw +them in such a perspective, that they looked like full-sized persons +some little distance off. Even while she gazed, the crystal changed +again, or rather, vanished from her perceptions altogether, the figures +enlarged—approached, as it were—and she became a passive spectator of +a scene at that moment transpiring—but where? Certainly not in this +world of ours, nor in Dream-land, nor in fancy's realms, nor in the home +of souls you read about in the 'very funny' descriptions of 'Starnos and +'Cor,' nor in 'Guptarion,' nor around the 'Lakes of Mornia,' nor among +the 'Pyramidalia,' nor in 'Saturn,' nor in any of the gloriously +ridiculous localities imagined by A. J. Davis, and put forth by him in +the delusive hope that any sane man or woman could be found green or +fool enough to swallow. Few men better deserve the name of impostor than +the author of 'Guptarion,' 'Mornia,' 'Foli,' 'Starnos,' 'Galen,' 'Magic +Staffs,' 'Harm <i>only</i>—Man,' and ''Cor,'—not one of which has the least +existence on the earth, under, or above or around it; but the true and +exact location of which is on an extensive and very soft spot just above +their author's ears, and the soft spots of his followers, for it is +morally certain that no one with even an ordinary modicum of—not +sanity, but common sense, can, would or could accept his funny +'Philosophy?' as true.</p> + +<p>"'Where, then, was the true locality of the scene that Betsey saw taking +place?' you ask. And I answer, and I tell you, in nearly the words of +the strange Hermit of the Silver Girdle, when explaining it to Betsey +Clark: All these strange things are occurring, not in any sort of +phantom-world, but in another material earth, quite as solid as this. +This crystal is a magic telescope through which we may view whatever we +desire to, whether on this earth or off it.</p> + +<p>"Listen! Space is by no means limitless, but is a globular or +elliptical, definite region—the play-ground of the Powers—and is +bounded on all sides by a thick amorphous Wall, of the materials of +which new worlds and starry systems from time to time are fashioned. +This Wall is thicker, a million-fold, than the diameter of the entire +menstruum wherein this universe is floating. Surrounding this universe, +on all sides of this wall, are seven other universes, separated as is +this, from all the others; and they all differ from our own and the +rest, as differs a volcano from a sprig of rosemary—that is to say, +utterly—totally. The material worlds of each of these other universes +outnumber the sands of the desert, yet their number is precisely that of +the one in which we live; but they are larger, for the earth that +corresponds to, and bears the name of this of ours, is, in the smallest +of the other universes, quite as bulky as the sun which gives us light, +and the other solar bodies in proportion. The universe next higher is +immeasurably larger than the one just alluded to. It has the same number +of material worlds, and the earth corresponding to this of ours is as +large as the solar system in which we are. That of the third is as large +as the solar system of the second, and so on to the last of the series +of seven; but not the last in fact, for outside of, and surrounding the +entire seven, is another Wall, separating them from forty-nine other +systems, in ascending grade. I cannot now give you any information +respecting the sublime realities of these forty-nine, nor of the regions +and realms <span class="smcap">still Beyond</span>; therefore I recall your attention to this world +and sphere of being.</p> + +<p>"On earth there are seven distinct classes or orders of men: the +<span class="smcap">Instinctual</span>, <span class="smcap">Affectional</span>, <span class="smcap">Intellectual</span>, <span class="smcap">Intuitional</span>, <span class="smcap">Aspiring</span>, +<span class="smcap">Indifferent</span>, and <span class="smcap">Wise</span>, to all of whom a different destiny is decreed. +Organizations determine destinies! Every nebulæ seen in the far-off +heaven is a system of worlds. That wonderful family of stars to which +our sun belongs is, with all its overflowing measure of star-dust, but a +single cosmos; and there are myriads of such within the confines of this +present universe, and before we cross the vast ocean of Ethylle, and +reach the Wall alluded to. All things are in halves; male, +female—negative, positive—light, dark, and so on. So is the nebulæ of +worlds to which we belong. Now, remember what I have said of the +resemblances between this earth and universe and the seven others +beyond the Wall. Precisely such likenesses exist between the worlds of +the respective halves of our own system.</p> + +<p>"At various distances, flecking the vault, we behold suns and systems +innumerable. These all belong to this, the female half of our system. +Beyond them lies a vast ocean of Ether, separating the Continents. +Across that Ocean, at a distance incomputable by the human intellect, is +the male half of our system. There—there is a sun precisely as large, +as brilliant, and as hot as ours—and no more so. Around that sun fiery +comets whirl, planets revolve, and meteors flash, just as they do +hitherward. There is a Venus, Mercury, Asteroids, Mars, Jupiter, and all +the other planetary bodies, just as here, and of the same dimensions. A +globe there is called Earth; it has a moon, an Atlantic, Pacific, +Mediterranean, and other seas, exactly equivalent to ours. It has a +California, a San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Boston, New York, +Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg, just as here; and their names, as +are those of its trees, countries, counties, town, people, capitals, are +exactly as on this earth. There is a President Lincoln, and General +Fremont; a Thurlow Weed, and Cullen Bryant; an Agassiz, and Horace +Greeley; Atlantic Monthly, and Harper's Magazine; a New York Mercury, an +Independent, edited by Beecher, Tilton and Leavitt—and they deal the +same as do their similitudes here. The streets and omnibuses are +precisely as here; Wall street is as full of thieves, and contractors +get fat off their country's gore as they do here. There is a Rebellion +there, and Union Generals sell themselves to Treason just as here—while +the men who could and would save the nation are left out in the cold, in +spite of the Tribunes, Posts, and Times—all of which long since pointed +out the road to Richmond and to victory—and were laughed at just as in +our planet.</p> + +<p>"In that far-distant world there is at this moment a steamer, 'Uncle +Sam,' sailing across the Gulf of California, as at this moment we are, +and on board of her there are just as many men and women as on this one, +and their persons, names, habits, features, motives, hopes, fears, +characters, secrets, and intellectual and moral natures, are precisely +the same as our own, on board this ship. Our namesakes there are at this +instant doing, thinking, acting, reading, as are we; and some of them +are listening to a very strange story, and its still stranger episodes, +told by a Rosicrucian—just such a personage as myself—indeed my Very +Self—in the self-same form and feature. And I say, and I tell you, that +the <i>alter ego</i>—the living portrait of each man and woman in this +circle, is thinking of him or herself, and of me and my revelations, at +this moment, with the same stupid levity, with the same deep and awful +impression of their truth, in the same manner, whatever it be, as are +all of you at this moment. And some there, as here, set me and my story +at naught—stigmatize me as an enthusiast or dreaming poet, as do some +of you. Others believe my truths. You have heard that coming events cast +their shadows before them, and that Prophecy has been demonstrated true. +Behold the solution of the world-enigma. Events transpire in that other +world a trifle sooner than they do here; yet you must remember that +there is a vast interval of space, and therefore time, that must be +bridged by even that swift courier, Sympathy. According as a man there, +and his counterpart here, are fine, aspiring, and spiritual-minded, so +is their <i>rapport</i> across the awful gulf; and the male half, the more +perfect portion of each man or woman's self, very frequently telegraphs +the other, often a long time before the event becomes actualized on this +earth. You have heard of Fays and Fairies. Listen, and learn the truth +concerning them: Remembering that no human soul can by any possibility +quit the confines of this universe until it has exhausted the whole of +its, the universe's, resources, and has attained <i>all</i> of Love, Will, +Majesty, Power, Wisdom and Dignity, that this vast cosmos can give it; +after which it sleeps awhile, but will awake again to the exercise of +Creative Energy, on the thither side of the Wall—both duplicates sleep +at once; for, after their deaths on the material earths, they exist +apart, but sustain the same relations, in certain aromal worlds attached +to their respective primary homes. At the final deaths, they blend +forever, their stature is increased, and they enter, through the Wall, +that earth resembling the one whereon the double unit had its birth +<i>originally</i>.</p> + +<p>"You have heard of Metempsychosis, Transmigration, of Reincarnation, and +of Progress. Listen, and learn more: Not only the inhabitants of the +countless myriads of worlds in this material <i>and aromal</i> universe, but +also the material and aromal worlds themselves, are in a constant state +of progressive movement. By aromal worlds I mean the aërial globes that +attend each planet. They are places where souls rest awhile after death, +before they commence in earnest the second stage of their career; and +this state is an intermediate one, just like sleep, only that they are +conscious and active while there; but it is an activity and +consciousness, not like, but analogous to that of Dream. Every world, +and assemblage of worlds, is periodically reduced, by exhaustion, but at +enormously long intervals, into Chaos, and is then reformed, or created +anew, still, however, being the same world. After this passage, each +system and world becomes vastly more perfect than before; but, owing to +the diminished quantity of Spirit or essence which has been consumed in +giving birth to hosts of immortal armies, each system and world is +vastly smaller than before. This is for two reasons, one of which I have +just stated; the other is, in order to make room for new cosmi, and new +worlds, both of which are being constantly created from the material of +the Wall; and the Wall itself is the condensed effluence of the +Maker—in short, it is God-Od, and therefore inexhaustible. The majority +of those who have lived on any world are re-born in it after its +restitution, they, in the meantime, having grown correspondingly clean +and perfect. The same relative proportions between a world and its +occupants is still preserved, and never varies; and, consequently, the +six-foot man and the five-foot woman of one career, find themselves, in +their next state, occupying five and four-foot bodies respectively. The +present is our thirty-fourth Incarnation. Originally we were taller +than many of our present trees, and coarser than our mountains. We are +smaller and better than ever before, and our worst man is better than +the best of the preceding state. The worst, in the next change, will be +better than our best.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> To illustrate, let me say, that the following +persons, viz.: Thurlow W——, Abraham L——, Russel L——, J. Gordon +B——, Henry J. R——, Wm. Cullen B——, Jefferson D——, John G. +Fre——, James Buch——, Wigfall, Charles Sum——, Horace G——, +Fernando W——, George B. Mc——, Gen. J. H—k—r, Dr. H. F. G—d—r, +Charles T—n—s, Lizzie D—— and myself, respectively, were, previously +to the last change: the first, a feudal lord; the second, an editor; the +third, a Danish prince; the fourth, a court-jester; the fifth, a +missionary; the sixth, a <i>generalissimo</i>; the seventh, a harpist; the +eighth, a theatrical manager; the ninth, a knife-grinder; the tenth, a +privateer; the eleventh, a preacher; the twelfth, a schoolmaster; the +thirteenth, a trumpeter; the fourteenth, a politician; the fifteenth, a +hunter; the sixteenth, a very little boy, died exceedingly young; the +seventeenth, an emperor; the eighteenth, a born queen; and the last, a +barber's clerk; so that it is evident, that though our progress is slow, +still that we are 'Coming up.' Little as our actual worth may be, still +we are better now, generally speaking, than in the former stage. Thus, +we will grow smaller at every change. Some worlds, and their dwellers, +in this universe have thus decreased, and being sometimes seen by people +here, have been called Fays or Fairies. The world has yet to undergo +some thousands of these changes, until at last we become very small +indeed, which will occur when conception is no longer possible in the +universe, either in the vegetable or animal worlds; and then will occur +the change and transference beyond the Wall.</p> + +<p>"Betsey Clark was beholding persons and events of that other world-half +of this, our little staying-house, beholding things through that fairy +lense—that beautiful magic crystal, through which the human eye can +see, the human brain <i>sense</i>, things that have occurred, are occurring, +or are to occur, upon the world-stage of this our life's theatre.</p> + +<p>"It is an established fact that fools never dream! Wise people often do! +And those belonging to the latter category cannot have failed to notice +that things, dates, persons, circumstances, and probabilities, are +considerably mixed up, as a general thing, in dreams. Their anachronisms +are especially remarkable and provoking, and indicate that time is of +but little, if any, account, so far as the soul, <i>per se</i>, is concerned. +A dream of a minute often embraces the multifarious experience of a +century. This instant you are hob-nobbing with one of the pre-Adamite +kings on the plateaus of eastern Asia, and in the next are taking wine +with Pharaoh and Moses on the banks of the Nile; now you are delivering +an oration before Alexander the Great, and in a jiffy find yourself +stuffing ballots on Cornhill in an election for ward-constable; now you +are contemporary with Sardanapalus or Thothmes III., and in half a +second you are delivering a 'Spiritual Lecture' in Lamartine Hall, +having paid fifty cents for the privilege of listening to your own +'Splendid and Overpowering Eloquence.' Taken together, dreams, like +Complimentary Benefits, are queer concerns. Such was that of Betsey +Clark; for at one moment of time she was a virgin girl, a wife, a widow, +and a wife again. She recognized at once the facts of her girlhood, that +she had carefully deposited one husband in a hole in the ground, and was +in high hopes of performing the same kind office for a second—Mr. +Thomas W.</p> + +<p>"Presently the view in the crystal faded away, and in its stead there +came the appearance of a large and splendid atelier, containing +numberless statues, in a more or less finished condition, standing on +pedestals or in niches round the wall-sides. The sculptor was absent. It +was evident at a glance that his images were not hewn of marble, but of +some other material, which needed but a touch of fire to make them start +up into life, liberty, and light. It was a man-factory—a place where +people were carved out to order by a wonderful Artist, who had just +opened business thereabouts and who, judging from appearances, was +already in a fair line of patronage, and quite likely to do well, if not +better.</p> + +<p>"Standing near the centre of the apartment, propped up with bits of +wood, Betsey saw the exact likeness, in all respects, of Mr. Thomas +Clark—but the figure was unfinished—soft, puttyish, and doughy as a +Northern Politician.</p> + +<p>"This statue stood semi-erect, and strongly suggested an invalid kitten, +leaning on a hot brick; or, a modern philosopher of the spread-eagle and +Progressive school, when the contributions are small. The figure was +labelled 'Tom Clark, as he was;' that is to say, soft, ductile, capable +of being moulded into the Ruffian or the Man. Directly beside it was +another statue, closely resembling the other in many points, but yet +different. It was labelled 'Tom Clark, as he is!' that is to say, it +looked as if abundantly capable of feeding on tenpenny nails, dining on +files, and supping upon pigs of iron. It looked, for all the world, as +if the greatest possible favor that could be done for it, would be to +tread on the tail of its coat, or knock a chip off its shoulder, or as +if its supreme delight would be to be permitted to wrap itself in a +star-spangled banner; move across the room in three strides and a +straddle; fire off two horse-pistols, and die like a son of a—gun, +after having exercised a special penchant for divorced women—separating +wives from their husbands, for the sake of position, wealth, beauty and +passion. It looked as if it was troubled about stealing rain-producing +theories—not for stealing, but for being caught at it. It looked as if +its heart was breaking, because it had not brains enough to be a +Pantarch—or the tenth-part of one. It looked as if its heart would +burst with envy, because other men had friends, and power, and +applause, and merit, in spite of <i>its</i> little, perked-up, seven-by-nine, +skull-cracked soul—poor cambric, needle-eyed soul, twelve hundred and +eighty trillions to the half ounce. It looked, for all the world, as Tom +really did the very last time he came home, just before they lay down +upon their couch, in the little chamber in which was the little window, +whose upper sash was down—that is to say, short, crusty, crisp, and +meaner than 'git;' as he felt before they both lay down, and dreamed +such 'very funny' dreams—mean, despicable, iron-hearted Tom Clark, the +plague of her life, bane of her existence, and source of all her +troubles. So at least it seemed to the lady in her curious vision. +Presently both these figures slowly faded from her sight, and in their +stead there arose through the floor a third figure, labelled, '<i>Tom +Clark, as he may be</i>.' While she was admiring the vast superiority, in +all respects, of this new statue, a fourth human figure entered the +atelier; this figure was alive, and, <i>mirabile dictu!</i> the woman beheld +the exact counterpart of—<i>herself!</i>—clad as a working artist—a +sculptor, with apron, paper-cap, and dusty clothing, all complete, as if +she had just left chiselling the dead marble. This lemur of herself +appeared deeply gratified at the appearance of the statue; for, after +surveying it awhile, she proceeded to arm herself with a flame-tipped +baton, wherewith she touched the figure in various places, but mainly on +the head, and over the region of the heart. The effect of these touches +of flame was to make the figure move; and, in five minutes the dead mass +was warm with life, vitality and genius—for the phantom-artiste +appeared to endow the figure with a portion of her own life; and a +closer inspection revealed the curious fact that the flame at the end of +the staff—which was hollow—was fed from a deep well of subtle, fine +and inflammable ether in her own heart.</p> + +<p>"The statue lived. It was Tom Clark, and no mistake; but Heaven! what a +change!—what a difference between the actual and the ideal man! His +features fairly blazed with the fires of Genius and Ambition; and they +beamed like a sun, with Friendship, Intelligence, Truth and +Manhood—they all held high court in his soul, and radiated from his +inspired features; his very presence charged the air with Mind, though +his lips spoke never a word, breathed never a syllable. And now Betsey +heard her <i>alter ego</i> speak; and it said to the living statue: 'Rise, +Tom Clark; rise, and be a Man—be yourself. Rise!' And it rose; stepped +from the pedestal, erected its head—and such a head!—while she, the +phantom artiste, with careful tread, and anxiously holding her nether +lip between her teeth, slowly retreated backward from the room, quitting +it through the door by which she had entered a little while before. She +was followed majestically by the statue, which moved with power and +grace, as if charged to the brim by God's Galvanic Batteries.</p> + +<p>"Scarcely had the two phantoms left the room, than the woman on the +stool—the real Betsey Clark—followed their example with a sudden +bound, exclaiming, as she did so, despite the warning of the Hermit of +the Silver Girdle (for whom at that moment she didn't care;—not even a +piece of a fig), 'My <i>husband</i>! <i>my</i> husband!' Human nature, especially +woman nature, could stand the pressure no longer. She felt and acted +<i>as</i> she felt—as every woman has, since the year <span class="smcap">ONE</span>—and will, until +Time and Eternity both grow grey. '<i>My husband!</i>' there spake the woman. +In an instant the Hermit of the Silver Girdle was in a very great and +unprecedented fluster.</p> + +<p>"'Silly girl! didn't I tell you not to speak? Only look! see how you +have gone and done it!—done <i>me</i>! Oh, dear! if I warn't a Rosicrucian, +I'd get excessively angry, Dorg on it, if I wouldn't!' and in his +trouble, he pronounced 'dog,' with an <i>r</i>. Commend me to a female for +upsetting the best calculation of the wisest Rosicrucian that ever +lived. I speak from experience.</p> + +<p>"'I told you not to open your lips, and here you've gone and spoken +right out! What's the consequence?' exclaimed the venerable grey-beard. +'Why, the spell is broken—the charm fled—nor can either be recalled +before the sun has set and rose again, and once more declined toward the +western sea. Familiar as I am with the secrets of Galæ and the mysteries +of magic crystals, I know that you have done very wrong; for no one is +fit to consult Destiny by their aid who is not competent to keep silence +for an hour, no matter what the temptation or provocation to break it +may be. Now hie thee homeward. To-morrow thou mayest return again, +provided thou wilt obey me, and speak not a syllable while the +phantasmal game of Fate is being played before thine eyes.'</p> + +<p>"The Hermit of the Silver Girdle had spoken truly; for at the very +first movement of her lips, the whole scene of enchantment vanished into +thin air, leaving only a three-cornered table and a little +glossy-looking ball behind.</p> + +<p>"To depict her chagrin and disappointment at this abrupt termination of +a very strange affair, is a task totally beyond my capacities. She +bounced out of the grotto in a miff, tossing her pretty head in a manner +peculiarly adapted to play the very Old Scratch with the soft and +susceptible heads and hearts of the male 'sect'—especially their heads; +but she had no idea of abandoning the adventure at that point—not she; +but was fully resolved to see it out next day, even if she bit her +tongue in two, in the endeavor to keep still. Warriors, statesmen, +philosophers, and well-read men can comprehend the sublimity of her +resolution, because they know that of all earthly tasks, the one +assigned herself was the greatest, most heroic, and one compared to +which the twelve labors of the Greek god were mere child's pastime. At +all events, to keep perfectly silent she would certainly—'Try,' said a +voice, right beside her ear! She started, attributing the circumstance +to mere fancy; but again the magic word was, by unseen lips, gently, +softly whispered in her ear. 'Try,' it said—and the word went echoing +through her very soul. Whence came the voice? Who was it—what was it +that spoke? Certainly not herself, nor the Hermit. When was it, where +was it, that she had heard that voice and word before? When, how, where +had it made so deep an impression on her mind? Was it in a dream? Who +can tell? she could not. My hearers, can you?</p> + +<p>"Next morning, bright and early, the young girl returned once more to +the grotto of the Hermit of the Silver Girdle, who dwelt on the shady +borders of a forest wild. An hour or two elapsed in friendly converse +and admonition; and now again behold the dissimilar twain once more +seated silently before the little table, on which glittered, as before, +the rare, pearl-disked, magic, wonder-working crystal globe. Again, as +before, the glorious play of colors came and went. Again it faded, and +she saw the atelier, the artiste, and the artiste's living statue; but +this time Betsey could look right through its body, as if it were made +of finely-polished glass. Tom Clark stood before her. She saw and +comprehended him on all sides—soul, spirit, body; and though she was +neither a strong-minded woman, a lecturess on philosophy, 'The good time +coming,' nor 'Woman's sacred and delicate work,'—and though she knew +but little of the human organism, beyond a few familiar +commonplaces—yet she comprehended enough of the glorious mystery before +her to be aware that the red, pulsing lump just beneath its throat was +technically known and considered as the heart; and she couldn't help +admiring its wonderful and mighty mechanism; its curious movements, +mystical arrangements of parts, and adaptation of means to ends; its +auricles, valves, and veins; its ventricles, and its pump—tapping the +well of life, and forcing its water through a million yards of hose, +plentifully irrigating the loftiest gardens of man's body, and hence, of +his imperishable soul. The inspection was almost too much for the girl, +who had liked to have screamed out her wonderment and delight; but +having made up her mind to keep still this time, she, by dint of much +handkerchief and tongue-biting, succeeded, to the eternal credit of +herself—or any other woman!</p> + +<p>"'That which you see,' said the Hermit, who of course had the privilege +of talking as he pleased, 'is a man's heart, in full play. It is, as you +perceive, filled with blood, whose office is to give life to the body +and vigor to the mind. But the heart has other chambers than those +containing the venous and arterial fluids; for all its walls and valves +contain innumerable small cells; and these cells secrete and contain +certain aëriform fluids far more potential than blood, and which +subserve the ends of a higher and far more wonderful economy. There are +two kinds of blood; so also are there two kinds of the subtle fluid I +have mentioned: one sort is born with us, and we come into the world +with exactly one half of these cells full, while the other half are +entirely empty; and so they must remain until they are filled from the +heart of some one else. Males are born with the cells of the left side +empty, females with those of the right unfilled, while the other cells +of each are always full. These fluids are real, actual, perceptible, but +imponderable. Their name is Love; and when things take their proper and +natural course, the fluid flows out from the cells of a woman's heart +into the empty ones of a man's; and the full cells of a man's heart fill +the empty ones of a woman's, in which case they are said to "love each +other." Two men cannot thus love; nor can two females. Many of either +sex travel from the cradle to the grave without either filling, or +being filled in turn; for it is a law that love cannot flow unless it be +tapped by the opposite party; and it can only be tapped by <span class="smcap">Kindness</span>, +<span class="smcap">Gentleness</span>, <span class="smcap">Respect</span>—these three! The unloved and unloving are only half +men and half women—and, believe me, my child, there's a mighty sight of +Halfness in this world of ours! Much of it comes of not Trying to have +it otherwise. People—married people, especially—devote half their days +to growling because they have not got somebody else's wife or husband, +when the fact is that their own partners are quite good enough—as they +would find out with a little proper endeavor. Men expect a woman's love +to bubble up all the time. Fools! why don't they sound its depth, and +<i>bring it to the surface</i>? There are altogether too many divorces—a +divorce first, and the next step—is dangerous. I knew a wife of three +divorces; I knew a man the husband of two consecutive divorcees. Good +intentions! Bah! Hell is paved with such. I know of fifty broken-hearted +women whose husbands, after wearing them out, sneaked off to Indiana and +robbed them of name, fame, life, and hope;—the demons! Out upon the +wretches! The woman who has wasted her youth and bloom upon a man who +then wants a divorce, and permits him to obtain it, is a fool. He +promised for life. Make him keep it, even if you invoke the law's strong +arm. If both agree, that alters the case. I have a legal acquaintance in +New York who drives a large trade in the divorce line, at twenty-five +dollars a head. I feel called upon to expose the infernal methods by +means of which it is done, and I call upon the Legislature to see to it +that the thing is not suffered to go on. A. is a lawyer; B. and C. are +husband and wife. B. wants a "divorce without publicity;" goes to A. and +pays a fee to secure it, but has no legal quibble by means of which to +obtain it. A. gives him the following counsel: "Go to a brothel, take up +with an inmate thereof; call her D.; make three or four male and female +acquaintances (E., F., G., and H.), introduce them to D. as your wife; +leave town a day or two, but take care that D. is well watched in the +interim. Of course she will avail herself of your absence to ply her +vocation. E., F., G., and H. furnish the most incontestable and damning +proof of her supposed guilt. The witnesses may or may not know your +precious scheme. You prosecute the leman under your wife's name—she, of +course, knowing nothing about the proceedings—poor thing! The court +takes the evidence, hands it over to a referee, who passes on it; +returns it, affirmed, to the court, which forthwith enters a decree of +perpetual divorce. A scoundrel goes unwhipped of justice, and an honest +woman's reputation is forever damned!</p> + +<p>"'Legislators, I tell you that these things are done every day! I was +told it—could not believe it—and assuming to be desirous of such a +decree, received the above counsel, word for word, from a practitioner +at the New York bar. Legislators, here is a crime worse than murder! +Will you sanction it longer? How prevent it? Summon the witnesses and +performer of this marriage; or at least <i>prove the identity of the woman +or the man</i>, as the case may be—for women practice in that court also!</p> + +<p>"'There would be far less of this sort of iniquity, if there were fewer +blatant philosophy-mongers afloat on the tide of the times, inculcating +their morbid, detestable, blasphemous, brothel-filling, "Harmonial" +theories, all of which directly pander to the worst vice a man can +have—Meanness.</p> + +<p>"'People insanely look for and expect perfection in others—not only +without the slightest claim thereto themselves, but without the least +attempt in that direction—which is a very suicidal policy to pursue. +Such soon come to be vampires, consuming themselves and destroying +others—ravening tigers at their own fold's side! Sometimes one person's +affection—which is akin to love—goes out toward and clings round +another; but Death ever flaps his wings by the side of such, when that +other fails to give it back. The unloving loved one, if such a thing be +possible, is a born thief, from the cradle to the clouds; and there are +a great many such robbers in the world.'</p> + +<p>"'But how is one to love when one don't feel like it, or has attractions +in another direction?' asked Betsey.</p> + +<p>"'Where duty and honor point, there should the attraction lie! Whosoever +shall render themselves lovable and lovely, can no more help being loved +than smoke can help ascending through the air. Make yourself agreeable +to the partner of your lot in life, and that partner can no more help +loving you than mirrors can help reflecting.</p> + +<p>"'The heart of yonder statue, which is that of the man who is destined +to be a future husband of yours,' said the old man—pointing to the +first figure of the previous day, which had, together with the second, +re-appeared upon the scene, 'will be only half full by reason of your +withholding and refusing all tender wifeliness; you will rob him and +yourself of the better meat of life; your years will be gloomy ones; you +will make him wretched, and be the same yourself—cheat your bodies of +health, your souls of happiness and vigor! Take heed; correct the fault. +You "can't?" There's no such word. <span class="smcap">Try!</span>'</p> + +<p>"Turning now to the second figure of the previous day, he observed: +'See! Tom Clark's heart is empty. All its cells are <i>filled with a +void</i>—hollow as the apples of Persia's arid wastes. Have mercy, Heaven, +on him whose heart throbs not with the rapturous burden of a woman's +love! Pity him whose soul groweth not tender with the love-light beaming +from a baby's eyes! Ah, what a world of nameless glory flashes from an +infant's eyes! They are telescopes through which my soul sees +Heaven—through which I watch the mazy dance of starry worlds, and +behold the joys of seraphim. We Rosicrucians love babies—seed of the +ages—and their mothers, too—because they are such; for we believe that +after death the maids fair worst—the wives fare better; but no tongue +or pen can express the rapture that awaits those who have borne sons and +daughters to the world and heaven! Bachelors! Bah! I will pass by such +cattle, merely remarking that their place is not to be found in heaven, +or the other place. They repair in a body to Fiddler's Green—and ought +to stay there, if they do not!'</p> + +<p>"And Betsey gazed on the forlorn figure of poor Tom—who was all +one-sided, crooked, lean; his hopes and joys were flown, because no one +loved him, not even his wife; and who else should, if not she? And so he +was wretched, like full many another whom I have seen as I journeyed +down life's glades. His soul was driven back upon, and forced to eat +itself, day by day, and year after year. 'And this great wrong you will +do,' said the hermit; and 'This great wrong I have already done,' +thought the girl—wife—widow—wife—four in one, with that strange, +anomalous inconsistency, peculiar to Dream-Life. 'I have done badly; but +this I will do no more—not another second longer!'</p> + +<p>"Bravely, royally thought and said! Better, if more gloriously +done!—and that's just the difference—saying and doing. The first is +common; the last is very rare. 'Better still, if truly said, and still +more nobly done!'—was whispered in the woman's ear, in the same low, +silvery voice, she had heard the day before. Who was it that spoke these +melodious words? Not the hermit in grey. Was it the invisible Hesperina, +telegraphing Betsey's soul across the vast expanse of the Continent of +Dream? Who shall answer me these questions?</p> + +<p>"Said the silver-girdled hermit, as he smiled a smile of more than human +gladness—more than human meaning—'It is Well.' She looked again toward +the magic globe, and lo! within a moment, its disk had changed. The +first two figures had disappeared; the third had once more come upon the +scene—a conspicuous actor in such a terrific drama, as neither earth +nor starry eyes ever saw before, may they never see again!</p> + +<p>"The Gorgon, <span class="smcap">War</span>, had glutted himself on Europe's bloody fields, and had +flown across the salt sea, alighting on our shores. The demon landed +with a howl, midway between Moultrie and Sumter. He had seized the reins +of government, proclaimed himself sole Lord and King; strangled Reason +in his dreadful gripe, until she lay bleeding on the gory earth, and +meek-eyed Peace fled tearfully away from his grim presence, and hid +herself upon a distant mountain-top, whence she could survey the shock +of armies on the plains beneath, and sigh, and long for Liberty and +rule.</p> + +<p>"War and Carnage, side by side, with gory banners flying, marched from +one end of the nation to the other, until their footsteps rested on the +graves of eight hundred thousand men. God's precious word was +disregarded, and His blessed soil dyed red with human blood—the rich, +fat blood of the noblest race that ever trod His earth—the blood of +your brother, and of mine, O my countrymen!</p> + +<p>"And now, the loud-lunged trumpets brayed their fierce alarums, and +summoned Columbia's sons to deeds at which our grandsons shall turn +pale—deeds of heroic daring such as Greece, nor Rome, nor Carthage ever +dreamed of, nor storied page has chronicled: summoned them to Sumter's +stony ramparts, and Potomac's grassy banks—summoned them to do, +and—die. Eight hundred thousand Men! And they went—going as tornadoes +go—to strike for a Nation's life—to strike the foul usurper low, and +fling his carcass to the dogs. They would have struck—struck hard and +home; but they were stayed. <i>That</i> was not the 'little game' of +Generals and Statesmen, and of high contract-ing parties. Oh, no! +Victory would never do! 'Let us fight the foe with gloves on!' said the +Minister. They fought. The foe wore gloves, also; but the palms were +brass, the fingers iron, and the knuckles polished steel! But the +Minister had his whim, and unborn generations will feel its +consequences! Eight hundred thousand graves!</p> + +<p>"And the Union legions went, from decreed Fate toward a consummated +Destiny, in spite of Ministers, their minions, or the 'little game;' and +Tom Clark went, too.</p> + +<p>"And loud the trumpets brayed; and the heavy drums did sound; and they +woke strange and fearful energies in the slumbering Nation's heart. What +a magic transmutation! Plowmen transformed to heroes, such as shall +forever put Cincinnatus in the shade; day laborers, carriers of the hod, +claiming—and rightfully, too—high places in the Pantheon of heroic +demi-gods. Look at Fredericksburg! Forget not the Black Brigade! Bear in +mind the deeds of a hundred regiments on a hundred fields—fields, too, +that might, and would have finally decided the carnage and the quarrel, +but for the Minister, his gloves, his 'little game,' his great whim—and +lo! its consequences!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>"Tom Clark, quickened into life by the subtle, flame-tipped staff in the +hands of the phantom-artiste—the proprietress of the wonderful atelier +and Man-factory, now stepped forth through the door of the room, and +forthwith the scene expanded to such vast dimensions, that Betsey found +it impossible to realize the magic mimicry, for the whole thing was too +real, and on too grand a scale. She stood on the hill of the world, +surveying its valleys at leisure. Tom Clark, apparently heard—deeply +heard, his Country's wail of agony—for unchecked Treason was then +griping her tightly by the throat. That cry called him to a field of +glory, such as God's green earth never before afforded, nor His sun ever +saw; nor His moon; nor His myriad, twinkling, starry eyes!</p> + +<p>"Clark's soul was in arms, as his offended ears drank in the hoarse, +deep thunders of Treason's cannonry, pouring iron hail upon a prostrate +Nation's head; and his eyes beheld the flashing of the guns, as they +vomited a hell of iron and fire upon Sumter, upon Anderson, and the +peerless <span class="smcap">Eighty-three</span>! Tom Clark saw the storm, and his heart indignant +swelled, at the insult to the Star-gemmed Flag of Human Rights and +Liberty—an insult, long since wiped out in traitor's blood, but for the +Minister, and the gloves, and the 'little game,' and the whim, whose +consequences are—eight hundred thousand skeletons!</p> + +<p>"Like a true man, Clark, inspired by a true woman—the phantom-wife, and +artiste—ran, leapt, flew to arms and deathless glory. Ah, God! to arms, +and fadeless glory! He had no time to grieve, or grumble; or to +criticise this general, or that battle. He looked over the heads of +cowards and traitors in his own camp, at the noble men in arms, and who +bravely fought, and nobly died, for the Country. He saw, and gloriously +emulated such men as Lyon, Saxton, Hunter, Fremont—and Baker! Baker!—O +Oregon! my tears fall with thine, for him! He was mine, yours—ours! +Ours, in his life; in his nobleness; in his soul-arousing eloquence; in +the valor, and the effulgent glory of his death—the result of another +whim, and lo! the consequences!</p> + +<p>"And now, see! Behold the smoke of yonder battle! Death rides on +cannon-balls, to-day! And, to-night, there will be much mourning in the +land; for strong men in thousands are giving up the ghost. Weep not, O +widow, for God accepts such sacrifices; mourn not, O orphans, He who +tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, will hold thee in His keeping; thy +grateful country will not let thee want for bread; and, by-and-by, it +will be a proud boast of thine, 'My father died to redeem the land from +treason!'</p> + +<p>"Death rides on cannon-balls, to-day, in the fight that we are seeing. +Tom Clark is a hero. See! he leads the van. God spare him! What a +presence! What blows he deals for Liberty and the Union! Lo! the +thundering battalions of the brave and bold, but insane, misguided, and +revengeful foe, sweep down the embattled plain, their war-cry ringing +out above the belching roar of artillery; and, with such might and valor +do they charge, that Freedom's cohorts reel and stagger beneath the +dreadful shock of arms. Another such a charge, and all is lost. But, +see, there comes a man from the ranks—a common soldier—his voice rings +clearly out upon the sulphur-laden air: 'Follow me!' The inspiring words +and action kindle new fire in the wavering breasts of hundreds. They +rise; they throw themselves upon the foe—they hush his battle-cry in +death. He is repulsed! 'Who did that?' demands an aide-de-camp. +'Private Thomas W.,' is the response. 'Hero! greet him in my name, as +Color Sergeant,' says the General; and Tom Clark is promoted on the +field.</p> + +<p>"The first day's fight is over. It is renewed next day, and, when the +tired guns give over with the sun, a group of soldiers are gathered +round a man. 'Who is it?' 'Who is it?' 'I thought you knew—why, it is +the man who saved the Tenth Brigade—and was rewarded on the +spot—Captain Thomas W.!'</p> + +<p>"With the sunrise, came the foe! 'Pass the word along the line, +there—Captain Clark is wanted at the tent of the General-in-Command!' +He goes.</p> + +<p>"' Captain Clark, do you see yonder battery of the enemy? It must be +taken, or we are lost. If I give you command of a regiment whose colonel +was killed yesterday, can you take it?' 'I will try.' ... 'General, the +battery on the left is ours,' says an aide-de-camp an hour afterwards. +'It is taken, and all its men are either dead or prisoners!' 'Indeed! So +soon? Greet the commander in my name, and salute him as Colonel Thomas +W.'</p> + +<p>"Another day dawns on the ensanguined field—a field where privates were +heroes and generals poltroons! Hard fighting is before us. Up, up the +soldiers spring; and on, on to death or victory they rush. Oh, it was a +splendid sight—those death-defying demi-gods, who, had they in previous +battles had but a Man to lead them, would have taken fifty rebel +strongholds in as many hours. But such was not the drift of the 'pretty +little game.' More men must die, more ditches must be dug, and more +human bones must fill them, else how can Ministers carry out their +whims; how else can the enemy be fought and placated at the same time? +It isn't Constitutional! besides which it hurts the prospect for the +Presidency of the re-United States—which prospect would be forever +marred, and the 'little game' played out, if we fought without gloves, +and violated our Constitutional obligations by kicking the wind out of +the foe, who is trying might and main to strangle the Nation. He might +hereafter say: '<i>You</i>, sir, fought without gloves on!' which wouldn't +do, you know.</p> + +<p>"'Damn that Colonel Thomas W. If the fellow keeps on at that rate, we'll +surely whip somebody—badly. Curse the fellow, he don't believe in the +glove business, or in the "Erring Sisters' theory,"' soliloquized +somebody on a certain day. 'This'll never do! Aid, come here; go tell +Colonel Clark take possession of the Valley down yonder, and hold it at +all hazards till nightfall!' 'But, General, he has only seven hundred +men—the foe is thirteen thousand strong!' 'So much the worse for'—he +meant Clark, but said, 'the enemy—they will fight like tigers.' And the +aid transmitted the order—shaking hands with the Colonel as he rode +away, muttering, 'Poor fellow! His goose is cooked for a certainty! What +a pity he stands in somebody's light—somebody who is jealous of even a +private's fame. Ah me!' and he rode back to headquarters, wondering +whose turn next it would be to face the forlorn hope—such a singular +number of which this Rebellion has developed.</p> + +<p>"But there was no flinch in Colonel Thomas W.—no flinch in his men. +They all saw the hazard; but <i>they</i> were Men and Soldiers. <i>They</i> knew +how to obey orders, when their superiors did not. But then again, they +had no hopes of success in a general election; they had no 'little +game.'</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Their's not to reason why,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their's but to do or die.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And they done it!</p> + +<p>"On, on, like more than Spartan heroes, on they dashed, literally, as +absolutely as anything earthly can be, 'into the jaws of death—into the +mouth of hell.' I have a minnie bullet on my table that plowed a furrow +through a brother's heart of mine in that same dreadful valley! Away +they went—that gallant band, that gallant man; and many a bullet went +crashing through skulls and bones as they went; and many a soul sped its +way to God ere the cohort reached the knoll in the valley. Once there, +they were no longer men—they were as sublime exemplar gods. But a man +fell—fell before the resistless force of a hundred horses charging with +all of Treason's vehement strength, and the gallant man went down, and +the thunder of iron hoofs exploded in his ear, and then the cloud passed +on.</p> + +<p>"And Thomas Clark went down—down, as Truth, and Justice and I went +down; but he rose again—so ever does Truth and Justice; and as for me, +<i>Je renais de mes cendres</i>—let those beware by whom I fell.... Down to +the gory soil he went; but even while the woman sat there in the grotto, +gazing till her eyeballs fairly ached with intensity—sat gazing with +suppressed breath, so still was she—sat gazing, her blood on fire, her +pulse beating three hundred to the minute, beating with a deep, fierce, +tumultuous fire; sat gazing stilly, while her heart bounded and thumped +within its bony citadel as if impatient of its duress, and longing to +burst its tabernacle, and let the imprisoned soul go free; sat gazing, +while her eyes, large grey eyes, all the while gleamed with a light that +proved her capable of giving birth to heroes—even while thus she gazed +on the wheeling squadrons, the charging hosts, and the great guns, as +they gave forth their fiery vomit, charged with sudden deaths—the man, +Tom Clark, sprung to his feet again, and, as he staunched his blood with +one hand, he pointed with the other at the foe. 'Follow me!' he cried. +'See! we are reinforced! On to victory—on!' And his voice rose above +the tempest, and it flew over the spaces, and it fell upon the ears of a +'great man,' and the 'great man' wrung his hands, and he thought: 'Not +dead yet! Damn the fellow! He will make us win a victory—and that'll +never do! Dear me! that cursed fool will spoil my little game! Oh, for +night, or a fresh division of—the enemy! I must reinforce him, though, +else it'll get into that infernal <i>Tribune</i>—or into that cursed George +Wilkes' paper—and that'll spoil my little game! Ho, there! Aid, go tell +General Trueman to reinforce Colonel Thomas W. <i>My little game</i>!' and he +arranged his epaulettes and gave his moustache an additional killing +twist. In the meantime, Tom Clark had charged the enemy with bayonets +with the remnant of his own force, followed by hundreds whom his +example had transformed into something more sublime than fighting +soldiers.</p> + +<p>"And now occurred one of those conflicts which make or mar the fortunes +of a nation: one of those terrible multi-personal combats which mark a +century's history, and strike the ages dumb with awe; one of those +terrific scenes in the world's great drama, that mark historic epochs, +and enshrine men's names in fiery letters upon the scrolls of Fame.</p> + +<p>"The charge and the action were short, sharp, swift, desperate; but at +its close the</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Flag of the Planet gems,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With saphire-circled diadems,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>floated proudly over the scene of Treason's battle lost—a Nation's +battle won!</p> + +<p>"Day closes again; and the wounded hero in an ambulance was borne +fainting—almost dying, from the field. 'Colonel Clark, can I do +anything for you?' said one of the fighting generals to the stricken +man—a bullet had gone through him. 'You are a noble fellow, and I speak +for myself, your comrades in arms, and for our country. Can I—can they, +can we, can she—do anything for you, in this sad hour of your destiny? +If so, I beg you to speak.'</p> + +<p>"'Alas! no, my friend,' replied he, reviving, only to swoon again. A +little cold water on his temples partially dissipated the coma, but not +all the fog from his perceptions; for his general's words, 'Can <i>she</i>,' +considerably obfuscated his intellect, and he thought: 'He means +Betsey—that's the only <i>she</i> I know of.' And then he strengthened up +for a last dying effort; strove to collect his thoughts, partly +succeeded, and said: 'Nothing more, dear general. Yes. No. +I'm—dy—ing—going—home. Tell Betsey—<i>dear</i> Betsey—I did not—find +her out till—it was—too—late. Tell her that I loved—her from +my—soul—at last. Tell her—that'——</p> + +<p>"She can't stand the pressure any longer—globe or no globe, hermit or +no hermit—not another minute. <i>You</i> Bet! It's a pretty how de do, me a +settin' here, and poor Tom laying there, killed a'most to death!' +shrieked the fair girl in the grotto of the hermit of the silver girdle, +waked up beyond endurance by the skillful magic of the weird recluse. +And repeating the Californian, 'You <i>Bet</i>!' with vehement emphasis on +the last word, she sprung to her feet, in spite of the warnings of the +man who dealt in magic crystal globes in the precincts of a forest +wild—upsetting table, tripod, stool and hermit, in her eagerness to +reach Tom's side and give him wifely ministry.</p> + +<p>"What luck she might have had in bridging Phantom River I know not, +having omitted to remain long enough for inquiry, not having had time to +thus devote; but this I do know, namely, that she nearly kicked the +veritable Mr. Thomas W. Clark completely out of bed—the bed at whose +foot was a window, whose upper sash was down—the identical window +through which came all the 'funny things' of this most veracious +history, which, of course, is all true. Betsey woke from excitement, Tom +from being kicked, and both had finished their double dreams.</p> + +<p>"'What'n thunder's up now, Bet—no, Lizzie, I mean?' said he, checking +the less respectful utterance, and modulating his voice to what he +doubtless intended to be a 'velvet-dulcet cadence,' but which wouldn't +pass for that in Italian opera. 'Not nothing, Tommy, dear.' 'Not +nothing, Lizzie?' 'Not nothing.' 'That ain't grammar, sweet.' 'I was +paragorically speaking, my turkle dove! Only I've been having two very +funny dreams.' 'You! <i>Two</i> dreams? That <i>is</i> queer!' 'You Bet!' 'What +about, Lizzie?' 'Oh, all about how we didn't love each other as we ought +to, husband.' 'And, dorg on my buttons, wife, if I haven't had two just +such dreams myself—all about a precipice, and a pile—Oh, wasn't it a +pile, though?' 'You Bet!' 'And my dreams were all about how I ought to +love you, and didn't—and then, again, I did.' 'That's a dear!' 'You +Bet!' 'Let's love each other this time out, will <i>you</i>?' 'I will; will +<i>you</i>?' 'You <i>Bet</i>!' 'Let's profit by our dreams. I mean to; won't you?' +'I'll <i>try</i>!' '<i>I'll</i> try!' 'We'll both try!' 'You <span class="smcap">Bet</span>!' And they tried +to forgive and forget.</p> + +<p>"Will you do the same?" asked the Rosicrucian of the "Angular +Character," who had told his own story in disguise. The latter saw that +his secret was out; yet his heart was touched, for, as a great tear-drop +rolled down his cheek, he said, with smothered breath, the holy +words—"I'll try!" "Amen!" said the Rosicrucian. "Amen!" said we all; +and then, turning to his auditors again, the story-teller said: +"Friends, go thou and do likewise; and so long as you live, I charge you +never to forget the Rosicrucian nor his story; nor <span class="smcap">It</span>, the Shadow; nor +Hesperina, the Light; nor Otanethi, the Genius of the Hour; nor the +silver-girdled Hermit, and his Crystal Globe in a forest wild; nor, +above all, the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash +was down."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A day or two afterwards we reached Panama, and after that we saw but +little of our entertainer; but before I finally lost sight of him he +told me that he was about writing some Rosicrucian stories, the MSS. of +which he would send to me when ready. I have received some, and they +will be published by me as soon as I can spare time to attend to it, +which will be—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"When this cruel war is over"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">P. B. R.<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">Utica</span>, <i>November, 1863</i>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The same known historically as Thothmes, or Thotmor the +Third, King of all Egypt, in the 18th dynasty, and sixty-ninth Chief or +Grand Master of the Superlative Order of Gebel Al Maruk—since known, in +Christian lands, as the Order of the Brethren of the Rosie Cross, and +now known in America and Europe, where it still thrives, as the Imperial +Order of Rosicrucia.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Extremes meet. The sublime impinges on the ridiculous. The +substance of the text—save only that I have changed the names—was put +forth seriously as truth, by a recent British author. Here, of course, +it is given for what it is worth, which may be <i>more than some imagine</i>. +Viewed in one light, these notions are almost as absurd as are the +desperately-funny lucubrations of Andrew Jackson Davis, concerning what +he calls the "Summer Land," which many people regard as true revelations +of Man's <i>post-mortem</i> life, when, in fact, they are monstrous +abortions, devoid of even common sense, and are without one particle of +truth from beginning to end.</p></div> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="From_SINCLAIR_TOUSEY" id="From_SINCLAIR_TOUSEY"></a>From SINCLAIR TOUSEY</h2> + + +<h3>NEWSVENDERS' AND BOOKSELLERS' AGENCY.</h3> + +<p>I INVITE THE ATTENTION OF DEALERS IN <i>Cheap Publications, Periodicals, +etc.,</i></p> + +<p>To my facilities for packing and forwarding everything in my line. All +goods packed with the utmost care, and forwarded, <i>in all instances</i>, by +the very earliest conveyance following the receipt of the orders.</p> + +<p>I am <span class="smcap">General Agent</span> for, and take the <span class="smcap">WHOLE EDITIONS</span> (except mail +subscriptions), of the New York Ledger, New York Clipper, Nick-Nax, +National Police Gazette, Scottish-American Journal, Beadle's Dime Books, +Littel's Living Age, Wilkes' Spirit of the Times, Comic Monthly, New +York Weekly, Metropolitan Record, Irish American, Phunny Fellow, Herald +of Progress, Leslie's Budget of Fun, Mr. Merryman's Monthly, Banner of +Light, Leslie's History of the War, Madame Demorest's Mirror of +Fashions, New York Illustrated News, Leslie's War Maps, etc., etc.</p> + +<p>I also supply <span class="smcap">ALL OTHER</span> Magazines, Newspapers, and other Periodicals +sold in the Trade, at the very <span class="smcap">LOWEST PRICES</span>, and forward them at the +<span class="smcap">EARLIEST MOMENT</span> after leaving the Press. I make special efforts to +forward New Books on the best terms.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">SINCLAIR TOUSEY,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No. 121 Nassau street, New York.<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<h3>MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES.</h3> + +<p>Dealers wanting anything from New York, not in their regular order, as +Books, Stationery, Music, Pens, Envelopes, Almanacs, Song Books, +Pictures, Paper, Maps, Charts, Note Paper, plain, Note Paper, embossed, +Note Paper, colored edges, Note Paper, with mottoes, Note Paper, with +designs, Note Paper, with States' Arms, Note Paper of all sorts, kinds, +qualities and prices. Letter Paper of all sorts, kinds, qualities and +prices. Cap Paper of all sorts, kinds, qualities and prices. Envelopes +white, Envelopes buff, all shades, Envelopes plain, Envelopes with +designs and mottoes, Envelopes of all sorts, qualities and prices.</p> + +<p>Almanacs, Toy Books, Paper Dolls, Pens, Ink, etc., etc. Everything +needed by a Newsdealer or Bookseller, or anybody else.</p> + +<p>Also, Cheap Novels, Pictures, Portraits, Albums of all kinds, +Lithographs, Maps, Cartes de Visite of prominent persons, etc., etc., +etc.</p> + +<p>EVERY NEW THING AS SOON AS READY.</p> + +<p>Books, Papers, Magazines, etc., sent <span class="smcap">FREE OF POSTAGE</span>, on receipt of the +advertised retail price.</p> + +<p>I pledge myself to furnish <span class="smcap">EVERYTHING</span> at the <span class="smcap">VERY LOWEST PRICES</span>, and low +enough to afford the Retailer a good profit.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="BY_DR_P_B_RANDOLPH" id="BY_DR_P_B_RANDOLPH"></a>BY DR. P. B. RANDOLPH,</h2> + +<h3>THE DUMAS OF AMERICA.</h3> + +<h3>New, Original and Thrilling Works!!</h3> + +<p>It is sufficient to say of the following seven Works, that they are from +the pen of P. B. Randolph, to command such a sale as few books enjoy in +these days.</p> + +<h3>I.</h3> + +<h3>"THE WONDERFUL STORY OF RAVALETTE,"</h3> + +<p>A ROSICRUCIAN ROMANCE, AND THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY AND THRILLING WORK +EVER PUBLISHED IN THIS COUNTRY.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Contents</span>:—The Strange Man.—The Legend.—Preëxistence.—Double +Life.—The Haunted House.—The Mysterious Guest.—A very Strange +Story.—Evlambéa.—A Son of Adam and a Daughter of Ish.—Napoleon +III. and the Rosicrucian.—An extraordinary Séance in +Paris.—Spectra.—Phosphorus and the Elixir of Life.—The Magic +Mirror.—Who was he?—What was it?—The Secret of Perpetual +Youth!—The Priest of Fire.—The Magic Slumber.—Strange +Revelations.—Confession.—The Magic Pictures.—"And several other +Worlds!"—Very curious.—<span class="smcap">An Astounding Chapter!</span>—Singular +Experiment.—"A Man goes in a Cab in search of his own Ghost!"—A +Strange Wager.—Mystery thickens.—Deeper and Deeper.—Murder will +out.—The Devil in Paris.—Diablerie extraordinary.—"The Saucer on the +Floor." What some Folks believe are Spirits!—<i>An Astounding +Disclosure!</i>—The Grand Secret.—A Theory demolished.—Ravalette +explains.—The Sleep, and a Revelation of the Destinies of Nations, a +chapter so extraordinary that it alone is worth the price of the whole +book.</p> + +<h3>II.</h3> + +<h3>TOM CLARK AND HIS WIFE; THEIR DOUBLE DREAMS, AND THE CURIOUS THINGS THAT +BEFELL THEM THEREIN.</h3> + +<p><i>Being the Third Thousand of the celebrated</i> ROSICRUCIAN'S STORY.</p> + + +<h3>III.</h3> + +<h3>PRE-ADAMITE MAN:</h3> + +<p>Demonstrating Human Existence 100,000 years ago, and that Adam was not +the First Man.</p> + +<p>"When the gude Laird was making Adam, even then the clan Grant was as +thick and numerous as the heather on yon hills."—<span class="smcap">Bailey Grant.</span></p> + +<p>Universally conceded by the Press of two countries, to be—</p> + +<blockquote><p>"A remarkable book." "We hail this shot from the Fort of +Truth!... Shows that men built cities 35,000 years ago!... +Extra valuable volume." "Great grasp of thought!... <i>Proves</i> +Adam was <i>not</i> the first man, nor anything like it!... +Engrossingly interesting.... Soul-stirring and grand beyond +description!" "The Author exhibits a profound reverence for the +truths of Scripture, but a still profounder one for Truth +herself. Dissent we may to some things, yet on the whole, we +commend the work to the favorable attention particularly of the +learned world."</p></blockquote> + + +<h3>IV.</h3> + +<h3>"DEALINGS WITH THE DEAD."</h3> + +<p>The Human Soul—What it is; whence it came; its location in the body; +its passage through death; whither it goes after death; what it does; +how it lives! Marriage in the Soul-world! Offspring there! Eating, +drinking, sleeping after we are dead! Do Souls occupy space? Does a Soul +feel heat, cold, get wet in a storm? What becomes of dead children?—of +idiots?—lunatics?—premature births? Heaven! Hell!—their nature and +location, with scores of equally important and profound questions, are +all answered in this most extraordinary and entirely original volume.</p> + + +<h3>V.</h3> + +<h3>AN INSIDE VIEW OF SPIRITUALISM.</h3> + +<p>A thorough and complete summing up of the system, showing its true +nature and vividly depicting its effects upon the minds, bodies, morals +and characters of all its adherents, by one who had a thorough +experience of ten years of, and in it.</p> + + +<h3>VI.</h3> + +<h3>THE ROSICRUCIAN'S STORY.</h3> + +<p>The great Sensation Tale. Embracing the celebrated and quite +extraordinary "Miranda Theory." <span class="smcap">By Dr. P. B. Randolph.</span></p> + +<p>N.B. The above two books are especially valuable by reason of the flood +of light thrown on the modern phenomena usually attributed to "spirits."</p> + + +<h3>VII.</h3> + +<h3>IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT;</h3> + +<p>Being an Answer to, and refutation of, the modern doctrine that +"Whatever is is right." The book is an eloquent defence of Marriage, and +embraces an appeal for the poor prostitute against the villainous wiles +of those who make her what she is. Nothing in the language speaks more +forcibly for fallen woman than this rare pamphlet.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It is doubtful if any List of Modern Works by a single author can +surpass in variety, interest, scope or power, that above presented. The +volumes are well worth perusal. All orders for them, or any books +published by this house, or any other, will be promptly filled, whether +for single copies or in quantities.</p> + +<p>SINCLAIR TOUSEY.</p> + + +<h3><i>In addition to the above, will be for sale</i>,</h3> + +<h3>THE CELEBRATED</h3> + +<h3>"RODREY" DREAM-BOOK,</h3> + +<h3>RE-TRANSLATED, CONDENSED, AND ADAPTED TO MODERN USAGE.</h3> + +<p>This, the largest and most perfect book of the kind in the world, in any +language, has been enlarged till it now contains the enormous number of +<span class="smcap">Three Thousand Solutions of Three Thousand Dreams</span>! It is utterly +impossible to have any sort of Dream; the interpretation and meaning of +which is not contained in this very curious book. It also embraces the +famous Persian "Pfal," whereby these Orientals tell their own and each +others fortunes by means of the numbers thrown with three dice. As a +source of amusement, and instruction too, this book is unsurpassed.</p> + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Tom Clark and His Wife, by Paschal Beverly Randolph + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM CLARK AND HIS WIFE *** + +***** This file should be named 35366-h.htm or 35366-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/6/35366/ + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Mary Meehan and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images +produced by the Wright American Fiction Project.) + + +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. 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