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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..674a6ed --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69837 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69837) diff --git a/old/69837-0.txt b/old/69837-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index d55e0d9..0000000 --- a/old/69837-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9933 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of An index finger, by Tulis Abrojal - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: An index finger - -Author: Tulis Abrojal - -Release Date: January 19, 2023 [eBook #69837] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading - Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from - images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INDEX FINGER *** - - - - - - AN INDEX FINGER. - - - - - AN INDEX FINGER - - BY - TULIS ABROJAL - - - “All the Sutras are but fingers that point out the shining moon.” - - “Man, thou livest forever.” - - - Has any one supposed it is lucky to be born? - - I hasten to inform him, or her, it is just as lucky to die, and I know - it. - - This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look’d at the crowded - heaven. - - And I said to my spirit: When we become the unfolders of those orbs, - and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be - filled and satisfied then? - - And my spirit said: No, we but level that lift to pass and continue - beyond. - - --WALT WHITMAN. - - [Illustration] - - R. F. FENNO & COMPANY, 9 and 11 EAST - SIXTEENTH STREET: NEW YORK CITY - 1898 - - - - - Copyright, 1897 - BY - TULIS ABROJAL. - - - _An Index Finger._ - - - - - DEDICATION. - - -To those who faithfully follow their ideals, ever doing the work they -love to do, always giving to the world the best that is in them--the -truth as they see it--though in the face of difficulties, disasters -and defeat; enduring persecution, poverty and want, meeting the dread -spectre of starvation, suffering death itself if need be, yet counting -all not too great a price to pay for the freedom of their souls, this -book is sympathetically dedicated. - - - - - CONTENTS. - - - CHAP. PAGE - - PREFACE 7 - - I. THE CHILD AND HER OWN PEOPLE 13 - - II. WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES 40 - - III. CONFIDENCES AND QUESTIONS 56 - - IV. HER STORY AND FATE 74 - - V. THE END OF THE DREAM 92 - - VI. THE BUTTERFLY 110 - - VII. OPPORTUNITY 131 - - VIII. DEATH’S NARROW SEA 148 - - IX. THINGS NOT DREAMED OF IN EVERYDAY PHILOSOPHY 156 - - X. “YE SHALL NOT UNDERSTAND” 168 - - XI. A LITTLE BOARD BRIDGES THE GREAT GULF 179 - - XII. AND THE PROPHET WAS STONED 202 - - XIII. THE TONGUES OF ANGELS 218 - - XIV. THE SIMPLE WAY 240 - - XV. IT IS WELL WITH THE CHILD 248 - - XVI. THE STORY OF ONE RETURNED FROM THE DEAD 254 - - XVII. UPROOTING A HUMAN TREE 277 - - XVIII. BOHEMIA’S HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS 293 - - XIX. THE JOYS 310 - - XX. PEOPLE OF THE PAST 317 - - XXI. THE BUTTERFLY’S FLIGHT 331 - - XXII. THE PROP THAT FAILED 340 - - XXIII. THE BOOK AND ITS CRITICS 353 - - XXIV. WHO ARE THEY? 358 - - XXV. LAST WORDS 379 - - - - - PREFACE. - - -The good old custom of the author telling his readers in a preface why -he wrote his book, happily has not yet gone out of date. Though no -particular friend to guide-board literature in general, I confess to a -weakness for the preface. It has its helpful uses. There the author can -talk directly to his readers, without filtering his thoughts through -the brains of his characters; and in consequence the readers come into -closer sympathy with him and understand him better. In not a few cases -I have wished books were all preface. I hope others may not wish so in -this case. - -In the preface we meet the author face to face, as it were, and he -becomes ours or we become his at once. It is a little confidential -glimpse into his soul, which he kindly gives us before we enter it by -means of the book. - -Yes, I am decidedly in favor of the preface, both as reader and author. - -A time-honored method of prefatory writing, made the author assume a -modesty that was self-depreciatory in the extreme. More often than -not he warned readers off by throwing out hints disparaging his own -ability. To such few readers as he thought might follow him through -the book in spite of his assurance that it would be unprofitable to do -so, he apologized with the utmost humility for the waste of their time -and drain upon their patience for which he was about to be responsible. - -I shall do no such thing. On the contrary, I believe that he who -reads this book will not find his time ill spent. Its theme is the -most important that can engage the human race. It is my answer to the -mightiest question ever propounded. _My_ answer. Its value extends that -far and no farther. “It is only insight into the ground of being that -secures satisfaction and thorough knowledge.” My light may be only a -rush-light; but such as it is I obey the behest to let it shine. - -Says one of the greatest of modern philosophers: “If anything in the -world is worth wishing for--so well worth wishing for that even the -ignorant and dull herd in its more reflective moments would prize it -more than silver or gold--it is that a ray of light should fall on the -obscurity of our being, and that we should gain some explanation of our -mysterious existence, in which nothing is clear but its misery and its -vanity.” - -To each of us things are what they appear from each particular point of -view. Our idea is our limitation. - -He who writes a book presents to other minds a picture of life as it -appears to him, from whatever point of view he has chosen. His work -portrays both that which he sees outside himself and that which is -within. It is a combination of himself and the world as he sees it, for -of subject and object are all things made. - -When we read a tale it is the author we learn to know, rather than -his people; but we know him through his people. They are the dwellers -within his mind, and we cannot know them without entering that realm -and knowing it, be it enchanted or disenchanting. - -Sight and insight make up all literature. Every book is a combination -of the author and what he looks upon and studies objectively as well as -subjectively. It is truth as he sees it. - -I have read many interesting works of fiction; but for the most part -I laid them down dissatisfied. They lacked something for which I was -always searching. They gave no answer to the questions that early began -to trouble me--questions that nobody could answer and few cared to be -bothered with. Often they were very attractive pictures of that which -the world is to so many--a fool’s paradise. - -They dealt with the emotions of those whose lives they portrayed, and -they appealed to the emotions of those who read them; and all had ever -the one, one theme--the pursuit of happiness. And all pursuers saw the -alluring phantom in the same shape, and gave chase to it by the same -road. Sometimes they captured it, and then--the book ended. There was -nothing else for the author to do when he reached that point, but to -let the curtain drop and turn out the lights, lest his audience see -that the happiness so hotly pursued was not the true thing after all; -but only an appearance, an illusion, a disappointment, as veritable a -phantom as ever--which left the one in possession of it no better off -than he was before he captured it. - -Now the form of this phantom, was the love of the man and the woman for -each other, and the possession of each by the other. Romances have been -mostly amplified sex chases. They wrought upon the reader’s emotions -through many harrowing chapters, the end thereof being that a certain -man married the particular woman he was pursuing. - -An old man whom I knew in my youth said he only read the first and -last chapters of a novel. In the one he became acquainted with the -hero and heroine; in the other he found out “whether he got her or -not.” By so doing he escaped much emotional wear and tear to which -less discriminating readers subjected themselves. As we all know, -sometimes “he didn’t get her.” What then? Well, perhaps she died or -he died, and that ended the story. Everybody accepted that event as -final and incontestable. That was the end, and nobody ventured to ask -what lay behind it. It was the end of the successful as well as of the -disappointed--the end of everybody in the world, yet nobody sought its -meaning. - -In this respect the people outside of books were precisely like the -people in books. They had the same ideal of happiness, chased it -through the same difficulties and disasters, and would not admit that -it was a phantom; would not see that Death stalked behind every joy, -sat at every feast, touched elbows right and left with the victorious -as well as with the defeated, and waited for everybody under the sun. -They knew it, of course, but they did not want to think about it or -talk about it. - -And what was this spectre to which all closed their eyes because of -terror? Death was death. That was all they knew. It was the terrible -and final thing that could happen. More; it was sure to happen; but it -must be put off as long as possible and ignored in the meantime. - -To me it ever was incomprehensible that so dreadful an issue was so -hopelessly accepted and so little inquired into. - -I pondered much on this strange problem. The dream haunted my mind that -somewhere there was a solution. - -I sought it everywhere from men and books; but long without success. At -last a ray of light fell upon my path. Faithfully following it through -years of earnest inquiry I learned that Death is not death. With that -knowledge happiness took a new form and beckoned to me over a new road. - -Because of the new ideals it placed before me I wrote this book. Its -people are my people; its gospel my gospel. From the truth as I was led -to see it I found a reason for my own being as well as for that of the -book, and I have tried to give it to the reader as simply as it came to -me. - -The psychical phenomena described are not exaggerated. Most of it -came within my own experience, and would be accessible to any one who -devoted to the study as much patience, time and effort as I did. - -There will be those who will give to the book only the sneer of -conceited ignorance. For such I have no message. With them, the first -condition of all learning--receptively--is lacking. I make no argument. -I try to convince no one. I simply tell a story. It will bear its own -message to those ready to receive it. None else can understand. God -Himself cannot give us what we will not receive. - -The book is but a finger that aims to point out to others a moon that -made glorious light for me. And if you will patiently look in the -direction it points, you, too, will see the shining moon. - - THE AUTHOR. - - - - - PART I. - - - - - CHAPTER I. - - THE CHILD AND HER OWN PEOPLE. - - There are some of us who in after years say to Fate, “Now deal us your - hardest blow; give us what you will; but let us never again suffer as - we suffered when we were children.” - - The barb in the arrow of childhood’s suffering is this; its intense - loneliness, its intense ignorance. - - --_Olive Schreiner._ - - -Under a great tree a child was singing softly to herself: - - Beautiful, dear, and noble old tree - Bend your green branches caressing o’er me. - For oh! a day’s coming, and soon will be here, - When I shall be far from your presence and cheer; - And my heart will be lonely without your embrace, - And you--you will long for a sight of my face. - - Your branches bend low to the ground, - Bend low and caressingly, - And they sway with a murmurous sound-- - A language of nature profound-- - Sway softly and caressingly, - As they bend, with a sigh, to the ground. - - They chant the grand chorus of ages, - In musical monotone; - And open the past’s mystic pages-- - The wonderful, solemn, sealed pages-- - So vaguely and dimly known. - They sing me the song of the ages. - - When I listen with spirit and soul - To each swaying, whisp’ring bough, - The silent centuries backward roll - And open before me like a scroll. - And I view the “Then as Now”-- - When I listen with spirit and soul. - -She was lying on the grass, with her face toward the sky, which she -could only see in spots through the tree’s thick branches, which hung -low and swayed in the slightest breeze, with a motion that was very -like a caress to one beneath them. A house stood near, but the tree -completely hid it on one side. One coming from the south saw only a -beautiful grassy hill surmounted by a great green umbrella. - -Under this friendly shelter the woman-child lay, singing her own words -to her own tunes. Oblivious to outward sounds, she heard no footsteps -until the branches parted and a stranger entered her temple. - -At this a dog that had been enjoying the profoundest of slumber near -her, sprang to his feet with a great show of vigilance, making up for -his tardiness by the most energetic barking. - -“Be quiet, Bliss,” said the child, rising to a sitting posture and -looking steadily at the stranger, with the utmost composure. The dog -at once became silent, but he went close to her and posed as on the -defensive. - -“I beg pardon,” said the intruder, politely raising his hat, “I saw no -one, and thought to rest a bit in the shade, and get a cool drink of -water, too.” - -“The well is on the other side of the house,” she said, making a motion -in that direction with a thin, nervous, unchildlike hand. Her words -and manner expressed the utmost indifference--yet there was a gleam of -interest in her big, clear eyes. - -The stranger moved on, murmuring thanks. She looked after him with a -sudden yearning in her heart for his return. He was not of her world, -that was sure; and yet somehow it was quite clear to her that he was -of her world--the world of her dreams, where she longed to be, fancied -she had been, and from whence she had somehow sadly strayed. Yes, in -that instant of contact she understood that in spite of all apparent -difference their worlds were the same. - -In another moment he returned. Gracefully begging permission, he -seated himself on the grass and leaned against the tree. His manner -captivated her. It was respectful and deferential as to a woman grown. -It enchanted her, for she was one of those misunderstood children who -have thoughts and feelings far beyond their years and suffer great -humiliation when treated patronizingly. - -“You are not at all afraid of me although I came unannounced and -unintroduced, are you?” he asked, half laughing. - -“Afraid? Why should I be? I am in my own door-yard. Besides, you don’t -look like a wild beast, and if you were one, here is Bliss to take care -of me.” - -“Thank you. It’s a comfort to know you have no doubt that I am human. -But what is this?” he asked, as a piece of cardboard blew toward him. -“Ah! a drawing. May I look at it?” - -She nodded her consent. - -It was a pencil drawing of a woman’s head, and interested him at first -glance, because, imperfect though it was, it had that which makes -art great when it is so--the human quality, the power to express its -creator, the aim and object of all art. This penciled face gave an -insight into the artist’s mind, showing that which she had tried to -express and yet had not made clear. It showed the height to which she -rose in fancy, and the long and rugged road between present performance -and the perfection of which she dreamed. - -All this the stranger saw, because we see what is within ourselves. It -takes genius to recognize genius. He had traveled the road on which she -was taking her first feeble steps. - -“Is it your work?” he asked. - -“Yes,” she nodded, coloring faintly. It was plain that she expected no -praise, yet longed for a helping word. - -“Is it a copy?” he asked, for there was about it, although but half -expressed, that which he thought must have been suggested by something -from a master hand. - -“No.” - -“Then who is it?” There was unaffected interest in his voice. - -“One of my people,” she answered. - -“Does she live here?” - -“She is here sometimes, not always.” - -“Well, she must be a beautiful woman--even more beautiful than you -depict her.” - -“You understand,” said the child. “I cannot put her on paper as I see -her. I know but little of drawing, but I am always trying to draw -faces--the faces of my own people--and trees, for they are my own -people too; but I am never satisfied with my work. They do not get on -the paper as they are in my mind.” - -“Why not have some instruction?” - -She shrugged her shoulders. - -The stranger understood, but in order not to seem to, he began to pick -up some scattered leaves of paper near him. Seeing that they contained -writing he was about to lay them down with an apology when the child -said: - -“It is a letter I have written to Helen, the woman whose picture you -have just been looking at. You may read it, only not aloud. I couldn’t -stand that.” - -“But why should I read it at all?” he said. “It would be impertinent -on my part. Besides, I am not afflicted with the despicable vice of -curiosity.” - -“If you don’t mind, I wish you would read it,” she said. “It may help -me. You will understand when you have finished.” But she looked ill at -ease, nevertheless. - -The stranger read: - - MY DEARLY BELOVED HELEN:--Since you went away I am very lonely indeed. - None other is so near and dear to me as you. I fill the hours with - thoughts of you--thoughts so intense and absorbing that at times I - actually see you by my side. But, alas! you do not stay when you come - like that. You fade out of my sight; you go back to your world and I - cannot follow you only with my thoughts, my dreams, my love and my - letters. - - But I shall go and find you some day. I shall be one of the people - of your world, and shall be busy with work which shall fill my time, - my brain and my heart. I shall meet all my people there--my very own - people, and shall love them and work with them and know loneliness no - more. I have a story to tell you, Dear Heart. It is this: - - In a world nameless to all mankind, lived a woman, sweet and fair. - It was a beautiful world. There the men were all true and the women - all faithful. Misery was unknown and none sought happiness, for all - possessed it. - - But this one woman dreamed dreams and saw visions. She heard voices - calling to her from another world--a world whose people sought - continually and vainly to attain a condition they knew only in name, - and which they called Happiness. All believed in the existence of - this condition and gave chase to it, each in his own way, but none - found it. Often hearing the voices of these unhappy people and - seeing them in visions, this woman longed to go and help them. The - longing disturbed the harmony of life in all her world, until it was - decreed that she must leave it and go to that other whose vibrations - of anguish had shaken the spheres. But they did not tell her of her - destiny. “She will know when she is there,” they said. - - So she slept, and the sleep was long in the eyes of the children of - Time. - - When she awoke, memory was gone, and everything had to be learned - over again. At first her consciousness was very dim, and her strength - feeble, and having slept so long she could scarcely keep awake at all. - - But after a time a faint memory of the past came to her, and she saw - that all was different from that other time, which now seemed like a - dream. This was not the same world, nor were these the same people - she had known, for she was in the sad world she had seen in visions, - whose people so persistently and often frantically sought Happiness - and never found it--and that sad world was this in which we live. - - She was changed in appearance, too, for when she looked in a mirror - she saw a face that was new to her and a tiny figure. She was like a - child, and everybody called her a child, though to herself she seemed - not to be a child, because part of her memory had come back, and it - was the memory of a woman. - - It was very hard to feel like a full-grown person in mind and be - treated like a creature with almost no mind at all. One of the most - painful things she saw was that sometimes the most ignorant and - unfeeling were in positions of power over sensitive children. She - suffered much from the very beginning of consciousness. - - To go back to the world she could so dimly remember was her one dream. - But when she spoke of it those about her laughed and said she had - never been in any other world, because there was no other. - - Once in a dream she went back, or perhaps it was that some of her old - friends came to her. They told her to be patient; that she had been - sent to help the unhappy ones who had so often called to her; that - scattered all over the planet in which she dwelt now were others like - herself, who had come for the same purpose; that she would meet them - from time to time and that would pay her for much of her pain. - - They said, too, that she had a particular work to do here and could - not leave until it was done, but she must find out what it was - herself; that the road would often seem very hard and very long, but - it had an end, and if she did her work well-- - - There the dream ended; but it comforted her, all unfinished as it was. - - By and by her childhood was gone. She was a woman, and went forth to - find her work, earnest, enthusiastic and eager, and they said she had - precious gifts. - - “I will paint pictures,” she said, “for always in my mind are noble - faces and figures, like the gods when they walked among men, and these - shall show mankind how glorious it can itself become.” - - Beautiful creations, perfect shapes of beauty came forth from her - hand, but the world, for the most part, passed them by. It said, “We - see nothing in these,” and it spoke the truth, for that in them could - only be seen by those like unto them. - - A few, however, stood before them filled with delight. They were - people of the planet from which the artist came, and they recognized - their kindred in the faces and forms she had depicted; but she herself - was never satisfied with what she had done. Within her mind, faces - more glorious, and forms more perfect struggled for expression. - - “I have a tale to tell,” she said, “that many will be glad to hear, - for it contains help for all.” But again the world did not understand. - It said, “The people of this book are impossible people, and what - is the author trying to say? We see nothing in it.” A few only - understood; but these were of her planet. - - “Now,” she said, “I will write again, and this time the world will - read and be charmed. I will give it what it wants, not what I want to - give it.” - - She spoke truly. She wrote and many were pleased; but the people of - her planet closed her book with pain in their faces, and she herself - found no joy in it. To her conscience she made this excuse: “I want - bread and the easy, comfortable things of life, and the world wants - foolishness, so we exchange products. Some day I will write that which - pleases myself. Then I shall make no concessions, no bids for favor. I - shall say what I feel and think.” - - Time went on, and the world became interested in new names, and - almost forgot hers. Days of discouragement and distress arrived. The - ease which she had bought by pleasing the commonplace, vanished, and - loneliness, ill-health and poverty came in its stead. Weary and - sick unto death in spirit and body, she longed to end it all, and so - longing fell asleep, and sleeping dreamed. - - She saw again the faces of those from her other world who had come to - comfort her when a child. One, the most beautiful of all, and yet just - now the saddest, seemed nearer and dearer than the others. It was a - glorious face, radiant with strength and sweetness, a type of perfect - womanhood. All her life it had visited her in dreams and haunted her - imagination. Sometimes the name that belonged to it hovered on her - lips, yet was never spoken, for it always vanished before it took - shape in her mind. - - “Did you find your work?” they asked. - - “I tried hard, dear friends,” she said. “I have not been idle.” But - their faces showed no joy. - - “Have I not done my work well?” she questioned, beginning to be afraid. - - “Have you given your best?” they asked. - - A flush of shame covered her face. “No; the world did not want it.” - - They were silent, and there was that in their eyes which made her more - and more ashamed. - - “I needed bread,” she said, anxious to make excuse. - - “Is bread all that is worth striving for, that you paid for it so high - a price?” they asked. - - She was silent. - - “Did you come to please or help the people of this world?” they asked. - - “You told me long ago that I came to help,” she answered, “but they - made it very hard. When I wrote that which burned within my soul - they cared not to hear it, but wanted something that entertained and - diverted them from what they call the cares of life; and I--well, I - was often hungry--so I gave them what they wanted.” - - “And did they reward you?” - - “You see I have nothing,” she answered. “For a time I had some of the - possessions all value so much; but they are gone.” - - “You tried to tell these people what you thought and felt, but they - would not listen, you say; so you told them little foolish tales, - like those that please children, but instruct not, help not, and thus - you passed your life neglecting to unfold your own soul by expressing - it truly. Only the weak and feeble of will, or the indolent and - indifferent, turn back at the first obstacle. Where was your faith?” - - “I sold it, as you see, for a pitiful price,” she answered, weeping. - - “And were you satisfied?” - - “Never. My conscience always lashed me. I have been punished already. - Give me no further penance.” - - “It is not ours to punish or pardon, nor in all the universe is there - either punishment or pardon. There is only unchangeable, ever-active - law. Had you done your work well”-- - - “What is it to do one’s work well?” she interrupted. - - And now the woman of the glorious face came near and answered: “It is - to give the highest and best that is in you, without caring whether - it will please or offend; to express truth, as you see it, though the - world be against you; to pay whatever price is asked, though it be - starvation and disgrace for the freedom of your soul, for the soul is - only free when it faithfully follows its IDEAL.” - - “Then I know I have not done my work well,” said the woman, sadly. “I - seldom gave my best. I had not the courage. I was afraid the price I - would have to pay would be too high. But what is the fate of those who - do not do their work well?” - - The faces of the company were full of pity, as they answered, “They - must do it over again.” - - Then the woman wept aloud. “But not just yet,” they said. “You are - very tired; your strength is gone. You shall rest for a time.” - - Then one touched her eyes gently, and they closed to the light of this - world! - - Helen, dearest, I dreamed that story, and I was the woman who - did not do her best. It always seems to me that I lived long ago - somewhere--many lives perhaps. At times I can almost remember scenes - and people of that far-off time. It may be that it was right here in - this world, and that I have been sent back to do what I left undone. - Or it may be that here in this life I shall not do what I ought to do, - and must come again. Ever with me is the thought that there is some - particular thing for me to do and that I must make haste to find it - and do it, because the time is short. - - Part of my work is to find my people--thy own people whom I knew in - that far-away life, you are one of them, and-- - -The stranger laid the unfinished letter down and looked curiously -at the author. He had not observed her closely until then. He saw -in her face that which is higher than beauty, but is only seen and -understood by its spiritual kindred. The mouth, that unmistakable key -to character, because it is the door through which the soul expresses -itself, was perfect in shape and exquisitely sensitive, though the -other features had a dash of boyish ruggedness in them. But the eyes, -the dark grey eyes, mottled with tawn, had in them a look, indefinable, -yearning, appealing,--a look that might have ages of suffering behind -it--and perhaps before it--that went to the stranger’s heart like a -knife, and filled his eyes with a mist. In after years more than one -strong spirit lost its strength and wept it knew not why, before that -flash-light of a soul. - -In the same moment the stranger saw another thing. It was that the -child was entirely without self-consciousness and the consequent -coquetry which so often spoils the manners of even very little women. -She was not thinking how she appeared in his eyes. He could see that. -It was nothing to her that her feet were naked, her hair twisted and -her clothing crumpled. It was plain that these unconventional facts -did not even present themselves to her mind. Her shoes and stockings -and big straw hat lay near her on the grass, and she gave no sign of -embarrassment because she was not arrayed in them. She met him on the -ground of mind to mind. In her shining, yearning eyes was an eager -interest. - -“A free, original, aspiring spirit,” he mused. “Life will be a rough -pilgrimage for her. She will find it hard to shape herself to iron-clad -standards. The vast army of the commonplace, unable to understand her, -will claw at her like birds of prey. It is a pity that she must be -bruised and beaten into the usual shape, as she surely will be. But the -world is a relentless potter, with inflexible ideas of how its human -jugs and vases are to be modeled; and it shapes us all, in a measure, -in spite of ourselves.” - -“If the question isn’t impertinent, how old are you?” he asked, with a -cadence of melancholy in his voice. - -“Eleven; but I feel _very_ old sometimes. Old, old, old!” - -“Yet you are not old enough to be writing of loneliness,” he said. - -“Ah; you think so? Can you imagine the loneliness of a child who is not -altogether a child and yet not a woman?” - -“Where are your dolls?” he asked, hoping to divert her mind from -subjects too serious. - -Her handsome mouth curved into a sneer. “Dolls?” she echoed. “Dolls? -Poor, miserable little images made by stupid people to deceive those -they believe to be stupider. Well, I have several. They were given to -me by foolish friends who meant to be kind; but they live in boxes -upstairs. I never get any good from them, wretched imitations of people -that they are, with expressionless faces and stuffed bodies. I prefer -my own people.” - -“The lady of the picture and letter is one of them, you said. But of -course they are not all grown up like her.” - -“Yes, they are, for I like grown-up people best. I don’t like those of -my own age. At least I have seen but few whom I liked. The reason I am -so fond of my own people, is because I make them myself, and so, of -course, I make them to suit me. They are charming, and very fond of -me. You would call them unreal; but to me they are more real than the -flesh and blood people hereabouts, and much more agreeable.” - -“Ah! I understand now,” said the stranger. “They are your own people -in the sense of being congenial, companionable, of your own way of -thinking. You have gone direct to a great truth, little friend. Our own -people are those with whom we are in intellectual sympathy, no matter -where we find them.” - -“But your other people,” he went on, after a short pause, motioning -with his hand toward the house, “your family,--you love them, too?” - -“No; we don’t love each other,” she answered, frankly; “we seem not to -fit well together--not to be thinking the same thoughts. The most of -me is completely shut away from them. I cannot talk to them as I am -talking to you. They would laugh at me; they would ridicule me, and -that enrages as well as hurts me. And they are going away one by one, -interested in their own lives and knowing nothing of my dreams and -longings. Two of my sisters married recently and have gone far away, -and last week my oldest brother left. I watched him out of sight as he -went down the road, with my heart almost bursting. So it was when the -others went. Everything was desolate without them, and they will never -be back here again in the old way. Not that the old way was so good, -for it wasn’t, but I could not bear to see the end. I suffer if only -an animal dies or is taken away. And I always wanted to love them; but -they did not understand.” - -The stranger’s eyes grew pitiful, not so much for what she had suffered -as for what she was destined to suffer. He saw her as she was, and -as no other had seen her, none having the power to understand,--a -sensitive, affectionate, aspiring soul, held for a time in a place -alien to her spirit, among people most truly not her own. - -“Another,” he said, mentally, “destined to travel the rough road that -leads to the heights. Another with a dash of the weightiest gift of -the gods. I did not think to find one of the climbers of Olympus here. -Yet where none dreams to find them there they are. Poor little soul -touched with the wand of genius, already living in a world of her -own creation, because the other world is ungenial and intolerable, -and longing for sympathy, which is recognition, appreciation, and -encourages expression, which is life itself. The old, old spirit in -the new body, not comprehended, often wounded, yet striving, striving, -always striving against hard conditions to tell what it feels. - -“But you have some friends of your own age among the real people--those -we call real--have you not?” - -“Yes; and I play with them sometimes in their way; but in a little -while I am tired of them, and am generally glad when they are gone, -so that I can be with the friends I have been telling you about. But -I have one comrade of my own age whom I love. She talks very little; -but she understands. We often spend whole days together away from -everybody. She doesn’t fit into her family much better than I do in -mine, but she is happier, because her family are kinder than mine. They -love each other better.” - -The stranger was struck with the simple and forceful analysis of the -difference between the two families. - -“When people love each other they are kinder, as a matter of course,” -he said, feeling that he was guilty of the stupidest of platitudes, but -anxious to keep the young philosopher talking. “But your family love -you, surely?” - -“No,” she said, decisively, the mottled eyes showing a flash of pain so -intense that he turned away. - -“What makes you think so?” - -“They find fault with me all the time. It is a terrible thing to be -blamed always and never praised. When I am grown, should I have power, -should I be able to get others to listen to me, I shall tell them that -if they want to make people better they must praise them. Fault-finding -helps nobody. I am sure of that. It is the worst possible thing for -me, for it fills my heart with rage and a sense of injustice, and of -course it has the same effect on everybody else. I can see plainly -enough what would make an angel of me, and angels of all others, too. -Love and praise are what is needed. What couldn’t I be and do if they -only loved me and saw good in me, and told me so. But to be nagged, and -blamed, scolded, rebuked and humiliated incessantly is making me wicked -in my mind all the time. I know how devils are made. They just take -a child, neither better nor worse than others, and put it some place -where it hears nothing but blame all the time, never a word of love or -praise, and when it is grown up it is a devil, ready to give back the -pain that had been inflicted on it. If it were not for my own people, -my thought people, I could not endure life at all.” - -“A bad case,” said the stranger to himself, with a sigh, “heart and -intellect both hungry. I fear the road will be very rough. - -“Why did you let your friend Helen go away? Since she is your own -creation, why not keep her here at will, when you are so fond of her?” - -“She is my own creation, but I could not keep her here. She has her own -life to live, so she went back to the world from which I drew her, for -I do truly believe away down inside of me, that she is what you call -real. Just now she is in Paris, and she is a famous author, but not -too conceited to love me and find pleasure in talking and writing to -me. I was willing she should go away, as it gives me an opportunity of -writing to her. I enjoy writing even more than talking, sometimes. I -get letters from her often. I have a box full of them. Of course I have -to write them myself, but after they are written it really seems that -she, not I, is their author, and I enjoy reading them just as other -folks enjoy sure-enough letters that come from the post office.” - -“How do you send letters to your people?” - -The yearning eyes became grave. “Well, that is awkward. I leave them -in queer little places where big, bad, real people are not apt to find -them--at the root of a flower, in the crevice of a wall, or under a -stone--and persuade myself that somehow they reach their destination. -Sometimes I carry them clear to the woods and leave them in hollow -trees, or under great, cool rocks, where, perhaps, there are fairies or -some kind of invisible messengers who will transport them for me. - -“But when it rains, now and then, they are washed out of their places, -and I find them all wet and blurred. Then a chilly feeling comes over -me, and I am half afraid that, after all, my people have not seen them. -You see it hurts me if I think _nobody_ reads them. That’s why I wanted -you to read my letter to Helen. I felt sure you would understand.” - -“You have many of these unseen friends of yours?” asked the stranger. - -“Yes, many; but Helen is my only confidante. Of course I am not a -little girl when I am with my people. I am grown up, and am important, -for I, too, am a famous writer, and I paint the most wonderful -pictures. Yes, I have great fame and the wisest and most distinguished -people are pleased to be received by me, and they--well,--they hang -upon my words.” - -“Of course,” said the stranger. - -“It is beautiful,” continued the child, “to be treated with -consideration. When will big folks learn that little ones are human -beings like themselves, with the same feelings exactly, and that they -can’t respect themselves if they are ordered about rudely, scolded, -snubbed and generally treated as inferior beings?” - -She was enjoying the first appreciation the world had accorded her; was -breathing the air of her dreams, the congenial atmosphere which is only -found where there are sympathetic souls to breathe it with us. - -The stranger, understanding, thought of “how widely yawns the moat that -girds a human soul,” whose “real world is always an invisible place, -removed from the rush and chatter of crowds, for the most important -portion of life is the secret and solitary portion.” - -“Are your people all women, or do you permit poor, imperfect, earthly -man to enter your paradise?” he asked. - -“Our world is made up of human beings, and of course that means men -and women,” she replied. “It would be a stupid place if it contained -only women or only men. But our men are men, not merely creatures who -pass as such, like so many one sees walking about here. And yet, I must -confess that the men of my thought world are not quite so real to me as -the women. I want to make them excellent, perfect; but I don’t succeed. -When I get them just so far along, I seem unable to complete them, and -so they are more or less dim and shadowy to me.” - -“Ah, I see,” said her listener. “Your ideal of mankind is too high -for even your imagination to give form to. What are these men like -who still seem dim to you? Some of them are knights and lords of high -degree, or kings, perhaps?” - -“No; we don’t care for that kind. They would be too conceited for our -world. We don’t like fighters, either. We have great men, of course, -but they have earned their laurels; but even then they don’t talk about -themselves, till they tire one all out like living men do. But we will -not have any who are not truthful, and then they are courageous, for -liars are always cowards, you know. And then, they are kind, very kind -to everybody, and they don’t think themselves better than women. We -couldn’t stand that, especially as our women are all so magnificent. -I’m one of them, you know.” - -It was beautiful to him to see her so frankly reveal herself as she saw -herself. “Your men do something, I suppose,--something more than to be -merely agreeable?” he said. - -“We all work, but we dream too, and the dreamers are prized as highly -as the workers if they dream good dreams.” - - “For a dreamer lives forever, - And a toiler dies in a day,” - -hummed the stranger softly. - -Then in memory he turned to the past, murmuring, “Bohemia, thy grapes -are sweet.” - -He saw again its hot and dusty highways, its tangled byways and the -long procession traveling thereon. One by one they passed him in -review, some with road-worn feet, faded garments and weary eyes; some -stepping lightly, with joy in their hearts and flowers in their hands. -There were the hopeful, the mirthful, the witty and the merry. There, -too, were the baffled and beaten, the hopeless and the joyless. The -successful went by with proud mien, and smiling face, and they who had -failed also bore themselves erect and smiled, that the world might -not dream of the pain at their hearts. “Their heads were bloody but -unbound.” - -Grapes grew abundantly overhead, but a few, only a very few of the -many travelers gathered them. He saw it all in memory as he had seen -it all in reality. Now, as one by one the struggling, striving throng, -dowered with the fateful gift of genius, passed again before him, he saw - - “Their faces all showed suffering, - Though no voice uttered plaints.” - -How courageous they had been! How faithful! Not a few had met -starvation face to face, and even that dread sight had not power to -turn them from the pursuit of their ideals. Again and again he had -seen the bravest and brightest fall, their aim unattained, their hands -empty, their names unrenowned, their hearts broken. But now he saw, as -by a revelation, that the defeated were victors too. - -Putting his hand over his eyes as if to shut out the sight of the -striving, suffering throng, he groaned mentally, for here in this quiet -spot, far from the great centres of life, was another getting ready for -a pilgrimage on the same hot, dusty road. - -The child was the first to break the silence into which they had fallen. - -“My own people are somewhere in the real world, I am sure, and I must -go and find them,” she said. “I was singing about it to this dear old -tree when you came, for when I go the tree will miss me and be lonely. -We are great friends. I tell it many things, and it answers by waving -its branches over me--see, like that, and I understand.” - -“You are eleven years old,” said the stranger, “and are eager to go -and find your people. I am many, many years older and yet have found -very few of mine. The search is long and sometimes heart-breaking, but -it has to be made. But remember one thing, and forget it not, I pray -you. If you have some dream in your mind dearer than all others--some -thought that burns to spring forth into life--be faithful to it, for -it is your ideal. Follow it at any cost. Your story of the woman who -did not do her best contains a great philosophical truth. Somewhere, -sometime we are destined to reach a state where our dreams shall come -true, where we shall have the desire of our hearts, where we shall be -in accord with all beauty and all good. But we can only reach that -state by doing our best every day--in little things and great. If we do -less we shall have to do it over again. - -“One is with you who always knows. It is your soul--your real self. -When you want to find your work, when you are ready to tell what you -feel, ask not the world what it wants, but say to your soul, ‘What wilt -thou have me to do?’” - -She looked at him admiringly, gratefully, and said, “I thank you. I -know you are wise, for you come from the big, busy world that I long to -enter, and shall enter. There one can see and learn everything. Less -than a mile away two railroads cross each other. I hear the locomotives -whistle every day as they pass, dragging people after them. I shall go, -too, some day, and then, and then”-- - -“And _then_,” said the stranger, sighing; but she did not understand. -How could she? - -“And then I shall be happy,” she added. - -“You must find me when you come into my world,” he continued, after a -pause. “Perhaps I am one of your own people. At any rate, the great -world knows me a little. Now I must leave you and go back to where the -two railroads cross. My train was hours behind time, otherwise I should -not have had the pleasure of meeting you. I assure you I shall not -forget you, and when you come into my world I shall know you for one of -us, even as I know you now.” - -They had risen as he spoke. He took her slender, sunburned hand in his, -bent down, kissed it and was gone. - -“He is truly one of my very own people,” said the child to herself, as -she watched him out of sight. “Now I am sure they live somewhere, and -I shall find them and know them as soon as I see them, and shall be -happy.” - - - - - CHAPTER II. - - WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES. - - “O Urania! the earth and the air and the sea - And the infinite spaces are vocal with thee, - And the sunset and moonrise seraphic with thee.” - - --_Ben S. Parker._ - - -The tall young man alone on the porch walked slowly back and forth, -looking off into the sweet spring sunshine, with troubled eyes. - -He stopped and his face flushed with pleasure as a young girl dressed -for the street came out of the door. - -“You here, Mr. Kendall?” she said, interrogatively. “You toil not -neither do you spin to-day? How’s that?” - -“Because I am weary and fain would rest,” he answered. “Yes, and I fain -would do several other things, too; but I dare say I shall not. But you -have been idling lately, too. Why so?” - -She shrugged her shoulders. “Like yourself I am weary and fain would -do--I scarcely know what, and go I scarcely know where.” - -“Do you mind my asking whither you are bound just now?” - -“Not at all,” she answered, pleasantly, “only I can’t say definitely, -because I don’t know. I shall probably fetch up at the nearest open -square where there is some green grass on which I can rest my eyes a -bit, and either lose myself or find myself for a little while.” - -“May I go with you?” He made the request a little timidly, for she had -a high-handed way with him that made him a little afraid of her, though -she attracted him with resistless force. - -“I shall be pleased.” Her voice had a sincere ring in it that flushed -his face with pleasure. “You are always a good companion, because you -don’t tire me talking too much.” - -“A dubious compliment, but I am grateful for it, nevertheless. Though -if it be intended as a hint for me to keep silent this morning it will -not be taken, that’s all.” - -They walked away together with the manner of persons accustomed to -seeing much of each other. - -The wide old streets had birds twittering in the trees, and sunshine -warm upon them. The air was soft and mild, and brought with it the -gentle melancholy peculiar to spring, a melancholy that creates or -awakes a strange unrest, and makes us long to go journeying to far -countries, we know not why. - -Each of these two were touched by the spirit of this unrest. They spoke -of the beauty of the day, of the joy of idling now and then, so sweet -to busy people, but soon fell into silence, for their thoughts were -not with their words. The young man’s eyes became misty from time to -time, though his companion saw it not, for she did not look at his -face. He was thinking that in after years he should often recall this -walk. On his mind he was painting every object his eyes encountered, -that he might treasure it as a comforting picture in the possible -lonely future. - -After wandering about awhile they sat down in a tiny park near a -fountain, and idly watched the water spraying in the sunshine. - -“How long have you been here, Miss Hill?” Kendall asked abruptly. - -“Four years,” she answered, tossing a pebble into the fountain and -showing little interest in anything but her own thoughts. - -“And I five.” - -As she said nothing, presently he went on: “Now, I want you to do me a -service, a real service. I want you to decide a question, an important -question for me, and I have determined to abide by your decision, -whatever it may be. Yes, I will do exactly as you say.” - -Expecting a word or look of interest from her, he paused; but she went -on drawing lines on the gravel walk with her parasol, in silence. Being -of the large, fair type of man, his face flushed with every emotion. -Just now he colored deeply because of her apparent unconcern, but -continued: - -“There are times in each life when it is necessary to do one of -two things. Until we reach this point we get on very well, and are -untroubled by doubts. But when we have to decide whether to keep the -right hand road or take the left, then we look about for something or -somebody to cast the die for us. The doing is always comparatively -easy; it’s the deciding that muddles and troubles us. Now I have come -to the place where the road divides, and I want some help on the -decision.” - -She looked up at him now with unaffected interest. - -“I am thinking that I ought to strike out and do something better than -I am doing,--be something more than a cog in a great machine. I am -tired of that. In the office over there”--making a motion with his hand -in the direction of the commercial part of the city--“are men who would -faint, I am sure, or weep like children, if they should lose their -situations, such cowards have they become by long dependence on the -weekly salary. Some have been there years, and have given their manhood -as well as their time in exchange for the money they pocket every -Saturday. They act like slaves in the presence of their employer. If he -had bought them at the auction block they could not be more cringing to -him. When he is in sight self-respect withers and they are mere worms, -crawling in spirit at his feet. I don’t want to become like that, and -yet I am sure to if I remain. That sort of thing is contagious. No -man can stand forever against it. I know just enough of the degrading -feeling to be willing to make a sacrifice to avoid familiarity with it. -In reality the wage-earner and the man who hires him engage in a form -of coöperation, each to be respected by the other; but the relation -is universally misunderstood. The employer develops into an autocrat -and the employee into a serf, and so both are injured. To be an -employee too long is to become a dependent, helpless, pitiable being, a -degenerate man. I am sure of it. Believing that, I feel I must escape -from such direful consequences. - -“Yet it takes courage to voluntarily give up what they call a good -salary, and go into the wilderness, so to speak, and take the risks -that all that implies. A ship sails from New York for San Francisco day -after to-morrow. I have been thinking I would resign my situation and -take passage on her. The territories are big and full of opportunities. -I thought to go to one of them and carve out life for myself on -broader lines, if possible. I have a little money, and I can still put -forth effort. As I have no family to consult--not a relative in the -world--and being on the fence, as it were, in the matter of deciding, I -have a fancy for leaving it to you and will do what you say. Tell me, -shall I go or stay?” - -She looked at him with something like admiration shining in her eyes. - -“Go,” she said, unhesitatingly. “Go, and be an individual, a fully -developed unit, a man, not a mere cog in somebody else’s wheel. Cogs -have their uses, but they have also their limitations, and they are so -plentiful. You can be a whole machine, if you try. Yes, go and be a -figure in the world, on your own account, not simply a cipher, useful -only as auxiliary to the figures.” - -“Good!” he said, with forced emphasis, making a brave effort to appear -delighted, but in his heart wishing he could hide somewhere and take it -out in a hearty schoolboy blubber. “Day after to-morrow at this time I -shall be aboard my ship.” - -He knew that her decision was wise, but it pained him that she was so -ready to send him. And then, there was the ordeal of parting from her, -a tug of war he could not calmly face. - -“You should go for the sake of preserving your self-respect,” she -continued, “lest in time you become like the slavish wretches by whom -you are surrounded, and also to preserve your life if you care for it. -Two years more here bent over your desk in dingy, close rooms, and you -will be hopelessly ill of consumption.” - -“I have thought of that,” he said, “and it has something to do with my -wish to get away.” - -“Well, when you go elsewhere, don’t make the mistake of beginning the -same kind of life over again. Don’t imprison yourself, and don’t hire -yourself out to any man. The air of the West will not save you unless -you breathe it fresh and pure. Live outdoors as much as possible. How -hideous is this habit of herding in cities--hideous and hurtful! How -sensible of you to think of going where there is breadth, freedom and -outlook in all senses of the words; but I am surprised, because I never -heard you express any discontent.” - -“To be honest, I had very little--too little for my own good,” he said, -coloring deeply. “It has cost me a struggle to force myself to think of -going. Don’t forget that it is you who are sending me after all; but -for you I swear I should not go.” - -“I am sure I am doing you a service,” she answered, “though I shall -miss you, as a matter of course.” - -“And you, what of your future? You advise me to leave this plodding -existence, where there is neither growth nor freedom, and go where I -can be more than I ever can be here; but you are passing your life in -exactly the same jog-along way.” - -“I--oh! I, too, shall be gone some day.” As she spoke she smiled, -looking afar off. - -“If I make a place for you will you come?” he asked. - -There was nothing lover-like in his voice or attitude, yet he loved the -girl beside him with a faithful, dog-like, worshipful affection. Not -loving him, and not having a grain of coquetry or even vanity in her, -she had never been aware of it. Even now, when his meaning became plain -to her, she did not make a situation of it, or give it the slightest -shading of the sentimental. Entirely unmoved herself, she knew not -what the avowal cost him, made in the face of defeat, as he well knew -beforehand. - -“Oh, dear, no,” she said, simply, without a shade more or less of -feeling in face or voice. “If I were a man, yes, I would go; but as it -is, no. Be grateful that you are a man and have no hampering, cramping -sex limitations to work against in the public mind if not in your own. -You are free to go where you will and to do what you wish, and if it be -but half-way well done, both fools and wise will chirrup your praises. -One thing I ask of you. Throughout your life, never lose an opportunity -of helping womankind to a freer, better, broader life. Do this in -memory of me, and if I meet you in the future, either here or on the -other side of life--should there be another side--I shall not fail to -thank you.” - -“I promise, and doubtless shall do more than that, in memory of you.” -The last words had a quaver of agony in them, which she did not sense. - -“I have been growing restless of late, too. Some day I shall be -gone--perhaps before long.” She looked afar off with dreamy eyes as she -spoke, and Kendall’s heart ached as he realized at last, that in the -future of her dreams he had no part or place. - -“Do not forget, wherever you may be, that I am always your loyal, -humble servant,” he said, gently. - -“I am sure of that, and I thank you,” she answered, with kindness in -her voice. - -It was like the man that he did not try to relieve his almost bursting -heart by talking of his love for her, even though it was without hope, -but he understood none of the arts of Eros, and was disciplined in -repression. - -In truth, it was preposterous that he should dream of winning this -woman, and in a vague way he always knew it; yet he had dreamed. From -the day he first saw her she had enthralled him, an achievement of -which she seemed altogether unconscious, though everybody else read it -clearly enough. - -They had met daily in their common home, a boarding-house, for four -years. They had enjoyed concerts, plays and lectures together; had -walked and talked together and been good comrades and yet had never -agreed. Nothing under the sun did they see from the same point of -view, and the topic upon which they thought alike had never been -found. In spite of this, Kendall patiently worshipped at her shrine. -Had he not been of the steady, hopeful, never-give-up brand of lover, -he would have lost heart long before. But he had the confidence of -the self-satisfied and shortsighted, and a heart that held on to its -fancies with the desperate clutch that wins sometimes when finer -methods fail. - -To his credit be it said that while his devotion was open and -above-board, for all the world to see, he was never obtrusive. Early in -his acquaintance with his torturer he had learned to take a third or -fourth place about her candle and make no fuss. He was at her service -whenever she needed him, and always out of the way when she didn’t need -him. - -Many a night he had climbed to his fourth-story room, humming a -cheery song, while his heart was being gnawed in holes by the monster -Jealousy, all because Miss Hill was chatting and laughing in the parlor -with some of the other moths who circled about her. When chaffed about -his ill-requited devotion, he laughed it off, and said he was happy to -be tolerated at all. To himself, as a matter of graveyard whistling, he -said: “It is a question of waiting. She cares for none of them. When -she tires of them she may think of me. Meanwhile I think of her because -I can’t help it.” - -He kept this up for four years. Then a restlessness of spirit came -upon him; the unseen forces of destiny began to work upon his mind and -urge him to go forth, he knew not where. Yet how could he go out of -the sight of her, voluntarily? There was but one thing that would give -him the required courage, and that was to make her bid him go. Then he -could feel that, at least, he was obeying her, hence his little plan of -having her cast the die. It might comfort him in the future. - -The four years of their life together under the same roof rolled -through Kendall’s mind in panorama, and filled his heart to bursting. -The daily sight of the girl beside him had sweetened the days--had -been life itself to him, for she radiated light and life, like a -sun. That she did not love him, mattered little in that moment. The -years in which he had lived in her presence could not be taken from -him. Remembering this his spirit was lifted up, and the poor, common, -selfish ambition to possess her vanished, and the joy of having known -and loved her took its place. - -He looked at her long, earnestly, adoringly, photographing her on the -fadeless walls of memory that he might carry the picture with him -through all the years to come. - -“I want to make a confession to you, Miss Hill,” said Kendall, when he -thought the mental photograph of her was complete. “You have converted -me to broader views, not by words, but by your daily life. I see -you filling a useful place, unaided, in a profession that only men, -heretofore, to my knowledge, have attempted. You not only succeed, but -you excel most of your male co-workers. You make as much money as any -of them, and you have more brains, and you command everybody’s respect. -Thinking over these things, I am ashamed to remember that I thought -I ought to vote, but women must be kept from it at all hazards. Your -example has enlightened me by taking some of the masculine conceit out -of me. I feel small and mean that I in my insignificance should have -thrown a straw in the path of women like you.” - -“I am glad your mental horizon has widened,” she said. “It will be -a pleasure to think of you as one of my converts. I may never make -another, unless, as in this case, it be done by example and not -argument. I begin to believe that discussion availeth little. When -I hear poor, undeveloped beings fighting the ideas that would make -them free, I do nothing to convert them to my way of thinking, I just -silently say, ‘May God enlighten them,’ for that’s all that can be -done, and the enlightening process is usually slow.” - -“I remember now,” he said, “that I haven’t been able to draw you into a -discussion in many a day. I suppose you saw it was a hopeless case and -just simply prayed for my enlightenment.” - -“Yes; and it has come sooner than I expected. So now I am more than -ever persuaded that argument is useless. None can be taught until ready -to learn. ‘Except ye become as little children’--receptive, teachable, -ready for light--applies to entering all kingdoms as well as the -heavenly one.” - -“While I am confessing,” said Kendall, “I will tell you that I used -sometimes to take sides against you for the pleasure of hearing you -express yourself--you do it so well.” - -She looked at him and her eyes made him ashamed, as she said: “That was -not kind. I was always in earnest. However, I am learning a little more -about human nature every day. I shall soon cease to be a Galatea, I -think.” - -“No; it was not kind nor honest, but I did not realize it until this -moment, and now I ask your pardon. Many of the offences of us men are -the outcome of ignorance rather than meanness. We know no better. Our -conceit has stood in the way of our enlightenment. Forgive all my -shortcomings, and remember my defects no more. Be a little kinder still -and do one other service for me. Read me my future.” - -“I am no occultist,” she answered, laughing. - -“No matter. I have a fancy for believing you are for the time being. -Tell me what lies ahead. It may keep up my courage. Since you are my -confessor, I don’t mind telling you that there are moments when I feel -a childish cowardice about what I may have to meet, and wish I could -run away from it all and hide forevermore.” - -“That recalls a bit of rhyme I read years ago which has always stuck in -my memory,” she said: - - “‘What is Life, Father? A battle, my child, - Where the strongest arm may fail; - Where the wariest eye may be beguil’d, - And the stoutest heart may quail.’ - -“’Tis no shame to admit that one’s courage is not always high. No one -lives always on the heights. I know something about those moments of -childish cowardice you speak of; but there, I belong to the sex that is -supposed to have the right to be cowardly--we are even driven to it. -Courage brings reproach upon us, while the more we shrink and cower -and quail and complain the more ‘womanly’ we are said to be. What a -fine outlook for the human race! But as to your future. Now I am an -astrologer and must draw your horoscope.” (This was accomplished by -scratching several circles on the walk with the end of her parasol.) -“There, the rings and dots and figures all mean tremendous things. I -shall not weary you, however, by telling you the why and wherefore -of everything. I shall stick to facts. Here goes: I see a journey by -water which ends where the sun sets. You will meet disappointments and -difficulties; will know privations and dangers, and also that most -dreadful form of homesickness--the homesickness of one who has no home. -But you will overcome all obstacles and be what is called successful; -you will find your place and hold it. You will become bigger and -stronger in body and in character, and you will _never come back here_.” - -“And the indescribable thing called Happiness; has it no place in my -horoscope?” he asked, after a pause. - -“Is it not included in the thing called Success?” she answered. “Can -the defeated be happy?” - -“On the whole your reading is not half bad, as the English say, when -they want to compliment a thing, and I believe in it.” Yet he sighed -as he spoke. The promised success was not alluring, meaning as it did, -lifelong separation from the sun that warmed his life. - -Still he was in dead earnest when he said he believed in her -prophecies. Long ago he had made up his mind that this girl was his -fate--not in the sense that she was likely to unite her life to his. -He had never been honestly hopeful of that in spite of his steady -perseverance; but it seemed to him that in some way she was to direct -his life, to be the star of his destiny, as it were. And never was that -belief stronger upon him than now when he knew that the end of their -daily association had come. - -Rising, she said, “Let us each cast a pebble in the pool of this -fountain and see whose circles will last longer.” - -As they watched the rings widen, multiply and vanish until those made -by her pebble had obliterated his, he said, - -“There! Your spirit will trouble the waters of life to greater purpose -than mine and longer. It needs no divination to tell that.” - -When they went back to the house they met Westfield coming out. “Will -she eventually throw herself away on him?” was the query Kendall put to -himself. - -At the breakfast table next morning Kendall’s chair was vacant, and the -place was to know him no more under the sun. - - - - - CHAPTER III. - - CONFIDENCES AND QUESTIONS. - - “Too weak to change, though a mental hell - To me the rôle of clown; - A coward bound by a self-wrought spell, - I wait the sound of the prompter’s bell - Which rings the curtain down.” - - -Sunday’s restfulness was in the air. Miss Hill and Westfield sat in the -shade of the great tree in the yard, with books and newspapers about -them. Nothing was more delightful to Westfield than to hear her read -aloud. She had a voice of great natural sweetness, with no artificial -notes in it. In truth there was no artifice in her character. - -The man beside her to-day was one of whom poor Kendall had often -been bitterly jealous, a man of finer fibre than his rival, greater -charm and graver defects. Older, he was also wiser, particularly in -melancholy wisdom. - -“Read me something,” he said, “some wild wail from a tortured poet. -There are always plenty, and I like ’en, no matter how woful they are. -God bless the poets every one, high and humble. They help us out in the -dreary business of life.” - -She read: - - “White-footed the snow comes, - O’er the hills of beauty, - Treading like a penitent - Rough paths of duty.” - -“What an exquisite figure,”--he interrupted,--“the personification of -the snow, with white feet, like a penitent.” He had once made a bright -mark in the world of letters, then ceased to strive and later ceased to -care, so it might be supposed that his commendation was of some value. - -“Miss Hill,” he said, with sudden animation, “what are you going to do -with your life?” - -“Live it, if I am permitted.” - -“How?” - -“I have my dreams.” - -“Of what?” - -She smiled, looking far away, but kept silence. - -“I can’t make you out,” he said, a little peevishly. “I believe you -have genius for literature, yet you seem to be perfectly indifferent -about cultivating it. Were you like others one might suppose that love -and marriage made up your dreams; but you are as indifferent to lovers -as to possible fame. I don’t understand you.” - -“Well, it isn’t worth while to bother about me,” she said. “I shall be -gone some day.” - -“I fear you will,” he answered, with feeling; “I have thought of it a -thousand times, and dreaded to enter the house, lest I should not find -you there. A sense of your impermanence is always with me. You don’t -belong here in any sense, and I fear that Fate will not let you stay -much longer. There is an unreality about your being here at all that -is like the experiences we have when we sleep, real enough while they -are occurring, but unreal to remember. Yes, you will be gone some day. -Therefore, I shall take Fate by the forelock and go first, that I may -not be here when you leave. I could not endure that. The very sight of -the old house and this tree would then be intolerable to me.” - -His face and speech were impassioned, but the girl saw it not. That was -what made her so exasperating to those whom she fascinated. She seemed -incapable of seeing that she could fascinate. The truth was she was -self-absorbed. - -“You would miss me, I am sure,” she said, in the most matter-of-fact -tone, “and I should miss you greatly, if you were gone.” - -“Where will you go to when you leave here?” he asked. - -“To my own people, I hope,” she answered, dreamily, her eyes wandering -away to the horizon. - -“Tell me about them,” he begged. “I have often tried to lead you to -talk of them, but you never would. You are a tell-all, tell-nothing -sort of person. Others do not notice that, but I do, and have woven -some theories about it.” - -“I dare say they do me great honor, but in all probability they are far -from true.” - -“Well, then, why will you not tell me about yourself?” he asked, in an -injured tone. - -“You talk as though I have been making history on this planet for -ages. I am young; what could I have to tell that would satisfy your -expectation of the extraordinary. You have known me here in this house -for more than two years. As the Indians in the old story-books say, -we have ‘eaten salt together daily,’ and we have walked and talked -together with the freedom of children. What is there of me still -unrevealed?” - -“I don’t know,” he said, “but I feel there is something--a part of you -and your experiences from which I and others are shut out, and that -part is the greatest part of you. I argue that, because, although you -attract many, myself, poor moth, among them, no one gets near to you. -An invisible but formidable wall surrounds you, from which all our -attempted gallantries rebound like arrows which strike rocks. And there -you are behind it, always smiling and agreeable, but entirely unmoved -and secure. Now, somebody or some experience built that wall, for it is -not in the nature of things for it to be there without cause.” - -“Go on,” she said, smiling, as he waited for her to speak. “You will -end by being a great architect yet. How like magic you put up that -wall.” - -“You may chaff as much as you please,” he said, a little savagely, “but -I am not to be put off that way. Now that I have begun I am going to -say some things seriously and you must hear them seriously.” - -“I told you to go on,” she said, composedly. - -“And so I will,” he grumbled, “though I know perfectly well that it -would be manlier if I kept silence. As you say, we have eaten and -walked and talked together as freely as children for more than two -years. In that time we have become well acquainted--not the poor, -shallow acquaintance of formal society, but the near, intimate -association of two human beings who honestly express themselves to each -other. The result of this comradeship is that I love you. I will not -say I have learned to love you, for something of the fact was clear to -me the very first time I saw you. In all probability you don’t remember -the incidents of that day at all, but I do. Brooks, our good host, as -you know, is my old friend. I had drifted to this city in an aimless -way, as I had been drifting for years. He met me and brought me home to -dinner with him. I have always adored intellect in man or woman. One -look into your eyes told me that you are of uncommon endowments. Then, -along with a beautiful but simple stateliness of manner, you have -certain childish graces of which you are unconscious. You have never -put your childhood entirely away from you. I particularly noticed the -correct school-girlish arrangement of your knife and fork at the end -of the dinner, and was charmed by it. After we left the table I said -to Brooks that you had wonderful eyes. He agreed with me, but warned -me not to let them undo me, because he said you were constructed on a -novel plan, one man being the same as another to you, and all being as -nothing. - -“I paid no attention to his warning, as you see. On the contrary, when -he went to the _Times_ office and secured me a situation, I accepted -it gratefully, because I could then become a member of his household -and see you every day. I have loved you ever since, and have had much -quiet joy in it, and it has bettered me in many ways. I know perfectly -well--I have always known--that you do not love me, and in my least -selfish moments I am glad of it, because I have nothing to offer -you that is fit for you to accept. I would not tell you that I love -you--never a word of it--were I not sure that it will not hurt you. -In the years to come the memory of it may comfort you. It is a great -comfort to me now, hopeless as it is. It helps me only to tell it. O -my child, my heart has long been sick and sore from bruises the like -of which I pray you may never know. We men are set up to be so strong -and pretend to be so self-satisfied, but we are only grown-up children -after all. When we are sore in spirit we long for some loving woman -soul to take us to her arms and pet and soothe us mother-like, yet we -often live our lives without it. - -“I am fifteen years older than you, and know the world well--better -than I wish I did--so well that I should like to protect you from its -ugly phases. Yet I am powerless to do it. Never did I so deeply lament -my aimless, wasted life as now, when I see myself with nothing to offer -you and yet loving you with all my heart. Sometimes, since I have known -you, I have dreamed that with your help I could pull myself together -and make something of my life yet; but the dream is only temporary--it -flees, the reaction comes and I sink back to the _rôle_ of a nobody -which I have long been playing, and doubtless shall play to the end--an -end that I may make for myself any day. - -“To say that I despise myself for being the wretched failure I am is -to express myself but lamely. My love has in it an element of the -paternal. I am not thinking so much of what you might be to me, but -of what I earnestly wish I might be to you. I long to shield you from -the infinite horror of the experience we call life, as it is revealed -to many. You are like a tall young pine-tree standing alone on a high -rugged and rocky mountain side, enjoying the sunshine and swaying -gently in the summer breeze, not knowing that the winter of the future -will bring storms that may tear its roots from the earth. You know not -your own value, that is the danger. Some day you may give your love and -have your heart broken. That’s what happens to strong souls usually, -and you are one of them. I know the answer to the woman poet’s question: - - “‘Is it so, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer most? - That the strongest wander farthest, and most hopelessly are lost? - That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain, - And the anguish of the singer, makes the sweetness of the strain? - - “‘I have many things to tell you, but ye cannot bear them now.’ - -“Yes, I know the answer to that, and it makes me anxious about your -future. Behold the pitiful spectacle of a man who loves a woman, tells -her of it, and yet confesses himself a hopeless failure.” - -“But why do you insist upon considering yourself a failure?” asked Miss -Hill. “You are not old, you have good health, education, ability, the -necessary ingredients for achievement.” - -“Child, you do not understand. How could you? the ruin is within, not -visible on the outer walls.” - -“No; I do not understand,” she said. - -“I will tell you,” he said, “how I came to be a loiterer in the race, -what - - “‘----wrought my woe, - In the diamond morning of long ago,’ - -as the song says. You see I began by asking you about yourself, and, -with the artless art that distinguishes you, with scarcely a word, you -have switched me off the track I had taken and set me talking about -myself instead. I shall lose in your respect after I tell my story, as -a matter of course, but I would rather you knew it. - -“Years ago, in the days when the earth was new and sweet to me--in -the mountain-moving period of life, the tragedy began. I loved, and -like the lover of Annabel Lee I may say that the angels of heaven -coveted the love of her and me. I was one of the editors of the most -prosperous daily newspaper in the city that was my home, my uncle being -its proprietor. He had no children of his own, and had brought up my -brother and me, our parents having died, when we were very little. - -“A sensational criminal trial was before the courts of a distant city, -and it was arranged that I was to attend it and send daily letters to -my journal. As it promised to last several weeks, the separation from -Emma looked unendurable. I must marry her and take her with me. But -when I told my plan to her she said she couldn’t leave her father, who -was old, feeble and almost blind, with nobody else to care for him. In -my selfishness I had forgotten him. ‘I cannot go with you,’ she said, -‘but I am willing to marry you before you go. It will comfort me while -you are gone just to know that I am your wife.’ - -“So we married, telling no one but Emma’s father. The secrecy was -needless and foolish, but when young we are all more or less enslaved -by the ways of others, and this was too violent a departure from custom -to be proclaimed just then. - -“Ours was an unusual but not unhappy honey-moon. We wrote every day, -long, glowing letters, and annihilated distance with our thought. - -“But one day a telegram came announcing that my wife had been -murdered--struck down in her own home, in the light of day, in the -presence of her helpless old father. - -“Behind the dreadful deed was the usual crazy rejected suitor. I knew -the wretched boy well--he was but a boy--but never dreamed of the -ghastly possibilities within his crooked mind. But what know we of any -one? Who is safe from treating the community to a hideous sensation? - -“He had long been fond of Emma, but lost hope when he saw that my -attitude toward her was an assured one. But after I went away he got -it into his crazy head that we had quarreled, and took heart again. -When he implored her to marry him, and she refused without telling him -that she was already married, he shot her dead and then shot himself. - -“Horror, grief, and remorse overwhelmed me. I blamed myself. Why had -I not announced the marriage at once? Had the wretched boy known that -Emma was my wife, he would have let her alone, I am sure. What did -it avail that I put a tablet at her grave bearing the name of Emma -Westfield? Humble as was the name it might have protected her had it -been openly bestowed upon her. - -“This happened ten years ago, before my friend Brooks, our host, ever -met me. He knows nothing of it--doesn’t dream that I ever was married. -To speak of it would oblige me to enter into explanations, to uncover -my heart to gratify curiosity, which, however kindly meant, is always -painful to a sore spirit. I tell you that you may understand I have -at least the shadow of an excuse for being what I am, a man without -purpose, a withered, useless branch of the human tree, waiting for the -man with the pruning knife to come and cut me down. - -“See the irony of fate. A few days after my wife’s death, my uncle -died, leaving all his property to my brother and me. We were now owners -of the newspaper on which we had worked as employees, and of other -valuable interest besides. It only emphasized my misery. Of all my -possessions I could give nothing to the woman I loved--nothing but a -stone at the end of a little heap of earth. - -“It might have been better for me had I not inherited my uncle’s -property, for it enabled me to idle away my time and indulge my selfish -grief, until my will became enfeebled, and that means the crumbling of -the whole character, which goes to pieces like an old wall. - -“I went away, wandering over the earth aimlessly, not trying to benefit -by travel, only hoping to make new scenes blot out the old, unbearable -ones. I spent years in the vain effort to run away from myself. I am -still engaged in that hopeless effort, though I have learned that it -can’t be done. We take our world with us wherever we go--heaven and -hell bring both within us. - -“I am but a morbid idler, who has lost the qualities that give a man a -place among men. Though I never tried to stifle memory and misery in -debauchery, my money melted away. The coarse pleasures many men pursue -never had charms for me, but my destruction was none the less sure. It -has come without degradation, I am thankful to say, save that which any -man must feel who has let himself slide down hill so far he never can -climb up again. - -“Once only since that dreadful thing happened have I accomplished -anything. I braced myself against my inner foes long enough to write -the little book you know. It gave me fame enough for a foundation for -future work, had I followed it up; but I didn’t. I fell immediately -back into the clutches of the miserable devils who possessed me--made a -complete and inglorious surrender to them for all time, caring naught -who wins the prizes in the hateful race of life. - -“My story proves me a contemptible weakling. I know I am not a whit -above the cheap hero of the old-time, pirate novel, the fellow who does -the gloomy, manages to look as though the hand of Fate was ever upon -him, and has a secret sorrow as big as an omnibus, which he wants all -the world to know. I am not made of the right kind of stuff or I should -not have given up at the first blow of Destiny. ‘Man yields himself not -to the angels nor even unto Death itself, save through the weakness of -his own poor will.’ - -“Had Emma’s father lived, the care of him might have proved a prop to -me, but the shock killed him, and he died a few weeks after she did. -I had my brother, younger than myself, and we loved each other, but I -argued that he did not need me, and left him. He loves me still and -follows me with the kindest, dearest letters, and is always begging -me to come back to him; but I will not be a cloud upon his happiness -and prosperity. Yet his sympathy and yours are all that is left in the -world precious to me. - -“My love for you is different from my early love. In that day the -castles I constructed were very worldly ones. Now, I have no worldly -ambitions whatever. It seems to me that by some kind of kinship of -soul, if there is such a thing as soul, you belong to me, and never -can be taken from me, though our lives may be widely separated. If you -were the vilest and most degraded creature in the world and yet were -yourself, I should love you just the same. - -“After Emma went away I tried hard to tear from Death its well-guarded -secret. I wanted to know if the dark hole in the ground is the end -of us all. I pounded fiercely on the very doors of the tomb, begging -piteously for an answer. None came. No; never a word came out of the -silence into which she had gone. The people who say they believe in -a hereafter quote at us those exasperating scriptural questions: ‘O -Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’ I can answer -them. The sting is here, in my heart. The victory is over all my hopes, -dreams and ambitions. People who believe! Are there any such? They only -say they believe. It is all mere mouthing. Can any man believe that -which he does not know? Their twaddle about faith and heaven enraged -me. I wanted proof, proof--though but a whispered word, the faintest -touch of a vanished hand, or the tiniest scratch of a familiar pen. -Proof! Proof! Oh for the proof that she lived somewhere. Had I had that -I could have laughed long and loud at Death, the liar and the cheat. -The merest thread of a rope would have served for me to hold to, I was -so eager to believe. But nobody let it down to me--not then, nor in all -the years since. - -“Yet now, in spite of all that, when I look at you, I cannot persuade -myself that you are to die--to cease from living. You carry with you -a conviction of immortality. Your intense individuality seems like a -deathless thing. It reminds me of the words of the young Greek in the -drama of Ion. When his life was to be sacrificed, his beloved asks if -they shall meet again. He says, ‘I have asked that dreadful question of -the hills that look eternal--of the streams that flow forever--of the -stars among whose fields of azure my raised spirit has walked in glory. -All are dumb. But as I gaze upon thy living face, I see something in -the love that lights its beauty which cannot wholly perish. We shall -meet again, Clemanthe?’ - -“What answer have you for the question? ‘If a man die shall he live -again?’” - -“About that I think much, hope a little sometimes, but know nothing,” -she said. - -“No; we know nothing,” he echoed, with a sigh; “but it is something to -hope. I have a fancy that the road is not long ahead of me here, and -I may soon have a chance to know what there is or know nothing. If we -have an existence beyond this objective one, I may be able to help you -from there. It would be helping you could I but come and tell you that -I lived, would it not?” - -“What greater service could you do me?” - -“If I could do that I might do more. Who knows? Of course it is absurd -to speak of helping you without explaining what I mean. Apparently you -need nobody’s help. You are strong of character, self-poised, capable, -successful and fearless. I see all that, yet I cannot rid myself of the -fear that you are destined to suffer much and will need the service and -sympathy of all who love you. From life I have learned a little. When -great strength is given I know it will be needed. And you are stronger -in character than you know. I should like to save you from suffering, -but were I ever so rich and powerful, I know I could not do it. You -must meet your destiny, whatever it may be. As the Scotch say, ‘must -dree your weird.’ Nobody else can live your life for you, for, alas! -life admits of no proxy. I have woven many fanciful theories about you -and your past, present and future.” - -“Tell me one,” she said. - -“I will give you my favorite. You are not what you seem to be--not less -but more than you pretend to be. You have been tenderly reared and much -loved. You are not here earning your bread because of necessity, but -for some purpose not thought of by those with whom you come in contact. -Having demonstrated your ability to stand alone, you will go back home -some day and be done with it. You are supported in whatever otherwise -would be hard, by the knowledge that you are free to turn your back -upon it whenever you wish. Am I not a good clairvoyant?” - -“Permit me to ask why you think as you do about me?” - -“Because you give me the impression of not belonging where I find you. -You seem to be playing a part and doing it with exceeding skill; but -your real self is not in it. As you say, you will be gone some day to -your own people. And now that I have confessed myself a failure and a -fool, I too, shall go away.” - -“Why?” she asked, regretfully. “Why must the men and women who find -each other companionable be lovers or nothing to each other? I am fond -of you, very, not in the sentimental fashion, but as good comrade and -friend. Why can’t we go on just as we have been doing? That talk about -loving me need make no difference.” - -“You are like a child about these things,” he said. “You know not the -creature man in his bondage to selfishness. You credit us with the -strength of gods, and we are mostly such poor, ill-developed wretches -that if we want what we cannot have we must run away to avoid showing -how little we are masters of ourselves. But tell me what are you going -to do with your life?” - -“I have my dreams.” - -“Of what?” - -“Happiness.” - -“Would it be offensive if I asked upon what particular brand of the -article you have set your heart?” - -“The most commonplace one in the world,--the love and companionship of -him who is dearest.” - -Westfield was too astonished to say anything. Was the riddle so simple? -Was this self-contained, independent girl following the same everyday -illusion that lured all other women? While apparently caring nothing -for lovers was she worshiping the one she carried ever in her heart? - -“I will tell you all there is to tell,” she said, after a moment, “and -then you will understand.” - -He nodded assent, but felt his heart sinking. - - - - - CHAPTER IV. - - HER STORY AND FATE. - - “Who reads the riddle right? - And who can answer why - These clouds sweep over our mental life? - Not you, brave priest, nor I.” - - -“Instead of being tenderly cared for, as you imagine,” said Miss Hill, -“I had a loveless childhood, though above all things I wanted to be -loved and to be told that I was loved. I could have been an angel of -goodness had I had even a little love; but next to none was given me. -If parents only knew that by showing love for their children they made -for them a foundation of happiness which no after experiences could -knock from under their feet, perhaps they would be kinder than some of -them are. But why speak of ifs at all? If we knew at the beginning of -life what we know at the end of it, perhaps we should never have to -make the journey. I have thought often that I could bear my trouble -courageously if I had sweet memories of childhood; but I have only -bitter ones. Sometimes I have been unhappy since I have been earning -my own bread among people unknown to me before, but never, never for a -moment so miserable as I was always in the home into which I was born. - -“I understand the reason of it all better now and blame nobody. The -law was simply working itself out into its natural results. If I -suffered--well, who doesn’t suffer as the mills of the gods grind, -set in operation as they usually are by ignorant hands? My father and -mother were natural enemies, who should have lived as far asunder as -the poles, instead of enacting a hideous, lifelong tragedy in the name -of marriage. I am quite sure they hated each other energetically most -of the time and bitterly the rest of it, yet they stuck together and -brought seven children into the world to suffer in a thousand ways -from their incompatible union, and considered themselves virtuous in -so doing. Yet, that is the kind of thing that passes for morality. -Long ago I saw that it was a foul lie, and the direst foe to morality. -When my eldest sister was married, and I heard the words ‘What God has -joined together let no man put asunder,’ clinching the curse, as it -were, it set me to thinking and asking questions. Somebody explained to -me that all husbands and wives were joined together by God, and could -not possibly be separated without going violently against His will, -except by death, and that, of course, was in accordance with His will. -I pondered over this with a heavy heart. Then God had united my father -and mother. This dreadful work had been done by His hand, and I was -wroth against Him, for every day I felt and saw the evil effects of it. - -“Is it strange that ours was a loveless family? With no love between -husband and wife, could they be expected to love their children? Can a -mother be expected to love the child who comes unwelcome to her arms? -Can a father love children in whom he sees the features and traits of -the woman to whom he is hopelessly bound and yet hates? We were all -victims of violated law, so who was to blame? Ignorance! Ignorance, -which is responsible for all the evil and all the suffering under the -sun. In fact ignorance is evil, and evil is ignorance, nothing more nor -less. You know Shakspeare says there is no darkness but ignorance. - -“We frequently have well-meaning persons say that ill-mated married -folk should stick together ‘for the sake of the children.’ Yet for -that very reason they should separate. Their children and children’s -children pay the penalty of their violation of the laws of harmony, -and still farther down the line of the future goes the misery that had -its origin in a hateful marriage. Pray tell me how is morality served -thereby? - -“In addition to the discord that made our lives wretched my parents -were victims of the desperate struggle for existence, in which the -finer qualities were squeezed out. This so absorbed them that the true -meaning of home and family escaped them, and the material side of the -situation alone received attention. We were all wretched. It was a -horrible experience. There we were, not of our own choice, wedged into -an unwelcome place and unable to extricate ourselves. We were plainly -told that whatever was done for us was to help make us able to take -care of ourselves. We were urged to be industrious at school, because -learning would enable us to be self-supporting. I never heard any -other reason put forth in defence of education. This was dinned into -our ears until life had but one meaning,--that of getting on in the -world. The problem ended there. The result, I need hardly say, was to -make us selfish. Instead of loving one another and sharing each others’ -burdens, each thought only of his or her individual success, and the -cherished dream of all was to get away--to go forth where there was -opportunity. - -“I was next to the youngest, a sister, an extraordinary little being, -who had brought with her traces of a wisdom not of the earth, and a -recollection of conditions and surroundings more to her taste than -our jarring household. She talked much of a home that she had had -somewhere, and often wept to go back to it, nor could she ever be -persuaded to call the place in which she found herself home. God knows -how alien and comfortless it must have seemed to her delicate spirit. -When three years old she left us, such was her good fortune. At -least it seemed good to me even then, and when they told me the usual -fanciful tales of wings and a shining heaven, I envied her. - -“One by one my sisters and brothers made haste to leave. So eager -were they to get away that some took the first matrimonial boat on -which they could secure passage, and thereby made sad shipwreck of -their lives. How I longed to be loved. When I saw other children -petted and caressed my heart swelled almost to bursting. The result -of my unsatisfied longing was that I took refuge in my imagination -and there lived a life as congenial and blissful as my outside life -was distasteful and miserable. I surrounded myself with imaginary -friends whom I loved and who loved me--charming, agreeable, superior -people--men and women, not children. The misery that prevailed in -our home had taken my childhood from me before I knew I possessed -it. I early learned the solemn truth that ‘each soul in what is most -itself, in what is deepest and nearest, lives alone, and that there -is more loneliness in life than there is communion.’ I, too, like my -little sister, suffered from a strange homesickness of the spirit, a -longing for sympathetic association, for companionship, in short. I -wanted congenial air, ‘that air which may be found everywhere, if we -can find sympathetic souls to breathe it with us, and which is to be -found nowhere without them,--the air of the land of our dreams, of the -country of the ideal.’ Plotinus says ‘Our true country is that from -whence we came.’ It has always seemed to me that far back in the past -I lived somewhere and was happy. Now I am ever searching for the souls -who are in sympathy with me, as in that far-off time. They are my own -people, rather than those to whom I am related by consanguine ties. -They or their counterparts exist somewhere on the earth, I believe, and -the real business of my life is to find them. - -“One’s own people! Think of what it would be to dwell among them, where -sympathy met one in every glance, and love made itself felt in every -tone of the voice. - -“I was fond of study, was quick to learn, and when only seventeen was -so far advanced that I felt ready to begin life on my own account. -Like the others, I was restless to leave a home which had never been -more than a shelter to me. I had no dreams of marrying, and walking in -the same treadmill in which so many millions of women have worn out -their souls as well as their bodies. I could never see why all women -should spend their lives in cooking and nursing children any more than -why all men should till the soil, which was civilized man’s primal -occupation. I saw, too, very clearly, that women could never be more -than half-fledged mentally, or have any real influence in the world -of affairs so long as they were dependents financially. They must -achieve pecuniary independence before they could hope for wider orbits, -as it were. To get an opportunity to carve my own way in life was my -unceasing wish. So unceasing and earnest was it that it created its -own fulfilment. You may put it down as a great truth, that a desire -held with earnestness, faith and persistence, will bring to the one -who holds it its object. ‘Ask and ye shall receive’ is a law that is -operative everywhere. - -“I held myself ready to do whatever I could find that needed doing, but -always in the day-dreams of my future I saw myself a successful painter -and author, because hundreds of beautiful pictures danced before my -mind and begged to be put on canvas, and thousands of thoughts and -fancies flitted through my brain that I longed to share with all who -would hear me. - -“I had a gift for drawing, but had advanced as far as I could go -without better instructors than were attainable where I lived. One -thing, however, I had, which was a blessing to my artistic sense and a -solace to my spirit. That was a beautiful landscape to look upon. As -the mental atmosphere of home was always inharmonious I lived outdoors -as much as possible, and from the fine view the location commanded I -extracted much profound pleasure. - -“One day I saw an advertisement in a newspaper to the effect that a -lithographer in a little city fifty miles away wanted an assistant whom -he could train to suit his needs. The next day found me face to face -with the advertiser, talking myself up unblushingly. He was surprised, -of course, that a girl whose frocks as yet came no lower than her -ankles, should want to learn an art presumably sacred to men; but after -some hesitation he engaged me, and I found myself launched in life as -an independent, self-supporting factor. It was a proud day for me, I -assure you. To the hardships of the situation I never gave a thought. -The chance to work was the wedge that was to split up the tree of my -future, so I set myself to hammering upon it with might and main. -My pecuniary recompense was microscopical, but even that gave me no -distress. Such as it was I managed to live within it, and look forward -to something better. - -“The lithographer’s establishment proved to be very interesting to -me. Some excellent work was done there, and some odd jobs of various -kinds--even the engraving of spoons sometimes--all of which I learned -to do. In fact I learned to do anything and everything there as well -as anybody, and before long received a larger salary, though never -anything very imposing. I considered the time well spent, however, for -I was perfecting myself in drawing, and when out of office studied -languages and read much. I was happy--happier than I had ever been in -my life, for I was out of the wretchedness that prevailed at home, and -was treated with politeness and respect by everybody. - -“Among the patrons of our establishment with whom I came in contact was -Mr. Doring. He made no particular impression on me, until an epidemic -came and his three children fell victims to it and died. Then as I -heard considerable talk about his sorrow in the office, I tried to -express my sympathy when next I saw him. - -“Nearly a year passed when the community was startled by the -announcement that his wife had died suddenly and suspiciously, and -he had been arrested as her murderer. As in all such cases, some -considered the accusation preposterous, and others believed in it with -vindictive energy, and clamored for his punishment. I was indignant -at their gross cruelty and expressed my opinion freely--too freely, I -was told. He was tried and acquitted, but his acquittal did not set -him right in the eyes of many of his townspeople. They talked over the -circumstances, magnifying all the suspicious indications and inventing -new ones, and they treated him to cuts, contemptuous looks and other -expressions of malevolence, until they almost broke him down. You know -there are human beings who bitterly resent it when a sensation doesn’t -develop into the last phase of the horrible, and of such that town was -largely composed. - -“A few days after his acquittal Doring came into our office and thanked -me warmly for my kind expressions of faith in his innocence, of which -it seems he had been told. He looked haggard and ill, and at sight of -him I felt renewed indignation at the cruelty of man to man, and I said -so as earnestly as I could. - -“About that time I began to notice something queer in the faces -of people when they talked about Doring to me. I could not read -it clearly, but that it was inimical to me I soon discovered. It -was something they pretended to conceal, yet really wanted to make -conspicuously noticeable. It was a suspicion of a low order, but what? -The man was nothing to me more than any other victim of injustice. What -had I to do with him and his sorrowful affairs? - -“I am intuitive and sensitive. As soon as I began to notice this -unspoken suspicion, I began to look guilty. My face flamed red at the -mention of his name or any allusion to the case. You can understand -that, but minds of a lower grade could not. They construed it as a sign -of guilt, yet it was but the knowledge of their offensive thoughts -that embarrassed and unsettled me. To know that I was suspected made -me look confused and guilty. It was always so even when I was a child -at school. If a culprit were sought, I looked like one. You know, -however, that most people are mere surface readers of others, and -nothing in the world is so little understood as a delicate, sensitive, -high spirit. I who was far removed in thought from that of which I was -suspected, crimsoned with horror when I encountered this base suspicion -in the faces of those who harbored it, and it made me self-conscious -and shy when I spoke with Doring himself. In short, it ate into me and -destroyed my peace. - -“In a little while the air grew black with it. All pretence of -concealment was abandoned, and significant looks blossomed into speech. -They said Doring and I were infatuated with each other, and that he had -killed his wife in order to be able to marry me, and that I had put him -up to it. The vilest and falsest tales were circulated about us. The -miserable local newspapers printed thinly-veiled insinuations, and fool -friends came and poured abhorrent stories into my ears. - -“The brutal malevolence of their lies amazed as well as horrified me. -I could not see what I had done to bring such an avalanche of malice -upon me. You may imagine what I suffered. Alone, and with a heart that -had in it originally nothing but good will for everybody, this cruel -experience almost withered me for life. - -“I longed to leave the accursed place which now seemed peopled with -devils. Driven almost to desperation, at last I went forth to find a -spot untainted by the hatred that there had destroyed my peace. I came -here to Gougal’s great engraving house, and with nothing in the way of -help or influence from anybody, asked for employment and got it.--‘Ask -and ye shall receive’ being a true law. Here I have been ever since, -almost happy--at least not miserable. - -“But this is not all my story. The difficult part is to come. A few -days before I left Mr. Doring came into the office where I was at work -and told me that he loved me. I was surprised and startled, and yet I -listened gladly, and the story sounded sweet to me. It seemed to me -that I had always loved him, though I don’t know why, for I am sure -I had not thought of it before. We were both victims of unjust and -malicious public opinion, so perhaps it was natural that we turned to -each other for consolation, though I have often wondered since what -it was that suddenly filled my mind with love for a man who, until -that moment was no more to me than any other. Are the words ‘I love -you’ so potent that they can create responsive love? In no sense is -he my ideal, but the feeling that came into life when he spoke those -words to me has dominated me from that hour, though I have never -seen him since that day. I have wondered if he loved me before that -scandal came upon him, and if, in some mysterious way, people found -it out and constructed their tales according to their light on such -situations? Or whether their stories put it into his head, and if so, -through what occult channels was it communicated to me? I am almost -persuaded that it was brought about somehow by the accusations of -the community in which we lived. Somebody put out the suggestion, it -reached his mind and there sprouted, took root and grew until it was -strong enough to transplant a counterpart of itself to mine, for ideas -are transmissible, you know. Ah! if we but knew the mystery of mind we -should know all there is to know, perhaps. - -“After I came away, Doring left too. He writes me constantly, and is -now urging me strongly to marry him. I believe that I love him, and -the knowledge that he loves me sustains me. Merely thinking about it -keeps me from being lonely. ’Tis said that love is life; that even the -love of a bird or a dog will keep a human being alive. You and others -have wondered why I am apparently so contented and cheerful and want no -lovers, only good comrades. It is because my heart is anchored. - -“And yet I shrink from marrying Doring. It would mean the stirring up -of all the now stagnant pools of scandals. I am content to go on as I -am, for a time at least, finding my joy in the thoughts of being loved; -but he is not willing. He says he has waited long enough--that the -matter must be decided one way or the other very soon. When I think of -giving him up, of putting it all out of my life and plodding on with -nothing to sustain me, I feel that I can’t do it. Unhappily, I am one -of those miserable beings who are loyal by nature and cannot help it -if they would. An affection becomes a part of me, and can’t be put off -without disaster to the whole structure. - -“This love has absorbed me to the extent of destroying my ambition to -achieve something excellent with pen or pencil. What dreams have I not -woven around this central idea--dreams impossible of fulfilment, yet -nearly as blissful as reality. - -“In a few days Mr. Doring will be here. He has written me that he -intends to come to talk over our future. So you shall see him.” - - * * * * * - -One evening soon after as Westfield was returning to the house he met -Miss Hill accompanied by a stranger. “It is Doring,” he said, and -his heart sank. Intuitive moments come to all of us, when the hidden -is revealed, when souls stand naked before our eyes, stripped of the -cloaks and without the props which make them fair and imposing to -ordinary perception. Such a moment came to Westfield, and he saw Louis -Doring with an inner sight to which everything was made plain, and as -he looked his face grew white to the lips and his eyes became fixed -and glassy like those of the dead. - -“God help her,” he groaned inwardly, as he passed on. “The man is a -fool--a stupid, brainless, flabby character--a dull dolt with regular -features and a straight figure made imposing by the tailor’s skill, -and a selfish heart. Exactly the kind of beast that can dazzle women -as brainless as himself. But how has he bewitched _her_? Why do I ask, -when I know that the destinies of the grandest and sweetest souls, a -grim and perverse fate often rules? The ‘highest suffer most,’ the -‘strongest wander farthest and most hopelessly are lost.’ - -“How can I bear it? It crucifies me to know that that wax-faced, -tailor-made biped has been carried in her mind as a hero and -worshipped. And now after years of deception he will destroy her whole -life. - -“I see how it came about. The scandal invented by the community -suggested it to him--sowed the seeds in both their heads. We live under -the influence of suggestion of one kind or another all the time. What -is the force of public opinion but this on a gigantic scale? The wretch -has sighed and maundered and posed before her about his sufferings -until he awoke her sympathy, and he will hang on to her and will not -give her up because he is attracted by the magnetism of her strength -of character. And she, deluded soul, idealizes him, endows him with -splendid qualities--in short, sees in him that which is in herself. -She will go straight to her destruction, and I can’t save her. Until -I saw him I believed the best of him; but now I _know_ what is before -her if she should marry him. It will be like awaking from a blissful -trance--it will be just that. O my heart of light! O, my tall young -pine! The tragedy of your life is more than I can bear.” - -Going hastily to his room he made ready and tore away to the country -for a few days. “I could not endure to see the creature again,” he -said, as his train pulled out of the station. - -When he returned everything was going on as usual at the house, yet -nothing was the same to him, nor could it ever be again. He did not -speak of Doring to Miss Hill, but she herself went back to the subject, -chiding him for going away. - -“I saw Mr. Doring,” he answered, curtly, “and didn’t like him. You may -think my opinion of him is colored by jealousy, but I am sure it is -not. I hope you will never marry him.” - -“Well, I have not yet decided to marry him,” she said. - -“If you have not given him up entirely it will end that way at last. -You are merely temporizing with the situation, and it will master you.” - -“Probably,” she said, wearily, and then they spoke of it no more. - - * * * * * - -Not long after, Westfield went away. When he was gone she felt a sense -of desolation new in her experience. He was so good a comrade. Why -had he been so foolish as to leave? Could men and women never be good -comrades--only lovers, or nothing? - - * * * * * - -The days went on apparently as though there had never been a Westfield, -though the other members of the household thought Miss Hill was not -quite like herself, that perhaps she was fonder of Westfield than she -had believed herself to be, and regretted him. Brooks was strongly -inclined to this opinion, though when he talked with his wife about it -he drubbed Westfield soundly. “Blast the fool,” he said, “what could -she do but let him go, even if she were fond of him? What woman not -an idiot would think of marrying Westfield, who is simply a charming -failure, a penniless, indifferent, intellectual tramp?” - -In truth they were half right in their surmises. The old content had -vanished. She missed the intellectual sympathy of Westfield, and Doring -kept her restless with his importunings. She read his letters by the -light of her own integrity, and therefore saw not the rank selfishness -of the writer, who was vain and dull, but persistent to a degree that -made him formidable as a wooer. He had recourse to all the selfish -arguments of little souls. He said he was so perturbed in mind that he -could not get on in anything, consequently in danger of financial ruin, -and hinted darkly at suicide. A crisis had come to her. Forces within -and without were wrestling over her destiny. Unseen hands were pushing -her. At times she determined to marry Doring at all risks, and thus -settle the problem, but the decision did not bring peace, as decisions -should. A sickening sense of imminent disaster followed, and she was at -sea again. - -Weeks rolled into months, and the chaotic misery of her mind was making -her look worn and ill. A day came at last in which the genius of her -fate cast the die. - -“The pursuit of happiness is a constitutional privilege, even for -women. At least one has the right to choose the particular form of -misery one prefers. Now Fate,” she said, “I am tired. Take you the -reins and guide. What I am to meet, I must meet, and no shrinking or -hesitating will avail against the inevitable.” - -And so she too, went away, never to return. - - - - - CHAPTER V. - - THE END OF THE DREAM. - - “O shaven priest that pratest of souls, - Knowest thou not that men are moles - That blindly grope and burrow? - The field that is grey shall be green again; - But whether with grass or whether with grain, - He knoweth who turns the furrow.” - - -Miss Cartice Hill had been Mrs. Louis Doring six months,--a little -portion of time, yet long enough to destroy all her illusions, and -arouse her from her trance. The man she had idealized and loved for -four years was a different person from him who was now her husband. -Day by day the awakening had been going on, until his character -stood revealed before her in repellent nudity, with all its pitiable -defects unconcealed, and the worst of it was that he was not ashamed. -A brilliant rascal usually has some qualities that command respect, -however abominable his knavish ones, but Doring’s defects were the -contemptible frailties of a fool. His wife had expected intellectual -companionship, but she found his even-featured face a mask over dull -nothingness, a shield for the emptiness of his mind. When the full -force of this discovery came upon her it covered her with humiliation -and destroyed her self-confidence and self-respect, nor did these -qualities ever return to her in their former strength in all the future -years. To have made so fatal a blunder shook her faith in her own -wisdom forever. How was it that she had been blind and now saw? Who had -woven the spell which had glorified its object from afar? She had been -her own enchanter, though she knew it not. In him she had seen only -that which was within herself, until forced to see him as he really was. - -Two days after their marriage her husband said to her, “Cartice, do you -have any money?” - -“Yes,” she answered, pleasantly. - -“How much?” - -“I don’t know. See,” and she handed him her purse. - -He took it and counted fifty dollars. “Is that all?” he asked, in a -disappointed voice. “As you had only yourself to support you should -have saved money.” - -“I did save some,” she said, turning pale. - -“Where is it?” - -She told him. - -“I guess we shall have to use it right now,” he said. “Some business -ventures of mine have not begun to pay yet, so it’s a good thing we -have this ready money.” - -From time to time she checked out the little capital that represented -years of self-denial, until it was all gone. In the meantime she -learned that the “business ventures” were airy nothings, having no -existence outside of empty words. What he had done in the past four -years she never knew, as he had nothing to show for the time, not a -foothold anywhere. - -They floated about until her money was gone, without definite aim and -without effort on his part to change conditions. To her it seemed a -steady journey to destruction. - -Their marriage had revived the story of his trial for murder, and -other dark stories were added thereto and published in vile newspapers -throughout the country. Some of these came to Cartice’s hands by -accident, and some by the foul designs of wretches who find pleasure -in giving pain. In these infamous columns she saw herself described as -a bold and scheming adventuress, who had obtained an unholy influence -over a hitherto blameless man, inciting him to murder and ruining him -financially as well as morally. - -“I have heard newspapers called civilizers,” she said, “but such as -these should be called heart-breakers.” - -That experience did break her heart, since we have no other name for -the loss of all joy in living. It wrought a pitiful change in her. -Her bright mobile face became set, rigid and unreadable. “Oh, but to -hide from the eyes of men” is ever the cry of the proud spirit when -suffering. When this cannot be done, it makes for itself a mask behind -which its wounded pride and aching heart take shelter. The mask which -Cartice Doring then put on was so impenetrable that it repelled any -meddling with or probing into what lay beneath. It was her shield -against that most merciless of all weapons, the human eye, and she wore -it for many and many a day and could not cast it off. - -Every heart, however self-sufficient its outward bearing, craves -sympathy, that precious and potent power which holds the universe -together, yet so little faith have we in the compassion of our fellows -that nothing in hours of anguish is so dreaded as their gaze. - -Cartice’s family discarded her. Being loveless by nature and -worshippers of the Monster God, Self, they saw her position only in the -light that affected them, by the unpleasant notoriety she had attained, -and showed no consideration for the poor victim of malice. - -With all this came the humiliation of dire poverty. Her money was all -spent, and they could no longer pay for the food and shelter they -were receiving in a dingy little hotel in a second-class city. For a -time she was kept from sinking under the avalanche of miseries that -fell upon her by an illusion to which she held with the clutch of -desperation. That was her faith in Doring’s love. Feeble of intellect -and contemptible of character as she now knew him to be, she still -loved him and believed that he loved her, not knowing that the power to -love is in proportion to intellectual capacity and moral development, -that a weak nature is as wavering in its affections as in other things, -an easy prey to every fulsome word and smile from new sirens. - -A woman in the hotel made the art of flattering men a business and had -had many years practice in it. By way of recompense for what external -charms Time had taken from her, it had given her considerable skill in -her art, a skill she seldom used without effect. Her method of erotic -archery was of a coarse and common order, but as her victims dropped -readily enough, when she twanged her bow, there was no need to resort -to subtler ones. It was her opinion that fine work in her specialty -was thrown away upon men, one and all; that nothing was too gross for -their vanity to feed upon, and her experiences bore out her theories. -Doring’s symmetrical face and figure caught her fancy, and she leveled -her trusty crossbow at him, and brought him down with the first arrow, -an albatross to be proud of, she thought. Her work went merrily on, and -the unsuspecting Cartice saw none of it. More experienced eyes did, -however. All the rest of the women in the house were aware of it, and -some of the bolder ones undertook the delicate work of opening Mrs. -Doring’s eyes. While they veiled their good intentions in indirect -phraseology she would not see it, and when they came down to plain -speech she resented it as a thing absurd and impossible. They went away -with ruffled feathers, but predicting a day of doom for her in the near -future, when something would happen that would make her see. They were -true prophets, for the day was at hand. - -As she was passing through the hall in the twilight she came upon two -figures clasped in each other’s arms under the broad stairway. They -were her husband and Mrs. Parker, the distinguished archer. Without a -word Cartice walked away from them. - -In a few minutes Doring entered her room with the tittering, airy -manner of one who pretends to find himself in a highly humorous -situation. - -“Well, Heart’s Ease, you caught me flirting a bit, didn’t you?” he -gurgled, making a stagy effort to be facetious. - -“Is that flirting?” she asked, in the most composed and polite voice. - -“Why, yes, of course. What else could it be?” - -“I acknowledge that I am so untaught in matters of that kind that I do -not know the correct names to apply to them,” she said. “What would -you call it had I been in Mrs. Parker’s place, some other man in yours, -and you in mine?” - -“Nonsense, child; that is not to be thought of.” - -“Yes, it is,” she said, determinedly. “My idea of marriage, as I have -repeatedly told you, is perfect equality in all things, neither owning -nor dominating the other. I give the fidelity of the heart and expect -the same from you. The mere outward appearance of loyalty, which some -wives enforce with a club would be of no value to me. But the conduct -reveals the state of the heart. Were I found in the arms of a man, -receiving and answering his kisses, it would be because I loved him -intensely, devotedly; and I will not judge you by a lower standard than -I wish to be judged. Marriage must mean marriage in the highest and -truest sense of the word, or nothing. Now that I know you do not love -me, I shall not blame you, for love is not a matter of the will. You -shall go free.” - -“Hang it all, Cartice,” said Doring, now thoroughly frightened, “you -are not going to be melodramatic about a bit of fooling like that, are -you?” - -“A bit of fooling?” she echoed, unable to understand him. - -“Yes. What else do you suppose it could be?” - -“I can only suppose that you love Mrs. Parker. Otherwise how could you -have had her in your arms kissing her?” - -“Love her? What rubbish. As if a man dreamed of loving every woman -he--he found it expedient to kiss.” - -She looked at him too amazed to speak. This was a revelation of man -nature that was overwhelming. She was unaware until then of the light -value many men set upon constancy and even decency in themselves, -though all prate loud about them as jewels necessary to the adornment -of woman’s character. She was a genuine Galatea, in some respects, -expecting to meet gods and shocked to find the world peopled with men -and women of very crude minds. She was engaged in the difficult and -pathetic task of trying to idealize the actual. - -“Why should a man kiss a woman he does not love?” she asked at last. - -“Why?” echoed Doring, beginning to think he could flounder out of his -dilemma by a little bold bluster. “It’s a habit most of us have got -into, I guess. In this case I made up to the old flirt because she so -manifestly wanted me to. That was all. I meant nothing by it but to -gratify her vanity, which is on short rations just now, I fancy.” - -This coarse speech made his wife shiver with shame. The man was surely -leaving her nothing to respect in himself. As she was silent he -thought he was gaining ground and went on: - -“The idea of your being jealous of her! Why, she is old enough to be -your mother.” - -Meantime Cartice had rung for a hall boy, who presently tapped at the -door. Stepping outside she sent him to ask Mrs. Parker to have the -kindness to come and make her a visit. - -The archer promptly fluttered in, all smiles, believing there was only -plain sailing ahead. - -“Do you love my husband, Mrs. Parker?” Cartice asked. - -“Why, what do you mean?” snapped the enraged siren. - -“I must suppose you love him, because I saw you and him kissing each -other. I could not kiss a man I did not love, and I suppose it must -be the same with you and all other self-respecting women. I have been -telling him that if you and he love each other, I will not stand in -your way. I want to tell you the same.” - -Mrs. Parker was unaccustomed to this kind of a situation. She was only -skilled in slyness, not in open combat. Embarrassed, she turned to -Doring, who stood convicted and shrinking, unable to defend himself or -her. - -“Mr. Doring,” she said--her voice was dry and nervous--“you should -have explained to your wife that we saw her coming and made a foolish -attempt to tease her.” - -“He explains it differently,” said Cartice, quietly. “He says you -seemed to expect some demonstration of affection from him, and he ‘made -up to you,’ as he calls it, because not to do so would be to disappoint -and mortify you.” - -Then Parker turned to Doring swelling with rage and chagrin, fire and -flame darting from her eyes, and then, without a word flounced out of -the room, and early the next day left the hotel. - -Doring, a victim of the cowardice for which his sex is noted when -entrapped, began to breathe freer. He sent a snort of derision after -the retreating charmer. “There, the sentimental old lady will not -trouble us again, I fancy,” he said, with the air of one who sees the -end of a disagreeable affair. - -“That may be,” said his wife, sadly, “but it cannot put us back in our -old places.” - -“What do you mean?” - -“Is it necessary to explain what is so clear? This affair has changed -my attitude toward you entirely. It has killed my confidence in your -honesty, and revealed your character to me in a new light. I can never -be the same to you as before.” - -Thoroughly frightened he began to cast about for bigger straws to catch -at. His wife took on new value in his eyes. An hour or so before he -had commiserated himself for being tied to her, and had wondered why -a being so superior as he had ever been attracted to one so ordinary -as she. Now he wanted to keep her at all costs. He was one to whom -blessings brightened astonishingly as they took their flight. - -“You don’t mean to say you would leave me for a trifle like that, -Cartice? It would be ridiculous. Everybody would laugh at you. Why, -that little episode is nothing. You should know some of the really -reprehensible things married men do and think nothing of it. Men don’t -bother much about loyalty and the finer moralities, I assure you. -They’re good enough for women, but men can’t walk that kind of a line, -you know. Your ideas are too depressingly antique for the age you live -in.” - -“What men do and what other women accept cannot change my idea of what -constitutes marriage. I will not be a party to a contract kept only by -one of the two interested. I have seen women whose husbands violated -every canon of decency going on patiently, under the delusion that they -were doing a virtuous thing. To my mind they were encouraging vice. -Kisses represent feelings. One kisses because one loves. I could not -kiss a man I did not love because it would be repulsive. One is loyal, -not because of a sense of duty, but because one loves; or disloyal -because one has ceased to love.” - -“Anyway, Cartice, don’t leave me or talk about leaving me. You are all -I have in the world. Forgive me, and love me if you can. I feel mean -enough without your contempt.” As he said this, Doring flung himself on -the floor clasping her in his arms and began to weep. - -“He does not understand; he never will understand--he cannot. He thinks -it is something to be forgiven and then to go on as before,” she said, -mentally. - -Anyhow she went on, but not as before. In that hour her love for her -husband had changed its form and face. It had become maternal. All hope -that they could make the journey of life as companions on an equal -footing was dead. - -No more painful experience can come to a proud woman than that of -seeing that the man she has idealized must be propped up instead of -leaned against. - -The days went relentlessly on for Cartice Doring, as days have a way of -doing for everybody. One trouble had grown to proportions so huge that -his hateful shape blotted out all the rest, and his name was Poverty. -The bread of dependence is bitter. Every bite to her was heavy as lead. -Civilization has many tortures; but it is doubtful if it has any more -cruel than this. - -Every waking moment Cartice racked her brain in the effort to think of -some means of earning money, and at night when she slept her dreams -were full of horrors. Thoughts of the river obtruded themselves and -were driven away only to come back more determined in aspect than -before. - -Somewhere she had read that if every suicide would but wait twenty-four -hours after determining to end life, deliverance would come. So she -waited, and the worst depression would pass, and her courage come -slowly back. - -Meantime her husband walked the street in his helpless way seeking -employment, returning at night with the story of failure written on his -face. - -Cartice had been used to a busy life, and the enforced idleness of -those depressing days was more of a weariness to both flesh and spirit -than the hardest labor would have been. In trying to escape from her -own thoughts she sometimes walked long distances. One cold day she was -accosted by a woman who asked her to buy some trifle she was selling. - -“I wish I could, but I cannot, for I have no money,” said Cartice. - -“Ah, don’t say that,” said the other, with incredulity and disgust in -her voice. “So many say it when it isn’t true. It is impossible that -any one so comfortably dressed as you, is without money. Compare your -warm and beautiful wrap with my thin shawl.” - -“It is true I have a good cloak,” Cartice answered, “but I am probably -poorer than you, for I cannot pay for either my shelter or my food. -Your position is superior to mine, for you are trying to earn a -livelihood, while I am longing to do so and know not where to begin. -And besides poverty I have other woes from which I hope you are exempt. -I tell you this that hereafter you may not judge from appearances. Many -whom you envy are, perhaps, more miserable than yourself.” - -Her old childish fancies came back to her sometimes, and she would half -believe that some good fairy would suddenly comfort her and mercifully -change everything. And her people--the dear, kind, fond, ever-courteous -people of her very own world, unseen by all who had not sympathetic -eyes, came to comfort her. The inner world in which they dwelt afforded -her a refuge when the miseries of the outer one became too heavy. -Perhaps it was because of much time spent there that she scarcely took -on the ways and speech of this world. There was ever something unusual -and not easy to understand in her presence, something that suggested -another and a different world. - -“O my own people, my dear people of my dreams! How far I have wandered -in my search for others like you clothed in the flesh!” she said, on -returning from a long walk one evening, as she looked at the dingy -hotel where she was obliged to take unwelcome refuge. - -Within was no soul akin to hers, not one whose words or presence, in -any sense mitigated the deep solitude and loneliness of spirit in which -she lived. - -With it all she was physically wretched. A climate that was ungenial, a -sunless room and a daily diet of anxiety combined had made deep inroads -on a physique elastic but never rugged. Overstrained nature was giving -way. For weeks her body had been racked with pain. Fevers came, tarried -awhile and went away to come again, and languor had taken entire -possession of her. - -One day the culmination came. A neighbor passing her open door saw -Cartice lying helpless on the floor where she had fallen. Assistance -was called and she was lifted to the bed, rigid as in death. “A -congestive chill,” said the doctor. Then science and humanity united -their efforts to save her from death and succeeded. When her husband -came back in the evening, she was lying powerless to speak and only -faintly conscious of being alive. - -The doctor--may it be a star of great radiance on his breast in the -unseen world in which he now dwells--was attentive and kind to a point -far beyond the ordinary. He had seen much of life and its inevitable -suffering. Experience and a heart of exceptional goodness enabled -him to read the signs of the sick soul as well as the sick body at a -glance. - -A few days later as he sat by her bedside, Cartice edged herself -nearer, and laying one of her slender hands on his, said, “I am -grateful to you, doctor, very grateful for helping me so much.” - -The words were commonplace enough, but there were the eyes, the -wonderful eyes, with their strange power to melt the heart, gazing into -his. The doctor’s soul was shaken, he knew not why. - -“I don’t understand it,” he mused as he left the house. “What was it -that came out of her eyes and unnerved me in a flash, making me want -to cry like a baby.” At the memory of that look, in which the mask of -pride fell off and the suffering spirit revealed its anguish, the tears -rushed anew to his eyes. - -“No, I don’t understand it,” he repeated, “but if I had been performing -a surgical operation of the most delicate and dangerous kind, and she -had looked at me that way, I am afraid I should have dropped the knife. -What was that indefinable thing I saw in her eyes? What was it? If -anguish can accumulate for ages and ages and then look out through a -pair of eyes, it was that.” - -Days of convalescence came, bringing the despondency, gloom and -sometimes despair that attack those who have retreated from the edge of -the grave before they are quite out of sight of it. - -Cartice sat by her window with the breeze blowing over her, and it -seemed that a thousand years had passed since last she saw the spring. -Watching the people on the street, hurrying hither and yon, she envied -them their strength, their activity, aims and interests. Idle and -purposeless, weary and hopeless, she sat wondering what she was to do -with the rest of her life. By nature she was an outdoor child, who -loved field and forest and brook and hill. The hateful brick walls that -stared at her now fatigued her eyes and depressed her spirit. When -funeral processions went by she wondered what mystery the narrow black -box represented. Sable and solemn and dreadful as it all was she envied -those who rode in the long black wagon of death. “At least they are out -of this horror,” she said. “If there be another life its conditions -cannot be worse than they are here. If there be nothing on the other -side of death’s silence, then the problem is very simple.” - -This great problem at the end of life always interested her more than -all those to be solved on the journey. If death be an open door to -larger activities and happier conditions, then we should bear with -courage whatever comes upon us here, and go smiling on, indifferent to -pain and disappointment; but if all our striving and longing, sorrowing -and suffering and loving reach a finality in the grave, then--no words -are strong enough and bitter enough to tell the tragic story of the -cheat. - -Cartice had always marveled that many could see their nearest and -dearest pass into that dread silence, and yet put the thought of what -it is out of their minds, and go on pursuing their foolish little -pleasures exactly as though the riddle was not for them also to solve. - - - - - CHAPTER VI. - - THE BUTTERFLY. - - Well, may there not be butterflies - That lift with weary wings the air; - That loathe the foreign sun, which lies - On all their colors like despair; - That glitter, homesick for the form - And lost sleep of the worm? - - --_S. M. B. Piatt._ - - -In these trying days the neighbor who came closest in friendship and -loving service, oddly enough, was the Butterfly of the house, Mrs. -Layton. She and her husband had a richly furnished suite of rooms near -that of the Dorings. They received many calls, went out frequently, and -appeared to find life well worth living. Mrs. Layton was pretty, was -always arrayed as the lilies of the field, and all male humanity bent -the knee before her. - -Cartice’s illness had revealed the unsuspected fact that the Butterfly -had a heart as well as a pair of gorgeous wings. She had been -astonishingly faithful and kind in her attentions, and astonishingly -efficient too, so that now, in the dull days of convalescence the two -had become close friends, the formal wall between them having fallen -under the pressure of suffering and sympathy. - -It was the Butterfly who had sent for the doctor when Cartice was found -unconscious on the floor, helped him when he came, and kept a watchful -eye on his patient afterward. Nothing makes such close friends as to -help and be helped in suffering. We learn to love those to whom we do -good. - -Cartice had always found a strange enjoyment in looking at the -Butterfly since she first saw her, she knew not why. Was she beautiful? -Yes, she had beauty worthy of a higher order of being than a butterfly. -That was the marvel of it, that she could be a butterfly with a classic -profile and the eyes of a mystic--eyes that could see through all masks. - -Now that Cartice knew her so well the strange attraction increased, -though she could not determine wherein lay her remarkable power to -charm. This power, however, was acknowledged on all sides, and many -fell under its influence. Even on the street, women as well as men -turned to look after her, though if asked the reason could not have -told it. The inexplicable quality we call magnetism belonged to her to -an extraordinary degree; but who can explain what that is? It attracts; -it compels planets as well as persons to follow after it; but that is -all we know about it. - -“Mrs. Doring,” said the Butterfly, one day, “you must cheer up or you -will die. Worse than that, you will make yourself old long before your -time. I know it isn’t a polite thing to say, but you look five years -older than when you came to this house.” - -The aching heart of the other swelled almost to bursting. The faculty -of unburdening herself by friendly confidences had never been hers. -Something within her stood like a grim sentinel forbidding all outlet, -and though she yearned for sympathy, could not seek it nor meet it -with loosened tongue when it came. The instinct of repression had been -fostered by a loveless, lonely childhood and lifelong habit. Not a -word could she utter now, but the eyes, with their pitiful, wordless -appeal, their unbearable burden, turned to the Butterfly, and in one -never-to-be-forgotten glance laid bare their owner’s broken heart. Then -with a moan she fell forward, and the long repressed agony burst forth -in sobs. - -The Butterfly’s arms clasped her closely, her tears fell over her, and -the words she spoke were wiser than a butterfly ever uttered before. -The greatest mind could not have devised a better method of cure for -the sick soul than the sympathetic instincts of this airy creature -suggested. From that hour between those two no fence or wall, or -barrier of any kind existed. They knew each other as we shall all be -known when the armors and masks our hypocritical social usages have -forced upon us shall be laid aside with our clay garments. - -“Dear Mrs. Doring,” said Mrs. Layton, presently, “it is not necessary -to tell me what troubles you. I know it through sympathy. You are -greatly distressed for lack of money. You cannot pay your board, and -you and your husband are strangers here. I dare say you never imagined -it, but my husband and I are almost without a cent in the world, too. -We owe this house an immense bill for board, and I am afraid it will -never be paid, for every day the situation grows gloomier. It half -kills me to go to the table, when I know that we are not paying for -the very food we eat, and I suspect you suffer the same way for the -same reason. Our outlook is as bad as yours, only we are not strangers -here and you are. Yet being known has its disadvantages as well as its -advantages. It is hard to be humiliated in the eyes of one’s friends. -So far our difficulties are not generally known, but things too bad to -think of are ahead of us, I fear. You see I pretend to be sunny and -happy. I sing and dance and affect to be merry all the time--for that -is the best way, though I assure you my heart often weighs a ton.” - -“I am astonished,” said Cartice. “I thought you a butterfly out and -out, with no troubles at all.” - -“Naturally, I believe I am. I love the beauties and pleasures of life; -but nobody knows what butterflies are thinking about while they are -fluttering around looking so care-free and joyous. I do the butterfly -act now with a fell purpose--two fell purposes in fact. I keep others -from suspecting that things are going wrong, and I keep myself from -dwelling on my troubles. You must learn butterfly philosophy too. You -must go out and meet people and make friends, let yourself out a little -and show what is in you.” - -“I can’t, dear, for many reasons,” and Cartice glanced at her well-worn -gown, and thought of the hopeless condition of her wardrobe. - -“Clothes, eh?” said the other, going straight to the point. “Don’t -worry on that score, I am handy with a needle and can help you tinker -up some of your things to look quite fine. I can toss up a delicious -little bonnet, too.” - -“But I have no heart in anything,” said Cartice. “You don’t know -all--no; you don’t know all.” - -“I know more than you think I do. I know precisely what it is to -be pitifully disappointed in one’s husband, to find that he is the -opposite of what one thought him, to lose confidence in his ability, -his manliness, his loyalty and his love.” - -“Yes, yes, that is the hardest of all,” wailed Cartice, shaken to the -soul to learn that what she believed hidden was written in big letters -on the outer walls of her life, as it were. - -“That, too, you must throw off,” said the philosophic Butterfly. “There -are few wives who haven’t had some of that kind of experience. For the -most part men are abominable wretches, their whole lives made up of -deceit and lies. It hurt me cruelly, cruelly when I found it out and -just had to believe it in the face of not wanting to; but now, well--I -have taught myself not to care very much.” - -“It seems to me that a wife only ceases to care when she ceases to -love, and then she ought to give her husband up entirely,” said Mrs. -Doring. - -“Yes, it is true; when one doesn’t care it is because one doesn’t love -one’s husband any more. Of course, it would be honester, more moral -and self-respecting to leave him, but we women are mostly tied up by -different kinds of chains, so that no matter how wide our eyes are -opened we usually go right on pretending we don’t see, and so become -hypocrites, too. The whole fabric seems to be pretty much a warp and -woof of lies. But I don’t puzzle much over problems as big and hard as -that. I haven’t the head for it. I just edge along the easiest way I -can, and leave the things I don’t understand, and couldn’t set right if -I did, for others to puzzle over and fix up if they can.” - -Cartice was astonished at the Butterfly’s hard trials and airy method -of ignoring them. We are always astonished to learn that another has -had the same kind of a load to carry that we have borne, all the more -if that other has carried it gaily. It is common to believe our own -experiences unique. - -“You are ever so much cleverer than I when it comes to things learned -out of books,” Mrs. Layton went on, “I have very little of what they -call learning--too little entirely; but any one can see that you are -well instructed. But when it comes to knowing about people as they are -and not as they ought to be, I am far ahead of you, though I am only a -month or two older. You are a mere baby in all that, absolutely blind -to what I can see across the street; and you are such an earnest, -honest, credulous soul that you are bound to have your heart broken -dozens of times while you are learning what you ought to know already.” - -“How did you learn it all so soon?” - -“By experience, the only school whose lessons we remember. I was -married at seventeen and am twenty-four now. One can learn a heap of -things in seven years, with so good a chance as I have had.” (Here the -Butterfly’s mouth took on a hard and bitter curve, which told more than -her word of what her sad wisdom had cost.) “That I was romantic goes -without saying. I believed in the foolish love-stories I read and -expected life to be like them. Were I clever like you, I would write -books and tell about life as it is and not as novel writers generally -pretend it is, deluding the ignorant and inexperienced. I actually -believed there was such a thing as happiness, and that I could secure -it in the usual way, by marrying the man I was in love with--otherwise -the man who had succeeded in casting a spell over me that caused me to -see him through a mist of enchantment, for that is what it means. But -my fool’s paradise didn’t last long. I soon learned to my sorrow that a -man out of a book is not at all like a man in a book. One shock after -another came, until at last nothing could surprise me. After a time -my husband began to drink heavily and does yet, and that is what has -brought us to poverty. When he is bad drunk he is ugly and dangerous. -In short, my life is hard and hateful ’way down out of sight.” - -“O my friend,” cried Cartice, with glistening eyes, “it is a tragedy, -and I thought nobody suffered as I do.” - -Mrs. Layton continued: “When I married I loved him, was proud of him, -believed in him. Now I only pity him, and care for him only as a mother -cares for a child. Could he read my thoughts his vanity, should he have -any left, must suffer. Such men lose far more than we do, after all, -but they are so steeped in selfishness, so besotted in ignorance, they -can’t see it. And he has wretched health, as any one may see. I don’t -know what the end will be, and dare not think of it.” - -“I wish we could know what such experiences mean,” said Cartice. “What -is suffering for? Why must it be? We try hard to find the right road; -we do the best we can; the way looks fair and smooth, and then from no -fault of our own that we can see we are plunged into dark depths. I -wish we knew the reason of it, the purpose of it. I wish we knew.” - -“It is rather strange, Mrs. Doring, that I tell you everything so -frankly. I have never been so confidential with any one before. -Chatterer as I appear to be I am as proud as Clara Vere de Vere, and -keep my own affairs to myself; but in talking with you everything -bubbles right out, yet you never ask any questions. I shouldn’t mind -telling you anything, even if it wasn’t to my credit, I feel so much -confidence in you, and somehow it helps me to tell you. I was attracted -to you from the first, but you were so reserved and unapproachable -that if it had not been for this illness of yours, I doubt if we ever -should have become so well acquainted. You have a curious effect on -me. I couldn’t tell a fib to you nor to any one in your presence if I -wanted to, and yet it has always been easy to me to tell little bits of -lies about things that couldn’t hurt any one. I never thought there -was any harm in it. But somehow I can’t do it when you are near, nor -even when I think of you, and I shouldn’t wonder if I gave up the habit -altogether. Do you remember one day before you got sick, when several -of us were in the parlor and I had a new fan and the rest were admiring -it?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, Mrs. Orton asked me how much it cost. Of course it’s the -worst of manners to ask the price of things, but one meets plenty of -impertinent, ill-bred people as one goes along, and must be civil to -them. I was about to tell her that it cost five dollars, though it only -cost two, when I saw you looking at me, and quick as a flash out came -the truth. You didn’t know the price of it, so I wasn’t afraid you -would catch me in a fib; but I was ashamed not to speak the truth in -your presence. Your eyes look into one, deep down inside, and expect -to see everything there sweet and clean and honest, and I could not -disappoint them.” - -“You can’t be half so wicked as you represent yourself, for you have -one of the sweetest faces I ever saw, and one of the most beautiful,” -said Mrs. Doring, with fervent admiration. - -The Butterfly lilted out a significant little laugh. “Yes, I have been -told that I have an innocent face; but that is a freak of nature, for -I am not innocent. I am tolerably--yes, tolerably well informed on -some subjects, and I do one thing that you will consider abominable, I -flirt.” - -“Dear friend, do tell me exactly what it is to flirt,” Cartice asked, -entreatingly. She remembered that her husband had taken refuge in that -word on the occasion of the affair with Mrs. Parker. - -The Butterfly looked at her pityingly. “If any other woman asked me -that question,” she said, “I should be sure she was a villain of the -deepest dye, and was affecting ignorance in order to pull the wool over -my eyes; but you are such a muff about such things that I can readily -believe you don’t know. It isn’t very easy to explain. Words can’t -describe it very well. Not mincing matters in my case it’s making a bid -for the attention of men and getting it.” - -“Politeness demands that ladies receive attention from gentlemen,” said -the unsophisticated Mrs. Doring, innocently. - -“My benighted friend, your name should be Galatea. I don’t mean mere -polite attention, but particular attention, sentimental, lover-like -attention, with a strong flavor of danger in it.” - -Cartice began to understand. “What comes of it?” she asked. - -A shrug of Mrs. Layton’s graceful shoulders. “Nothing, often. -Sometimes--well, there are extraordinary cases, and at the beginning -it’s best not to think of the end.” - -“What do you get out of it?” - -Another shrug. “Come to think of it, nothing particular, unless it be -distraction.” - -“And those who flirt with you,--how do they come out?” - -“Some of them have the bad taste to become serious, which makes it -rather awkward. Then they have to be sent off for good, and perhaps -they wail about bruised hearts and such like, which I don’t mind. They -never get a whack amiss. What I don’t owe them some other woman does. I -only help to even up for women in general.” - -“But you might grow serious, too, some time.” - -“I am not afraid, because I have no heart any more. It is as dead as -the traditional door-nail. I can dance nearer the edge of a precipice -than anybody else and keep my head.” - -“Some do go over, don’t they?” - -“Yes; poor fools with hearts who ought not to play in that kind of a -game.” - -“It is something I know nothing whatever about, but it appears to be -both perilous and unprofitable,” said Cartice. - -“You are quite right in your conclusion. The liquor habit is also -perilous and unprofitable, yet the man addicted to it keeps right on -in it. One must do something to keep from remembering certain other -things. With me it’s a case of keeping my mind off misery. I got into -it because in the first year of my married life my husband neglected -me shamefully, spending most of his time with a mincing little woman -who posed for goodness itself. For a time I broke my heart over it; all -women do. Then I braced up and began to administer his own medicine -to him, only not in such repugnantly large doses. We all do things it -would be better not to do, because somebody else does us an injury. We -get into one trouble in trying to escape from another. It’s merely a -matter of choice between the frying pan and the fire,--a puzzle far too -deep for my light head to work on.” - - * * * * * - -Nothing is accidental. We meet the people we are destined to meet, and -with their help or hindrance work out our problem, be it hard or easy. -The most feather-weight of mortals may prove our greatest teacher. In -whose keeping we shall find the most precious treasures we know not. -But it was written in the great unopened book that the Butterfly was to -be help and healing to the bruised heart of Cartice Doring, and to bear -a torch which should light for her the very darkest page of life. - -When affairs are at their worst a change has to come. Misery itself -does not stand still. It moves slowly, nevertheless it moves. -The finances of the Laytons and Dorings had reached the stage of -desperation. Colonel Layton found the situation too grave to face -without frequent liquefactions. The result was that he escaped facing -it altogether, for he forgot it completely during the day, and at night -went into a stupor too profound for landlords or other monsters to -invade. - -The Butterfly and Cartice thought of a means of extricating themselves -at last. They decided to leave the hotel, take lodgings and eat, -Bohemian fashion, when they could pay for it, and fast when they had no -money. - -They found furnished rooms, side by side, which they provided with some -tiny traps for cooking, by selling some of the Butterfly’s personal -treasures. To the surprise of the others, Colonel Layton volunteered -to go daily to market and bring in supplies for both families, a task -he performed for some time with a faithfulness not natural to his -character, which was uncertain and ease-loving to the last degree. He -went early and returned loaded like a porter. Among his purchases, -cream cheese in liberal quantities was always a certainty. This was the -bait that lured him to the market. He had a boyish fondness for it, and -like a boy was willing to go out of his way to get it. - -Cartice and the Butterfly rejoiced in each other more and more every -day. They shared their money and whatever else they possessed freely, -and the unqualified frankness of their confidences was salvation for -them. To tell a trouble to sympathetic ears is, in a measure, to throw -it off. Repression kills, but expression is life. The seed that sends a -plant upward from the earth expresses itself. Were conditions such that -it could not do so, it would die and rot away in the darkness. - -The blessed Butterfly, whose extraordinary baptismal name of -Chrissalyn, fitted her so exquisitely, had a far nobler mission in the -world than she herself dreamed. - -Mrs. Doring continued to search for the meaning of things. She had -sought happiness and found wretchedness, and in the first anguish of -disappointment failed to see that she was not the only one who had had -a fruitless quest. There was the Butterfly whose experience was the -same, and many others, now that she thought of it. Perhaps all had more -or less disappointment were their inner lives known. - -Dimly she began to see that the pursuit of happiness could not be the -true purpose of life, though all the world assumed that it was. Her -dream of conjugal companionship had vanished altogether. There were -times when she hated her husband, times when she pitied him, times when -she despised him, and times when she tried to believe that she loved -him,--must love him or die. Had any soul in the universe so yearned -for love as she and been from birth so stinted of it? Behind the -immobile mask that hid her proud, suffering heart from other eyes, her -soul cried for it. What could not she have endured, with a laugh on her -face and a song on her lips, had love walked by her side? Could poverty -or any other terror which civilization has nursed daunt her then? No, a -thousand times no, she said. - -Her own troubles diminished, however, in the presence of the heavier -ones under which Chrissalyn now staggered. - -Colonel Layton was going down hill distressingly fast, and nothing -could be done to save him. His health was broken, his wits muddled and -wandering most of the time, and the end of his resources at hand. He -had let go his anchorage and was drifting to his destruction, careless -of wind or tide. - -Meantime the brave Butterfly smiled before the world and chatted -cheerily when her friends called, though with her heart in her mouth, -and her ear ever alert for her husband’s wavering footsteps. When -she heard the unwelcome sound, she made excuse and went outside to -intercept his entrance. Usually at such times he was pathetically -obedient, and sat where she placed him, in some vacant room or dark -corner of the hall, till her visitors left and she came for him. To -be sure he complained and whined and swore in a rambling way without -rage, yet when Chrissalyn came he went with her like a worn out child. -However, he was not always so tractable. There were times when he -blustered and threatened, and his eyes had a light dancing in them that -made one’s blood run cold. - -One night Mrs. Doring could not sleep, a sense of impending danger -oppressed her. Getting up and putting on a wrapper, she went to a -window and looked into the street. All was still, and yet somewhere -she fancied she heard mutterings. On going into the hall she saw the -Laytons’ door open, the lights at full flare, and, to her surprise, the -colonel, fully dressed, sitting in the doorway whetting a razor, with a -slow, sibilant stroke, which seemed to give him extraordinary pleasure, -for he smiled in a gratified way and his eyes twinkled like stars. -There was no fury in his face, but something far more dreadful--the -look of a lunatic who meditates a deed he considers delightful. Sitting -by the window, opposite the door, was Chrissalyn, clad only in her -sleeping gown, with a face white and rigid, and a pistol held firmly in -her hand. - -At sight of the scene Cartice grew cold with fright; but she went close -to Colonel Layton and was about to speak, when, without pausing in his -razor whetting, he said, gently, “Go away, now, Mrs. Doring, and come -back a little later if you want to.” - -In spite of the apparently innocent words, she felt that behind them -lurked some terrible intention. If she called help the arrival of -others might precipitate whatever horror lurked in his mad mind. - -Chrissalyn heard everything but said nothing, and her silence was -eloquently ominous. - -“Why should I come again if I go away?” she asked, thinking to lead his -mind from the work in hand. - -Shrugging his shoulders significantly, he said, “Merely to see sights,” -and then laughed the low satisfied laugh of one who knows and enjoys -things his listener dreams not of. - -“What sights?” - -Another shrug. His vanity, ever strong, overcame his secretiveness, and -he could not refrain from boasting of his intended exploits. “The last -of Chrissalyn and me,” he said, presently, with a chuckle. “I’m tired -of the whole damned business of living, and shall give it up, but I -shan’t leave her behind me. Oh, no! She goes first.” - -Though chilled to the marrow at this cool statement, whose truth the -scene and the hour confirmed, Cartice pretended to put no stress upon -it. Hurriedly racking her brains for some pretence for her call and -pretext for his services, she said, “I’m sorry to trouble you just -now, Colonel, but Louis is very sick, and I want you to go and ring -up Barton’s night clerk and get some whiskey for him as soon as you -can. You are always so kind and obliging; I’m sure you won’t mind my -bothering you.” He was ever the most easily flattered creature. Then, -too, there was magic for him in the word whiskey. - -“You’ll go, won’t you?” she asked, entreatingly, as he made no answer. - -“Yes, yes, of course,” he replied, absently holding the razor close to -his eyes and looking critically at its edge, but making no move. - -“You will excuse me if I beg you to make haste, please,” she continued. -“Poor Louis is in a wretched state.” - -He got up slowly, took his hat and began to waver about the room, still -holding the open razor in his hand. As he moved toward Chrissalyn she -raised the hand that clutched the pistol, and her eyes had a steady, -determined look that said she would defend herself to the death. - -“Come, Colonel,” cried Cartice, apparently in good-natured haste, “I -hear Louis groaning. Please go as quickly as you can.” He laid the -razor down and went out and down the stairs as docile as a dog. - -Chrissalyn fell forward in a dead faint. When she returned to -consciousness, limp and pale, and Cartice suggested taking her into her -apartment, lest the Colonel return, she smiled feebly, saying, “There -is no danger. He will not be back in ten or twelve hours. You probably -think this scene unusual, but its like has occurred several times -before. Once I had to shoot, and the ball went through his hat. The -shock of it was almost too much for me, for I thought I had killed him.” - -“My poor Chriss, you must leave him, and not run such risks any more. -One such experience is enough to make you grey-headed.” - -“I stay on because I can do no other thing, and if I could I should -stay to take care of him, poor, helpless, wandering soul that he is. -He will come home to-morrow weak as a baby, go to bed and lie there -helpless for weeks.” - -She was a true prophet. At midnight of the next day he crept wearily up -the stairs, a feeble, disheveled, miserable figure, with a pale, peaked -face, and faded, watery eyes. Taking refuge in bed, he arose no more -for over a month. - -These days of terror and anxiety were telling seriously on the -Butterfly, ever a fragile being, who hung to earth seemingly by the -most delicate thread. The pity of it was that she loved life so. Even -as it had disclosed itself to her, full of disappointment, of tragedy, -heartache and humiliation, with want menacing her daily and trouble -elbowing her at every step, still she loved it. Her ideal was not -particularly exalted. Given pretty clothes and surroundings, a few -pleasant friends, a modest retinue of moths to circle round her and a -few gold pieces to jingle in her purse, and she could squeeze joy out -of life still. But remember she was a butterfly. - - - - - CHAPTER VII. - - OPPORTUNITY. - - “A new friend is a new fortune.” - - You have sometimes known happiness, eh? Yes, the happiness of others. - - --_Aresene Houssaye._ - - -One Sunday morning Mrs. Doring sat at a window, making a sketch of a -figure she saw on the opposite side of the street, when Chrissalyn, who -had entered by the open door, went near and looked over her shoulder -with the familiarity of close friendship. - -“Why, how wonderful!” she exclaimed, the most flattering admiration -in her voice and face. “That’s Gabriel Norris, the street preacher, a -local celebrity. You’ve done him to perfection--even better than he -looks himself--that is, I see something in his expression here that I -never saw in him, and yet I believe he has it after all. The picture -brings it out strong. I can’t tell just what it is, but it makes me -want to cry.” - -The eyes of the sketcher glowed with an indescribable light--the light -which the intangible, potent, holy thing we call appreciation calls -from the depths of human souls. To portray nature so that the most -heedless and untaught see the soul of the subject and are able for the -moment to roam about in that awesome country,--with the artist, and -feel his heart-throbs--is ever the dream of art. By the effect of her -work on the Butterfly, Cartice realized that in this modest drawing she -had accomplished this. - -“There, he is moving on and the boys he has been talking to are going -with him,” said Chrissalyn, leaning out of the window. “He preaches -every Sunday morning at the South Market, and is probably on his way -there now. He is a queer fellow, though he belongs to a rich and -respectable family who are greatly mortified at his peculiar doings. -But he hasn’t lived with them for ten years, nor taken a cent from -them. He has a little cobbler’s shop away down town in the very ugliest -part of the city, and supports himself making and mending shoes, and -does excellent work, they say. On Sundays, and other odd times he -preaches to people who are too poor to go to church, and does lots -of other things for them besides. You see he is cheaply dressed, -though as clean as a pin. He could have better clothes, but doesn’t -want them--has views about such things--says he does not want to be -separated from the people he tries to help by being better dressed than -they are. Of course he is an out-and-out crank, but wasn’t always so. -A dozen years ago nobody was fonder of the good things of the world. -He was the leader of the very swellest social doings. All at once -he took a turn in the opposite direction--said he had been wasting -his life, and was going to put what remained of it to some use. Some -say an unlucky love affair set him off; others that he had a dream or -vision that changed him. At this very moment I dare say his father -and family are rolling to church--the swellest church here--in their -fine carriage. But Gabriel preaches against the rich--or at least -against the selfish use they make of their money, and prophesies no -end of difficulty for them here and hereafter if they keep on as they -are going. I have always laughed at him, but I never shall again, -because your picture of him gives me a queer thrill and lets me see -into him as I never did before. But how did you get the features, the -expression,--everything so perfect, seeing him only from the window?” - -“I saw him a few days ago, with his head bare, just as I have him -here, preaching to a little group on a street corner,” said Cartice. -“I stopped a moment to listen, and his face has been often in my mind -since. So when I saw him from the window, this morning, talking to the -boys, I hurried to make a sketch of him.” - -Then looking up, with an eager light in her mottled eyes, she said, -“Chrissalyn, let us go and hear him. You say he speaks to the poor. We -are of them. Who needs help more? Let us go.” - -The Butterfly gave but a grudging consent. She was the natural enemy -of all serious instruction. As they went she babbled on about Gabriel -Norris: - -“As he was bent on preaching, his father wanted him to go to a -theological college and be shaped up into a first-class regulation -preacher, wear the correct thing in clothes, have a fashionable church, -gilt-edged Bible, velvet pulpit cushions, fat salary and everything -that goes to make preaching respectable; but Gabriel wouldn’t have it -that way. He said there was more than enough of that kind of thing; -that what he wanted to say to people had nothing in common with -theological factories, and as for pulpit cushions and the like they -were abominations in the sight of the Lord; that Jesus had none of -them, nor would he have.” - -The scene at the market-house was one to take hold upon the heart. The -people who sat there on rude benches were all from the bitter land of -indigence. Its hard conditions were written in their faces, their poor -garments, stooping shoulders, weary and awkward attitudes. Many women -were there, for women are ever found where a word of promise and hope -is to be spoken, and that fact is eloquent of what they suffer, of the -bitterness of their disappointments, of the weight of their sorrows, of -the hunger of their hearts and the yearning of their spirits. - -Before the preacher had spoken ten minutes Cartice was under the spell -of his oratory, which was simple, strong and sympathetic. It wasn’t -preaching. It was the life-giving, hope-inspiring talk of a loving -friend, and it went to the hearts of his hearers and there awoke nobler -aspirations. He said nothing of seeing evil in them. Instead, he told -them how good they were--much better and higher than they themselves -had dreamed; that possibilities of wonderful and beautiful growth were -in every one of them; that they had an eternity in which to grow, and -on themselves depended their well-being now and forever. - -It was good to see the light of self-respect come into their dull eyes -under the potent spell of the young preacher’s earnest words. Some of -them had shrunk internally to almost nothing, under the blight of the -self-depreciation which close intimacy with grinding poverty begets. -Now their souls began to gather confidence and stand erect, conscious -of their own value. - -“My dear ones,” he said, “don’t make the blunder of thinking that the -aim of life is to be happy. Do not spend your time hunting happiness, -seeking it where it never was and never will be--in the external things -of life, in possessions that pass even while you use them, in pleasures -that leave a bitter taste in the mouth and a regret in the heart. I -doubt not that our Divine Father intended us to be happy, but not in -the way we imagine. His way is so very clear and simple, and yet we -are so blind we see it not, and wander in such hard paths, and lose -ourselves often. It is to love each other. Ever so brief a trial of -this way proves it the true one. But to love each other does not mean -to love only your own families, your friends and those who treat you -well. It means to love everybody, even your enemy. When you love your -enemy, a miracle happens. He ceases to be your enemy. Love always and -to the end. - -“When we love as we should we do not question whether we are happy -or not. Then another miracle happens. We are happy, for we taste the -highest order of happiness, that of forgiving and loving our enemies, -of giving out good will and kindness to all, of making others happy. -The less we think of our own happiness the happier we shall be. - -“Did any man or woman whose life has helped the world go about -complaining because he or she was not happy? Serve others, thinking -not of yourselves and, without knowing the hour of the great -transformation, you will find you are already a dweller within the -kingdom of heaven. - -“Love, and judge not--that is, don’t find fault. When you learn to -love, you will not wish to judge; you will not see the faults; you will -see only the good in everybody.” - -The Butterfly would have found the experience dull, but that on the -edge of the assemblage she spied a handsome male acquaintance. This -enabled her to await the end of the lecture with heroic patience. Her -face wore an expression indicative of complete indifference to his -presence, for that was part of her method of attracting moths, though -in fact she saw nothing and thought of nothing but him. It goes without -saying that as soon as Gabriel Norris had dismissed his people, this -imposing moth was by her side. She greeted him with demure civility, -as though he was the most ordinary apparition that could loom up--for -that, too, was in her tactics--then presented him to Cartice as Mr. -Prescott. - -He had a reverent way with women, unstudied and natural, which usually -won their good will and sometimes more at the first meeting. He took -her hand with old-fashioned friendliness, and as he looked into her -face, and her eyes met his, the mask of self-repression she had been -wearing slipped aside for a moment, and her sore and suffering spirit -stood in mute appeal before him, and he saw and understood. - -“Show Mr. Prescott your sketch, Mrs. Doring, please,” said the -Butterfly. Without demur Cartice opened her sketch book which she had -brought to give the finishing touches to Gabriel’s picture. Prescott -started in surprise when he saw it. After a moment or so of silence, he -said, “It is admirable.” - -Mrs. Doring’s face glowed. A word of praise with the genuine ring in it -warmed her heart to the core. - -“You draw well, too, Mrs. Layton,” he said, with a significant smile; -“but not in the same way.” - -The Butterfly disdained to reply. Turning to Cartice, with the most -winning deference, he said, “I should like to purchase your sketch, -when completed, Mrs. Doring. I want to publish it. Write me a -description of the services here this morning, to go with it, will you -not? You _can_ write, I know without asking.” (Mentally--If she would -write what her eyes tell it would move the world.) - -“Mr. Prescott is the editor of the _Register_,” said the Butterfly, by -way of explanation. - -“I shall be delighted to do so,” Cartice answered, with swelling heart. - -“And do some more of the same kind of work afterward. I want things -like that--plenty of them,” he said. - -As they talked together Gabriel Norris joined them, for he and the -newspaper man were old friends. Cartice thanked him earnestly for his -helpful words, saying frankly that she needed them as much as any of -his hearers. Accustomed to the indifference and contempt of that part -of the public which should have understood him, and to the stupidity of -that which could not, he had long used himself to live without praise; -but he was human, and his heart was lighter and warmer for a word of -appreciation. - -Cartice walked home on air. The long lane of her misery was turning. -A chance to work had come to her, and that meant a means of climbing -out of the slough of despond. Idleness is the prelude to decay, an -invitation to destruction. Enforced idleness, when the spirit longs -for activity, and yet finds itself hedged in, helpless, cut off from -opportunity, is the death of hope, the very day of doom for the soul. -Now that was all over. The ladder that leads out of despondency and on -to the best the world has to give was before her, her feet already on -its first round. - -She could hardly wait to get home and write the description that was to -accompany the drawing. It took shape as she went, one sentence chasing -another in her mind, all eager for expression, which is but another -word for life. - -The Butterfly had a new theme to chatter about--Prescott and his -doings, though her companion scarcely heard her, so deep was she in her -new dreamland of action. - -“Prescott is a genius, they all say, though a capital fellow, -nevertheless. Nobody can back him down, for he fears neither man -nor devil, and I like that. He is divorced from his wife who was -considerable of a fiend, I guess, and no doubt he is too, on -occasions. She married again. It was lucky we went to hear Gabriel. One -never knows where one may encounter a streak of good fortune,--even at -so unexpected a place as church sometimes.” - -Though but few words had been exchanged the famished spirit of Cartice -Doring had been refreshed by meeting Prescott and Gabriel Norris. Words -are but a cumbrous means of communion anyway. When we better understand -the laws of our being we shall need them less. Our thought goes forth -and becomes a part of others, by a subtler method than articulate -speech; and this is why no man can live unto himself, and why if one be -lifted up he lifts up others also. - -The turning point in ill fortune had come, sure enough. The very -next day Doring announced that he had “dropped into something.” It -was not a chance to make a fortune, but it was--well, just what he -said--something. - -Is it not true that there are persons who bring us good luck from -the very moment they cross our paths, and others who dower us with -ill-fortune as long as we are associated with them? Mascots and Jonahs -are realities, not myths. Meeting Gordon Prescott and Gabriel Norris -had turned the tide for Mrs. Doring. One had opened the gate of -opportunity, and the other had given her a kind of help not easy to -label. It might be described by saying that she felt better for having -met him. - -Her sketch of him, with an accompanying word picture of the scene at -the market-house went promptly to the _Register_, and was responded to -in person by Prescott, who brought her a crisp five dollar note, said -an appreciative word or two in his curt, laconic way, and repeated the -order for more. - -The joy of expression took hold of her, and to her great amazement -her pen could more than keep pace with her pencil. Its creations -were distinguished by an originality, a strength and grace that at -once attracted attention. To her the pleasure she found in writing -was not in the admiration it excited, but in the doing of it,--in -the never-ceasing surprise that she could do it so well. Sometimes -when she read her own productions after the fire that created them -had died out, they seemed new and strange to her, like the work of -another. An apparently inexhaustible well within herself had been -opened, into which she could reach at will and draw forth sparkling -draughts. In this way she became aware of the complexity, temerity and -unfathomableness of that wondrous, unseen, indescribable thing we call -mind, which has everlastingly within it all that is, was or shall be. - -It astonished her to see the facility with which her pen danced -humorous jigs, flung off diamonds of wit, and set in motion rippling -waves of laughter. It was strange that she who was but emerging from -the valley of despair, and whose life so far had had in it but little -of the glitter of pleasure, could write as one who knew the light, the -joyous, the mirthful, the happy side of existence. - -Yet even in her most jaunty and jubilant products, here and there would -be a bold, strong stroke of another kind, which made the reader know -that he was following no light soul. In all she wrote, whether grave or -gay, were the “fresh eyes,” to which we give the name of originality, -and another quality, for which we have no name, which moves us, we know -not why. - -When it began to be rumored that the _Register’s_ new writer was a -woman, the smart people, who knew everything, shook their heads and -sniffed incredulously, saying that there was too much force in the -work; that the style was not womanish--it was Prescott in disguise. -They expected the apron-strings to flutter conspicuously from every -page prepared by a feminine hand. For them genius has sex and that sex -is always male. - -It must not be understood that these early efforts of my heroine -were worthy a place among the works of genius. They were only fresh, -spirited, striking sketches of life as their author saw it, and they -went into the great ocean of newspaper literature here, there and -all about, that lives but for a day. Some of them, it is true, found -a pathetic scrap-book immortality. Others were picked up by mightier -periodicals than the _Register_, and given a flatteringly wide -circulation, and a few met the dreary fate of getting into imposingly -bound collections of “Literary Gems,” there to rest in undisturbed -security on village parlor tables for many a year to come. - -In a few weeks Mrs. Doring had the felicity to be installed as -associate editor of the _Register_. Her salary was not munificent, -as salaries usually are in fiction. Let no one imagine that all -aspirants get an opportunity to do newspaper work and ascend the ladder -as easily. Her good luck in this particular could be traced to her -fitness for the position. Prescott soon discovered that besides having -extraordinary ability and originality as a writer, she had what he -called the “editorial instinct,” which, being interpreted, meant that -she knew instinctively what an attractive newspaper should contain. - -In novels it is always easy to get to the top. In that respect the -people who live in books have a much better time than they who live -outside of them. There young heroes make dazzling flights up the -journalistic mountains. A young man comes out of college, writes -something for a powerful daily newspaper, whose editor at once begs -him to accept a lucrative situation thereon. He allows himself to -be persuaded, after some hesitation, and takes advantage of the -opportunity for distinction thrust upon him, after which he goes up -without delay or hindrance, till he becomes editor-in-chief, owns the -paper and is a recognized power in the land. But in real life, alas! -the get-there road is a harder one to travel. - -Another thing in real life is managed less excellently than in fiction. -The women who do newspaper work, too frequently have a little place -fenced off to operate in. This is called “Woman’s Corner,” or “Woman’s -Work,” or “Woman’s World,” and therein the entire female part of the -population is supposed to find satisfactory news aliment. There the -whole mass of reading women are expected to pasture in peace and -plenty. And why not? There they can find out just how long a sponge -cake should be left in the oven, what is the best lotion for the -complexion, how to polish their finger nails, the latest thing in -embroidery stitches, the newest style in visiting cards, the most -approved method of conducting an afternoon tea, and no end of valuable -and ennobling information in regard to what “they” are wearing. - -Beside all this indispensable instruction the corner is sure to contain -many proud allusions to that terrible scourge, the “true woman,” who -is always found sitting serenely within her “sphere,” her feet on a -hassock, her embroidery in hand, ignorance in her head, selfishness -in her heart, vanity and jealousy written all over her feeble face, -saying that she “has rights enough,” just as she would say she has -bread enough. But evolution, that “slow performance of miracles,” will -eventually oust even this stumbling-block in the path of human progress. - -Cartice Doring was not a “true woman,” nor was her work on the -_Register_ to be found in a “corner,” neither had it a fence of any -kind about it, seen or unseen, nor was it addressed to women more than -to men. As she saw it, newspapers were for all and dealt with matters -of interest to all humankind. - -Happily Prescott thought the same. He held almost no opinions dear to -the average mind, and scarcely ever put pen to paper without tearing up -the ground under the feet of those who insisted upon thinking “the same -thoughts their fathers did think.” He had founded the _Register_ and -made it the vehicle of his opinions rather than a mere news journal. -These opinions were invariably so new and daring, and so entertainingly -expressed that his worst enemies could not deny themselves the pleasure -of reading them. Hence it was that the _Register_ was a flying success. - -As it was well known that Prescott was as ready and able with his -revolver as with his pen, his views on current events were respected, -and seldom openly disputed. He was the mortal enemy of fools and -fogies, and found his chief joy in outraging that chaos of ignorance -and prejudice we call public opinion. In short he was brilliant, bold, -witty, kind and cruel--a tremendous engine with sand in the joints. - -Mrs. Doring found her new field of activity stimulating and delightful. -It had been her belief that happiness could be made of but two -ingredients--companionship and congenial employment. Now that she had -the latter, the want of the former troubled her less. Besides, she met -many people, and the contact of sympathetic minds is to another what -moisture is to vegetation--keeping it alive and invigorating it. In a -day, as it were, the world had expanded, and she was in touch with its -heart, vibrating in sympathy with its deep pulsations. - -She learned much of human nature, particularly gifted human nature, for -the _Register_ had literary leanings, and many of its friends, men and -women, who came to chat a vast half-hour in the informal editorial den, -were toiling up the narrow way that leads to eminence and fame. - -Some have achieved the fulfilment of their dreams and are now enjoying -their little day of renown. Others had but a taste of the delirious -cup of renown when they were called into the silence. Some grew weary -and ceased to strive, and some are still plodding on in the old road, -having neither lost nor gained ground. - -As a matter of course, enemies arose. The spiteful, the envious, the -jealous, the bitter-hearted, the undeveloped must needs have their -little fling at the woman whose pen was a power. But Cartice was too -busy to heed them. Scarcely had she time to ask herself if she were -happy. “Almost,” she said, when she thought of it, though it was a -different kind of happiness from that of her earlier dreams. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII. - - DEATH’S NARROW SEA. - - The child that enters life comes not with knowledge or intent; - So those who enter death must go as little children sent. - Nothing is known, but I believe that God is overhead; - And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead. - - --_Mary Mapes Dodge._ - - -One morning Cartice met Colonel Layton in the hall, as he was about to -go out for the day. His unusual appearance struck her at once. He was -clean shaven and carefully dressed; his face was pale and no signs or -fumes of liquor were upon or about him. This, of itself, was enough -to attract particular attention; but there was more. An indefinable -something in his manner asked for sympathy in a silent way, like an -animal; and in his eyes which of late were unusually glassy and vacant, -was an expression of reminiscent sadness, such as comes to the eyes of -those who in a quiet, self-questioning hour, look back upon their lives -and see scenes that bring regret. Cartice felt her heart stirred by a -wish to comfort him. - -Perhaps he was conscious of that vibration of sympathy, for he smiled -and the smile was singularly sweet and winning, revealing a glimpse of -his old-time handsome self, when he had won the Butterfly’s heart. - -In conversation the Colonel was ever a failure. His ability in that -art did not go much beyond a few stock expletives, eked out with -significant shrugs and emphatic grunts. But now he tried to make talk, -and lingered as though he had something to say and knew not how to -begin. - -“Hang it all,” he growled at last, “what is there in this life anyhow? -What are we here for, I should like to know? What’s the object of the -whole, miserable procession? It’s a devil of a grind for everybody, and -we have to give it up at last, and go out of it, God only knows where. -What do you think is at the end of it, Mrs. Doring?” - -“O Colonel, I think and think, but I know nothing.” - -“Yes, that’s the dickens of it, nobody knows,” he sighed. “But if there -is a hell most of us will be well seasoned for it by tough times here. -I feel about ripe myself. At least I am certain they can’t get up -anything worse than this world anywhere. Mighty little happiness here.” - -There was something inexpressibly pathetic in this ruined man’s mention -of happiness. Like all others he had been in pursuit of it, yet his -seeking had but led him farther astray. - -“Should you like to live your life over again?” he asked with sudden -animation. - -“I have not the courage,” she answered. - -“I don’t know that I have either,” he said, with a weary air. “I don’t -know that I want to; yet all the morning I have seen myself as I was -when a child in my father’s house, and my grown-up life seems but a -dream. If it were so, and I remembered the dream, I would not again -travel the same road, I assure you. I recall one spring morning, -particularly--a Sunday morning--when I sat with my mother on the shady -old porch with vines running up the sides, and she sang this: - - “‘There is a land of pure delight, - Where saints immortal reign. - Infinite day excludes the night, - And pleasures banish pain. - - “‘There everlasting spring abides - And never-withering flowers. - Death like a narrow sea divides - That heavenly land from ours.’” - -A good tenor voice had once been his, but the best of it had gone the -irrevocable road, like many of his other endowments and possessions. -Enough remained, however, to give a touching sweetness to the grand -old words, and as he sang his face became softened, beautified, -transfigured, all that was erring and evil dropping out of it. The -years, too, fell away, and he was a little child again--nor had he -ever been anything else--just a child, weak, wandering, blundering, -stumbling often--just a child, brother to us all. - -“Do you think there is anything for us on the other side of death?” he -asked, the childlike look still upon his face. - -“I hope so.” - -“Well, I believe there is,” he said, with unwonted decision. “I have -always believed so, in spite of my bad practice, though I don’t know -what it is; but I am not afraid though I’m no saint. It seems all -right.” - -“Yes, whatever it is, it must be all right,” Cartice answered. “It -could not be anything else. But I wish we knew something about it. I -wish we knew.” - -“It may not be long before I know. You see what I am--a shadow of what -I used to be, a wreck in everything and nobody to blame but myself. I -guess the end of the road can’t be very far ahead. After I make the -lonely journey, I’ll come back and tell you something about it if I -can.” - -“Ah, Colonel Layton, thousands, millions have started on that journey -with the same promise upon their lips, but who has kept it?” - -“Yes, it is a stumper,” he said, reflectively, “but in spite of it -I have faith that perhaps I can. Mother and father are on the other -side somewhere. This morning they seem very near to me--nearer than -ever before since they went away. I feel that I might meet them at any -turn.” - -With a sigh and a smile he lifted his hat in graceful adieu and went -slowly down the stairs, softly singing, - - “Death like a narrow divides - That heavenly land from ours.” - -Two hours later Cartice was sitting at her desk in the editorial office -of the _Register_, when a stranger entered. Speaking low, as even the -rudest do when they bring dread news, he said: - -“Colonel Layton fell dead on the street a few minutes ago. He has been -carried into Dr. Olcott’s office, and the doctor wants you to come at -once. He knows you are a close friend of Mrs. Layton, and I guess he -wants you to tell her and help make arrangements.” - -Dazed and trembling, Mrs. Doring was about to start when Prescott -entered, and he volunteered to accompany her. - -They found everything calm and orderly. The doctor was noted for -keeping an even mind under all circumstances, and had permitted no -intrusion of the curious and idle. He opened the door to an inner room, -and led them to a sofa on which the dead man lay awaiting the coroner. -With professional coolness the doctor turned down the sheet, saying, -“He was already gone when they brought him in.” - -In very truth he had become a child again. The fair weak face wore a -look of youth and innocence. The light, shiny hair, scarcely ruffled -from its careful arrangement of the morning, had on it baby tints of -sunshine, and under the blonde moustache lurked the remnant of the -childishly sweet smile that lighted his face when Mrs. Doring saw him -go singing down the stairs two hours before. The placid form before -her was his semblance, indeed, but it was not he. That mysterious fact -Cartice realized in an instant. There were his clay garments, but all -that was he was gone. - -The funeral took place two days later. Mrs. Doring could not be -present, for she was unable to raise her head from the pillow. Thoughts -of the great mystery which had just touched elbows with her haunted -her all the time. The “narrow sea that divides the heavenly land from -ours,” what was it like? What shore touched it on the other side? Was -there a heavenly land or any land beyond that dark ocean? And where was -Colonel Layton now? - -No answer to these perplexing queries came. And yet, perhaps an answer -always comes could we but read it. Perhaps it came to Mrs. Doring, -for as she lay there wondering about it, a calm came upon her, and in -imagination she saw Colonel Layton as he stood at the top of the stairs -on the day they talked together about this greatest of all problems, -and heard him say, “I am not afraid. It seems all right.” Far down -within herself she heard the echo, “all right! all right!” and then she -saw again the Colonel’s childish smile, and he repeated assuringly, -“Yes, it’s all right.” - - * * * * * - -Chrissalyn went to live with a friend and determined to find a way -to earn her bread. The end of one path through which she had sought -happiness was reached and only sadness and disappointment were there. -Now she must look for others, for the endless quest goes on, clear to -the grave itself and possibly beyond. When she with the last scrap of -her possessions was gone and her apartments left solitary, Cartice -felt a sense of desolation greater than she had known since she and -the Butterfly had been friends. Life is as inexorable as death; its -separations are often more cruel. - -In the office of the _Register_ the final fate of man was a subject -often under discussion. Prescott snorted in derision at any mention of -a continuance of life in a sphere invisible to us now. “We die and turn -to dust, like the worm,” he said. Cartice held to the hope of something -more than we have here--a sequel to this life, or a continuation of it, -but she could advance no basis for the hope which he considered tenable. - -Well-known figures in the state and community passed out of sight -into the silence of the grave every now and then, and it was the -_Register’s_ custom to speak with unvarnished frankness about their -lives. Without doubt this, in many instances, added to the terrors -of death, for Prescott was capable of very rough surgery in his -post-mortem analysis. He flouted the old injunction, “speak no ill of -the dead,” saying that mere dying did not excuse a man’s misdeeds, nor -make an angel of him, and that they should reap an obituary harvest -of whatever crop they had sown. Not even the time-honored “regular -subscriber” or “constant reader,” had immunity from this harsh ruling. -He was willing to take the same medicine himself when his time came, -and it should never be said of him that he was in the habit of -plastering people all over with laudatory lies just because they had -died. “O yes,” he would snarl, “lots of men serve the devil all their -lives, and then expect newspapers to put plenty of heaven in the truck -they print about them when they die. But the _Register_ isn’t conducted -that way. They shall get in it what they have earned, no more, no -less.” Truly, many found, even without dying, that it was a terrible -thing to fall into the too truthful hands of the _Register’s_ editor. - - - - - CHAPTER IX. - - THINGS NOT DREAMED OF IN EVERYDAY PHILOSOPHY. - - “Communication between the spirit world and the corporeal world is in - the nature of things, and has in it nothing supernatural.” - - The body, after all, is only a portable, two-legged telephone through - which the soul, or part of it, communicates with other souls which - for purposes of education and evolution are temporarily imprisoned - in these cumbrous and ingenious, but very inconvenient physical - machines. - - --_William T. Stead._ - - -Chrissalyn had the usual difficulty of the untrained in finding -employment. The search was long and disheartening and might never have -had a happy ending but for a curious accident, which was no doubt down -in the books of destiny. - -She was going up a public stairway one day, when a man descending at a -break-neck gait ran against her, throwing her down. Distressed at what -he feared might have a serious ending, he picked her up, bewailing his -awkwardness, and offering to do anything in his power to atone for it. - -She opened her eyes to consciousness just as he was saying, “What can I -do for her? What can I do for her?” - -“Get me a chance to earn my bread,” she gasped, with almost her first -breath. - -“I’ll do it at once,” he said. “I’ll take you right up the stairs -into my office and install you, out of gratitude that I didn’t kill -you.” So it could be said in all truth that she “fell into a good -situation,” for that it proved to be. Her ignorance of the duties she -was to perform was patiently borne with until it was overcome. Never -was butterfly more painstaking and industrious than she, and work -proved a blessing to her, as it does to everybody whose heart is in it. -Occupation gave her a stronger hold on life, for self-dependence is a -wonderful invigorator. It gave her added dignity, too, leaving just -enough of the butterfly instinct to give her exceeding grace. - -Seldom did she speak of her husband, save to Cartice, from whom she -concealed nothing, for Mrs. Doring was always tolerant, helpful, -receptive, kind and sympathetic, never critical and condemnatory. -Others beside the Butterfly understood this, and went to her with what -they needed to tell. The mind that is receptive, never meeting any -honest communication with hedgehog defiance or fool’s sneer, becomes a -magnet which draws knowledge from the very fountain of light and life. -Into it flow the secrets of the universe as well as of individuals. - -Speaking of her husband one day to Cartice, the Butterfly said, “I -never shed any tears because he died. It was the only road out of -misery for him and for me; but I did weep for the happiness we never -had together, yet might have had.” - -One Sunday she came, but was silent and reflective, unlike her usual -self, for a time. At last she said: “Cartice, dear, I want to tell you -something that will certainly seem queer to you. I dare not speak of it -to any one else, lest I be locked up as a lunatic. But you are always -so kind and so sensible, you may be able to understand it. I don’t. -When I think of it I feel afraid that I am a little off my base.” - -“You can tell me anything, Chriss, you know that.” - -The Butterfly looked nervous and paled a little, but began: - -“To-day I have been to the funeral of Jess Hanley, a schoolmate of -mine. We were always the best of friends, though for some years we -have seen comparatively little of each other, because she has been -tied down at home so closely on account of sickness. Her husband died -of consumption two years ago. A year later their little boy went. Then -Jess became ill, and for months she has been expecting to go any day -almost. Last week she sent for me and I went. She told me she knew her -time was nearly up. She was quite cheerful over it, as she believed -she would be with her husband and child again after she had ‘passed -over,’ as she called it. She was a spiritualist, and thought that dying -isn’t dying at all. One thing she made me promise--a mere sick fancy I -suppose--and that was that I should not fail to go to her funeral. - -“Well, I went of course. It was like most other respectable funerals. -People looked solemn, there were flowers, and a preacher made the usual -harrowing remarks, which set everybody weeping--everybody but me. I -didn’t shed a tear, yet I loved Jess as well as any one there except -her mother, I am sure. - -“I didn’t cry because I was so dazed I couldn’t. That was the queer -part of it. I was dazed, because all the time the minister was speaking -I saw Jess, her husband and little boy running around the coffin, -laughing, kissing each other and throwing flowers in all directions. -They took the flowers from the mass on top of the coffin, yet there -were never any fewer there, though they threw them around by handfuls. - -“Once when the preacher said, ‘We shall see our sister no more until -that great and dreadful day of the Lord, when all shall stand at the -bar of judgment,’ Jess looked at me, laughed in a knowing way and threw -a rose into my lap; but when I tried to pick it up it wasn’t there. Now -what do you think of all that? _Am_ I crazy, or what was it?” - -“What do you think it was, Chrissalyn?” - -“I don’t know, and don’t dare to think too much about it lest I get -upset over it.” - -“Did others see them, do you think?” - -“No; I am sure they did not, and that frightens me. If they were really -there why didn’t the others see them? If they were not there why should -I see them, unless something has gone wrong in my head? I am sure the -others saw nothing, for I thought of that and watched them closely and -could detect no astonishment in their faces.” - -“How did the dead people whom you saw look, Chrissalyn?” - -“Just like living people, clothes and all. Only I knew they were not -living and had no business to be there, and couldn’t be there, and yet -they were there.” - -“Have you ever seen anything of the kind before?” - -“Yes, several times; but I always drove the recollection of it out of -my mind as soon as possible, because it seemed uncanny and creepy--and -I ended by persuading myself that I had imagined it all.” - -“Did your friend Jess know you had seen such things?” - -“Come to think of it, she did. Once a good while ago she told me -about some queer things of that kind she had seen. That’s the reason -she was a spiritualist. Then I told her what I had seen.” (Here the -Butterfly’s face lighted up). “Now that may be the reason she made me -promise to be sure and go to her funeral. Perhaps she intended to make -herself visible to me if she could. At least that view of it makes me -feel easier. I prefer to believe I saw ghosts rather than to think my -brain is going bad. It has been a long time since I saw anything of the -kind. Each time I hope will be the last. But what do you think of it, -Cartice? You believe I saw those dead people, don’t you?” - -“I think you saw just what you say you did; but I can’t explain it.” - -Mrs. Doring had always clung to the belief that the universe held many -mysteries beyond her ken; that marvelous things, hidden from common -vision, were destined to some day stand revealed, and no man knew the -manner in which they might make themselves known. She had had some -experience with professional clairvoyants which had been disenchanting. -For the most part they had been clammy, illiterate, unscrupulous, -pitiful types of humanity, ready to violate truth and the English -language without hesitation or remorse. Now she looked at the Butterfly -with an interest that almost amounted to awe. Could it be that the gift -of seeing the hidden and unknown belonged to this bright, winged being, -who loved the world and the things of the world only? - -At last she said: “Chrissalyn, you have heard of the faculty of -clairvoyance, have you not?” - -“Yes, of course.” - -“May it not be that you are a clairvoyant, and saw your dead friends -clairvoyantly?” - -The Butterfly lifted her hands in horror. “O Cartice, how can you -suggest such a thing? I a clairvoyant? It would be too dreadful. I -wouldn’t have a hint of such a horrid thing get out on me for the -world. Why, clairvoyants are hideous creatures, ugly, old, frowsy, -untruthful, and advertise to tell you all sorts of things for a dollar.” - -“But, my own Butterfly, you are not old and ugly and all the rest of -it, neither are all clairvoyants. History contains the names of some -very eminent ones. What a wonderful and enviable gift clairvoyance must -be. How I wish I had it. And if it be true that you are possessed of -it, think what it brings to you--light, light from heaven itself--the -most glorious light in the universe--proof that the dead have never -died.” - -Her friend’s enthusiasm ensnared the Butterfly’s vanity at once, so -that she pricked up her ears and gave heed. Whatever Cartice said had -weight with her. It gratified her, in spite of her prejudices, to have -a faculty unattainable to ordinary persons. All this darted through her -head and settled down into acceptance. - -“Well, I don’t mind if it is clairvoyance, only don’t tell anybody.” - -“It’s not a thing to be talked about with those who don’t understand or -respect it. It’s too precious. Would I could see such sights. Then I -could sing light-hearted tunes and walk on bravely, be my pack never so -heavy. Don’t fail to tell me if you see anything more.” - -Chrissalyn did see something more of the same character very soon, and -made haste to describe it to her friend. - -She had gone to a bank to attend to some business which required more -explanation than was convenient to make through the cashier’s window, -so she was invited to take a seat in the office of the president, with -whom she had some acquaintance. - -While she sat there his son entered, bearing strong evidence of having -tarried too long at the wine. His reputation as altogether too jolly a -dog was well known. His father sent him off as speedily as possible, -and then said to Chrissalyn in a burst of distracted confidence, such -as we all give to somebody at times when the load grows too heavy, “My -boy is going to ruin in spite of all I can do. I have borne with him -till I am out of patience, yet my forbearance is wasted. I am tempted -to cast him off entirely, to throw him on his own resources and see how -that will work. Maybe it will bring him to reason, since no amount of -kind treatment does him any good.” - -On the instant Mrs. Layton saw a woman stand behind the banker. Whence -she came or how she knew not, but there she was, and she spoke--spoke -in an earnest, anxious voice, with an entreating gesture: “Tell him not -to do that. Beg him not to do it. Say that _I_ implore him not to do -it.” - -Under the impulse of the request, before she had time to think what she -was doing, the Butterfly told the banker what she had just seen and -heard. - -He was a big, commonplace, worldly man, whose head was never heated -with super-mundane problems, yet he whitened as he heard this strange -story. - -“What was the woman like?” he asked. - -“She was young and plainly dressed in a calico gown of an old-time -mode, and she looked astonishingly like your son.” - -The face of the banker whitened more and more and his eyes became -glassy and fear-struck. - -“That describes my first wife, Rob’s mother,” he said, “yet you did not -know--no one here does--that he is not the child of my present wife. I -was poor while she lived, so poor that she never had anything better -than calico to wear.” - -By that time Chrissalyn began to have a sheepish feeling about what -she had done, and wished she were well out of it. A force that was -resistless had impelled her to speak, but now that the tale was told, -the impulsion gone and she became master of herself again, her first -thought was that she had let out the secret of her ability to see -things not within the range of common vision. So she attempted to make -light of it, lest the banker go about telling it as a queer thing, and -then the detested name of clairvoyant would be fastened on her in spite -of everything. - -“I dare say it’s all nonsense, and I hope you won’t think of it again,” -which was as near as she could delicately come to saying, “I hope you -will not speak of it.” - -The stout banker mopped a cold perspiration from his face, with a good -deal of nervousness. He was tolerably shaken up, and was making a wild -effort to regain his equilibrium. Though not a man to go very deep into -anything outside of finances, he was neither dogmatic nor unteachable. -He knew what he didn’t know, which is a rare bit of wisdom, and in that -territory were all things beyond the commonplace. - -“Anyhow, whatever it was, Mrs. Layton, I’m obliged to you for telling -me--more obliged than I can express,” he said, with unaffected -earnestness--“and I will do as she wants me to. I will not turn Rob -out.” - -“I’m glad of that,” said his visitor, whose instincts were always -kind. “It could hardly do him any good.” - -The springs of the banker’s emotions had been touched, and for a -moment he looked like a big boy about to cry like a little boy. That’s -what he saw he must do, or pour himself out in uninvited and prodigal -confidence, and that’s what he did. - -Thus it was that the banker’s skeletons held high carnival that -afternoon in their owner’s business office. The reminder of the wife -of his youth, the companion of his poverty, pressed the closet door -unceremoniously open. The unhappy owner of the unique outfit took a -full breath and unreservedly told how miserable he was, and that the -only happiness he ever had was during the life of his first wife, - - “When there was scarce bread to eat - And the wolf was at the door.” - -Now, he had money, and with it a wife who wore purple and fine linen, -and loved nobody but herself. He spoke of his loneliness, and told -what a poor, mean, paltry sham his life was, and how at times he had -wondered if his dead wife could see and understand. He kept on till the -closet of skeletons had been pretty well swept and aired, and they had -stretched their legs in a fine dance after long suppression--kept on -until the Butterfly held him and his wretchedness, so to speak, in the -hollow of her hand. When she went forth it was with a sure conviction -that he would say nothing about her clairvoyant experiences. He would -have enough repenting to do about the break-out of the skeletons to -keep him busy. - - - - - CHAPTER X. - - “YE SHALL NOT UNDERSTAND.” - - Whatever happens to anybody it will be turned to beautiful results, - And nothing can happen more beautiful than death. - - --_Walt Whitman._ - - -Two years had passed since Colonel Layton died. Renewed health and -beauty had come to the Butterfly, who still contentedly earned and -ate her own bread. Self-dependence has many rewards for its faithful -disciples, not least among them being the conscious dignity that -belongs to usefulness, and expresses itself in the greater ease and -calmer assurance of bearing. Being a factor instead of a cipher gives a -woman new value in her own eyes, as well as in the eyes of others. - -If Chrissalyn could see into the world to follow this, Cartice wondered -why she had had no glimpse of her husband. She had not, she said, and -didn’t want to. She hoped she never would see any one who had been -near to her--it would be too terrible. She insisted on keeping all -knowledge of her queer experiences from Prescott. His sniffs and sneers -of ridicule would be too much for her, nor did Cartice feel equal to -them either. According to Phillips Brooks there are two kinds of -cowardice, that of the conservative, and that of the radical, both of -them fatal to freedom of thought. The former is afraid of being called -an innovator, the latter fears to be thought conservative. One pliantly -conforms to established methods; the other strikes defiance of them. -Neither of them are free. - -Perhaps Prescott was of the second. Perhaps he fought what he called -superstition lest he be forced to believe in spite of himself. At any -rate his two friends, perhaps the loyalest he had, were not bold enough -to take him into their confidence. The intolerant always pay this -penalty. They shut out confidence; they make people afraid of them; -they keep light and good away from them, and drive angels themselves -from their gates. - -Cartice had a notion that the Butterfly and Prescott loved each other. -Being something of which the gods themselves must approve, she could -not understand the Butterfly’s reticence on the subject, for the winged -creature said not a word in regard to it. In spite of his aggressive -character and some other deplorable defects, Prescott was a man to be -proud of. - -The three were much together. Prescott was the Butterfly’s tireless -escort everywhere, and they were usually anxious to have Cartice with -them, and often they came together to pass a few hours with her in the -evening, as she was invariably alone, Doring finding places more to -his taste than the one he called home. Some of Prescott’s friends said -more than once that he was growing gentler and kinder, both on paper -and off. - -One evening the three friends were together in Cartice’s apartment. -Prescott’s face was radiant, with a light never seen there before. It -refined and softened his rugged features, making his countenance sweet -and sunny. - -“He has spoken,” thought Cartice, “and this is the light of love that -has naught to fear.” - -“Children,” he said, after a time, with an unusual sweetness and -confidence that became him well, “dear children, I am going to have -happiness.” - -Both looked at him in affectionate inquiry. - -“What kind of happiness?” asked the Butterfly, in a low voice, for -there was that in his face which made them feel they were upon holy -ground. - -“I don’t know! I don’t know! That’s the inexplicable part of it. Yet -it seems so near I can almost reach out my hands and grasp it. This -feeling has been upon me all day, and grows stronger every moment. I -never experienced anything like it before. I don’t know why or whence -it comes, nor can I explain it well; but I feel it. Yes, I am very near -to something good--near to happiness at last.” - -His voice sank low, and its tones had a thrilling sweetness, a -holy joy. His companions listened in silence, under a spell, their -astonishment too vast for words. This was strange talk to come from him. - -As in reverie he went on, after a pause, “All my life I have wondered -how it would seem to be happy--really happy--if only for one hour. -Misery I know well; but happiness and I have never met. Now, it is -so near that I am already in its sunshine.” And he smiled, with the -wonderful light on his face, and the smile was strangely sweet and -beautiful. - -The Butterfly shook herself out of the seriousness that was upon her, -and said: - -“You are going to have money--plenty of money--all unexpected as it -comes in stories, and then--then you must give a big supper and Cartice -and I will wear our prettiest gowns and be queens of the feast.” - -He looked at her and smiled again, but did not even hear her chatter, -for his soul was revelling in soundless melody. The exaltation was -still on his face when he and Chriss bade Cartice good-night. - -It was ten o’clock next day when Mrs. Doring reached the _Register_ -office. The entrance was full of men, with frightened faces, one of -whom motioned to her to stop. Obeying, she stood in her tracks, chilled -with a sense of disaster, until he reached her. - -“You must not come in,” he said. “There has been an accident at the -elevator, and--Prescott is dead.” - -In silence she turned away. “And this was the happiness he felt so -near to him--this?” she gasped. “Yes; it was so near, yet he did not -understand, and we did not understand. And it was this! It was this!” - -Prescott and death were irreconcilable. He was typical of life, force -and action. Who could think of him as out of the conflict, as voiceless -and silent? How could they ever learn to speak of him as one who was -but is not? - -“Saw you nothing, Chrissalyn--nothing that portended this?” Cartice -asked. - -“Nothing.” - -“Yet we had a sign, and were too blind to see it. His glorified -face last night, and his strange feeling that happiness was near to -him--these were signs, though we understood them not.” - -From the first a sense of the unreality of what had occurred came to -Mrs. Doring and never left her. She followed the sable carriage of the -dead to the cemetery, and returned to find his chair vacant, his pen -idle, his presence gone forever, yet it was not like reality,--none of -it. She shed no tears, nor was she sad. After the first startled moment -she was at peace, though she knew not why. - -Later she understood, as will all of us after a little time. Now we -weep and moan over sorrow, questioning it all, resenting it all; but a -day is coming when we shall see and know and understand, and in that -day we shall re-name many things, having until then miscalled them. - - * * * * * - -Now another serious event confronted Mrs. Doring. She had done her -best to save her husband from himself but could not. Now she saw -clearly at last, after much striving to bring compatibility out of -incompatibility, that their union was a sham, a pretence, a lie, which -if persisted in could only bring destruction to both of them. The -conviction came to her that it must end. - -Few experiences are bitterer or sadder for a sensitive, proud, -high-spirited woman, than to face a domestic calamity like this. To see -the love upon which she had founded her dearest hopes turn to ashes; -to have what she once thought happiness become a burden so intolerable -that it must be cast down, acknowledging disappointment, defeat and -humiliation before the world, is, indeed, a bitter cup. - -The coarse, the malicious, the undeveloped have sneers, jeers and -taunts for this order of sufferer; but the enlightened, the truly moral -bow before her reverently, not only because she has suffered, but -because she stands for a great principle. - -That the separation must be legal as well as actual, she saw would be -best for both. Though the laws of their state were as humane as most -others, still they had not evolved beyond the point, where in order to -secure freedom from irksome marital bonds one of the parties must make -a damaging charge against the other. - -In talking it over with her husband she said, “We can arrange that as -decently as the law will permit. If I make the application, I shall put -it on the most inoffensive ground possible. If that is not agreeable to -you, I will leave you and you can charge me with desertion.” - -Doring determined to do at once what he had long been arranging to do -slyly, which was to go away himself, and as a Parthian arrow announced -that he had intended to do so for sometime, but not alone. - -It was a curious ending of the most delicate and important relation in -life. Cartice gathered his effects together, packing everything with -careful hands. When he went she watched him out of sight, and out of -her life. Late into the night she still sat at the window, with a white -face and eyes that stared into the darkness yet saw only the scenes of -the past. - -When Louis Doring boarded the train that evening he knew that within -awaited him the sharer of his future fortunes. - -His story can soon be told. It was the natural outcome of his weak, -selfish, stubborn and vain character. A few months later, deserted by -the companion he had taken with him, penniless and alone in a southern -city, he fell a victim to a malignant fever and passed out of life. - -Cartice saw a brief mention of his death in a daily newspaper of the -city in which it occurred. Accompanied by the faithful Butterfly she -went at once, arriving there in time to put his mortal part out of -sight with the decency custom requires. - -These two loving hearts, both bruised from sad experiences, sat -together late that night, talking of the curious events we call life -and death. What they knew of one made it almost as terrible as the -other. - -“Ah, Butterfly, dear,” said Cartice, “I envy the women who have lost -husbands worth lamenting. Such tears would be sweet, not bitter.” - -“You call me a seeress, sometimes,” said Chrissalyn, “and perhaps I -am, for I have been looking off into the future--a future that is very -far away, indeed--and I see you, and you are happy. At least I read it -so, for there is light all about you, and your face is like a picture -of joy, it is so bright. And you are more beautiful than the sun, of -whose radiance your clothes are made. But I am not with you, and it is, -oh! so far away--so far that it looks to be even on the other side of -death though that is a queer way to put it. Yes, you will be great and -renowned some day as well as happy; but the road there is so long--I -don’t understand it--as long as several lives put together, I should -say.” - -“And you, child of the far-away eyes, see you naught for yourself?” - -“No; I never do; but I have a firm belief that I am yet to have satin -couches and plenty of time to rest on them.” - -Splendor be it observed, was her deal of bliss, which was natural, she -being a butterfly. - -That night while her friend slept, Mrs. Doring sat by the open window -thinking of the cold, still form she had seen put out of sight that -day, and wondering with a chill sense of awe where now was the soul -that had been represented by it. The moonlight whitened everything, and -added its electric beauty and pale sadness to the loneliness of the -night. She recalled other nights when that form had pulsated near her, -and yet her spirit had been as lonely as now. - -What did it all mean, the loving and the suffering, the dreaming and -the awakening, the meeting and the parting? The road together had been -long and hard, yet here was the end--the same end to which all roads -lead--but what was the purpose of it all? - -The problem of life; what can it be but the development of the -individual, the unfolding of the soul, that marvelous, persistent, -god-like thing of whose unlimited possibilities we are but beginning -to dream? And all that we do and have done to us, enjoy and suffer, -think and dream, hope and aspire, make to that end, and are necessary -and therefore good. - -Memories came to her from a remote past, that antedated her birth--or -so it seemed, for their origin was not within her earthly experiences. -Yet surely they were memories, for one and all met with recognition. -Faces she had loved came and smiled their sympathy and fondness. -Familiar voices spoke to her--voices whose heavenly sweetness mortal -ear hath not heard. Snatches of songs, celestial in their thrilling -melody, floated by. Scenes restful and beautiful unrolled themselves -for a moment and were gone. But it was the inner eyes which saw and the -inner ears that heard. - -Yes, she knew them all, for they were her people, her very own people, -of whom she was always dreaming, and for whom she was always searching. -They had come to comfort her. See, all smiled, not one wept, and their -words and songs were joyous. - -“My own people! My dear people, I shall yet find you,--I am finding -you,” she said, glancing at the Butterfly’s pretty face, with its crown -of sunshiny hair on the pillow, and thinking of Prescott, with his head -like carven granite and eyes of fire; and others, with some of whom -she had clasped hands but once, yet knew them as her own. - -But what of the new-made narrow mound in the cemetery? It presented -itself at the end of every life, mutely asking an explanation of its -existence. This was the wall against which the race of man has ever -beaten the wings of inquiry. There it always stands, unresponsive and -forbidding, the grim silence, like the shores that shut in the sea, -saying, “Thus far shalt thou come and no farther.” - -Yet above and beyond the awe and wonder that filled her soul, was that -curious sense of the unreality of death which had come when Prescott -went away and still remained. - - - - - CHAPTER XI. - - A LITTLE BOARD BRIDGES THE GREAT GULF. - - Even here the soul of man is a member of the immaterial world; present - and future, life and death, make one continuous whole in the order of - spiritual nature. - - --_Kant._ - - -Cartice Doring was one of those blessed beings who intermeddle not -with the affairs of another. She asked no questions and was free from -the vulgar vice of curiosity. She listened with sympathetic interest -to all confidences that came to her, but solicited none. This made her -a charming and lovable friend. Speaking once of the pernicious habit -some well-meaning but ill-taught persons have of asking where you were -born, if your parents are living, what religion you adhere to and the -thousand other catechetical shots which compose their list of topics of -conversation, she said: - -“There may be a reason why the simplest and apparently most inoffensive -question may give pain, so I never ask any. I have no wish to, for I -have no curiosity. When I make a new acquaintance I am not concerned -with the locality of his birth, the residence of his parents, or any -part of his personal history. What he _is_ individually, not the -accidents of his life, interests me, and that reveals itself as I -become acquainted with him, without any probing on my part. Neither do -I wish to bore into the sacred recesses of a friend’s heart. What she -tells me I shall listen to lovingly; what she does not tell me I do not -even wish to know.” - -Hence it was that when the Butterfly fell into a meditative mood one -evening when they were together, Cartice did not disturb her. By and by -Chrissalyn said: - -“I dreamed of Prescott last night. At least I suppose it was a dream, -though it seemed extremely real. I was walking on the street and -met him, and he held in his hand that queer little heart-shaped toy -somebody sent you once--a thing with a French name that I don’t recall -now, but you said it meant ‘little board.’--It has three legs, and one -of them is a pencil.” - -“A planchette,” suggested Mrs. Doring. - -“Yes; that’s it. Well, Prescott held that up before me and said, ‘Try -it, Butterfly! Try it!’” - -Cartice’s eyes widened with interest. - -“You remember we did try to write with it once long ago,” said the -Butterfly, “but it only wrote foolishness, so we flung it aside and -never tried again. I have been thinking about it all day, and should -like to try it again, for I can’t get Prescott’s face, as I saw it last -night, out of my mind.” - -The planchette was brought forth, and its history retold. The donor was -a man from whom Death had taken every member of his family. For years -the desire of his heart had been to know if the dead are dead, or if -they still live though unseen of men. After he went to another city, -he wrote Mrs. Doring that he had received some startling revelations -through Planchette, and sent her one, that she might experiment for -herself. Having some ability with the brush and palette, he had painted -an allegory on the under side of the tiny walnut board. Psyche in the -celestial robes was passing upward out of sight. Cupid in fashionable -modern attire, had thrown aside his bow and arrows, and held his right -hand on a Planchette, upon which he concentrated all his attention, -saying to it: - - “Tell me hopeful messages - To beguile earth’s sorrow; - But of evil things, Oh! keep - Silence till to-morrow. - Then, perchance, I’ll be asleep.” - -“A pretty thought,” said Cartice, displaying the picture, and reading -the text aloud. “Love is always anxious to know the fate of the soul. -He hopes, but seeks for something to keep hope alive. Benson wrote me -extraordinary things about Planchette, but I tried it several times and -got nothing.” - -“But I got something when I tried,” said Mrs. Layton, with an air of -interest. “To be sure it was rank nonsense, but it was something, and -_I_ didn’t do it myself, whatever it was.” - -“No; you said it was the work of the devil, and flung the planchette -aside in disgust. What a convenience the devil is, anyway! How could -the world get on without him? Everything the veriest dunce doesn’t -understand is laid at his door. If he had never been invented, who -would shoulder all the mysteries? Poor devil! Without being to blame he -has been a terrific stumbling-block to the enlightenment of mankind. -Wherever a persevering and heroic mind clipped out a crevice in the -wall of ignorance, some dense-minded being was on hand to seize the -devil and put him into it, to obscure whatever light might filter -through. And so, though innocent himself, he has kept mankind in -darkness through the centuries.” - -However, devil or no devil, they covered a table with a big sheet of -white paper, of the kind used by the _Register_, and put Planchette -upon it. The Butterfly put her tiny hand thereon, and they awaited -its pleasure. As they were ignorant of the particular methods of its -operation, they could but grope tentatively till they found the true -way, just as the human race has groped upward through countless vain -experiments and innumerable grievous blunders into such light as it now -enjoys. - -The occasion was in no way tinged with solemnity. They built no hopes -on its outcome, nor gave it serious thought. It was the Butterfly’s -inspiration, born of her dream. So little importance did they attach -to it, that they fell to chatting of other things at once, leaving -Planchette to its own devices, Mrs. Layton’s hand still resting on it, -however. - -Suddenly their chatter ceased. Planchette began to move across the -paper, not aimlessly, as they expected, but deliberately and precisely, -with intelligence and force. As suddenly as it had begun it stopped. -They lifted it up and looked at its trail, and there was a word plainly -and evenly written--the word “Gaily.” - -“More of its nonsense, just as I feared,” sighed the Butterfly, in -disgust. - -“Well, try it again, dear,” pleaded her friend. “It’s worth studying, -even if it does write nonsense. It’s extraordinary that it writes at -all.” - -With polite alacrity it wrote again with more ease and speed than -before: “Do you not remember Gaily--Gaily, the Troubadour?” - -This had no meaning for the Butterfly, and she was about to express her -displeasure, when she glanced at her friend. Cartice was leaning far -back in the chair, her face white and drawn, her mouth slightly open, -her eyes startled and staring, and her breath coming in gasps. - -“O Cartice, dearest! Don’t look like that! Don’t!” Chrissalyn cried -in a terrified voice, jumping up and seizing her friend in her arms, -alternately shaking and embracing her. “What is it? What do you see? -What has happened?” - -Mrs. Doring tried to speak, but her mouth was parched and dry, her -tongue leaden. She could only point with her finger at the writing. - -“Yes, yes; but it’s only foolishness--a line out of one of Moore’s old -songs. Don’t be frightened at the silly thing. It must have come from -my mind somehow, though I wasn’t thinking of it.” - -“It means everything to me,” Cartice gasped at last. “I understand it. -Try again, dear. Try again. I will explain presently.” - -Rather rebelliously Chrissalyn straightened Planchette and put her -tiny hand again upon it, growling; “I feel more like smashing the -mischievous thing than humoring it, since it gave you such a fright.” - -“It was not fright, dear. It was astonishment, awe, wonder--many -emotions blended, but fear was not among them.” - -Several minutes passed but Planchette moved not. The operator’s -patience would have been exhausted, had not her friend kept her -faithful to the work with cheering speeches. Presently the weird little -instrument began to walk off again, leaving this line in big, bold -letters: - -“_Gaily, the Troubadour, offers his love once more to the tall, young -pine._” - -Cartice read it aloud, then threw up her hands and burst into -weeping--a weeping that was half-laughing, an ebullition of pent-up -emotion like that which comes at the fortunate ending of a long strain -of anxiety. - -“He lives! He lives!” she cried, in passionate joy. “All live--all, all -who have gone out of our sight into the silence. Not one is dead. Not -one has ever died. The greatest of questions is answered.” - -Picking up Planchette she touched her lips to it reverently. Then -putting her arms around her dazed friend, she kissed her again and -again, saying: - -“Chrissalyn, dear Chrissalyn, you have always been a blessing and a -comfort to me; but now you have opened the whole universe to me; you -have given me light--the brightest light that can come to any one. -That scrawling line tells me more than any volume ever printed could. -It is from an old-time friend, who died soon after I last saw him, one -who loved me well. His name was Westfield, but because of his fondness -for quoting from Moore in political speeches, and what the slang of -newspaper offices calls ‘fine writing,’ his chums dubbed him, ‘Gaily, -the Troubadour,’ and by this affectionate nickname one of his old -comrades frequently addressed him in my presence. And he named me a -tall young pine. You knew none of this, for I am sure I never told you -about him. Therefore it cannot have been taken from your mind, neither -can it have been drawn from mine, for I never thought of _him_. If -I had any one in mind, it was Prescott, because you had dreamed of -Prescott in connection with Planchette, and because I have wondered -so much about him since he went away--wondered in what part of the -universe his dauntless spirit has found action, or if he _is_ at all. -Yet I scarcely dared hope even for him, for there was the possibility -that death was the end of everything. I had no proof to the contrary.” - -The Butterfly was a trifle dazed by the emotion of her friend, who -was usually so self-possessed. Even by the light of her explanation -she could scarcely take it in. The subject of death, no matter how -treated, was repugnant to her. Even proof that death was not death had -but little interest for her. Of course there was something afterward. -Everybody knew that. Wasn’t it all set down in the books somewhere, -straight enough? But what was the use of dwelling on a subject that -had so many unpleasant features in it? Or why delve after the facts in -regard to it? That was her manner of dealing with this mighty question. -What attracted her was life--yes, life, poor, cramped, hard and ugly -as some of it had been for her, still she loved it, found joy in it, -craved it and its material pleasures and never wanted to be reminded -that it had an end. A new gown could arouse her enthusiasm, and a -flashing jewel give her supreme pleasure; but death, ugh! who wanted to -talk of so gruesome an event? Dead people lived somewhere, as a matter -of course, but wasn’t it best to let them alone in their own place -wherever it is, and have nothing to do with them? - -This is a curious attitude of mind toward a subject of more importance -to us than any other, yet thousands of presumably intelligent people -think the same. They want the dead treated like dangerous criminals, -although their nearest and dearest may be of them. They shut them away -with relentless cruelty, doing their best to put them out of their -very thoughts. In this way they slay them more effectually than Death -himself has slain them. Resistlessly they move on to the same end -themselves, yet zealously refuse to learn aught of what that end may -be. Astonishing mental darkness and indolence, but alas! not uncommon. - -It was some time before Cartice recovered self-possession and induced -her friend to go on with the experiment. But the chain was broken, -Planchette refused to move again. - -Still, Mrs. Doring had enough to dwell upon. Late into the night she -lay awake, thinking of it, marveling at it and rejoicing in the new -light that had come to her. True, it was a little thing, perhaps, or -might appear so to those who are ever ready to make havoc of whatever -differs from the usual and accepted, but its possibilities might be -limitless, and already it had expanded her world into infinity. - -Whatever the intelligence that acted through Planchette might be, it -was subject to a law in its manifestations, of which as yet she knew -next to nothing. For more light thereon she must study by experiment. -Simple as this law appeared to be in its operations, it was mighty in -its results, since it annihilated space and destroyed death, the last -and greatest enemy whose destruction has long been foretold. But are -not all nature’s laws astonishingly simple, when understood? So simple -that the searcher after knowledge, filled with delusion that it was -afar off on inaccessible heights, for ages passed them by, trod them -under foot, touched them at every turn, yet found them not. - -A few evenings later the two friends were ready to begin the -fascinating work of experimenting with Planchette, the Butterfly’s -tiny hand resting on its heart-shaped back, inviting it to action. Was -ever priestess of the occult so emphatically a creature of worldly -attributes as she? Her pretty face, soft, fair hair, slight, graceful -figure modishly attired, and gentle bearing conveyed no suggestion of -power to reveal hidden mysteries. - -In silence they waited a little while, Planchette as still as could -be. Then, unexpectedly it whirled away at a startling pace, with a -force well-nigh resistless. When it reached the end of the paper, which -completely covered the table, they picked it up and carried it back to -the place of beginning, the hand of the pretty priestess was replaced, -and it went on at tearing speed, until its message was finished. Then -they looked and saw this in big, firm chirography: - -“_Love laughs at Death as well as at locksmiths--Pagan._” - -Cartice read it aloud with a whitening face and staring eyes. - -“Prescott!” she whispered, with a husky voice, motioning to Chrissalyn -to put her hand again on Planchette. Pagan was a name she had given -him and which he delighted in, though unknown to any but her. The -little board whirled away again with the same determined swing. Its -very movements were characteristic of him, who had ever a trace of -savageness and fierceness in all he did and much that he said. These -were its words: - -“_Butterfly, tell her what I told you as we went home that last night._” - -Now Chrissalyn began to tremble and tears gushed from her shining eyes. -The conviction that it was Prescott who thus silently spoke to them -came to her with overwhelming force. - -“Cartice, it is Prescott, I am sure. He loved you with all his heart, -and you know how intense that heart was in everything. I saw it from -the very day I introduced him to you at the market house, when we went -to hear Gabriel Norris preach. He adored you, but never spoke of it, -and you were too blind and had too little vanity to see it. But that -last night before his death, when he and I were walking home together -after we had spent the evening with you, he told me about it. You -remember he spoke of having a presentiment that happiness was near -him, and he looked almost transfigured that night. He said he believed -that somehow you would soon be free from your husband, and then he -would take you whether or no. He swore to that. But the next morning he -was dead. That’s what he wants me to tell--that’s what he means when -he says ‘Love laughs at death as well as at locksmiths.’ He is the -same--just the same kind, fierce old savage. He loves you still.” - -“Why, Butterfly, this is astonishing,” said Cartice, in amazement. “I -thought you and he loved each other, and that you were made for each -other.” - -“_I_ loved him; but he loved you, not me.” - -This touched Mrs. Doring beyond her power to express. She tried to -speak, but could say nothing, for a great lump, like a live coal, had -closed her throat. - -“I was never jealous,” continued Chrissalyn, “no, never; but a trifle -melancholy at times, wishing he loved me instead of you, because I saw -that you didn’t love him, only as a good comrade, and didn’t know that -he loved you. If you had loved him I don’t think I should have been -jealous, because I love you so much.” - -Both pairs of eyes were moist now. Cartice rearranged Planchette, and -after kissing her friend’s dainty hand placed it thereon again. - -“Yes; it is true, I love you, Cartice, and did from the beginning,” -wrote the little board, with the same impetuous dash. - -“I thank you for telling me,” said Cartice, humbly. “But how are we to -be sure that you are Prescott. Give us a proof if you can, though it be -only to write your name in the old way.” - -“Gordon Prescott,” was instantly and rapidly written in the firm, -sharp-pointed handwriting characteristic of the man--a good fac-simile -of the original signature, even without making allowance for the -clumsiness of the implement. Then came “Good-night” in the same hand, -and nothing could induce Planchette to further movement. - -They talked it over. Even Chrissalyn was interested. Prescott writing -through Planchette did not seem like dead people coming back in the -gruesome way she dreaded. Rather was it as though he had never died, -but only become invisible. There was nothing about this to inspire -terror. After the first surprise of it, it even seemed natural; and it -was a pleasure to have a word from him, though it were of his love for -another. What matter? She loved him,--that was enough. And it was a -comfort to know that he was sometimes near, in spite of the fact that -she had believed dead people ought to keep to themselves. However, with -Prescott it was different. Somehow he was not dead people. - -Then, too, the priestess had her vanity--a streak of the kind that -wants appreciation for her ability as well as her beauty. Cartice’s -gifts of pen and pencil she had craved, if not envied. Now that she -knew she had a power her friend had not--one which Cartice thought of -inestimable value--she saw that this gave her additional importance in -Mrs. Doring’s eyes, hence she secretly plumed herself a little. - -She consented to continuing their experiments with Planchette on -condition that no one else should ever be told. Were it known, she -would be called a “spirit medium,” and that would be disgraceful, -unendurable. They might say almost anything else of her and she -wouldn’t mind; but to have that name fastened upon her would be a -calamity. - -A “medium!” To her the word was beyond words in its despicable -significance. Were not mediums a disreputable order of human buzzards, -who preyed upon the credulity and holiest emotions of honest folk? -Were they not despised, abhorred, shunned and feared by the better -class of society? Were they not ignorant, frowsy, ugly and generally -dirty? Did they not invariably say “sect” when they meant “sex,” -and talk mind-weakening twaddle about “controls,” “influences,” -“impressions” and so on, in English that was in open warfare with all -grammatical rules? And were they not frequently chummy with invisible -Indians,--going about boasting that they were constantly attended by -some “Blackhawk,” “Fire-eye,” “Thunder-Tongue,” “Yellow Feather,” or -“Crow-on-the-head,” who made them the mouthpieces of idiotic gibbering? - -Do they not come out of cabinets, wearing trailing robes and tin -crowns, trying to palm themselves off as dead and gone kings and -queens? Have they not an uncanny affinity for tables? And do they not -talk through trumpets, ring bells and play other stupid pranks and -lay the blame of it all on the defenceless dead? Had they not thrown -discredit upon Noah Webster himself, accusing him of a written message -which said, “It is tite times”? - -Truly their sins were as scarlet. Cartice admitted their iniquities -without argument, and promised her friend that never, never, even in -her most secret thoughts would she call her a medium, much less breathe -the opprobrious epithet to others. - -They went patiently on with their investigation, devoting two evenings -a week to Planchette and telling no one. It was by no means all fair -weather work either. They soon found that the only thing they could -be sure of was that they could depend on nothing; that with the -intelligence which manipulated Planchette no contract could be made. -They came, or they came not, just as it suited their good pleasure, and -were obedient to no mandate or appeal. They were arbitrary always, and, -as in most affairs of life, it was the unexpected that happened. From -what the investigators could learn, it would seem, as Mr. W. T. Stead -says, that although this world is queer the next appears to be queerer. - -As they went on, they held more and more to the belief that they were -actually communicating with persons who had lived in flesh-and-blood -bodies like our own, and who still lived, retaining the same -characteristics that distinguished them here, but invisible to our -eyes--inhabitants perhaps of the much discussed Fourth Dimension of -Space. At least, one and all represented themselves as the persons whom -we call dead, but who live--live in a freer, larger life. - -Occasionally they gave proofs of their identity so convincing that all -doubt vanished. They made it clear that the spark of divinity we call -individuality is a persistent, indestructible, deathless thing. Again, -messages were written which were not only trifling and valueless, but -also unsettling. - -However, Cartice and the pretty priestess went on, feeling their way -through laws as yet scarcely discernible, but stupendous. It was soon -evident that each spirit could manifest its individuality through -Planchette as forcibly and unmistakably as is done here by means of -epistolary correspondence--more clearly, perhaps, since when the little -board writes, its movements and general behavior betray the mannerisms -of the unseen writer. When a woman spoke through it the feminine touch -was unmistakable, and the writing itself showed the finer element of -femininity. It must be remembered that the Butterfly, as the visible -operator, was simply part of the implement. The real writers were -inhabitants of the unseen world. These the two investigators sometimes -spoke of as spirits, though they realized that assuredly they were -people like ourselves, though existing under different conditions. -They were spirits, without doubt; yet so are we, though most of us are -unaware of our true being. - -But few women came. Cartice was surprised at this, and asked one the -reason why. She said the men were stronger, and were so eager to write -that they crowded women out and took possession of the opportunity. -Hence it may be supposed that masculine selfishness is not eliminated -from the character by dropping the body, and that what we call brute -strength, (which is in reality, strength of the spirit) is still -formidable where bodies, as we know them, are not. - -It was noticeable that these invisible folk seldom spoke of themselves -as dead. They had almost no use for the word. They spoke of those we -call living as “people still with you,” and of those whom we call dead -as “with us.” When asked if they knew such and such a person, they -sometimes met the question with the inquiry, “Is he with you or with -us?” - -At times they readily wrote during a whole evening, first one, then -another, and so on, each writer showing a different personality by -means of manner, chirography, style of speech and character of thought. -At such times page after page as large as the table top would be -covered. Again, evenings would pass with but trifling results, and now -and then no communication whatever would be received. Nor could the -investigators learn the reason of this. Simply, so it was, and the fact -had to be accepted without explanation. - -The revelations were not always serious. Occasionally they were of -clown-like jollity, evidently proceeding from clownish intellects. -Frequently the writers refused to give any clue to their identity, and -as for names there was a palpable avoidance of them that was puzzling. -Occasionally a name would be given as readily as when its owner was -here, but usually friends and acquaintances revealed themselves by -their peculiar characteristics and references to past events, and this, -of course, was the better method, as any mischievous spirit could -pretend to be somebody else, if names were the sole reliance. - -Prescott came often, and was always unmistakably Prescott. Transition -had not changed him. His individuality, so original, distinct and -strong, was as conspicuous and recognizable, revealed through the -little board, as when he had mingled with men, uttering himself boldly, -without fear or favor. - -Sometimes he burst upon his two faithful friends like a tornado, -making Planchette fly fiercely. They could almost see him sweep others -aside and take possession. His speech was crisp, keen and sparkling, -as in the old days, but, if possible, he was less communicative about -himself than ever. When they questioned him on that point, he made neat -evasions; but they gathered the impression that he was not entirely -satisfied. Though he did not say so, they could not help feeling that -the activities of life here still attracted him, and that he was not -content at being unable to take part in them. - -Remembering his sneers and jeers at all belief in the extension of -life beyond death, in whatever form, Cartice reminded him of them, and -asked what he thought now of his previous errors. With his customary -frankness he answered: - -“I was a fool then; but I confess now that I always believed far more -than I would have acknowledged. I was afraid you would think me weak if -I admitted all I thought possible. I was a coward, you see, though I -showed precious little mercy to other cowards.” - -Then she asked about his presentiment of happiness on his last evening -on earth, and he answered: “I suppose it was given me so I might know -that the end of trouble and turmoil was at hand; but I was blind, as -you all are, and did not understand.” - -She begged him to relate his experiences in the new life from his first -moment of consciousness. To this entreaty he replied: - -“I will try to do so sometime when I am better instructed than now. As -yet I am too new here to tell you what you wish to know. I have much to -learn before I can be a safe teacher for anybody.” - -To many questions he made neither answer nor apology for his failure to -answer. It was plain that he could not, would not or dare not tell much -about the life he was now living. Once in response to a particularly -direct question bearing on that, he said, with a shade of sadness in -the words: - -“Wait in patience, and be as happy as you can till your time comes.” - -And again: “Could you but see how things are carried on here you would -know how foolish some of your questions are.” - -From this they gathered that conditions in the unseen world are vastly -different from those we are familiar with here, but in what respect -they could form no idea. - -He had been a strong advocate of cremation. When asked if he still held -to his former opinions on that subject, he said: - -“To us it makes no difference what is done with the carcass. To you it -is important that it does not endanger the public health.” - -Once when Cartice remarked to her friend, as they sat together awaiting -Planchette’s pleasure, that perhaps the disembodied people suffer -because of the destruction of their bodies, Prescott sprang upon them -in a kind of fury, writing with savage haste: - -“Do you suffer when you cut your finger-nails and throw away the -cuttings? Or when you clip your hair and burn the clippings? The body -is of the same character, mere waste material--cast-off clothes.” - -When asked why he did not always come when they called him and awaited -him, he said: - -“I wish you understood. I come when possible, but I cannot always -control the matter.” - -Sometimes Cartice and Chrissalyn devoted an afternoon to Planchette, -but generally with less satisfactory results than when they -experimented in the evening. The reason of this they could not fix -upon until Prescott gave them a clue. On one such occasion, he said -with petulance: “Why do you call us in the broad day, when we can give -you more satisfaction at night? Day is your time for action, but night -is ours. Life here is the antithesis of life with you. Conditions are -reversed.” - -“May we inquire why you cannot do so well for us in the daytime when -you do come?” Mrs. Doring asked, humbly. - -“Because the vibrations of light are destructive to the power we make -use of for purposes of communication with you.” - -This, then, is a rational explanation of the dark séances so much -condemned by persons unacquainted with psychic law, and which, -unhappily afford such fine opportunities for knavish deception. - -“You speak of our calling you. Does it really call you when we sit with -the Planchette and ask for you?” - -“Yes; through a law it would be difficult for you to understand, -however carefully I might try to explain it. Even I as yet comprehend -it but dimly. Your thought reaches us, for thought is omnipotent in -all the universe, and is the finest form of electricity which travels -with incredible speed. Your desire is a great force going forth to draw -to you what you desire. The law of demand is met by the law of supply -throughout all worlds, when it is properly set in motion. Your sitting -expectantly, with Planchette as the instrument of communication, makes -a magnetic centre, a veritable telegraph office to which we can come -and through which we can transmit messages. It is all done under law, -and so is everything in the universe. Find out the laws that govern -your own being and there is no limit to your powers.” - - - - - CHAPTER XII. - - AND THE PROPHET WAS STONED. - - Those who believe, as I do, that spiritual beings can and do, subject - to general laws and for certain purposes, communicate with us, and - even produce material effects in the world around us, must see in - the steady advance of inquiry and of interest in these questions the - assurance that, so far as their beliefs are logical deductions from - the phenomena they have witnessed, those beliefs will at no distant - date be accepted by all truth-seeking inquirers.--_Alfred Russell - Wallace._ - - -One Sunday afternoon when the two friends sat together, with Planchette -as telephone to the invisible world, the responses were unusually -prompt and full, for a daytime effort. Prescott came and was in a most -obliging mood, as charming as of old. Without warning, when in the -middle of a long sentence that he was writing at his usual furious -pace, some invisible force drew the Butterfly’s arm from Planchette and -sent the little board flying across the room. At the same instant she -rose, raised her right hand and pointed directly before her, her face -ashy and an unearthly look in her dilated eyes. Straining her faculty -of sight Cartice looked in the direction of her friend’s outstretched -finger, but saw nothing. In a few seconds the beautiful seeress sank to -her chair exhausted, with dry mouth and stiffened tongue, like one who -returns to consciousness after a deep faint. - -Mrs. Doring rushed for water for her to drink, and cologne with which -to lave her face, embraced her, and soothed her with reassuring words -until she was herself again, though more subdued and humble than ever -before. - -“What was it, dear?” asked Cartice at last. - -“Prescott,” she gasped. “He was as real in appearance as ever I saw -him in life. The scar on his left cheek was plain, and the tooth in -front that had been built up with gold was just as it used to be, for -he smiled and I saw it distinctly. He spoke, but I could not understand -what he said. He came so sudden, and I was so frightened. I hope he -will never do that again. It gives me a horrible feeling to see any of -them.” - -After a little coaxing she touched Planchette again, to ask an -explanation of the singular occurrence. - -“I did not mean to frighten you, poor child,” wrote Prescott, “but I -wanted to see if I could make myself visible to you for an instant. -The exhaustion you experienced afterward was not all owing to fright. -In order to appear to you I took a certain substance from your body -with which to make myself visible. I made my body, for the moment, out -of yours. That leaves you weaker, but what I took will be restored -to you. This vital substance is everywhere, and your body, being a -magnet, attracts it to you, particularly when you are out doors in the -sunlight. Oh, if you but knew the valve of sunshine, and air--pure, -fresh air.” - -“Why couldn’t I see you, too?” Cartice asked. “I should not be -frightened; but even so, I am willing to be.” - -“I have tried to lift the veil from your eyes, but cannot.” - -“But the scar and the tooth of gold? Were they not of the cast-off body -only, or do you have them still?” she asked. - -“The human eye must have that with which to identify those from this -side, so they are simulated as they last appeared in the flesh.” - -One evening, when another was writing, Planchette was unexpectedly and -violently flung to the floor, by a blow on the Butterfly’s delicate -arm, from an unseen hand. When order had been restored, Prescott took -possession, and it was plain to be seen that he was agitated. He wrote: -“I tried to prevent that, but could not. Chrissalyn must be prepared to -expect almost anything. The situation here is incomprehensible to you.” - -“What is it that makes the Butterfly a medium, if she will pardon the -word?” Cartice asked. - -“Something for which there is yet no proper word. You would call it, -magnetism. She is wonderful,--powerful, magnetic to the dead, as you -call us, as well as to the living--you cannot imagine how much.” - -Cartice had ever been sensible of a powerful and unaccountable -attraction in her friend. She had always loved to watch Chrissalyn, -she knew not why, loved to be near her and never wearied of her. -For others, both men and women, the Butterfly possessed the same -attraction. If she wanted to ensnare the most wary masculine mortal, -she had only to cast her eyes upon him and he was hers. If she wished -for the good-will or friendship of a woman, a smile and a pleasant word -or two were all she need give in order to gain it. - -“Tell me, what is magnetism?” was the next question. - -“A power we cannot see but can feel--the power that attracts through -all nature, but I cannot define it, for as yet I know very little about -it myself.” - -When asked to explain his manner of using Planchette, Prescott said: - -“When the Butterfly’s hand rests upon it we stand behind her, with -our hands above hers--a few inches above--and we move her hand and -Planchette by the power of magnetism.” - -“Why can’t you use my hand as well as hers?” Cartice asked. - -“Because you are a positive. Your magnetism is of the controlling and -not the controllable kind.” - -Early in her investigations Mrs. Doring learned that the people on the -unseen side of life are like unto those seen, in that there are good -and bad, wise and foolish, busy and idle, truth-tellers and liars, sane -and insane. Character there is exactly what it was here, growing better -if it aspire and worse if it be indifferent to growth, for evolution -apparently goes on forever and forever. - -She learned, too, that a message was not necessarily infallible, -because it came from that we call a spirit. Frequently it was wofully -fallible. Liars will lie and the mischievous make mischief wherever -they are. In short, undeveloped souls, no matter where they dwell, give -very direct evidence of their imperfection. - -Yet, all things considered, Cartice met comparatively few obstacles in -her study of psychic life and law. Much, to be sure, was inexplicable -and perplexing; but that which was satisfying outweighed all that was -disheartening. To the harmony existing between Chrissalyn and herself -she attributed the remarkable success of their efforts, harmony being -the key to all the secrets and forces of nature. Then too they sat with -business-like regularity. Now she understood why the “conditions” for -which professional mediums are such noted sticklers, are necessary. - -When we stop to think of it, we see that we must comply with prescribed -conditions to do anything. If we send a letter through the post office, -the conditions imposed oblige us to stamp it properly and post it. If -we merely write the letter and fling it out of the window, ignoring the -needful conditions, most assuredly it will never reach its destination. -If we wish to make a journey the conditions oblige us to go aboard -whatever railroad carriage or ship will take us where we want to go. - -The knowledge gained through Planchette was precious beyond price to -Mrs. Doring. “Is it not the answer to the riddle of the ages?” she -asked herself. “Does it not change the face of everything, by giving -us not only the key to death, but to the great mystery of life? In the -light of this knowledge life takes on an importance, a sacredness and -responsibility formerly inconceivable. Heretofore we have hoped that -it goes on beyond the destruction of the body, now we know it does, -and that we are shaping our destiny by every thought and act--building -indeed for eternity. - -“Of what moment are the ills of life here, with this glorious vista -before us? Who, having seen this light, need be cast down by any -earthly trouble? In the face of it are not all the experiences which -wring our hearts and drain us of our tears mere fictions or illusions? - -“Since Death is dead, what is there to affright or distress us? Though -to-day be lost, to-morrow is ours. Though our dear ones pass out of -sight there is neither separation nor bereavement. Scientific knowledge -makes it plain that immortality is not dependent upon belief; but is -a fact in nature. Though we may wander in any part of the universe -there is nothing to fear, for we are indestructible. Disease, war, -accident, every terror known to man, is swept out of existence by this -indisputable demonstration of our deathlessness. - -“How poor and pitiful is the pursuit of happiness in which all engage -here, when seen by the light of this revelation! Is it not clear as -sunshine that the purpose of life is not happiness, as we misinterpret -the word, but growth? And how shall we grow? By getting knowledge of -law and living according to that knowledge. Then we need seek no more -for happiness for it will be one of our indestructible possessions--the -happiness for which nature destined us, but which consists not in -external conditions, but internal development.” - -Under the influence of this knowledge Mrs. Doring became transformed -into a new being. Her previous life now seemed to have been simply -a blind groping after the most unstable and foolish ideals,--a more -intellectual childhood. So uplifted and filled to overflowing was -she with joy and gratitude that her face took on a new beauty that -impressed even the least observing of her friends. But one flavor of -bitterness tinged her cup, and that was that she was forbidden to share -the glad tidings with others. - -Chrissalyn had been insistent that nothing be told, and Cartice -was obliged to yield to her ruling on this point, and also saw the -necessity for it, but longed fervently to gather in many dwelling in -darkness and share her light with them. Why hide it under the bushel of -timidity? Was not all the world searching for that which had come in -beautiful simplicity and generous fulness to her? How grateful others -would be to know what she knew? She was humbly, profoundly grateful, -and of course they, too, would be. - -After a time this pent-up fountain began to overrun its borders and -trickle its way to other ears. When she heard people bewailing the -difficult and cruel conditions under which they suffered, she could -not help giving of her inexhaustible store of comfort. She must say -to them, “These things are unreal and of no moment. Your true life is -above and beyond them always, and is of unlimited possibilities here -and hereafter.” - -And when they wept because of some slain lamb, she said, “He is not -dead; he never died and never shall die. This is an appearance only, -an illusion. There is no death. Life goes on, on, without end, I _know_ -it.” - -In order that they might believe and be comforted, she related -the experiences on which her assurances were based, leaving out -Chrissalyn’s name, of course. - -She met the fate of all who have lovingly tried to set poor, ignorant -humanity free from its self-imposed chains. She was stoned. - -Some heard her with tolerant pity, as we humor weak-minded people by -pretending to accept their statements and vagaries, but turned from -the subject as quickly as they could. Not a few sneered openly, and -with the brutal frankness of small and self-satisfied minds coarsely -expressed their contempt for her credulity. Others patronizingly -said they believed in _her_ honesty, but were positive she was being -deceived. Still others shrugged their shoulders in disgust, saying that -they loathed the “supernatural,” and would none of it. This benighted -class labels their dead with that obnoxious word and shoves them out -of mind as quickly as possible. Some of the contemptible creatures who -advertise their lack of intelligence and breeding by putting their -hands over their mouth when they talk to hide their impolite and -ignorant grinning, could not listen to Cartice with naked lips at all. -But perhaps she was most astonished at the “conventional believers who -disbelieve,” those who accept all the spirit manifestations described -in the book of their faith, yet reject everything modern that helps to -prove the truth of them. - -Some listened to her story and then asked the surprising, the -astounding question: “What good can come of it all, even if it be -true?” If the dead did not come to tell them how to make fortunate -financial speculations, or whom they are destined to marry, they saw no -use in their coming at all. - -Here and there Mrs. Doring encountered some who took interest in her -revelations as a matter of curiosity, and wanted to gratify their love -of wonder-mongering, by seeing Planchette at work. - -A few, a sacred few, gave reverent ear, and were eager to learn all -they could of the marvelous and mysterious thing called life; but these -had become as little children--receptive, and therefore were prepared -to enter the kingdom of knowledge, which is heaven. - -But, alas! for the unfortunate many who cannot be enlightened, because -they are already wise in their own conceit. Having lived here a score -or two of years they fancy they know all the Creator’s plans and -purposes and can learn no more. At the door of their mind they post a -sentinel armed with a club, whose duty it is to beat and drive away any -stray angel in the guise of a thought or idea that may wander near. - -Some who did not want to be disturbed in their enjoyment of things -external, pettishly said: “All you tell may be true, but one world at -a time is my motto.” Yet any one who said that a child should be left -uninstructed and unprepared for the grown-up life ahead of him would, -very appropriately, be called a fool. - -Cartice learned what all prophets and teachers have learned to their -cost--that the world is in bondage to its own ignorance, because it -refuses to be liberated. The minds of men are in thrall to a law we -have but recently named--the law of hypnotism, which is at once both -the agent of darkness and of light. - -Everybody lives continually under hypnotic influence, otherwise the -power of suggestion. What we call public opinion is thought that has -massed itself into a barrier so formidable that only spirits the most -heroic and dauntless dare assail it. The many are fused together as one -and become a gigantic hypnotizer of men. - -It has been demonstrated a million times that if there is anything a -man cannot do it is to stand out against the united thought of his -fellow men. Human beings, for the most part, are in slavery to whatever -thought has formed their environment, “as neat prisoners as ever slept -in jails.” In other words they are hypnotized and refuse to be aroused -from their hypnotic sleep. - -All who allow others to do their thinking live and die in a hypnotic -trance. The thought that is steadily thrown upon the minds of children -year after year usually hypnotizes them for life. This is proven in -their religious leanings. The majority follow the lead of their parents -and it is the same in politics. The boy is a democrat or republican, -because his father was. We call it the force of early education, but we -might as well say early hypnotism. - -The press is the greatest of hypnotic operators. It makes public -opinion through the hypnotic principle. Its daily reiteration puts the -minds of impressionable readers into as profound a hypnotic trance as -any professional operator ever achieves. Every orator who sways his -audience does so by means of the hypnotic law, and every writer who -thrills his readers sets the same law in motion. In it lies the power -of all government, from the primitive paternal to the broadest Republic -the earth has yet produced--the will of the passably intelligent few is -imposed upon the less intelligent many. - -Even the most potent force known--the attraction that draws the sexes -together, operates largely through hypnotism, or suggestion. Do we not -become like that we hear and see and live among? Are we not the product -of whatever thought we have absorbed during our life? In short, we are -that thought embodied, neither more nor less. Steady suggestion makes -public opinion, that terrible, formidable, irresistible wall against -which new thought must beat and hack and storm for centuries sometimes -before an incision can be made in it. - -We are all more or less in an hypnotic sleep. Certain intellectual -hair-splitters deprecate the use of the word, hypnotism, when employed -to describe a condition of mind that is not sleep, as we commonly use -that term. Yet we may be awake to certain facts and asleep to others. -When one cannot see a truth for a time and then recognizes it, we say -he awakens to it. Was he not asleep as far as it was concerned before? - -The hypnotic principle is as old as the human race. Yea, the hills are -young beside it. By means of it we have become what we are, and because -of it our progress has been slow, for the hypnotized subject holds to -his illusions with a tenacity that throws barnacles into the shade. -We were hypnotized into the old thought that enslaves us, and must be -hypnotized out of it into that which shall set us free. - -This law is operative far beyond our range of knowledge. It links this -world or this state of being, rather, to the one that follows it. - -What is the spirit medium but a person under the hypnotic influence -of a resident of the invisible world? And many who do not dream of it -are hypnotized to an astonishing extent by suggestions from the same -source. - -Therefore, it is not remarkable that Cartice Doring found nearly -everybody holding aggressively to the thought that had formed them, -no matter how limited and erroneous it might be, and ready to fight, -tooth and nail, anything contrary to it. They groaned in pain, yet at a -suggestion of relief from misery they but hugged it closer, lest it be -taken from them by force. - -She did not expect any one to believe so tremendous a tale as she had -to tell on hearsay evidence alone; but she hoped to find some interest -and desire to search and learn. When many turned away and she grew -heartsick because they would not let her help them with that which had -helped her, she thought she understood Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. -“Ye would not! no; ye would not!” is ever the cry of all who yearn to -make the yoke easy and the burden light for humanity. - -And yet no earnest effort made by any soul is entirely vain. Mrs. -Doring found two who would among the many who would not--two who were -eager to learn, who begged for the chance. They were the Joys, the last -persons one would expect to turn their attention to anything not known -by the name of pleasure. As a matter of fact they were Mr. and Mrs. -Hanley, but everybody called them the Joys, because their days were an -unbroken ripple of delight, and they were continually making a joyful -noise over something. They joyed in each other, in their children, -in their friends, in their home, in the world at large, in life, -in everything. All days of the year were for them days of jubilee. -Everybody welcomed them because they carried with them a joyful -atmosphere, a little of which generally rubbed off and stuck to those -whom they visited, for a time at least. A gay, guiltless pair were -they, with no need of prayer, and no sins to be forgiven, so far as -any one could see. It may be wondered why they cared to learn anything -about life’s extension since they found this world so pleasant. Yet -care they did, and gladly turned from the impermanent things of the -world that had delighted them to study reverently the great question of -our destination. - -Chrissalyn liked them and was finally persuaded to let them enter -Planchette’s charmed arena, on condition that they tell it not in Goth -nor whisper it in Askalon. - -Their very first experience was convincing beyond doubt or question. -All they had joyed in before was as nothing to the joy they found in -the knowledge that came to them through the little board. In spite of -their pleasure-loving natures and phenomenal optimism, they belonged to -the thinking fraternity; and now that their outlook was extended beyond -the boundaries that so far had hedged them in, they saw ahead an -endless life of Joy, and that intensified and ennobled the joys of the -present. They had been happy always, but now they were secure in their -happiness--nothing could take it from them. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII. - - THE TONGUES OF ANGELS. - - “When by suffering thou hast learned not to suffer--by passion learned - calmness; - Then shalt thou know what I am to thee--then shalt thou be - A clean mirror where I am reflected--a face with a splendor which - burns not! - Past all pain, seeing Me thou shalt know Me--the Strength and the - Truth of Thyself.” - - --_Voltairine DeCleyre._ - - Being may be called the poorest, but it is at the same time the most - marvelous concept of our whole mind. It is the _sine qua non_ of all - we are, we see, we hear, we apprehend and comprehend. It is not our - body, nor our breath, nor our life, nor our heart, nor what is most - difficult to give up--our mind and intellect. It is simply that in - which all these reside--that, in fact, in which we move and have our - being. - - --_F. Max Müller._ - - The truth of being and the truth of knowing are one. - - --_Bacon._ - - -Cartice and Chrissalyn permitted the Joys to join them in their -investigations at certain times, but for the most part they pursued -their study of psychic life alone. As they went on, their experiences -became more interesting and convincing. In the new world opened to them -they made new friends. To be sure they could not see these friends, -but they learned to know them well, to love them, and to distinguish -one from another as readily and certainly as though they were of the -visible part of creation. - -One of these new friends called himself Moreau and won their hearts -completely with his courteous speech, kind instincts and gentle -manners. Indeed, after making his acquaintance they understood how -little the personality depends upon that which we call the person, -which is but a mask, as the word originally meant. He came often and -sometimes remained a whole evening, kindly writing for those who had -not yet learned to manipulate Planchette, and answering questions with -well-bred patience and never-failing politeness. When asked why he came -to them and remained so faithful, when he had not known them here, he -explained that he was attracted to both of them, because they were -magnetic to him; but that beside, it was his especial mission to make -lonely women happier. They learned to rely implicitly upon everything -he said, just as they did on the word of Prescott, whose strict -truthfulness had been his one vanity. - -“How long is the act of dying?” Moreau was asked. - -“It is longer for some than for others; but you are sleeping at the -time and know it not.” - -This statement was corroborated by the others. They said the -death-sleep in some cases was of several days’ duration,--days as we -reckon them here, but there Time’s markings are unknown, for Time is -not. - -When Moreau was asked whether he knew everything about his friends -here, present and to come, he said: “Not everything. There are some -things we are not permitted to know any more than you are.” - -“Do you pass on into other stages of existence--experience a change -analogous to our dying here?” - -“I think so; but I am no more certain of that than you are about your -future state.” - -“How do you travel?” - -“Like lightning, or even more swiftly. We think of a place and in the -same instant we are there. This is a thought world. So is yours, but -you are blind to the power of thought on your plane.” - -“Are you affected by the sorrows and pains of those you love, who are -still on earth?” - -“We cannot help feeling the troubles of earth when they touch what -you would call our heart-strings. But, as it were, we see with larger -eyes--we understand better the purpose of suffering and the good that -comes out of it.” - -A friend to Cartice who had achieved considerable eminence as an -analytical author, came occasionally. In the noonday of success she -went away, after months of great physical suffering. When asked whether -she was happy, she replied: - -“It is happiness to me to have no aching heart, no pain, no burning -brow.” - -“Can you come to us when you please?” - -“Sometimes only, not always. I feel a restraint, though no restraint -seems put upon me.” - -“How do you occupy yourself, Edith?” - -“We do not have to occupy ourselves. We are occupied by others only. I -cannot tell you better.” - -When questioned as to the kind of clothing used there, she said: “The -mist of earth is not a substance to be measured, weighed or worn by -you. The material of our raiment is a thing of almost misty texture.” - -“What is death?” - -“To that question I will give you an explanation given me by one far -wiser than I and much older in this realm of life: ‘Death simply -denotes a rising from inactivity to action, from obscurity to eminence, -awaking from sleep, or promotion from an inferior condition.’” - -“Is there a resurrection?” - -“Every death is a resurrection.” - -“Edith, do you ever wish to be back here in the body?” - -“Never. There would be nothing to gain and much to lose.” - -“Why is it that although you and others come and talk with us clearly -and freely at times, there is yet so much of your new life of which you -tell us nothing?” - -“There are many reasons, which I am not permitted to give, nor could -you understand them. I myself comprehend them but dimly. I simply obey -the law.” - -“What is the judgment, if there is a judgment?” - -“For me it is the beholding of my mistakes.” - -“What is the most wonderful phase of your present life, if I may be -pardoned for so bold a question?” Cartice asked. - -“The knowledge that love is all there is--that it fills all universes; -lights all worlds; encompasses every soul, and is the life of every -soul. This is as true of your world as of ours; but nearly all there -refuse to believe it. Here we cannot doubt it--that is, those who have -love in their own hearts cannot doubt it. Those who love not do not -know it, for all is darkness to them; but that darkness disappears when -they begin to love.” - -“What is love?” - -“The living principle of good, which by a law that includes and governs -all that is, constantly flows out from the infinite centre. The more -you have of it the more of good in its highest and best form will -you receive, because it is the greatest of all magnets, irresistibly -attracting its like. Love is God. God is love. - -“You are destined to realize this fully some day; but you might realize -it even now if you would, and then the whole face of the earth would -change and become new and beautiful. Heaven, indeed, would be opened. -But the love I speak of is not the sentiment that usually goes by that -name on earth, which too often is but an exaggeration of self, a kind -of sublimated selfishness, going out to special persons with whom your -lives are intertwined and whose well-being particularly conduces to -your own. No, no; the love that is God is universal in its application, -enfolding the humblest and most wayward as well as the highest and -most perfect. Cultivate this love and you will find heaven even on the -earth. All good will come to you. It is the kingdom of righteousness -spoken of in your scriptures, to which, if you first seek and attain, -all other things shall be added. Love, even in its crudest, most -selfish expression and narrowest interpretation yet has in it a spark -of the divine principle from the great source or centre which lights -and gives life to all worlds and all consciousness.” - -“If you could give us but one precept to live by, what would it be?” - -“That which was given you by the beloved disciple: Love one another, -for love is, indeed, the fulfilling of the law. But remember that ‘one -another’ includes all that live. The law is not fulfilled when you -only love those of your own household, or such as minister to your -enjoyment.” - -“What are we here for? What is the purpose of life?” - -“What is the purpose of any school? Is it not to fit its pupils for -that which is to follow?” - -“How can we best do that?” - -“By the unfoldment of your souls or selves--the best possible -development of every unit. Your ethics have taught you to aim at the -highest good to the greatest possible number; but the true ethics -of love are only content with the highest possible good to each -individual.” - -“How do the things of earth appear to you now--the things we value and -strive for so hard, wealth, fame, power, pleasure?” - -“As veils, or illusions which keep you from seeing the great and -glorious light of truth--soap-bubbles, glistening and beautiful to the -eye, but absolutely empty.” - -“Do you not suffer at separation from friends here?” - -“There is no separation. We are all one--all closely and indissolubly -united--and that one includes what is in your world as well as worlds -upon worlds, far, far, beyond my power of imagination--all that is, or -was, or ever shall be. Sometimes death unites us more closely than ever -to those still upon earth.” - -“Does not the spirit sometimes faint with fear, when it first becomes -aware that it has left the body forever?” - -“It was not so with me. I was prepared. During my long illness I -thought much of the future, knowing that the end of what you call -life was near. In my mind I dropped the robe of flesh without regret, -feeling that annihilation or anything that set me free from pain would -be welcome. When at last I found that the silver--(otherwise the -electrical) cord--was loosened and the body left behind, the experience -seemed natural. True, it was not without awe, but that feeling of awe -arose from the light and beauty, the newness and yet the familiarity of -that on which I had entered. Yet it is not all new, for we still have -the old, but understand it better--we see it with more comprehensive -eyes--from a larger and higher outlook.” - -“Is there anything there to depress or sadden you?” - -“To depress me, no; yet something akin to oppression I sometimes feel, -because of the vastness, the immensity, the endlessness of everything. -Doubtless you experience the same feeling often, when you look up -at the stars and the mind is staggered and shrinks back upon itself -at the majesty and grandeur of creation. But do not forget that the -experiences of no two souls are exactly alike here, any more than on -earth. That which this state of consciousness means to us, or holds -for us, depends upon the degree of enlightenment we have attained -before entering it--upon our mental, moral and spiritual attitude, -our aspirations and desires--or character, or in short on what we have -become.” - -“Can you make things there, as here--shape things out of crude -material, I mean?” - -“We have no crude material. We have to do only with the finer forces. -With us the idea creates. We form the idea, and lo! it immediately -_is_. We think, and the thought takes visible form. Wonderful as this -may seem to you, it is nevertheless as true of your world as of this, -only the method is slower. The idea is always the true creation, but to -make it objective you must give it form with the hands, out of material -substance. The imagination is the creative realm.” - -“Have we each a guardian angel?” - -“Yes; every soul has a guide or helper, who ever works to incline one -to good, and away from evil, yet leaves the will free. You, yourself, -not he, must make the decisions. He suggests, but does not lead.” - -“Who is my guardian angel?” Cartice asked. - -“Who could he be if not one who loves you?” - -Once only Louis Doring came. He was the same as when here, full of self -and empty of all else. Cartice did not encourage him to come again, -feeling the distance between them to be greater than ever,--a distance -measured by an absence of sympathy, which is the only distance known -to the soul. After uttering some of the flavorless nothings which ever -characterized his conversation, he went and came no more. - -Chrissalyn’s great dread, frequently expressed, was that her husband -or some of her near kindred might come. As long as none of her own -household came, Planchette did not seem uncanny; but again and again -she declared that if any one of them came she would be wretched for the -rest of her life. Colonel Layton did not respect her wish, however. One -night he took her unawares, as it were. Giving Planchette a peculiar -spin, he wrote his name as characteristically as he had ever done in -life. When Chrissalyn saw the signature, she burst into uncontrollable -sobbing, and begged him to go away. - -Cartice consoled her, and implored her to let him remain, while she -talked a few moments with him, and this at last Mrs. Layton consented -to do. - -“Don’t cry, Chriss,” he wrote. “I knew you didn’t want me to come; but -I wish to tell you that I am better here than there, just as you are -far better without me. So it is well as it is. I was a poor devil there -for a fact; but I’m on the up-grade here.” - -Chrissalyn wept afresh, but heroically went on, and the Colonel wrote: - -“Mrs. Doring, why didn’t you attend my funeral?” - -Cartice looked aghast, the question, at first blush, being so -extraordinary. At some length she explained that she was too ill to go. -Evidently reading her unspoken thought, he wrote: - -“Yes, I was present--the real I as well as the silent image of me in -the box. I looked around at my leisure, and saw everybody there. I -wondered at your absence, you and Chriss being such close friends. -Besides, you were always nice to me, too, God bless you!” - -At this tribute to her kindness from beyond the grave Cartice dropped a -grateful tear. The Colonel’s nature had something childlike and sweet -in it, in spite of its many defects. Most of his faults had been of a -peevish and childish order. - -“Thank you, Colonel Layton,” Cartice answered. “I am glad to hear from -you.” - -“Mrs. Doring, do you remember the conversation I had with you an hour -or so before I made the final journey?” - -“Perfectly.” - -“I sang about death being a narrow sea that divides your world from the -land of pure delight. Well, it’s a very narrow sea--so narrow we can -step across. In fact it isn’t a sea at all, for the two worlds are not -really divided. They only seem to be.” - -Several times Mrs. Layton’s friend, Jessie, came. When asked whether -she threw flowers at her own funeral, she said she did; that she knew -beforehand that Chriss had the faculty of seeing certain things others -could not, and had it in mind before she went away that she would do -something to prove that death was only an illusion. - -Cartice’s great grandfather, who died before she was born, came and -wrote his name in full, which she did not herself know. He told things -pertaining to the family, which she afterward verified, among them -being the name of the political party to which he belonged, and which -had long been extinct. His handwriting was of an older style, and he -wrote with a deliberation uncommon in the present day. - -Some communications purported to come from North American Indians, -mighty chiefs and stalwart braves with great dignity of manner and -imposing names. After a time, however, Cartice inclined to the -opinion that both the manner and the names were masks used to conceal -identities that did not wish to be known. They spoke in the figurative -style attributed to gifted red men, and for the most part their -messages were interesting and instructive. - -Once when Mrs. Doring was very tired and discouraged one of them wrote: - -“Is it not a pleasure to the squaw to convince the braves and old men -that she teaches many truths? She must not let the ink dry in her -horn, for she can carry many braves with her in the councils.” - -Again, apparently overhearing the two investigators of psychic law -talk of some poor, pitiful, hide-bound persons who found fault with -everybody that did not revolve within their pint-measure orbit, this -same Red Feather, as he called himself, wrote with emphatic force: - -“Be not tied by the ways of others. The eagle cannot fly with the wings -of a chicken.” - -One evening Prescott wrote a few minutes and then excused himself from -further work, saying that something had just occurred which made him -too nervous to write. - -His two friends looked at each other in speechless astonishment. Here -was a mystery beyond other mysteries. Too nervous? Were not nerves but -parts of the body, destined to dust with the rest of it? - -Evidently understanding their amazement, he added this line after a -moment’s pause: - -“Incredible as it may seem to you, I still have nerves.” - -Once when Chrissalyn was peevish and dissatisfied, she said she had a -mind to give up fooling with Planchette; that it was scary and risky, -and there was no telling what was at the bottom of its queer doings. -Prescott came like a flash to the rescue, fearful that she would put -her threat into execution, and so cut off communication entirely. - -“O Butterfly, dear, don’t do that! Please don’t, for my sake,” he -pleaded, with an earnestness that touched their hearts. “You do not -appreciate this grand, beautiful privilege, which to me is so precious. -Who, besides you can do this--converse freely with friends so far away -that the railroad has never been made that can reach them?” - -Somewhat mollified by his pathetic tribute to her extraordinary psychic -gifts, she grumbled that for his sake she wouldn’t give up Planchette. -He continued: - -“Had I known as much about the unknown future, when on earth, as you -do, I should have thought myself wise, indeed. - -“It astonishes me now to remember that I ever doubted the persistence -of the individual, the continuousness of life. Fools who think -themselves savants will tell you to have nothing to do with spirits, -not to encourage them to come back, as that interferes with their -progression, and other rubbish of the same sort. Such persons know -nothing of the laws of progress here. The two worlds--in fact all -worlds--are one and the same. Your best interests and ours are -identical. There is no differentiation. Frequently our work lies -entirely with you. What higher mission could one have than to cheer -and strengthen the disheartened and fainting ones of earth? We help -you, and you in turn often help us. What would you think of a friend -who told you never to come and visit him, but to go on and progress by -yourself? Well, spirits are simply human beings living under conditions -as yet not understood by you. Many of them are your friends, whom you -would not dream of treating discourteously while they were with you -visibly. The pupils of your schools go from grade to grade. Those of -the highest grade are not prohibited from contact with those of the -primary, if they wish it, and often they return there as teachers. The -division between your world and ours only exists for those not yet -far enough developed to understand its non-existence. It is not real, -but only an appearance. It exists only in the consciousness of those -ignorant of the great law of oneness which is operative everywhere. And -this is true of many things that seem very real to you. They only exist -in your consciousness. Also that which is not within your consciousness -has no existence for you whatever. We are one--all the peoples of all -universes, and all are moving upward into light by means of the process -called evolution, which is the unfolding and perfecting of man, who is -spirit, not clay.” - -“Are we ever reborn into this world?” - -“I am told that rebirth is one of the many methods open to the soul for -progression.” - -“Can you see our future in this world?” - -“Some have this faculty. I have not. They only see the main incidents, -as a traveler, looking from a high hill, sees a guide-post ahead in the -valley.” - -“Are we ever entirely alone?” - -“Never. There is always the cloud of witnesses of which Paul spoke.” - -A stranger came sometimes whose character was of an antique mould. He -gave no name, but others, when questioned about him, said he had been -one of the great of earth, and also one of the good--none greater since -Jesus. - -“What is the soul of man?” Cartice asked him. - -“Can any one comprehend God?” was his reply. - -“I do not understand,” she persisted. - -“Eternal being mirrors itself in every existence--_is_ every existence. -When you know that indefinable, illimitable, deathless and divine -manifestation called the soul, you will know God, for in the one -is imaged or reflected the other. Remember, eternal being is the -background of every existence.” - -Looking at these words fresh from an intelligence whose habitation -earthly eye hath not seen, Cartice Doring thrilled with a strange -joy, in sympathetic vibration with the wave of truth that touched her -spirit. For one hallowed moment the great gates opened and she saw a -light more beautiful than the light of the morning, more glorious than -the light of many suns, softer, brighter, more beatific than was ever -on sea or land, for lo! she saw the reflection of the soul itself, and -understood its infinite source and deathless destiny. In that ineffable -moment she knew that it never had birth and never should know death, -and that separateness was not of it, nor was it divisible from aught -there is, and difference there was none. On the bosom of eternal being -it rested secure through a thousand illusions. - -The key that unlocked all mysteries was revealed by a flash of the -soul’s own light. Pale and trembling she bent her head till it lay on -the written words of the nameless stranger, and closed her eyes that -she and the great white light might be alone together. - - * * * * * - -Thousands of years ago an Indian sage, when parting from his wife, -said: “We do not love the husband in the husband, nor the wife in the -wife, nor the children in the children. What we love in them, what we -truly love in everything is the divine spirit, (the eternal atman, the -immortal and absolute self)”--and as we should add, says Max Müller, -the immortal God, for the immortal self and the immortal God must be -one. - -Life’s boundless extension and endless progression was ever the -uppermost thought in Mrs. Doring’s mind. In it she found consolation -for all ills, as well as explanation of them. She pitied those still -blind to this tremendous fact. What had they to uphold them in the -terrible conflict we make of life? - -What of the literature that only reaches the grave and there halts, -unable to go further? Is it not the literature of children, useful only -to amuse and entertain them in idle hours? She had adored the art of -letters, had made a fetich of it, paying homage to its great names and -walking in its fair gardens with reverent steps. Now she asked herself -what literature had done for the voiceless army of the dead. What -representation had they in its pages? The dead, the sacred dead, the -beloved dead, what had letters done to bridge the stream that separates -them from the living? - -Poets had sent them to a far-off heaven or plunged them into a -flaming hell to suit their moods and meters. Romancers had used them -as spectres to come upon the scene at inopportune moments and treat -their readers to thrills. They were flippantly spoken of as “spooks,” -“ghosts,” “apparitions,” and “supernatural appearances.” They were -good stock in certain brands of stories which nobody believed in, -and occasionally they were allowed to have a bit of business on the -stage. Witless witlings had sneered at their claims to recognition, -and writers of many minds, however they differed on other points, were -generally united in the effort to keep the dead, one and all, from -rising. - -Authors of romances found death a convenience in disposing of -inconvenient characters of their own creation. When they could not -manage them effectively any other way, they slaughtered them remorsely, -and that was the end of them; that put them out of both writers’ and -readers’ way for all time. Not even the good always escaped this doom. -If readers could be entertainingly harrowed and wrought upon by the -demise of the most angelic heroine, she had to die, and that finished -her for friends and foes. At the grave everything ended. There love -laid its treasures and turned hopelessly away; and there hate sheathed -its poniard in satisfaction, having reached its extreme limit. - -Now Cartice Doring saw clearly that there are no finalities here; that -the grave is not the end; that it never imprisoned a human soul. She -saw that a new literature must come forth to satisfy minds of larger -growth, which look upon death, not as a finality, but a change of -costume and the opening of a new act. And this literature must go to -the point, straight and clear; it must seek the solution of life’s -problem and not merely amuse and beguile travelers on the journey. - -Many a night, while she walked home after an evening’s talk with her -unseen friends, she felt in touch with all the universe. Nothing was -far off, not even the stars, which looked down upon earth with tender -human sympathy in their bright faces. She feared nothing, and knew no -loneliness, feeling herself attended by an innumerable company. Already -she believed that what Kant said will yet be proved, “that the human -soul, even in this life, is by an indissoluble communion connected with -all the immaterial natures of the spirit world, acting upon them, and -receiving impressions from them.” - -Now she understood more clearly the meaning of this statement by our -greatest philosopher, Emerson: “every man is an inlet to the Divine -mind and to all of that mind.” Yes, and an outlet, also. - -Now, now she began to see that “the spirit of man is a personal -limitation of the supreme spirit,” as another philosopher says; that -“God is the all of man’s life, the power of man at bottom being the -power of God.” - -Now she could understand that “what we call the material universe is -but the manifestation of infinite Deity to our finite minds”; and that -“our individual self is found,” as the ancient wisdom of the East, and -likewise Jesus and Paul, affirms, “included in the contents of the -Absolute Being or Self.” - -“Eternal Being mirrors itself in every existence,” she murmured -reverently; “Eternal Being, and we are it.” - -The pulsing, eager, feverish life of the city was stilled. Its -people slept, at least they were asleep to the truth, and refused -to be awakened. Thousands of Ephraims, joined to their idols, dwelt -contentedly in their fools’ paradise, asking to be let alone. And -what were those idols? Mists of their own creation, perishable and -unreal--for nothing endures, nothing is real but being, Eternal Being. -Like the wayward sons and daughters of old Jerusalem, they will not be -gathered under the wing of even divine wisdom. - -The old dreams of childhood came back, with their perplexing -reminiscence of life in a land remote in the past, whose people knew -not misery. - -Had she lived before? Yes, always. How could it be otherwise with -Eternal Being as the background, the source and centre of her -existence? For this there was neither beginning nor end. Was she not an -indestructible part of all that is, was and ever shall be? Behind her -was no birth; before her no death. These were but “world-fictions.” - -And what was she? One of the millions of conscious atoms that make up -the great whole--a woman walking the path alone, with a dash of genius, -original, creative, commanding, it was said, and a force of will and -character that made her respected and conspicuous among other atoms. -Whence came the genius and the force of character? From the infinite -ocean of intelligence and creative energy--from the one source and -the one force. Why had she gifts and qualities others had not? Because -she had reached upward toward the light; she had aspired, and as a -consequence had expanded and grown. She had mirrored more of the -supreme intelligence than many others, because she had desired it and -had held her mind receptive to it. - -All her life at times she had been a prey to a deep dissatisfaction. An -unspoken unrest, a profound melancholy lay beneath her sunniest hours, -and she had experienced a yearning of the soul for that which perhaps -no mortal ever attains. - -But now in these nights when she walked alone under the stars, -illumined within by the light of truth, there were moments when -her spirit vibrated in unison with the great spirit or self of the -universe, and she was satisfied. She saw humanity, like a mighty river -rolling slowly to the sea, each drop blending with others, and all -impelled by a resistless force that bore them onward, they knew not -whence nor whither. This river was rolling toward the ocean of truth, -there to enjoy the freedom which was its divine destiny, and which each -atom or drop could only reach by recognizing, living and becoming the -truth. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV. - - THE SIMPLE WAY. - - “Life, with all it yields of joy and woe and hope and fear, - Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love, - How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is.” - - --_Robert Browning._ - - -Talking with Gabriel Norris one day, Mrs. Doring could not refrain from -telling him some of her astonishing psychic experiences. - -“I have long known,” he said, “that they whom we call dead are more -alive than we are. I, too, have talked with them. Like St. Paul I am -a spiritualist, a word which generally excites fear and horror in -unenlightened minds. I preach spiritualism, plain and pure, but I don’t -name it. Sometimes it is best not to label one’s knowledge. It only -prejudices the ignorant against it, and builds a fence around one’s -own mind as well as around one’s neighbor’s. A name is a limitation. -That’s one reason why I cannot work in any organization. I keep my -spirit free, ever ready to absorb more truth, and I preach a free -gospel, which, like all things else is susceptible to the influence of -new light. Truth is not all revealed to any man. Little by little one -learns to know a greater degree of it, and so grows more and more free -from error. What is evolution but a gradual growing out of darkness -into light? The proof that we live again is of tremendous importance, -because with it comes the knowledge that every thought as well as every -deed helps in the building of our souls and our eternal destiny. That -we shall live always is a fact in nature, but in what estate depends -upon ourselves, upon our thoughts, aspirations and efforts, for man is -the expression, or sum, of his desires. Here or elsewhere they shall be -realized.” - -Gabriel wished he might have the great pleasure of a word with -Prescott, whom he loved. Chrissalyn granted permission, and he went one -evening to see the wonders of Planchette. Prescott obligingly came, -and when Gabriel, with tears shining in his eyes asked if he had any -particular message for him, answered: - -“Only to thank you for your good words about me in the church, when I -could not speak for myself.” - -Gabriel had been one of several friends, orthodox and unorthodox, who -made brief addresses at Prescott’s funeral, which, by the grace of a -liberal-minded and great-hearted minister, was held in a church, in -spite of the fact that the dead editor was a bold unbeliever. - -At these grateful words the eyes of the gentle preacher glistened and -his voice wavered with feeling, as he said: “You deserved all the -praise I gave you. You did your best. You spoke truth and lived truth -as you saw it. None can do more.” - -In saying this Gabriel unconsciously raised his voice higher and higher -till he ended in a shout, so natural was it to think of Prescott as far -off because he was out of sight. - -“Thank you again, Gabriel,” he wrote; “but let me tell you, that -although I used to be a little deaf, I hear perfectly well now.” - -Gabriel laughed heartily as it dawned upon him that he had been -shouting at his invisible friend, and thought Prescott must be laughing -too. - -“Are all cured of their physical defects over there?” Gabriel asked. - -“Not immediately, for illness or wholeness is a matter of the -consciousness, and that cannot be completely changed at once. It is -all progression, growth, expansion, but it takes what you call time to -effect it. There is plenty of work for you, Gabriel, here as well as -there.” - -“I am glad of that,” said the unordained preacher. “An idle heaven -would be hell for me. Man’s desire for action and his pleasure in it -are strong evidence of his immortality. Were death--extinction--his -destiny, somehow he would have known it, and would have been indolent -instead of busy. It is true that much of his work is impermanent and -useless or worse than useless; but it is the effort he puts forth, -the exercise of will, that is the valuable part of it. That which he -is really building through all his blundering and the only part of his -work that endures, is character.” - -“Truth, Gabriel! You speak immortal truth,” Prescott wrote. “Now, -good-night.” - -“Do you really believe you have been talking with Gordon Prescott?” -Cartice asked. - -“Yes,” said Gabriel, simply. “I could not prove it to others; neither -can I prove that a letter is from the person whose name is signed to -it, without his personal affirmation, and even that is only valuable in -proportion to his reputation for truth-telling. Most of what we call -proofs of anything is flimsy and fallible.” - -“I want to tell you, Mr. Norris,” said Cartice, speaking with feeling, -“that I owe you far more than you are aware of. You first gave me -light, and you were a mascot for me, besides, in worldly success. -Through meeting you the tide of my fortune, the day I met you, -turned from ebb to flow. The drawing I made of you opened the door -of opportunity for me. But giving me light was the greatest service. -That day, in your lecture at the market house you told us we were -not here simply to be happy; that happiness as we pictured it, was -not the purpose of existence; that we were here to learn and to grow -to the perfection nature intended, as a plant or a tree grows. In -other words, we are to unfold from the seed and express our true -being. Up to that time, like everybody else, I had made the hunt for -happiness my chief aim. When, in consequence of that, I found myself -swamped in misery, I considered myself injured, and felt sure somebody -was to blame. I could not see that I, myself, was the culprit; that -the selfish search for happiness must lead directly away from that -condition. Ah, I suffered much, much up to that time; but I see the -uses of it now. I was being educated by the only means possible. Had I -secured the kind of happiness I was looking for, I should still be in -darkness. It was the ideal of an undeveloped mind. Now I see plainly -that the spiritual side of suffering is good. It means birth--the birth -of knowledge, of light, of truth. I don’t think suffering is ‘sent -upon us,’ as many good people assert. We pursue false ideals and they -bring us to grief; but through that suffering we find the true ideals. -Suffering becomes our teacher. Truth, which is good, is ever struggling -to express itself through us; but in our ignorance we oppose and -obstruct it, and that makes pain for us. All suffering comes from our -obstinate opposition to good, though we are usually unconscious of it -till our eyes are opened. I thank you again for helping me. Since that -day suffering has fallen away from me to a great extent. As soon as I -became willing to suffer in order to get on the right road, I ceased -to suffer. Strange law, but true. And so I argue that when we cease to -pursue happiness or think about it we shall possess it.” - -“Yes, it has long been clear to me that we are not here to hunt -happiness; though I doubt not that every human soul is destined to be -happy; but it will be an order of happiness most unlike the common -dream. Even here it could be found, if we sought it where the master -told us to look. Did he not say that the kingdom of heaven is within -us? It is a state of consciousness. He told us how to attain it, too. -How simple the way! Only to love one another. This, indeed would make -heaven for us all. That is what we are here to learn--that is the chief -end of man, for, when we learn that, we shall know all the law--all -there is to learn, and shall have reached the full development which is -the purpose of our existence. How simple the way! We have no call to -go forth and reform our erring brother; to devise schemes to save his -soul; to build barriers to put temptation out of his way; to weave nets -to ensnare him to our faith. We have only to love him. Thus shall we -fulfill all the law; thus shall we do all we have to do. Neither are we -here to do good. Even this is not our work in life. Many well-meaning -people busy themselves, and bluster about doing good, from their point -of view. Oftener than not they put their Father’s house in disorder. -We are to _be_ good. Then the doing of good comes without effort. We -are here but for one purpose, and that is to learn and therefore grow. -To learn that we are the sons and daughters of God--otherwise supreme -wisdom, love, life, light and intelligence. The more we recognize this -infinite source of our being the more of it we reflect and become, the -more perfect our development. And how shall we do this? In the simple -way we were told--only by loving one another. This is the purpose of -our creation. This includes all there is to know, and to become. This -is the perfection at which we were told to aim. This sets our feet on -the road to happiness.” - -“What is the body?” Cartice asked. - -“Perhaps it is the objective side of our existence on this plane--the -self as it appears to others, but not as it really is.” - -After Gabriel was gone Chrissalyn said with a yawn: - -“Cartice, you and Gabriel tire one all out bothering about the ‘purpose -of life,’ the soul and the body and so on. What’s the good of heating -your heads about such things? Just to slip through easy, is all I’m -asking now.” - -“Yes, dear; but you are a Butterfly and have a butterfly’s standard. -Gabriel and I aim to be gardeners, who make it possible for butterflies -to circle about and enjoy themselves without bad boys catching them -and pulling their wings off. But you have grown astonishingly, since -I first knew you, in spite of yourself. You used to find nothing -better to do than kill time with a procession of admirers. Now you -have outgrown that. And you were dependent on your husband for your -very bread. Now you are able to stand on your own feet, and are a -self-supporting, useful member of society. Don’t you see, dear, that -the lesson every soul must learn sooner or later, here or elsewhere, is -to be able to stand alone? Each of us, woman or man, must fulfill the -purpose of creation, which is to grow toward perfection, and we can’t -do that by leaning on somebody else. Woman is a human being as is man, -and is responsible for her own destiny. The responsibility can’t be put -upon another.” - - - - - CHAPTER XV. - - IT IS WELL WITH THE CHILD. - - Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion is - fairer; - Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer. - - --_Richard Realf._ - - -Mrs. Doring had a friend, a gentle, patient, heavily-burdened woman -who lived her difficult life with the high heroism of a daughter of -the gods. Though fragile as a flower she kept the wolf at bay for her -little family, and nobody ever saw a cloud on her face or heard a -complaint from her lips. Born and bred to the refinements of life she -met adversity as only the gently bred do meet it--by taking hold of -whatever work was at hand, without questioning whether it was what is -miscalled menial or not. - -When her baby girl was born she begged Cartice to name her, which she -did, giving her the name of the little sister who had died when she -herself was a child--Isabel. To her mother’s great delight she grew -to resemble Mrs. Doring as though of her flesh and blood, and loved -her in the same degree. Now she was nearly three years old, bright and -winsome, with never a day’s illness in her record. - -But a fever came, and behind that stood the last enemy, who, however -often routed, is sure to return sometime and win the battle. This was -the time of his victory. In the night, when all was silent without, -and solemn within, he came. Cartice had the baby in her arms in the -last precious, awesome moments. The wasted little hand reached up and -silently stroked her face, and the soft, dark eyes, unearthly large -and earnest, looked at her with unutterable love. Something else, too, -was in their speechless depths--a message not easy to translate, but -it brought comfort. Then, that mysterious thing, the breath, which -connects us with the universal life principle, ceased; the cold white -veil dropped down, and little Isabel was dead. - -After holding the silent form close to her heart a moment, Cartice laid -it gently on the bed, and the two mother hearts so sorely bereft stood -silent but tearless beside it. - - * * * * * - -Later, when it was ready for its bed in the bosom of the earth, and -again together they looked down at its white silence, Cartice said: - -“She shall know no evil thought; she shall do no evil deed; she shall -tread no evil path. It is well with the child.” - -“Yes, in spite of my sore heart, it is well,” said the mother. “I -surrender her not to death, but to a larger life, and shall not mourn. -No matter what comes, she is safe. My darling’s safe--safe and dead. -Since her father’s death I have been troubled at times with fears -for her future. I face the inevitable--a few months more here, and -then--the end. For the two boys I have arranged. They will have homes -and care, but it would have tried my courage to leave this one ewe -lamb.” - -“I would have been a mother to Isabel had you gone first,” said Mrs. -Doring. - -“I am sure of that; but you, too, may not tarry here long. Why should -we ever worry about the future? In spite of all our planning and -troubling all is managed by a higher hand. We have only to do the work -of the hour, leaving what the next may bring to be met when it comes, -and not in anticipation. The present alone concerns us. By living it -aright the future takes care of itself. It is the thought for to-morrow -that so often makes to-day gloomy. I distressed myself about my child’s -future, yet, see, all is well with her.” - -“I thank God for what I have learned of the mysterious event called -death,” said Mrs. Doring. “Yet there are people who ask what good can -come of knowing such things. What good? Is it nothing to know that the -little image lying here is not our Isabel but her earthly investiture; -that she is not dead nor separated from us; that her life is to go on -from grace to grace, from strength to strength? Is it nothing to know -that Socrates, Plato, Swedenborg, Shakespeare, Emerson, Hugo, Morse, -Fulton, all who have given the world the light of genius, have never -died, and that this baby is equal heir with them to a life of vaster -opportunities and greater blessings?” - -“Others,” said Mrs. Benton, “wonder what good there is in the coming -and going of so tiny a soul, who was here but for a day as it were. -Yet her little life is as important in the divine plan as that of the -greatest sage. She brought the gospel of pure love with her, and we are -the better because of her brief visit to us--for it was but a pause on -the great journey.” - - * * * * * - -On the evening after the discarded visible part of the child had been -put out of sight, as Mrs. Doring was returning home from her friend’s -house, two elderly men on the horse-car were talking of life, and their -verdict was that they were tired of it. - -One said it was an empty experience which he would not go through again -for any consideration. The other said he had had a good time, had got -as much pleasure out of life as any one, but that was all over now; he -was getting old and full of aches and pains, and found no fun in living -any more. The jumping off place had to be reached some day, and that -would put an end to it. - -His friend said that was the rub--the leap in the dark. For his part -he was disgusted with life, but abhorred death. He saw no good in -either one or the other, and was inclined to believe that we are all -victims of a tremendous cheat. If he could see anything to look forward -to beyond a damp bed in the ground he could go on all right, but nobody -knew anything about it--not even those who earned their bread talking -about it in pulpits. They said they believed certain things, but they -didn’t know any more than other folks. He wanted solid information. - -The other tossed his head to show his indifference to the subject. He -said it was something he had never thought about at all in his good -times, and now he guessed he wouldn’t bother with it for his few -remaining days. - -Thus was the most important question that faces man disposed of by -one whose opinion on any topic pertaining to commercial or political -interests would be received with respect by his fellow townsmen -and have weight with them. But both he and his friend had lived to -venerable years without ever learning what they themselves were. Of -that knowledge, which includes all other knowledge, they were as -ignorant as earth worms. They had acquired what is miscalled education; -had been factors in public affairs, and figures in social life, and yet -never learned that they were not bodies to go to pieces some day like -a broken machine, but spirits, with a life whose issues are spiritual -and eternal, not material and perishable. To one, life had meant a -chance to have a good time; to the other emptiness, because he had had -no good time. Neither dreamed that its meaning is in the unseen, not in -the seen,--in what they had become, not what they possessed or enjoyed. -They lived in dense spiritual darkness, yet knew it not, and they were -but two out of millions in the same condition. - -Hearing their pathetic though unconscious confession of ignorance, -Mrs. Doring wondered if little Isabel’s short, loving, trusting life -was not more complete than theirs of long years full of impermanent -and illusory importance. She wished she could tell them what she had -learned of life and its meaning and future, but, alas! she had already -been stoned and knew the danger of letting her light shine before those -who had not become as little children--receptive, willing to learn. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI. - - THE STORY OF ONE RETURNED FROM THE DEAD. - - “Is it wonderful that I should be immortal, as every one is immortal? - I know it is wonderful, but my eye-sight is equally wonderful, and - how I was conceived in my mother’s womb is equally wonderful.”--_Walt - Whitman._ - - Thought in the mind hath made us. - What we are - By thought was wrought and built. - If a man’s mind - Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on him as comes - The wheel the ox behind. - - All that we are is what we thought and willed; - Our thoughts shape us and frame. - If one endure - In purity of thought joy follows him - As his own shadow sure.--_Sir Edwin Arnold._ - - -Mrs. Doring had read that the people of the unseen world, or other -invisible intelligent beings, sometimes condescended to write on slates -under certain conditions. As she now believed that Chrissalyn possessed -all the psychic gifts, she bought a slate and used her most artful -eloquence to persuade her friend to experiment. The capricious creature -consented after fishing up objections enough to make her acquiescence -received with great gratitude. This was her innocent way of making her -services valuable and herself important. But for love of her friend, -and also no doubt for love of Prescott, who was the only person on the -other side of silence that she cared to hear from, apparently, or at -least was not afraid of, she finally consented. - -Not knowing the correct manner of procedure they could do no more than -experiment blindly, till they learned something about it. They held -the slate under the table till their arms were all tired out and got -nothing. Then they laid it on the table, and becoming interested in -talking, forgot all about it and their experiment, till they heard a -soft, rapid scratching. - -Looking down simultaneously, they saw an incredible thing. The tiny -pencil, no bigger than a grain of rice, was writing, though no visible -hand guided it, and this was its message: - -“_Each soul is its own redeemer, here, hereafter and forever._” - -The two spectators looked at each other in awe-struck silence. From -whom this came they knew not, for the one that wrote it wrote nothing -more. But for their familiarity with communications from the silent -majority they would have been sore afraid. As it was they were awed by -this extraordinary evidence of the nearness of unseen beings presumably -like themselves. - -Talking about it they sat there till the evening was nearly spent. -At last, Chrissalyn idly laid her hand on the slate, and almost -immediately it began to throb or vibrate curiously, like a living -thing. Startled, she removed her hand, and instantly the throbbing -ceased. Turning the slate over they found the under side written full -in a feminine hand of exquisite daintiness, and signed with the name of -one of our most eminent women, one who has been dead nearly a century. - -The message had not been written after the manner of the previous one, -for there was no scratching or sound of the movement of the pencil. In -fact, as they soon discovered, the pencil was not there at all. The -method, whatever it may have been, was instantaneous, like telegraphy. -A few seconds of vibration in the slate and lo! it was there. If -thought could be photographed the process might be like this. It was as -though some one had thought the message, and the mere act of thinking -had made it visible on the slate. - -“Chriss, you are the most wonderful being in the world,” said Cartice, -reverently, “and you don’t know it. You have all the occult gifts, yet -value none of them.” - -The Butterfly flushed with gratification at the generous praise of her -friend who usually praised or blamed with miserly care. Beyond the fact -that they made her important in Cartice’s eyes she cared nothing for -the mysteries revealed through her. Being a butterfly, she was not -afflicted with any particular craving for knowledge. The world and the -things of the world satisfied her. - -This was what the slate contained: - -“To you, Cartice Hill Doring, I bring this message. Remember it well, -for I may never come again: Till the soil, and you will be prosperous. -Till what you have. Make more of your talents. Concentrate all your -thoughts and devote more time to your special one. If you are really -anxious to make a success of yourself, you must use every moment. You -not only owe it to yourself, but to the whole world, and God, who has -endowed you with this wonderful gift. You are a woman among a million. -It is certainly a wonderful gift you possess, and it is sad that you -have not already made more of it. So try now. Wait not for some one -to open the way. Make your own way. You can do it better than any one -else. Work in order to be great; then you can rest, and it will be so -delightful to rest with sweet laurels.” - -Mrs. Doring read this aloud, astonished at its flattering import and -amazed that so many words, all as legible as the clearest typography, -could be put upon the tiny slate. The writing was a work of the most -exquisite art. - -“What does she mean by your special talent?” asked Chrissalyn. - -“A bit of my brain garden which I have scarcely cultivated at all, -and would rather not name, for I never have been sure of my title to -it. In my early dreams it figured conspicuously; but of late years I -have almost dropped it from my thoughts. The business of bread-winning -pushes many a fair dream out of its sacred niche. In spite of the -encouraging words of this message I doubt if I shall ever till that -soil. I begin to feel too tired to make new departures. The torpor -of indifference and weariness is creeping over me. The old spirit of -action walks with a halting step, and turns its eyes longingly to the -meadows of ease and indolence. I think I understand how car-horses -feel. They know perfectly well that, whatever may happen to the rest -of the world, for them there is only a steady, day-after-day pull till -the end comes. Prescott used to say I wanted to eat my cake and have it -too; but he didn’t know how feeble and weary I often was.” - -One evening when they called their unseen friends new wonders -were shown them--wonders which took place under laws beyond their -penetration. The Butterfly wore a fresh white rose on her breast. When -Prescott announced himself, his first words were of its beauty and -fragrance. - -“Can you see it?” Cartice asked. - -“Certainly.” - -“And smell it?” - -“Of course. Give it to me, Butterfly! Give it to me,” he wrote, with -eager energy. - -“Well, take it,” said Chrissalyn, smiling at the impossible request. - -“I am in earnest. I really want it. Hold it in your hand directly in -front of you, and see me take it.” - -Laughing at what she believed to be a bit of pleasantry, she took the -rose from her breast, and held it between her thumb and finger, saying, -in mimicry of the old-time heroine of novels, “Please accept this token -of my esteem.” - -Instantly, quicker than a flash, with a suddenness indescribable, it -disappeared, vanished completely, in the sight of both pairs of eyes. -Whither? Could vacant space swallow a tangible object? Impossible. Yet -this impossibility was accomplished. - -The fact stunned them. Each looked in the face of the other, and -clasped the other’s hand to make sure they were not dreaming. - -“I should be frightened speechless if any one else than Prescott had -done that,” said the Butterfly, pallid and trembling. - -“Let us ask him about it,” said Cartice, who was shaken, too. - -With some reluctance, Chrissalyn asked Prescott how he had taken the -rose. - -“By means of what some of your scientific people call the Fourth -Dimension of Space,” he replied. - -“Can you explain it more clearly?” - -“No; I have no terms in which to make it plain to you. It is all -natural enough, however, and comes under a law as yet not known to your -world. Now wait a moment and I will bring you a flower by means of the -same law.” - -Silent and expectant they sat for three or four minutes. Then, -apparently out of the air above their heads, two large fresh, red roses -fell on the table before them. Examination proved that they were real -and not illusory. - -“Where did you get them?” Cartice asked. - -“I went what you would call a long distance for them,--about two -hundred miles; but it is nothing to me, for I know no distance outside -of my own thought.” - -Unsolicited, one evening Prescott volunteered to tell his two faithful -friends some of his experiences since passing out of their sight. He -wrote with a rapidity and energy even greater than in life, though he -had ever a nervous, hasty manner of writing, which was his true form of -expression. In conversation he had little ability. He consumed three -evenings in the task he had set himself, and this was his story, which -was addressed to Cartice: - - * * * * * - -“There was the accident at the elevator. It occurred in a few seconds -of time, but I did not realize what was taking place. A thought that -something was going wrong flashed through my mind, but it conveyed no -sense of danger. I was like a spectator who sees disaster overtake -another, yet has no clear idea what that disaster is. From this and -what I have learned here, I am inclined to the belief that victims of -accidents which result in sudden death have no painful experiences--do -not even suffer from fear. - -“As you know, I was killed instantly--that is pushed out of life -as you understand life, without warning. When I awoke, or regained -consciousness, on this side of death--which I believe was soon after -the accident, though I am not sure on this point--I found myself -groping blindly, staggering weakly in the dark and reaching about me -with my hands to find something that would help me to a knowledge of my -whereabouts. - -“I was never distinguished for patience. Now I began to feel impatient -and cross at finding myself in such an unaccountable situation. Then -the darkness got thicker, more depressing, and at last terrible, until -my spirit quailed before it, and the thought came to me that I was -indeed, in a place and condition strange and fearful. - -“Then I thought of you, Cartice, and of how devotedly I loved you. -With that thought came light, such radiant, phenomenal, overpowering -light that it dazzled me. I shuddered before its awful effulgence, and -put my hands over my eyes that it might not blind me. My love for you -seemed to fill all space and include all things. While enjoying it, -drinking it in, floating in it, I moved on, for I was walking,--or so -it seemed--until I met my dear old friend William Bissell. - -“That astonished me, for I instantly remembered that he had died five -years before, and I had been one of those selected for the solemn honor -of carrying his body to the grave. Was I dreaming? - -“He came toward me smiling. I thought I had never seen him look so -well, so handsome, so young or so benignant. He was ever the soul of -kindness, not only ready but always anxious to serve others; and he had -a particular fondness for meeting friends at the railroad station when -they came back to the city after an absence--especially those who had -no near kindred to welcome them. - -“‘I’m glad to see you, Gordon,’ he said; but I thought I saw something -in his face more than the words implied, and a foreboding of unwelcome -news came to me. - -“‘How is this, William?’ I asked. ‘Am I dreaming? I thought I helped to -bury you five years ago.’ - -“He smiled significantly and said, ‘Has it not occurred to you that -somebody may be arranging to do the same service for you?’ - -“‘What do you mean, William?’ I asked, calling upon my soul to sustain -me against the shock of the reply. - -“‘Well, Gordon,’ he said, gently, kindness making his face shine like a -lamp, ‘tell me if a dead man’s arm has any bones in it?’ - -“Instinctively I grasped my left arm with my right hand. Lo! the hand -passed through it. No bones were there. - -“Can you imagine one already dead fainting from fear? The sensation -I experienced was more startling, more fearful than anything I had -conceived of before. I sank down, down into immeasurable depths. - -“A feeling of shame at my cowardice took possession of me. Why was -I afraid? I had died, to be sure; my condition was changed; but the -experience was something millions and millions of other souls had -undergone. Gentle, timid, delicate women had trodden that solemn path -before me. Little children, too, had traveled it. Why should I, a man, -vain of my strength and courage, be affrighted? A vast compassion -for all humankind in this trying moment welled up in my heart, and -instantly I was lifted into light, and beheld about me loving and -familiar faces, beautiful vistas, and heard melodious sounds. The -loving thought I held had borne me upward; but I did not then know it. - -“Many times I sank into a dark, bottomless void, and as often by some -mysterious power rose into ineffable light. I encountered massive walls -from time to time, before which my feet were stayed. Impassable and -impregnable, they seemed to bar my way, I knew not why. Eventually -I learned that the sinking and the rising, and the barriers I met, -were not external experiences, but all took place within my own -consciousness, and were but the picturing or appearances of my inner -condition. They were my own thoughts externalized, for _thought_ is the -only _thing_ in the _Universe_. We think, therefore we are. Existence -is thought. Man is thought made objective. Thought is the creative -principle: it is creation. - -“‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,’ describes life both here -and in the visible form, if you but understand its true significance. -Here every sensation is intensified a thousand times. I thrill with -joy and the universe vibrates in harmonious response. I suffer, and -it trembles in reciprocal anguish. And this is true of every soul in -whatever part of the universe it may dwell; but here our capacity -to feel is keener and greater than with you, and here we learn to -understand. Every sensation is intensified, because we enter into -closer relations with the One Life, the One Spirit that fills all -space. Everything is within our consciousness, and outside of that -there is nothing. Within us is all that ever was or shall be. - -“For a time I was often wretched. The interests of earth attracted me, -I thought of them wistfully, and wished I were in my old place doing -the work in which I had found something akin to pleasure. The wish held -me there, and I was miserable, because the old methods of action were -lost to me. Often when you sat at your desk in the _Register_ office I -was near, suffering keen torment, because I could not make my presence -known. It took me a long time to see that we were not really separated. -It was only the veil of your ignorance that shut me away from you. I -was near you, but you did not know it, that was all. The veil that -hides our world from yours is ignorance--a veil it is possible to lift. - -“Still, I suffered until I found a means of enlightening you. I saw the -peculiar power the Butterfly possesses, and endeavored to arouse in her -a wish to investigate which would enable me to bridge the gulf between -us--a gulf that existed only in your thought. - -“I caused her to see me in what she believed a dream, and I held a -planchette that she might try to operate with it. To my unbounded -delight I was successful. I assure you that, although you were grateful -for the knowledge the little tripod brought you, I was a thousand -times more so, since to me it meant deliverance from darkness and -misery. - -“I could not rise into higher conditions--conditions being -internal--until I had established communication with you. The moment -you recognized me and believed in me, darkness and discontent began to -fall away from me. You made heaven for me on earth, inasmuch as I loved -you, and that love has made heaven for me here--both heaven and hell -being states of consciousness, though none the less real for all that. - -“My burden was lifted, when you fully understood that I still lived. -Not till then was I willing to accept my changed condition and seek -knowledge in new paths. - -“How delightful it was to discover that I had power within myself to -create conditions! Thoughts of love enveloped me in light, a light that -had in it all beauty and all harmony. The character of my love for you -changed. Desire for possession went out of it, and the wish to benefit -and help you in every way, without regard to myself, took its place. I -then learned that the more unselfish and universal our love, the deeper -and fuller and sweeter our own being becomes. Love is the supreme -power. Love is life. Love is light. Love is all there is, for love is -God. - -“This is a scientific truth and not merely a figure and phrase of -religious philosophy. - -“God is spirit and spirit is substance, the only substance in the -universe. Men of science tell you that light is a mode of motion, and -they speak truly, for it is the physical expression of pure spirit -which is pure love. Spirit, which includes all worlds and all being is -in perpetual motion; all that you see is but its different forms of -manifestation. - -“Your sun is not your source of light; it is but a reflector or -transmitter of the one supreme light to the worlds of its system. - -“The more we love the more of God do we become and express. Oh! if -I could but tell you the joy that love brings. It can overcome all -things. Where it dwells no evil can come; and it enters wherever -the door is left open to receive it. It is everywhere, but, if your -consciousness is unaware of it, for you it has no existence. Only -recognize it and it is yours. - -“I passed my life in combat. I attacked evil, fought it ruthlessly, -and believed I was doing good. Yet I was only making evil important. -You would laugh at the teacher who fought children in order to make -them wise, wouldn’t you? Evil is only ignorance--otherwise spiritual -darkness, and men and women are but children in knowledge. There is -but one way to eradicate evil or ignorance, and that is to make more -light. Open the understanding and let in the light. The darkness will -flee before it. You remember Victor Hugo said: ‘Pay schoolmasters and -not soldiers.’ I see now that the only way to make men better is to -awaken the God or good in them; to put higher ideals before them, and -not find fault with them because they don’t know all there is to know. - -“Until I met you I lived a loveless life, therefore a pessimistic one. -My sympathy with humankind had a narrow limit. A wrong aroused my wrath -against the perpetrator of it, when it should have awakened my pity for -the dark condition of his mind. - -“I was conceited, intolerant, impatient, belligerent and often cruel. I -went about with a lash in my hand, ready to administer upon all who did -not live up to my standard. Now I see the simpler way of which we were -long since told. It is to love our wayward brothers. When men learn -that an injury done another injures themselves far more than the other, -they will cease to be unkind. - -“As a matter of course I could not give up my old ways of thinking at -once. I still found myself quick to anger and ready to hate at the -knowledge of offence or injury. These feelings instantly plunged me -into darkness and the companionship of demons hideous to behold. - -“It is so in your world also. Rage and hate darken your mind, and -bring into it hideous demons of thought; but love fills you with light -and beauty. Though your conception of love be crude and narrow, still -the germ of divinity is in it, and it will brighten your way as far as -its light extends. If you are faithful to truth as you see it, broader -conceptions will come to you. - -“I am not capable of instructing you on life here, only so far as it -has revealed itself to me. Another may have different experiences and -see a different outlook. Each soul is bounded by its own limitations, -which expand as it advances. I am but a student, at the feet of wiser -masters; but I must give you what I see, not what they see. - -“I believe the universe is electric; that spirit operates through -all nature by means of what you call electricity, in its different -manifestations. The infinite mind, or what is called God, is the -highest and most etherealized substance, including all else. It -possesses the attributes of inherent motion and living power, and it -has a centre like a great central sun, whose rays extend everywhere -through a system of transmitters. We live and move and have our being -in it, just as all physical life owes its existence to the sun of its -system. Electricity is the servant of this central and all-inclusive -mind, whose every thought is transmitted through creation by means of -electrical and etheric vibration. Every thought of yours creates a -flash of electricity in your brain, which becomes a transmitter, for -thought is electric. Do not forget, however, that I give this only as -what appears to me. - -“Life is an endless chain. To me now the mere fact of living after -death seems a very small thing--but one little link in the endless -chain. Dazzling heights rise before us as the soul goes on up the -steps of knowledge, where inexhaustible joys are laid up for us. -Nothing counts but knowledge--knowledge of the law. Now I understand -that eternal life is to know God. It takes eternal life to know him. - -“When you act from the outlook of love, you will never go wrong; for -truth is born of love. - -“Weave well the fabric of your thought, for everything is made from it. -The law of causation is inflexible. What you give you will get. Your -thoughts will come back to you, bringing whatever freight of evil or -good with which you sent them forth. Every time you think of a person -you affect him for good or ill. - -“If you sin, you will be the servant of sin. If you love good, you will -be the instrument of good. - -“‘God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit -and in truth.’ - -“The whole law is there. If you live the life of the spirit, you -worship God because you express truth. Each man on earth, as to his -real self, is as true a spirit as he ever shall be. Only in most cases -he is ignorant of that tremendous fact. Understand this and live it, -and you worship God in spirit and in truth. - -“Here imagination is reality. It is also the creative realm in your -world. I think and will, and my thought takes form. I think of one I -love, and instantly I am with that one, no matter in how remote a part -of the universe he or she may be. - -“I say remote, because you think of distance as real. To the soul it -does not exist and never has existed. It is but the continuity of the -mind--a mode of thought. I speak of minutes, yet for us there is no -time. That too is but a mode of thought. I must, however, use terms -comprehensible to you. - -“Do I have the same form as in life? Yes. - -“Do I wear clothes? I am clothed by my own thought, and so are you, but -in a cruder way and by a slower process. - -“Have I sight? Yes, but it is not the same as physical sight. That was -for the objective life; this is for all that is related to my inner or -true being and the true being of others. - -“Have I the other senses as in the natural life? Yes; in a fulness and -perfection undreamed of before. I have them and others unknown to you -all blended in one vast consciousness which puts me in touch with all -that relates to me in a manner impossible to describe. - -“The senses are but avenues through which your spirit takes cognizance -of its environment. Here the spirit learns that it is its own -environment. - -“Is communion between this world and yours beneficial to either one? -(Remember there is but one world. The division is all in your thought.) -Is not association with high-minded, well-instructed persons always -beneficial to you; and association with the evil-minded and untaught -always hurtful? - -“How are human beings to know they are deathless; if the fact be -not proved to them by ways within their comprehension? Can there be -anything but good in learning the law of your own being, by whatever -means are open to you? Not only is it beneficial, but it is the most -important branch of knowledge you can study. - -“Even spirit phenomena of the most rudimentary order are useful and -necessary to the awakening of minds incapable of understanding higher -methods of instruction. There is a primer stage in all learning. - -“The same law of attraction governs intercourse between us and you that -reigns throughout nature. Like attracts like. You call to you the same -order of mind from here that you attract there from among the living. -(In reality there is neither a here nor a there, save in your mind. -All is the same.) Your habitual quality of thought will attract its -like. You will get what you give. Thus it happens that the foolish get -foolish messages, and the earnest and intelligent generally receive -sensible and instructive ones. - -“As I divine the purposes of higher orders of beings here, they care -relatively little for phenomena, and often lament much connected with -phenomena; but they do care a great deal for whatever agency can reach -human minds and cause them to think, even for ever so few minutes, of -what is gentle, humane, kind, considerate, unselfish and affectional. -These are the doors by which higher, gentler spirits reach human -understandings, and by these means they exert a power far greater than -is generally suspected. - -“For the production of ordinary phenomena a high grade of intelligence -is not necessary. You do not need a professor to teach a child its -alphabet. The better developed spirits find more subtle ways of -imparting knowledge, and select more advanced minds to receive it -than those that are satisfied with rudimentary phenomena. But that is -necessary to begin with. - -“Here as on earth--remember I use a term implying locality for your -better understanding, though the spirit knows no locality--all who -enjoy a larger light than the multitude are anxious to share it with -those less favored. By helping others into it they receive more of it -themselves. This is a law. Selfish, indeed, would be the soul who had -a faith that supported him through every trial, and yet did not want -others to have it. The heart’s desire of every prophet, genius and -savior, is to make others see as he sees that which illumines his own -soul. For this cause the noblest and best have often perished--that is, -given up their physical life--to perish in reality being impossible. -Therefore, communion between spirits still in the body and those out -of it is one of the most important means of education known--the chief -occupation of some who are here. - -“Toying with phenomena for the sole purpose of gratifying -curiosity--mere wonder-mongering--is always to be deprecated. - -“Often, as in my case, the opportunity of communicating with -friends left behind sets a spirit free from his own unhappy -thought-limitations. It lifts a burden from him. My desire to prove to -you that I was not dead held me in bondage until I bridged the gulf. -Intense love for one is always a kind of bondage. The perfect love we -shall know, when the truth has freed us, is all-embracing, universal, -like unto the love of God--it is the love of God. - -“When I read these words of Condillac I laughed at them: ‘Though we -should soar into the heavens, though we should sink into the abyss, we -never go out of ourselves; it is always our thought that we perceive.’ - -“Now I can affirm their truth. We can never run away from ourselves. -We take our own world with us wherever we go, for it is made of our -thought--‘it is always our own thought that we perceive.’ We are our -own thought--and the smallest insect or strongest and fiercest beast or -greatest genius is no less and no more. - -“In the life of the world I never knew happiness. Behind a cynical -and reserved exterior I masked a restless, suffering spirit. Creation -appeared a grim tragedy. This was because my inner eyes were closed, -and I took the distorted shadow for the reality. I was looking at a -fantastic mirror and saw only its exaggerated reflections. I ridiculed -the idea of any one’s being happy in such a world. Now I know that man -is destined to be happy, but his happiness is of the spirit, and can -only come with spiritual development, when he knows that he is spirit, -lives the life of the spirit, and so becomes free from the bonds of -ignorance. This is what is meant by the truth making us free. Ignorance -is the only evil there is--mere blindness to the light, though the -light is always shining. When you know the truth, you become the truth, -and are out of the darkness of ignorance, therefore free. This is, I am -told, the ultimate destiny of the whole human race. - -“Remember that God never punishes any one. He only teaches. This, -the children of the world have to learn. They, too, must eliminate -punishment from their methods of dealing with the wrongdoers, otherwise -the ignorant. - -“A wise friend told me to cease my self-questioning and striving, -and let knowledge find me. He said we have only to _let_ good -come to us and it will fill us. To do this we must make ourselves -receptive--negative--and the spirit, the one spirit, which includes all -wisdom, all love, all life, being positive, will flow into us. He said -our continual striving and struggling made us positive, and therefore -unreceptive. This enabled me to see a new meaning in the question, -‘Who, by searching can find out God?’ - -“The law is to be still--ready to receive--and let him enter. - -“When I did this I emerged from suffering and darkness, and for the -first time in the memory of my conscious existence felt my spirit at -rest.” - - - - - CHAPTER XVII. - - UPROOTING A HUMAN TREE. - - A man said unto his angel: - “My spirits are fallen through, - And I cannot carry this battle: - O Brother, what shall I do?” - - * * * * * - - Then said to the man his angel: - “Thou wavering, foolish soul, - Back to the ranks! What matter - To win or lose the whole.” - - --_Louise Imogen Guiney._ - - -The Joys, otherwise the Hanleys, fell into financial trouble. Burton -Hanley was forced to make an assignment for the benefit of his -creditors. He had enough to pay every dollar he owed, and he turned it -all over with an out-of-date honesty that scandalized the community. - -The envious found a certain sweetness in this news. Nodding their heads -knowingly, they said they guessed the Joys were about done with Joy. -But this did not seem to be the case. On the evening following the -assignment they were at an entertainment in the house of a friend and -were the blithest guests, as they generally were. - -The knowing ones said this light-heartedness was put on--a mere bluff -to make others think they did not value money. As a matter of fact it -was not. They had simply forgotten all about their financial troubles -in the engrossing pleasures of the hour. This enviable faculty for -enjoying the present moment, unclouded by past or future shadows was -largely responsible for their joyous lives. For them there was only the -now. They never reasoned or philosophized about it, but just lived that -way by nature. - -“Wait till they have a hand-to-hand fight with Poverty,” said the -knowing ones, who are often the cruel ones. “Wait till he writes his -name on their clothes, their faces and their thoughts. Wait till he -walks with them, sits with them, eats with them and never leaves them -for an instant! Wait!” They said this in a way that made their hearers -understand the waiting would not require patience. - -Kinder ones sighed and said the Joys, poor souls, laughed at poverty, -because they didn’t know its horrors. But they were destined to better -acquaintance with the dreaded spectre. Meantime they went their way -rejoicing that affairs were no worse. - -Lilla was so full of what she had learned through Chrissalyn of the -deathlessness of herself and fellow beings, that she bubbled over -like a kettle filled to the brim and boiling. What was loss of money -and a contest with poverty to one who knew that Death was dead? This -knowledge was of a character too fermentative to remain bottled up -within her. She went around talking of it, unmindful of the injunction -not to cast pearls before swine. An enthusiast by nature, and endowed -with power to carry conviction to an extraordinary degree, it is -strange she did not succeed in the propaganda; but she did not. On -the contrary the swine turned upon her and she was rended, like other -prophets who have been guilty of similar indiscretion. - -To each other some of the swine said: “Poor Lilla Joy. Burton’s failure -has upset her after all. Talks about nothing but souls. Thinks she has -had proof of dead folks being alive. It’s too bad.” - -But Lilla refused to be cast down. After a time she gave up the -hopeless work of letting her light shine too far, it is true, but she -kept her strangely happy face and joyous ways--kept them through many -a dark day, on many a stony road--kept them to the end. She met all -things, troublous or pleasant, as Socrates said he wished to meet the -gods--with a bright face. - -This never-changing brightness made an impression on everybody who -beheld it. One might feebly describe it by saying that her soul seemed -too large and too happy for its mortal measure, and was always running -over. - -Perhaps the office boy of the _Register_ hit it most felicitously, when -he thus described her to Cartice, who had been out, when she called -one day: “It was that lady who comes often and always looks as if she -had just heard good news.” Mrs. Doring recognized the word photograph -of Lilla Joy at once. - - * * * * * - -There are times in the lives of all when new departures are imminent, -when a change is impending and obligatory, yet is slow to define -itself. There is the feeling that other paths must be entered, but to -the outer eye they are unblazed. - -Such a time had come to Cartice Doring. She had long felt its approach, -but knew not the end to which it pointed. Something more than impulse -stirred within her. The Spirit of Destiny itself spoke the inexorable -command to move on. - -Whither? “Move on.” This was the only answer, for Destiny has a way of -making us choose our roads, though for the most part the various whips -within and without which play upon us seem to make the matter of choice -largely a thing of name only. We do what we can rather than what we -wish. This should give us a grain of comfort on dark days by relieving -us of regrets, and settling us in the conviction that we are no more -and no less than that which we must be. Even though our own nature be -the compelling and directing force, we are none the less servants to -its dicta. Call that which rules us by whatever name we choose, how -supreme is the sway! - -Looking over the situation Mrs. Doring summed up the reasons for making -a change. First, she was not doing her best; she was letting down a -little all the time, and that clearly was degeneration. Pleasure in -her work had gone and perfunctory performance taken its place. She was -weary of the miserable business of writing to please the many-headed -multitude, which the late Dr. Charles Mackay was fond of describing as -“fool of a public; pig of a public,” while her honest convictions had -to be kept locked up in her soul and labeled, “Dangerous,” like a can -of dynamite. - -In Prescott’s day she was free to say what she thought ought to be -said. Now, she was frequently brought to book for utterances far too -bold, in the opinion of the proprietors of the paper, who insisted on -a close connection between the counting room and editorial desk. As -a result of constantly trimming to suit the fitful breezes of public -taste, the _Register_ was losing ground. Strange law that governs the -minds of men! Kowtow to them and they despise and neglect you. Defy -them and they respect and court you. - -No; she must not stay with the _Register_. Internal wranglings were -shaking it. An eruption might take place any day, changing the whole -face of its affairs. - -For her salvation, intellectual and physical, she must go. Yet habit, -friendship and a horrible dread of facing new difficulties put up a -plea for her to stay. No; she must go, no matter what she had to meet, -loneliness, humiliation, disappointment, defeat, want, death itself. -MUST. Something told her that in a way that brooked no contradiction. - -But she was so tired--more tired than any one dreamed, in spite of her -almost jaunty cheerfulness. - -And what had she as financial armor for the new battle about to begin? -Grimly she smiled as she cast her mind’s eye in that direction. A -few dollars only. “Verily industry and talent combined are richly -rewarded,” she said. Yet she had made reputation; she was considered -successful. However, many a slave to the pen knows that reputation and -money do not always go hand in hand. Besides this imposing capital she -had her experience and the knowledge of her own powers which it had -brought. Valuable capital, to be sure. Yet experience brings us another -gift which helps to weaken us by counteracting our faith in ourselves, -and that is a knowledge of the difficulties, a bold outlining of the -greatness of the task. - -What else had she wherewith to gird herself for that trip into the -unexplored, so sure to involve risks of many kinds? - -In the teeth of a wish to find a quiet place and there lie down, -closing her eyes to the world forever,--in the face of a weariness -untellable, she knew that within the hidden depths of herself, under -all the scars, disappointments and fatigues was courage. - -What other prop had she? A strong, an invincible one--the knowledge -that eternal being and her being were one and the same, and that she -was never alone or dependent on herself, however much this seemed to be -the case; that living, loving souls, angels, if you choose, had charge -concerning her and that the everlasting arms of universal love were -ever about her. - -She would go to New York, a field of many gleaners, truly, but big, -and therefore of promise. The needle of her destiny pointed in that -direction. There was its magnet. With the decision came peace. - -Yet day after day she lingered, telling no one of her decision, and -feeling that she belonged neither to the place she was in nor to that -for which she was bound--a curious, detached sort of existence such as -had ever been hers, when she must tear herself from an accustomed place -and seek an unaccustomed one. The work of uprooting herself involved -pains and groans like those of a great tree, when torn up by a storm. - -In love of locality Cartice was a tree, and frequently said so. Her -pleasure would have been to live always in one place, taking deeper -root every day, and loving the soil that sustained her. Doubtless -because this was her nature, fate decreed that she should have no -chance to take deep root anywhere, for her own good. - -Those days of inward groaning and tree-like clinging to a spot of which -she had long been weary, reminded her of other days, now years in the -past, when she had uprooted herself from the only peaceful bit of life -she had known, to go forth and marry Louis Doring and become sister to -misery. - -Then she had swayed and clung and groaned day after day, only to yield -at last to the force that ruled her destiny, and she knew she must do -the same now. - -A time came, however, when the human tree lay prone, its uprooting an -accomplished fact. Its roots, bared to the sun and wind, trembled a -little, but the groaning was over. - -Now there was nothing to do but tell Chrissalyn and go. - -The Butterfly paled as she heard the decision. - -“I have known this for a long time,” she said, “long before you knew -it yourself, but I would not speak of it, lest you might be guided by -what I said. I learned it by the inside way that things are told me so -often. It’s hard for me to have you go; but I understand, and believe -it’s for the best. Does any one else know?” - -“Not yet. I don’t tell others, even good friends, because they will -ask questions about my plans and dig my very heart out of my body to -find out all about what I am going to do. In the first place I don’t -know. In the second I should not care to tell if I did. Telling spoils -everything for me. Why do people make inquisitions of themselves and -torture others merely to gratify an idle curiosity?” - -“Cartice”--Chrissalyn spoke a little cautiously--“in the face of what -you have been saying, and knowing that your temper is not seraphic, I -will say I wish I knew for sure that you would have something to hold -on to, when you get to New York.” - -“Chriss, dear, I _must_ find something, that’s all there is to it. -MUST. That word is a magnet drawing whatever it demands. Whenever we -MUST have something, we get it.” - -Contact with the industrial problem had let a few practical ideas into -the Butterfly’s once airy head. Therefore she was concerned about the -financial future of her friend. Still, she did not comprehend the -situation in its tragic entirety. A prop of some kind had ever been -near for her to lean on in dire extremity. Fate provides props for -those who are not strong enough to stand alone; but the great souls are -placed where there is nothing to lean against, that they may both keep -and show their strength. They suffer; their hearts often bleed; but -they stand. - -Then, too, Chrissalyn looked upon her friend as a person of such -incomparable ability, that she could overcome any obstacle, however -formidable. “How I shall miss you, Cartice,” she said, huskily. “How -lonely and bereft I shall be.” - -“You have your admirers, your moths.” - -“My moths? Yes, my miserable moths,” said Chrissalyn, contemptuously. -“They are about as much comfort to me, as so many of the genuine -insects. I am a proof of evolution. I have evolved too far to find -them interesting. But where are the men? Do they not exist outside of -novels any more? For a long time I cherished dreams of meeting one whom -I could love without being ashamed of myself, but I am giving them up. -Sometimes, where I hear of friends marrying, it all sounds so fine that -I am quite envious until I see their husbands, and then I am better -contented.” - -For Cartice the pain of parting from her friend was intensified by the -knowledge that it meant loss of opportunity to talk with her beloved -unseen people. The Butterfly was a telephone to the other world whose -like might never be met again. - -They spent the last evening together. Their invisible friends -understood what was determined upon, without any telling. Prescott was -asked if he had any suggestions to make in regard to Cartice’s plans. - -“It is not for us to direct you,” he said. “You must steer your own -bark. That is the business of life. The field is wide, and you have -your place therein and will find it. Don’t be discouraged. We shall be -often with you, and shall keep an eye on you.” - -The evening was one long to be remembered by the two who were so soon -to be separated, tinged as it was with the melancholy that colors all -last occasions. - -The final glimpse Cartice had of the place that had been to her a -city of sorrow as well as of light, showed her the Butterfly waving a -loving and tearful adieu. Dear Butterfly! Was there ever so charming -a combination of vanity, love of pleasure, earthly prettiness and -goddess-like ability to do wondrous things? - -Cartice settled herself for her journey, feeling somewhat as a soul -might who had just issued from one very difficult and wretched -incarnation and knew that in a few hours it must begin another, which -in all probability would prove more difficult and more wretched. - -It takes courage to face the mouths of cannon; yet that, though -horrible, lasts not long. But the woman who, alone and unknown, goes -into the mixed and frightful mass of humankind represented by a great -city, to seek a chance to earn honest bread, displays a courage besides -which that of the bravest soldier must lose a little of its luster. -And any one who makes her hard road harder, builds for himself a wall -which will not be easy to scale; he is but lengthening the period of -his own spiritual evolution. - -The train rolled on, its wheels beating a steady rhythm like the feet -of flying horses, their vibrations striking the sick heart of the weary -woman inside, and making it quake with terror. - -She had kept a smiling face before the Butterfly clear to the last; but -now that she was alone--at least unknown to her fellow travelers, hence -secure from intrusion, her courage evaporated, and she curled up on her -sofa, a mere lump of suffering. - -As the telegraph posts flew by she pictured herself taken out, tied to -one and shot dead by balls from many rifles, and earnestly wished she -could exchange her present situation for such brief pain. - -Is this world hell? The query had come to her before, and now it -challenged her boldly. Whose happiness or safety was secure for the -morrow? - -Of what was ahead of her she scarcely dared to think. Glimpses of its -grim possibilities flashed across her mind, making her mobile face -set and stern. A frightened light came into her eyes and a strange -expression fluttered around her mouth. In imagination she was seeing -the two rivers that flow on either side of New York, and was thinking -of what they had done and were yet to do for those who found the burden -of life greater than they could bear. - -In that moment she felt a cool, soft breeze about her, and with it -came the thought that she could never seek solace there--she who knew -that life reached out an unbroken line, beyond the sight and even the -dreams of men. Not for her ran rivers, whose flowing waters lapped and -swirled and wooed world-weary hearts. Did she believe that silence, -nothingness, insensate dust alone were at the end of our journey here, -there; blessed be the rivers! But she knew--knew beyond doubt that no -river can extinguish the spark of divinity we call consciousness. - -After all, why should she fear? No one stands absolutely alone. There -is no separateness, no differentiation. Back of each, eternal Being -mirrors itself forever; and that which we see is as nothing compared -to that which we see not. The cloud of witnesses more than witnesses. -Influences invisible, but powerful, are ever working for us. Threads -hidden from bodily eyes connect us with all life beheld and unbeheld. - -Her own people were in touch with her, loved and inspired her, no -matter in what part of the universe they dwelt, and nothing could -divide her from them. - -Remembering this, the shadow of fear passed, and she prepared to meet -her destiny with courage. - -New knowledge had brought new responsibility. Life was not to be -haggled through as a hateful bargain; it must be lived in the highest -sense; its lessons faithfully learned and character constructed by the -master architect, experience. One must do one’s best, in the teeth of -the storm, in the front of the battle. We must always be able to look -our souls in the face without shame. - -Suppose her efforts and even her life ended in failure at last! What -matter? To succeed in the world’s opinion is often to fail in the -exacting eye of conscience. Perhaps the only permanent success is -failure. The joy, the glory and the reward are in the doing, not in the -result. The fateful question for all of us will be, not, “Hast thou -won?” but “Hast thou striven?” - -The things we call pain and pleasure she knew to be illusions, -mere thought pictures painted on the canvas of our consciousness, -by ignorance--ignorance of our true being and the true purpose of -existence. - -So she said, “No matter what comes, since I know that out of all the -pain and humiliation the world can put upon me, out of the shadow of -death, I shall rise and pass on to my eternal unfolding. - -“For me there is no want. Have I not bread to eat that thousands of -others as yet have not, because they will not receive it? - -“For me and for the whole human race there is but one thing needful, -and that is the knowledge that eternal being is within, around, about -us and we are it.” - -Spiritualism? The ignorant will say with a sneer. Yes, in the highest, -broadest and deepest sense. It sustained this lonely woman on her -journey to a great city to work out her life’s problem, and after she -was there it gave her patience and confidence. It made it impossible -for her to seek the river, and enabled her to wear a cheerful face and -carry a hopeful heart, while her little store of money dribbled down to -a few lonesome dollars. - -Without this rock of faith those long, lonely days of seeking and -waiting would have been unbearable. Sometimes she sat in the public -squares looking compassionately upon the pitiful people about her. The -homeless, the hopeless, the hungry, the despairing, the weary, the -ailing, the suffering, the broken-hearted were there, some in rags and -some in fine garments. Within each one ached and ate the canker of a -wretchedness they tried to hide from happier souls who passed them by. - -Cartice read their misery by the light of past suffering, and yearned -to say to them: “Awake! You are in a dark dream. The conditions that -trouble you are unreal--mere illusions, and touch not your true life at -all. You are gods every one, but unaware of your divinity. One day the -dream shall pass and you shall know this.” - -But the etiquette of civilization forbade it. We see our fellow beings -suffer and perish from some wound in the soul, yet approach them not. -All she could do was to send out to them, through the silent waves of -thought, messages of hope and good cheer. - -In those days of striving and waiting and studying the swarming life -about her Mrs. Doring turned over the economic problem in her mind many -times. Curious industrial system, that condemns idleness and yet makes -the search for employment bitter and hard! - -The two arts which held her chance were hedged about in such a way that -the most she could do was to shoot an arrow from afar and trust that -it might stick. Nor was she unaware that many other arrows were flying -from other archers, each one diminishing the chances of the rest. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII. - - BOHEMIA’S HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS. - - “Work thou for pleasure; paint or sing or carve - The thing thou lovest, though the body starve. - Who works for glory misses oft the goal; - Who works for money coins his very soul. - Work for the work’s sake, then, and it may be - That these things shall be added unto thee.” - - --_Kenyon Cox._ - - -One day a miracle happened,--at least Cartice Doring considered it a -miracle. She was swinging to a strap in one of the always dirty and -frequently crowded cars of the elevated railroad--when, as the train -went ricketing round a curve she was flung against a man behind her -with such force that both well-nigh fell to the floor. - -Before she could apologize, a familiar voice said: - -“Mrs. Doring! I’m delighted to have been knocked down, since it proves -to be the means of meeting you.” - -He was a newspaper man whose occasional visits to the _Register_ she -had greatly enjoyed; and his was the first familiar face that she had -encountered since she had turned her back on former scenes. - -“Why, Mr. Farnsworth, I’m glad enough to cry,” she blurted out, and -came near proving the truth of her assertion. - -When he learned that she had come to New York to seek her fortune, he -said: - -“I can put a spoke in your wheel, for I came here with that intention -myself, and have my tent permanently pitched. A pen and pencil like -yours need never be idle. Come to our publishing house to-morrow at two -o’clock--here’s a card--and we will lay the corner-stone of your future -greatness.” - -Cartice was wakeful far into the night nursing her gratitude, and -thinking over the miracle. Farnsworth had been a lifelong friend to -Prescott. Perhaps Prescott brought about their meeting, and put it into -Farnsworth’s head to employ her. Who knows what the people we call -dead may not be able to do? Perhaps they give us many of our thoughts, -purposes and plans. Does not every event in our lives, however trivial -and insignificant, hang upon thousands of preceding events, great and -small? - -And when it comes to a question of what a soul can or cannot do, -embodied or disembodied, who can answer? - -What is the soul of man? Before assigning it limitations it were well -to know its composition. It is assumed to be the “immortal unit which -represents personality”; but here and there have been men and women who -demonstrated a marvelous complexity of ego, their visible body seeming -a mere tenement for a variety of distinct personalities, all linked -together by some mysterious chain of kinship, though not all resembling -each other, and not always dwelling in harmony. - -Stevenson makes Dr. Jekyll say, “I hazard a guess that man will be -ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and -independent denizens.” - -Are we not all conscious of a Mr. Hyde within us who breaks out at -times and sadly stains the good record of Dr. Jekyll? May we not be -harboring many Jekylls and Hydes, each differing in degrees of goodness -and badness? - -Thinking on this, Cartice remembered the answer of the nameless wise -one to the question, “What is the soul?”--an answer that startled her, -for it opened a vista so vast, since it meant that the soul is God, or -absolute being revealing himself or itself. - -This being granted, its personalities are beyond computation. Its -Jekylls and Hydes and its millions which are neither Jekylls nor Hydes -are past number. - -In a sea of wonder like this is it worth while to ponder the causes of -any miracle great or tiny? - -The next day Cartice found herself installed at a desk in Farnsworth’s -publishing house, pen and pencil both flying. The wished-for foothold -was found, and she stood upon it, busy and grateful. - -After becoming acquainted with a number of the metropolitan people of -the pen, she was obliged to give up many of her illusions regarding -them. Some of whom she had formed a flattering opinion, on acquaintance -fell far below the mark. Others who flew high on paper, kept shockingly -near the ground off paper. Some who had been successful were struggling -frantically against a turn of the tide. But that which astonished and -pained her most was their lack of ennobling ideals. Their pens were -ever pointed toward the market, their talk was of prices, not ideas, -and the shrine at which they worshipped was the ninth letter of the -alphabet. - -For the most part they were so busy writing and talking of what they -had written and intended to write, that none read another’s production. -Like swimmers in a turbulent sea, their energies were wholly given -to the business of keeping afloat. In slavery to the baker and -meat-seller, they expressed only such sentiments as they believed -acceptable to the commonplace majority,--otherwise marketable products. -They trimmed, tempered, pruned, whittled and cut their literary wares, -to make them suit what they supposed to be the public’s wants, without -regard to conscience or convictions. - -Did all angle in these shallow waters? No! Here and there a worthy -few had boldly refused to write down to the low level of average -intelligence. They had penned their honest thought, and by so doing -had brought a respectable portion of the public up to their plane, fame -and money sometimes coming with it. Consciously or unconsciously they -had operated a great law of the universe, that of giving one’s best to -get the best. - -In other words they had faithfully followed their highest ideals, in -the face of possible ruin, under the pressure of poverty and the frowns -of public taste and opinion. To do this is to live a great principle, -to set the soul free. Whoever does this shall reap the reward of -principle; he shall find his measure full. The multitude whose slavish -bonds of ignorance he defies will cringe and fawn at his feet and pour -its gold into his coffers. - -The ideal is the real. If it be high its faithful followers are lifted -up. - -Workers who spend their lives in throwing sops to the mass of mediocre -minds pay the inevitable penalty at last. They fall into the contempt -of the very monster whose favor they have courted, who at heart -respects only its masters, not its slaves. - - * * * * * - -One day Bardell, a straggler whose weapon was the pencil and whose -field was the dreadful one of the commonest newspaper art, stopped at -Mrs. Doring’s desk, as he often did, for a word or two. She regarded -him as an almost hopeless bungler, but liked his unassertive, dreamy -personality. Some of his drawings were altogether abominable, and in -none of them did he seem to have the slightest pride. - -He was undersized and queer-looking, with a big square head, a thin -stooping body, large hollow eyes, and a face that suggested a worn-out -spirit. - -Ordinarily he had almost no words about anything, yet seemed to derive -a silent pleasure from hanging near Cartice’s desk a few moments, -when he brought his drawings to the “art man” of the house. His -self-effacement was so refreshing to Cartice after much contact with -pushing ninth-letter people, that she showed him marked civility. - -To-day he seated himself and asked her opinion of the drawing he -carried. As usual, his manner was without animation, yet she instantly -felt that he expected a word of praise. This was extraordinary on -his part, as he invariably gave out the wordless impression that he -continued to live more from habit than anything else, but found life -wholly without interest. - -The picture, which was destined to illustrate a jingling little rhyme -and visualize it for such readers as have no imagination, represented -a short-skirted maid standing by a rustic fountain, pitcher in hand. -Cartice gave a little cry of delight, as her eyes fell upon it, though -a second glance showed her that something was wrong with it, but what, -she could not for a moment say. Presently the blunder stood revealed, -and was gross enough to mortify Bardell for all time, if she pointed it -out. Yet it would be his ruin to let him go to the “art man,” with the -drawing as it was. So she said, “It is charmingly done; but there is a -trifling error in it. The girl’s feet are put on wrong. Left and right -have changed places.” - -The pale, hollow face of the artist flushed red with shame. “I’m most -grateful to you, Mrs. Doring,” he said, as his astonished eyes saw the -hitherto unnoticed blunder. “Had I gone to Buskirk with that it would -have been the end of me in this shop. As it is he almost withers me -with his contempt. It doesn’t stop at my work, either, but includes all -there is of me, physically, mentally, artistically, and financially. -I sustain myself under it with the reflection that, however profound -his contempt for me, it is outdone again and again by my contempt for -myself.” - -Cartice understood well the awful wounds to self-respect men and -women are daily forced to endure for the sake of a chance to earn -a livelihood. She looked at Bardell with a vast, wordless sympathy -shining in her eyes, thinking of the courage necessary in the tragedy -of life, as displayed by the man before her and tens of thousands of -others. He understood and went on: - -“I don’t endure it for the mere sake of living, I assure you. The -experience called life, as I know it, isn’t worth it. But when I was -younger and considerably more of a fool than I am now, I married, -as a kind of business or because others did, or I don’t really know -why. Anyhow, I have a little family now, and I have to put up with -everything, no matter what, in order to support them. Besides, I have -other ties that hold me to life, and those are my ideals.” - -Mrs. Doring looked up with a start. “Tell me about them,” she said. - -“Ever since I can remember they have been with me, and are my true -life,” he said. “They exist in the shape of simple rustic scenes, -old-time well-sweeps, tumble-down stone-houses and walls and things of -that sort, with people in them who are a part of their history. They -come into my mind and insist upon being painted. They are not satisfied -to be put in black and white. That is crucifixion for them and for me, -too. They beg, entreat and command me to put them in color. - -“This girl at the old-time fountain in this drawing is one of them. -That’s the reason the picture isn’t hard and lifeless like most of -the truck I bring in here. The blunder of putting her feet on wrong -occurred, because I drew the feet last, and about that time she found -out that she wasn’t being painted, but was to be a sacrifice to the -terrible monster of newspaper illustration, which is an easy way to -please children and uneducated people, and an offence to those of a -higher order of intelligence. In rage at the use I was going to make -of her she jumped up and down so fast that her feet got tangled in my -mind. I saw her, you understand. She was real--I saw her--not in flesh -and blood, but imagination, which to me is a kind of higher reality.” - -Astonished and delighted to find one worker with ideals above mere -keeping afloat, Cartice asked him if he worked on his ideals or merely -dreamed of them. - -“I reach after them all I can,” he said, “handicapped as I am. I give -my heart to them, though I haven’t been able to give them much of my -time. But I have not kicked them out of my way, or murdered them to -sell their flesh at the nearest market, as many of my associates have -done. Nor have I given up the belief that, if we work on our ideals, -devote ourselves to them, in the face of every obstacle, we shall be -lifted out of the dreadful mire of the commonplace, where the feet of -most of us stick fast all our lives. But they will have no half-hearted -devotion. They want whole-souled service only, and they are right. -Willing to give us all of themselves it is only fair they should ask -all from us. - -“I have worked but little in oil, and am almost entirely uninstructed, -yet these pictures form, whenever I take up a brush; and it isn’t -putting it too strong to say that they beg to be painted. They come in -color exactly as they want to be put on canvas,--not simply in my mind, -but before my eyes, though thin and shadowy. - -“One Sunday when rambling in the country I passed an old well, and said -to myself, ‘I’ll paint that.’ Instantly I saw a man lying by the well, -though no man was there. I painted it that way and put it up in the den -I call my studio. - -“One day a stranger who came there with one of my friends saw it and -took a great fancy to it. He said it was a scene from his memory. -The old well was the one at his childhood’s home, and the man was -his father, as he had seen him lying in the shade many a time, long -ago. The upshot of it was, that he offered me two hundred and fifty -dollars for it--it was a little thing--which it is needless to say I -accepted. When he went away I thought I ought to faint or do something -extraordinary to work off my astonishment.” - -“But you didn’t rest on that?” - -“No; I went on with other ideals, in little spots of time squeezed out -of the odd-jobbery of my daily grind in black and white. I believe -that, when we work on our ideals, the very shape of our heads change. -My mother says mine is changing, for which I am most grateful, its -original shape being like unto an old-fashioned country horse-block.” - -“Have you had sympathy in the pursuit of your ideals?” Cartice asked. - -“Not always. That was a want I felt for ten years. All that time I -hunted for a companion, an artist, who, like myself, loved the country -and rural subjects, to paint with me. At last I found one and have him -yet. We inspire each other. Together we go to the country on Sundays -and make studies. The other artists I encounter in my humble path -are so woodeny, so coarse, so worldly that I need patience to suffer -them at all, and I never find them companionable. They chaff me and -call me a sentimentalist. I don’t care. I believe in sentiment. If I -didn’t idealize life and work, I should have to give both up. I would -willingly go and live in the humblest little old place in the country -and never see a city again, if I could but work on my ideals.” - -Cartice was seeing the square-headed little plodder from a new point -of view--an inner and spiritual one, and in its beautifying light the -square head became symmetrical, the stooping shoulders erect, the pale -face attractive, the eyes aflame with vital force, and the bearing that -of one conscious of being of value. It was then that she recognized him -as one of her own people, from her own planet, and blamed herself for -not sooner seeing through the transparent mask that hard environment -had made. - -She asked him what he thought is to be the fate of those, who, having -an ideal, stifle, ignore or slaughter it even, and give their time -and energy to the performance of some poor pitiful, paltry work which -demands but a tithe of their ability, for the sake of a little money -with which to keep out the unwelcome howls of the wolf. - -“Look about you and see,” he said, with a contemptuous gesture. “Look -at me, a creature slinking in and out of rich publishing houses, -hunting crumbs, like the dogs that hung round the rich man’s table, -with fear written in every movement, dejection in my spirit, indigence -in my garments and weariness in my heart.” - -He got up and walked to and fro nervously, and as he moved and talked -he became transformed. The timid, shrinking little figure vanished and -in its place strode one whose step was firm and eye fearless. - -“There are hundreds like me. The woods--the city’s accursed woods are -full of them. They run over each other in their eagerness to do the -bidding of some master who can drop a coin or so into their flabby -purses. Faust sold his soul to the devil for a good price; but we, -miserable wretches, sell it daily for a song. Why? Because we are such -pitiful cowards that we can’t face the scarecrow that goes by the name -of starvation. We live so far below our true selves that we don’t know -the law that would carry us through, which is, give the best to get the -best. Why not trust the soul? The ideal is the real; it is the voice of -the soul, otherwise the voice of God, and it _must_ have expression. -If not here and now, then sometime, somewhere. Its account is bound to -be presented and _must_ be paid. Death itself can’t prevent the final -settlement. - -“What do they do at school with the lazy boy who slights his lessons? -After a while they turn him back in his books and he has his road to -retrace. We shall have the same experience, if we have heard the voice -of the ideal and heeded it not. We shall be sent back to do it all over -again--yes, from beyond the grave, for what can there be on the other -side for him who has betrayed his trust, but contempt and a command to -go back and try again?” - -He stopped before Cartice, and with blazing eyes and uplifted finger -said, “In this moment I determine to outrage my ideals no more, come -what may. I have new light. We all have been acting on the assumption -that we knew what would happen if we didn’t do thus and so. In point -of fact nobody knows. With results we have nothing to do. We have only -to follow our highest leading and leave the rest to God. To ignore or -debase a noble gift that has been entrusted to us is a sin against our -souls, which many of us have stupidly committed day after day, and we -are daily paying the penalty. You shall see me here no more, bartering -work in which I have no heart for a few miserable dollars. Never again; -no, never again.” - -“You are right, Mr. Bardell, a thousand times right,” said Mrs. Doring, -with throbbing heart and glistening eyes. “I have long known that one -should never give less than the best, and that an outraged ideal will -be avenged. Yet I daily commit that sin. I used to feel that I had -something more than common to do in the world. I had ideals; but I put -them off, always waiting for a time when I could see my way clear to -devote myself entirely to them. I waited too long. Now they come less -frequently and are less urgent, and I have grown weary and indifferent. -I wasted my time hunting happiness.” - -“Happiness belongs to the ideal,” said Bardell. “It is a matter of -subjective appreciation, so is its opposite, misery. Perhaps it would -be clearer to say that happiness exists in the idea one forms of it, -hence it is purely ideal. We are happy, when we believe ourselves -happy. But for the most part all the world thinks happiness is to be -found in externals; that it can be secured in thick slices which we -can eat like bread, while comfortably seated in good houses. Money and -marriage are supposed to have a monopoly of it. What idiocy!” - -“Yes, idiocy,” Cartice echoed. “Thackeray says, ‘For my own part I know -of nothing more contemptible, unmanly or unwomanly and craven than the -everlasting sighing for happiness.’ When a child, I had a consciousness -or memory of a world in which I had once lived where there was no such -word as happiness, and yet none were unhappy. I understand that now. -It means that happiness only exists where it is not thought of, talked -about or pursued. I believe it is intended that we shall be happy; but -not in our own foolish way. Freedom is the destiny of the human race, -and that freedom holds for us a happiness infinitely greater and higher -than we now can imagine, because it contains our full development, -our perfected intellectual and spiritual growth. It is the freedom of -truth, long since prophesied. When we know the truth, we are free, and -happiness comes with freedom. Heaven is within one; it consists in the -soul’s unfolding or coming into a knowledge of itself. We reach that -through expression. In this way we grow, as every plant struggles to -do. So you see, if we strangle our ideals, we stunt our growth, and -shall be cut down like the bent, and imperfect tree,--cut down, to come -again perhaps, for another trial, and still another and another until -our destiny is accomplished. Therefore it is that doing our best should -be our religion, as it is nature’s religion. It is the only road we -can take which leads to the goal at which we must arrive, sooner or -later. It is the price each soul must pay who would be saved. Instead -of that, most of us have gone about hunting happiness on a childish -plane, and making a great plaint, when we didn’t find it. ’Twould be -laughable, were it not so pitiful.” - -“Isn’t it plain enough,” said Bardell, “that if a wholesome civic and -social spirit prevailed, we should be sufficiently enlightened to find -our reward in doing our best, whether it were to raise potatoes, polish -door knobs or paint pictures. All great men and women who have helped -humankind have done so. They gave their best and nothing less, even -when the world did not want it, and stoned them for it. They had a far -greater reward than human appreciation. They grew to heroic, mental and -spiritual stature. If Jesus of Nazareth had not given the best that was -in Him, even at the cost of crucifixion, He could not have been the -light of the world. - -“How would it be with the world to-day, if all the great spirits that -make up the enlightened minority, had merely jogged on doing something -that secured the necessities of the body, rather than run any risk -of being short of bread by pointing to a new road? The soul must follow -its best light, taking no thought for the result. I shall do that -henceforth.” - -“I rejoice in your emancipation,” Cartice said, looking at him with -glowing eyes. “I begin to see what it means to be born again. May it -not be to awaken a knowledge of our own being, value and work?” - -Bardell bade her good-bye with the seriousness of one going on a long -journey. When he was gone a new sense of loneliness came over her. It -was because he already had started up the mountain, leaving her still -in the vale. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX. - - THE JOYS. - - “Why went that young life out - On honor’s perilous road? - The carping tongue and the jealous mind - Stay here to wound and goad. - - “A picture once I saw-- - Three crosses against the sky! - And the heaviest cross was the highest one; - Perhaps that answers why.” - - -Mrs. Doring was surprised and delighted at receiving a visit from the -Joys one evening. Having parted with everything that goes by the name -of property, they had come to New York to seek fortune on the dramatic -stage, both having talent and taste for mimic art. As joyful as ever, -they met their changed fortunes with their old-time merry laugh. Their -two children were in an excellent school, and the business now in hand -was seeking a chance to earn the money necessary to keep the machinery -of life moving for them all. - -“Our time for looking about is somewhat limited,” said Burton, with -cheery humor, “as the cash box is not overflowing.” - -“We shall find something,” said Lilla, with calm assurance. - -“MUST,” said Mrs. Doring. “Must is a magnet. What we must have, we -always get.” - -The difficult search began at once in dead earnest. Thousands had -walked the rough road before them, some of whom had found foothold, but -others by scores and hundreds had gone down in the city’s remorseless -maelstrom. It was like being wrecked in mid-ocean. Some managed to -seize a plank and keep afloat. Some spent their strength and sank -early. Others buffeted the waves long and bravely, only to go down at -last, a pitiful, a woful, a heart-breaking spectacle. - -The animal known as the dramatic agent was an unknown quantity to -the Joys, hence they were not prepared for his peculiar antics. -Snubs, insults and sneers rained down upon them. Still they kept -on and still they wore cheerful faces, still the sunshine of their -hearts was unclouded--the heavenly sunshine that was rated as mere -empty-headedness by duller, coarser souls. - -Days and weeks rolled on, for “time carries no anchor,” until the money -that constituted their plank on the city’s rough ocean was gone. - -When talking with Cartice one evening, Lilla Joy said: “If we did not -_know_ that we outlast death and have endless life before us, Burton -and I would end our troubles and our children’s too, perhaps. It would -require less courage than we need for one day of life now. But we -_know_ that we can’t kill ourselves, however much we might try because -there is no death. In spite of bullets, knives, poisons and rivers, we -should still be alive, wondering, no doubt, why we were so blind as to -think we could destroy that which is indestructible. No; our salvation -must be worked out clear to the end, uncomplainingly. We are here to -learn, and must stay until we are ready to go higher. At the longest, -our probation is short, and it means so much to us. We are building -the edifice of character, which is to last for all time. This little -chapter of existence is but a day in the great cycle. No; I shall not -give up; I shall never despair, let come what may.” - -Day succeeded day, but no brighter outlook opened, yet never were they -seen with a cloud on their faces. Though their purses were empty, -friendship and compassion kept away bitter need, and their spirits were -sweet enough to accept the goods the gods sent without letting their -pride be wounded. It needs a sweeter spirit to receive than to give. - -At last a foothold on the stage was gained for both--an opportunity -more likely to increase humility than foster vanity, but they accepted -it thankfully, and it led on to better things. - -All went well for a time; but one day a telegram came announcing the -dangerous illness of their children, who had fallen victims to an -epidemic. They went at once. The children died, and a few days later -their father also closed his eyes to this world. - -Lilla returned to New York to go on with the grim business of life. -Was the joy gone from her face? No; it was still there, softened, -heightened and illumined by a new and holy light. - -“Dear friend,” she said, as she and Cartice talked together on the -evening of her return, “there are three new graves in the old cemetery -at home, but they do not hold my husband and children. That which each -contains is an unreality, a thing never destined to endure,--a garment -which the real being wore to make itself seen by our dim eyes. Alice -Carey has described it well: - - Though you wore something earthly about you - Which once we called you-- - A robe all transparent and brightened - With the soul shining through. - - But when you had dropped it in going-- - ’Twas but yours for a day-- - Safe back in the bosom of Nature, - We laid it away. - - Strewing over it odorous blossoms, - Their perfume to shed: - But you never were buried beneath them, - And never were dead. - -“Friends say that I am left alone; but it is not true. I am never -alone. There is no separation for those whom love unites. We are one -in the universal spirit of love--God. Did not one friend beyond -the grave tell us that every death is a resurrection? Is not the -stone already rolled away from every sepulchre? Would I call my dear -ones back to face the cruel conditions of life here? No, a thousand -times no. When I looked at the dead face of my husband, so calm, and -profoundly at peace with everything, I said ‘My love, my dear love, -heart of my heart and soul of my soul, love of my youth and companion -of my spirit forevermore, I thank God that the hard things of the -world can hurt you no more.’ The cruelest pang poverty has given me -was seeing him bear humiliation and insult in silence, with heavenly -patience. Poverty for oneself is bad enough, but when we see those we -love suffer because of it, we know exquisite anguish. I can make the -fight alone, and it is better so. He is safe. That will sustain me. - -“And my children; they, too, are safe. It is well with them. They are -not lost. All things we call lost are in the angels’ keeping. - -“I shall go on with my work, thankful for the chance, disagreeable as -much of it is, because of unavoidable contact with shallow, inferior -people. But my true life is away from it all, sacred and safe. There is -a reason beyond my fathoming for my being what and where I am. It is -all right--all wisely directed, and I shall go on, not sullenly, but in -patience and hope. My faith is that all is well. I must live it and -not simply talk it.” - -Looking at Lilla’s beautiful face, brightened with the radiance of -belief, Cartice Doring knew that one by one she was finding her -people--the people whom she dimly remembered as having been a part -of her life in the remote past, and who were linked by the ties of -sympathy and love to the present and all the endless future. - -Her own people,--the faithful, the heroic, the aspiring, the -wide-minded, the loving, the true. - -Lilla was one of them--Lilla of the light heart and rippling laugh in -days gone by; and of the sturdy soul and dauntless faith in sorrow and -misfortune. - -Now Cartice saw that her own people all became acquainted with -suffering, sooner or later, and that this was the greatest of teachers -to the human race. Without suffering nothing is born, nothing grows. - -“Who are these in white garments?” asked the saint of the heavenly -visions. - -“They are those who have passed through great tribulation,” was the -answer. - -In fancy she saw again the long procession, made up of her people. Out -of the dim and far distant past they came, filing steadily on into -the unseen, endless future. In each spirit burned the quenchless fire -we name genius; on each face were signs of suffering; “but no voice -uttered plaints.” Not all were victors. Many were of the baffled and -beaten, the disappointed and defeated, but they went to the wall with -unbent head and silent, smiling lips. - -“My people, my dear people,” she said, “with you I breathe the air -native to my soul. You sought the truth, you found it, you lived it, -and it made you free.” - -What is truth? Who can answer the Roman governor’s question? In the -Syriac tongue it is described as “the arrow which flies to the mark.” -Nothing else reaches the mark. Nothing else has a mark. Life has no -other aim and end than to free oneself from error, through a knowledge -of truth. This is the only power that can set us free, and only in -freedom is happiness. - -But with most people the search is not for truth but success--success -on the commonplace, external plane--which is the very negation of moral -growth and spiritual progress. High minds, dedicated to noble ideals -are few, but mediocres are numerous. - -“When we have escaped from the region of mediocrity we revel in a purer -atmosphere, where we may join hands with the elect and dance a round,” -said Marie Bashkirtseff, one of the youngest, bravest and brightest of -the elect. - -The mediocre mass is an aggregation of self-enslaved minds, against -whose self-satisfied stupidity the gods themselves are powerless. - - - - - CHAPTER XX. - - PEOPLE OF THE PAST. - - “Here sits he, shaping wings to fly: - His heart forebodes a mystery; - He names the name eternity.”--_Tennyson._ - - “What birth is, that also is death; it is the same line drawn in two - directions.”--_Schopenhauer._ - - -One evening at the house of a famous orator Mrs. Doring saw a face with -which she had been familiar since childhood, yet never before had she -seen it outside of the enchanted realm of imagination. - -It was a woman’s face, strong, noble, beautiful, and the eyes, the -brown eyes of it, had in them a compassion that embraced the whole -human race. - -Cartice looked upon it with an all-compelling fascination, for it was -the face of one of her own people--the very dearest one--the Helen of -her young dreams, to whom she used to tell her hopes and yearnings, and -who always understood, and gave sympathy and cheer. - -How often had she pictured that face on paper, trying to make objective -what she saw clearly with her subjective sight, but how impossible it -had ever been to give the eyes the direct, comprehensive, compassionate -glow that distinguished them,--the light of the soul itself, which -went straight to other souls! - -She would not ask the name lest it prove to be one below her ideal. She -hardly dared look away lest the precious vision vanish, while her eyes -were turned aside. No; it were better to hold the glad fancy as long as -possible. “Do you know Helen Gardener?” asked a voice at her side. - -She turned to the speaker, dazed and scarcely understanding. - -“Whom?” - -“Helen Gardener, the author,--that lady you were looking at just now. -Like Huxley and some of the more humble of us she believes that the -main thing is to have done with lying.” - -“Then she is my Helen,” thought Cartice. “How remarkable, too, that she -has the very same name I gave her.” - -“Come, Mrs. Doring,” said her friend, “I want to have you meet her. I -fancy you two will be pleased with each other.” - -When Cartice found herself talking with the incarnation of one of her -ideal people of long ago, she had a flash of knowledge of the oneness, -inseparableness and unchangeableness of all things past, present and -future. - -Did her new-found, old-time friend recognize her? It would seem so, for -she was strongly attracted to Cartice from the first moment. - -The question under discussion in the little group of whom she was one, -was whether art, especially the art of fiction, should exist for art’s -sake only--that is to give pleasure--or should it also aim to instruct. - -“I believe,” said Helen Gardener, “and have lived up to my belief, that -fiction which merely entertains, and carefully steers clear of the deep -and often dark problems that face all thoughtful minds is pernicious -in its effect. The literature of the optimist is the literature of -shallowness and selfishness, a bid for surface appreciation, an appeal -to a light and superficial taste. Life is tragic. If it be represented -in fiction, let the picture be true to nature. The novel should be a -tonic, not an opiate. What think you, Mrs. Doring?” - -“Like Goethe and Schiller I think art ‘no luxury of leisure, no mere -amusement to charm the idle nor relax the care-worn; but a mighty -influence, serious in its aims, although pleasurable in its means.’ The -advocates of art for art’s sake, say that its object is the creation -of the beautiful. What is the beautiful? Is it that which pleases the -eye only, or has it power to thrill the soul? The great novels have all -carried great messages. They have shaken the hearts of men and aroused -them to new knowledge; they have broken the bonds of prejudice, and set -the bondsmen free. They have effected a movement of the thought-world -in the direction of ‘that far-off, divine event toward which the whole -creation moves.’ They have spoken the truth as their authors beheld it.” - -Helen Gardener’s brown eyes glowed and she smiled affectionately, -saying: - -“You and I belong to the same ethical family, Mrs. Doring.” - - * * * * * - -That night as she lay down to sleep, Cartice half persuaded herself -that she was again a child, day-dreaming under the elm tree, the world -unknown and still idealized, and the years that lay between that time -and the present obliterated. - -“Do I wish it were so?” she asked herself. - -“No. I am glad so much of the journey has been accomplished. The future -is always better than the past. It has in it that which we are to -become, for life is endless becoming.” - -Cartice and the new-found Helen became warm friends; but not till their -friendship had stood the test of time did Cartice tell her how the -creative power we call imagination had found her years before. - -Quite as unexpectedly did Mrs. Doring one day meet the stranger to whom -she had confided her ambitions and dreams under the elm tree long ago. -She recognized him instantly, though of course he did not know her. - -The great world knew him well. The bauble fame, and the jewel of -success were his. - -It was he who had sung: - - “I’d rather fail in Bohemia, than win in another land. - * * * * * - - Its honors not garnered by thrift or trade, - But for beauty and truth men’s souls have made.” - -When she made herself known to him, his first question was, “Have you -found your own people?” - -“A few,” she answered, “a faithful few; but the search goes on forever.” - -In a little while he went away--went into the silence. - -Still another picture of the past came and blended with the present. - -In the parlors of a friend one evening, Mrs. Doring met a number of -the most eminent women from all parts of the country, who work for -the political liberty of their sex. There had been a convention in -Washington, and many of the delegates were “doing” New York before -returning home. - -A lady from what then was a territory, but is now a state, charmingly -told some of her experiences in laboring with members of her -legislature. She mentioned name after name, relating various incidents, -some humorous, and some exciting compassion on account of their -revelation of the depths of ignorance in certain legislative minds. - -“After several encounters with darkened minds of the class I have just -mentioned,” said the speaker, “it was a pleasure to have a chat with -Representative Kendall. We knew well where he stood, for throughout -his career, as editor and lawmaker, he has distinguished himself as -the staunch friend of every movement that promised to help women win a -greater freedom and therefore gain a greater usefulness. - -“Once I asked him how it was that he who had appreciated women -personally so little as never to have married one, was yet so loyal a -supporter of them in the aggregate that he cheerfully put his shoulder -to the wheel of every cart which carried their burdens. - -“‘Now that,’ said he, with a boyish laugh and sunny smile, ‘has its -root in a bit of sentiment; but I don’t deny that it has grown into a -principle. The only woman I found indispensable to me found me very -dispensable to her. Through that experience I learned that love, -if it be genuine, can rise higher than possession. She was of your -emancipated; that is, she made a place for herself in the world, and -leaned on no one. Her life showed me that woman could grow to heroic -mental stature, if she would think, work and act for herself. The one -of whom I speak requested me to do what I could all my life to make it -easier for women to get out of their dependent condition. I have done -so and have found pleasure in it. She is in the world somewhere, still, -and I feel that everything I do for women helps her. That’s my story. -Take it and use it, if you wish, as an example of how the monster man -can be humanized and regenerated by a woman who neither loved him nor -married him.’ - -“‘Whatever good I may have done, whatever I have achieved in any -praiseworthy direction, I owe to that woman. But for her wholesome -encouragement, if living at all, I should be still a clerk at some more -prosperous man’s desk, withered in spirit and wasted in body, and with -no brains at all. It used to be quite the correct thing, in stories, -for good women to marry rakish fellows, and ‘make men of them,’ as the -phrase had it. I am now convinced they achieve that result far quicker, -when they don’t marry them, whether rakish or otherwise, but make them -stand on their own feet entirely.’” - -Mrs. Doring listened to this story, feeling very much as might a ghost -who comes wandering back to its old haunts and hears some one talking -of its life when on earth, for this Kendall was her old lover whom -she loved not and she was the woman of whom he spoke. Turning to the -writing desk of her hostess, she wrote: - -“Cartice Hill Doring sends regards to the Honorable Charles Kendall. -It is with grateful pleasure she learns that he has been faithful to -the promise made to her long ago, to do what he could to make life -broader and freer for womankind.” - -The response was prompt and full. He told the story of his life from -the day of their parting to the day of writing. Then came these -paragraphs: - -“I am more than glad to have found you again. Not that I ever really -lost you, for you have an eternal abiding-place in my mind and heart. -Though I have forgotten much and wish I could forget still more of -the rubbish of memory, neither you nor aught pertaining to you can -be forgotten. You are not forgettable. But I am glad to be able to -talk with you once more, although it be only on paper and across a -continent. For me the end of the drama is near. I am in the last act, -which has but few scenes. Life and death! what are they? We know as -much of one as of the other, for we understand neither. We drop the -question of whence because the imminent whither faces us and must be -met, and dark enough it looms before us as we confront it at short -range. Who can answer this cry of perplexed humanity? - -“I turn to you as I did in the past, and bade you decide whether I -should go or stay. Now I have no choice but to go; yet tell me, shall I -go with peace and trust into light, or must I lie down to be wrapped -in darkness and silence forever? It is a time when my own strength is -insufficient, and I reach out for the clasp of an assuring hand. - -“Is it strange that I turn to you for the help I need on this journey, -which, though lonesome, is brief? It seems a natural thing to do. In -all the years since I saw you, and have known nothing of you, when -the way was uncertain, I always turned to you for guidance. I said to -myself: ‘Would Cartice Hill wish me to do this?’ And I did that which -I thought you would sanction. So you see you have been with me all the -time. We have never been separated. - -“To me you are always young--young and full of courage and hope. I -see you as I saw you last, a precious picture in my memory. The years -that have passed since then are blown like a breath away. I am sitting -beside you in the park again. I can almost touch your blue dress, and -I hear the scratching of your parasol as you wrote with its tip on the -ground. - -“The disease that was incipient in me in youth has been bravely baffled -by this climate. I sometimes think it is the insidious agent that will -ultimately destroy the human race. The end must come, however, even -here, and I see that it is coming. - -“So tell me what life has taught you about death, if anything. No -matter how hard and grim and fearsome the knowledge may be, I want to -know it. Strange that although we devote our lives to learning, and -many become vain of their acquirements, of this, the most important of -all subjects, nobody knows anything, and nobody cares to learn till -about to open the dread door.” - -This appeal Cartice answered by telling the story of her communion with -friends called dead, and she told this with a directness and simplicity -that went straight to the mark. To her it was clear enough that, if a -man die, he shall live again,--and shall grow, his growth depending -upon his aspirations. Genius itself has been described as a “faculty -for growth.” Being a citizen of the universe, man is destined to know -the universe as his native village. The form only changes. Death is not. - -To this Kendall wrote: - -“You have destroyed the last enemy for me. ‘Only the form changes.’ -Need we dread that? We may even be said to be used to it. We haven’t -the same bodies we began life with. They have changed in every -particular, again and again. - -“How extraordinary have been your privileges of learning those things -to which most of us have been so blind. Why not write the story out -more fully and publish it? Since it has helped me, might it not help -others? But don’t put it into a newspaper. There it would take no -higher rank than the traditional, blood-curdling ghost-story. Make a -book of it. That will place it on its own feet, to stand or fall by its -merits. - -“Yes, tell your experiences with those who dwell in what we call -another world; in fact, however, another condition. - -“I have had an instinctive, though not unwavering belief that this life -was not the end of us--perhaps not the beginning; but I had my hours of -gloomy doubt. The old twaddle of an eternity of happiness made up of -harps and golden streets did not appeal to either my intelligence or -taste. Perhaps, it was a shade less attractive than annihilation. - -“Learning to grow and to do, that is what makes an immortality worth -having. - -“I have lived on good terms with my conscience, which is of an -old-fashioned cut, not from fear of hell or hope of heaven, but because -I am that sort of man. I could not do otherwise. Yet I wish I might -have learned what you tell me, earlier. I think it would have made the -ills of life here of less moment and might have enhanced its joys and -beauties. - -“Who, understanding the philosophy of continued life as it has been -revealed to you, could fail to try and acquire some of the capital, -thieves cannot steal, with which to begin the larger life that opens -to us, when we pass the gates of death? It is helping me to make my -remaining time of more value. - -“You have influenced me as no other person has done ever since I knew -you. Now you light the road out of the world for me. I begin to see -that there are no accidents. - -“Let who will write the shallow tales that reach no farther than the -wedding-day. Write you the wonderful story of the love of God, as ’twas -told you by those who have tasted death and found it not bitter--tell -how this love encompasses and pervades everything in the universe, -conserving all and destroying nothing. Tell of the happiness destined -for the soul of man, which consists in endless unfolding. Tell all this -as simply and directly as you have told it to me, and you will inspire -the doubting and cheer the despairing.” - -To which Cartice replied: “In an old book it is written, ‘Though one -returned from the dead, they would not believe.’” - -Kendall wrote: “In the same book it is written, ‘Let your light shine.’” - -That night she sat down to write the first chapter of the book, but -instead wrote this: - - - HIS MESSAGE. - - He came, my dead love, at the close of the day, - Though the earth had long covered his garments of clay. - His face glowed with light and with love as he smil’d - And spoke in the voice that my heart had beguil’d-- - The beautiful voice that my heart had beguil’d. - - “You have wondered, my darling, what soul was the one - To first greet me with love when my dying was done-- - When I woke from the slumber that stretches between - The flesh-and-blood world and the kingdom unseen-- - The world that you see and the kingdom unseen. - - “Know then that the spirit, earth’s veil cast away, - Sees only the true in that radiant day. - He who first o’er my spirit, newborn, bent and smiled, - Was the foe who had gone from me unreconciled-- - My foe who had gone from me unreconciled.” - - So spake my dead love and then vanished away, - Like the mist of the valley when riseth the day. - But I know, since that moment, that hate is a dream - From which the soul wakes when it crosses Death’s stream-- - Awakes to love only, across that dark stream. - - I know, too, that Death cannot change, cannot kill - E’en the person. My lover, though dead, loves me still; - For he came, as of old, and upon me he smil’d, - And spoke in the voice that my heart had beguil’d-- - The beautiful voice that my heart had beguil’d. - -The book was begun. The writing of it was not an easy task in spite of -the writer’s warm interest in her theme. Little snatches of time, after -the daily grind at her editorial desk was over, were all she could -devote to it. Often she was too tired to write a line until she had -rested hours. Then, perhaps, to make up for such indulgence, she wrote -far into the night--wrote as though bayonets were pressing her--wrote -with no thought of publisher or public in mind. The truth, to write -the truth, as it was revealed to her, this was her inspiration, her -strength, her reward. - - - - - CHAPTER XXI. - - THE BUTTERFLY’S FLIGHT. - - “The Knight of the Pale Horse, he laid - His shadowy lance against the spell, - That hid her Self: As if afraid, - The cruel blackness shrank and fell. - - Then, lifting slow her pleasant sleep, - He took her with him through the night, - And swam a river cold and deep - And vanished up an awful height.” - - --_S. M. B. Piatt._ - - -Some time, it may be, before the world is very much older, we shall -know well what now we but dimly discern, that thought is the substance -and will the operating force of the universe, and that both are -electric. - -Then shall we understand the irresistible powers of attraction which -thought has for kindred thought; and we shall know why we seek -eternally our own kind of people, consciously or unconsciously, and -never know rest for the spirit until we find them, for only with them -is to be had the life-giving, soul-sustaining quality of sympathy, -through whose vibrations the universe was formed and is maintained. - -In obedience to this law of attraction Cartice Doring continued to -search for persons awake to the joyful fact that there is no death, so -she might learn more of the laws which govern communion between life -here and beyond. She found believers, but because of the various fads -and diversified foolishness with which they frequently garnished their -belief they were of slight help to her. - -Each gave his faith a name that revealed the fence he had built around -his mind, though he condemned all other fences. Some preached against -the phenomena of the spiritual philosophy and secretly reveled in it. - -And there were the theosophists, who, as Mr. Stead says, can always -explain everything. From the proud eminence of their omniscience many -of them looked down on plain spiritualists, and advised against showing -any civility to spirits. Yet they patronized mediums and astrologers on -the sly, and frequently produced a little of the phenomena themselves, -merely to show their occult power. - -Among these and sometimes outside the sacred pale, were -reincarnationists who make the plausible and beautiful theory of -progression through an eternity of existences distasteful and tiresome -by their “memories” of past human experiences. They had been princes of -high degree, invariably, never paupers or criminals. Napoleons, Cæsars, -Mahomets, Cleopatras and Sapphos were wearisomely plentiful; but -humbler types were rare. Many were so busy feeding their vanity with -these romantic hallucinations they had no time to learn anything useful. - -Hypnotists were numerous, many of them claiming that their particular -science accounted for everything under the sun. - -Then there were many who declared that in all the universe there is but -good; but they fell into factions represented by different leaders, and -fought many and many a bitter bout to prove it. - -It was enough to make one cry out in anguish, “Where can wisdom be -found? And where is the place of understanding?” - -Yet it had its hopeful side. It showed that many were thinking, and, -though thought took different trends, all roads eventually lead to the -truth. - -Letters came often from Chrissalyn, but they contained no messages -from friends invisible, for she never gave them an opportunity to say -anything, after Cartice went away. She was afraid. Sometimes a picture -or vision flashed before her, in spite of her avoidance of everything -of the kind. If it pertained to her friend she told her; but that was -all. - -Six years had passed with never a sight of the Butterfly’s beloved -face, and never a word from the dear people of the unseen world. -Cartice had felt their presence often, and knew that they were -faithful; but she was hungry for a word from them. - -Now came a letter from Chrissalyn begging her to spend some weeks with -her. It was a particularly girlish and extravagant letter, almost a -photograph of the mind of the unregenerate Butterfly of old. She knew a -delightful little summer resort where they could go and be out of the -sight and sound of work and care of every hue. She had set her heart -upon it. - - * * * * * - -Arranging for a leave of absence Mrs. Doring soon was on her way. She -found her friend in extraordinarily good spirits, and their reunion was -of a school-girlish order of delight. - -After a few hours the years of their separation seemed never to have -been. We have all had this experience and wondered at it. After long -absence we come back to a familiar spot, and in a little while find it -difficult to persuade ourselves that we have ever been away. Perhaps -this is a proof that to the true self there is neither separation nor -distance, nor past nor future. All is near and all is now. - - * * * * * - -The Butterfly had a new assortment of radiant wings--otherwise -garments--ready to spread gaily at the springs. One by one she -displayed them with childish pleasure, for personal adornment had ever -been her fetich. - -“As we get on a little in years,” she said, “all we can do to head off -the enemy, Age, is to make believe we ignore him. Extra paint and -feathers are necessary. I’ve had it flung in my face that I’m not so -young as I was, but I won’t admit it. Anyhow I’m still young enough to -excite envy and jealousy.” - -Here she laughed with diabolical pleasure. - -“I intend to make the best of this world and stay in it as long -as I can, notwithstanding it’s no paradise. But I have lost some -illusions in regard to it. For instance, that of my own irresistible -attractiveness. I can draw moths yet, but formerly I thought I could -attract men, providing I ever encountered such beings.” - -Again, night after night, Chrissalyn sat as of old, calling up for her -friend’s delight the unseen people who were always ready to respond. - -When Cartice spoke of the long time that had passed with never a word -from one of them, Moreau said: - -“No time has passed. There is no time. To the spirit a thousand years -are as one day.” - -The last evening in the city came. They were to start for the springs -early next day. The luggage was carefully packed and so their minds -were easy on that score. When they went upstairs the house was -perfectly still, all save themselves being asleep. - -They sat down in Chrissalyn’s room to chat. Cartice thought she never -had seen the Butterfly look so young, so beautiful, so hopeful, so -happy. - -Preparing the table for Planchette they eagerly awaited the messages -that would surely come over that inexplicable telephone. - -Now something passing strange occurred. From the empty air beside them -music burst forth--music the like of which they had never heard--music -made by instruments unknown to them, but of unearthly sweetness, with -power to thrill to the depths of their being. - -Awed and amazed the two friends looked at each other, in silence. Then, -as its heavenly sweet vibrations shook their souls, the tears ran from -their eyes, they knew not why. - -Again and again the unseen musicians made marvelous melody for the -two enchanted listeners. Sometimes the chords were plaintively sad, -sometimes joyous, but always penetrating the deepest recesses of -being, the inner sanctuary where poetry and dreams have their high and -heavenly dwelling-place. - -The two entranced listeners sat facing each other, lost in the -delicious spell of the melody. - -Suddenly an electric breeze enveloped Cartice, sending over her that -creepy thrill we are all familiar with, which resembles fear, but -is not fear. There, before her eyes, just back of Chrissalyn, stood -Prescott, looking exactly the same as when with them in material form. -Somehow she was made to understand that she must not cry out--nor tell -Chriss that he was there. Spellbound and silent she watched him. He -laid his hand on the Butterfly’s shining head, smiled and spoke. She -saw his lips move, and the glitter of his teeth, but heard no sound, -understood no word. Then, while her eyes were still upon him, he -vanished. - -“You look very pale, Cartice. Are you frightened?” Chrissalyn asked, as -the music ceased. - -Mrs. Doring shook her head, for her tongue, dry and powerless, was no -longer a willing servant. - -The music came back no more. After talking of the wonderful phenomenon -awhile, they bade each other good-night and parted. - -Cartice could not sleep. The strange events of the evening drove away -repose. Again and again she recalled the expression on Prescott’s face, -trying to translate it into words, but in vain. Only one thing was -plain. It was something pertaining to the Butterfly, and he didn’t want -her to know it. - -After hours of wakefulness she slept and dreamed. She and Chrissalyn -were dancing in a great and fantastic company. Everybody else wore -masks, but their faces were uncovered. Chrissalyn was the partner of a -graceful knight in black velvet who whirled her on and on, endlessly. -At last they rose into the air together, and Chriss became a veritable -butterfly, with beautiful silvery wings. The knight also developed -wings, but they were black, like his garments. - -Cartice called to her friend to come down, but she only laughed and -rose higher, and finally flew out of sight. With a wildly beating heart -Cartice awoke. - -Rising, she dressed for the journey. Knocking on Chrissalyn’s door, she -received no answer. Then she called her, and with light and jesting -words bade her make haste. - -Still no answer. Opening the door she entered, but started back with a -cry whose thrill of horror went to the heart like a knife. - -The Butterfly had, indeed, spread silvery wings and flown, for there -lay her chrysalis, cold, white and pulseless. The black knight of death -had taken her out of sight. The delicate, long-ailing lungs had given -way, and the inevitable end had come. She who loved the world and its -foolish, fleeting pleasures had gone suddenly out of it. Whither? - -It was a sad heart that Mrs. Doring carried back to New York, in spite -of her knowledge that the Butterfly had but spread her wings. - -Sometimes in the darkness and silence of night she talked aloud to her -vanished, yet ever-present, friend. - -“Where are you, Butterfly? Can you hear me and see me? Do you know how -heavy is my heart sometimes? And are you happy in your new world? Is -life more beautiful, more perfect there? And do you love me still?” - -No voice replied, but the light, caressing, electric touches came -sometimes, and the stricken heart was comforted. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII. - - THE PROP THAT FAILED. - - “Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought,” he said, and the tale - is still to run. - - “By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer--what have ye - done?” - - --_Rudyard Kipling._ - - -Two years passed, and Mrs. Doring still sat at her editorial desk. -Farnsworth had been the kindest and most considerate of employers. -The envious said no woman ever had an easier situation. They raised -their eyebrows, when they said this, implying the usual sentimental -insinuations; but they were mistaken. Farnsworth’s regard for Cartice -had no sentimental coloring whatever. He admired her ability and -delighted in giving her a chance, and making that chance as pleasant as -possible, having views on the unfair, industrial, political and social -rulings from which women suffer. - -He had come to New York, a talented struggler. Now he was a -millionaire, chief proprietor of a great publishing house, which had -become great under his management, and he loved to make the road a -little smoother for those less able and less fortunate. - -Cartice loved him, it is true; but not as the common mind understands -the term. Sometimes her eyes grew moist, while she looked at him and -wished she might have a chance to prove her gratitude. He was to her -like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. In the weakness of -spirit ages have bred in her sex, she regarded him as a wall that stood -between her and possible calamity. - -“I need fear no financial disaster, while he lives,” she thought. “His -hand will be ever friendly; his heart ever kind.” - -Farnsworth was far above the average of men, but he had a serious -weakness of character that made curious comradeship with his better -attributes. Anybody, the least trustworthy, the most malicious, could -sow in him seeds of suspicion against his best friend, and in ten hours -they would be full-grown trees, loaded with bitter and baneful fruit. -When this happened his kindness vanished and he could be as cruel as -hate. His conscience fled the field, whenever his vanity was ruffled. - -Knowing this a woman poisoned his mind against Cartice Doring, by a few -lying words--a woman who believed it would be to her interest to get -Cartice out of her way. The seed sown sprouted, grew, blossomed and -bore fruit within twenty-four hours. - -The next day Cartice found a note of dismissal on her desk, the -curtness of which was incompatible with the pretensions of a -gentleman, if addressed to one merely in the capacity of employee. But -when the employee was a social equal, a faithful friend of years and a -lady, it showed a lack of self-control on the part of the writer seldom -surpassed. - -The tenor of it was that, as she was “not doing justice” to the work -entrusted to her care, her services were dispensed with. A check for -the whole of the unfinished week was enclosed. - -Cartice read the letter and sat like one frozen, and the -heart-breaking, unbearable look of long ago came again into her eyes. - -Every one who has received an unexpected, felling blow from the hand of -a friend can understand the blended astonishment and anguish of that -moment. - -She knew who had turned Farnsworth against her and why it had been -done, but that could not help the irremediableness of the situation. -She could not go to Farnsworth and mortify him by telling him this; and -she knew his implacable spirit too well to hope that he would so much -as allow her an audience. Serious as was the blow to her finances, its -worst effect was on her heart. Black and deep are the bruises made by -the hands we love. - -“I must not forget what I owe him for past kindness,” she said,--“must -not let this cruelty put hatred into my heart. I must forgive him, for -he knows not what he does. Being a man, he cannot know how difficult -is life for a woman, under the existing order of things. Neither does -he know how often heretofore my heart has bled from cruelty; nor how I -have loved him; nor how weary and feeble I am much of the time. - -“No; he doesn’t know. Would any of us ever hurt another if we knew -all that other has to bear? Besides, it is better to be the victim of -injustice than the perpetrator of it. Ugly as is poverty, it is better -to endure it than to have the power which the possession of millions -confers and misuse it. - -“Poor Farnsworth,” she said. “Success has spoiled your naturally -beautiful soul. - -“The great destroyer of human conscience that goes by the name of -business permits you to put me out of your service in a summary and -humiliating manner, which puts me out of your life and friendship at -the same time, though moral right to treat another human being in this -way you have none. But the law of causality is ever operative, and you -cannot escape the consequences of your deeds. You will get back your -meed as you measure. - -“I accept your dismissal as part and parcel of the destiny I am working -out. Sooner or later every earthly prop on which I lean is taken from -me. Everything has a meaning and purpose. The lesson I have been slow -to learn is now plain to me. It is that I must stand alone, and -so must every soul, somewhere, some time. Props are destroyers of -strength and character. In all the universe there is but one on which -we may lean without inviting weakness, and that is Eternal Being, the -background of all life.” - -Gathering up her little possessions from the place that had been -her official home for eight years, Mrs. Doring walked out of it -heavy-hearted and solitary. The rock from which she had expected -shelter had vanished from her horizon forever. More! It had never been -there, save in her imagination. It was an illusion from which now she -was free. - -Curiously enough we regret the loss of our illusions, yet we ought -to thank God fervently every time we get rid of one, for it means -that we are emerging from ignorance and darkness into light and -knowledge,--approaching nearer to the truth that shall make us free. - -On reaching home Mrs. Doring sat down to take a practical view of the -situation. For nearly twenty years had she worked faithfully, having -begun at seventeen. She had lived in modest comfort, and by dint of -self-denial had saved one thousand dollars. What man above mediocrity -would think that a fair recompense for half a lifetime’s work? - -A sudden cutting off like that is what any one may expect who has -given his or her time and talents to the building up of another’s -business. It is the soul’s vengeance for not trusting it entirely, and -confidently following whithersoever it may lead. - -But there is something shamefully immoral in our business methods, when -an employee after years of faithful service can be flung out without -a chance for a word of defence. It is as though our father should -unexpectedly open the door of his home and bid us begone forever. And -is not our employer our business father, from whom we have a right to -expect consideration? Does he owe us nothing more than our weekly wage? -Must his relation to us be always measured only by dollars and cents? - -Among the letters Mrs. Doring took with her from the office unopened -was one from Bardell, now in Paris, famous and prosperous beyond his -dreams. Strange irony of fate that brought to her his glad story of -fresh successes on the day that carried defeat to her. - -With the superstition common to Bohemia Bardell considered Cartice his -mascot. His letters were always frank, friendly and charming. His last -words were: “Follow your ideals. They will lead you into freedom.” - -This reminded her of her book. It was finished long since; but the -writing was scarcely half the battle. It languished for want of a -publisher. Those to whom it had been submitted, had returned it, one -and all, with the contempt, but thinly veiled with regrets, it had -excited in their infallible minds. - -One plainer spoken and less heavily veneered with the world’s polish -than the rest, said to her face: - -“Come now, Mrs. Doring, you mustn’t expect anybody to publish stuff -of that kind--digging into the meaning of life, higher methods of -evolution, ‘shall we live after we die?,’ ‘ultimate destiny of the -human race,’ and all such heavy timber. People take no interest in -these questions. What we want is a rattling good love-story, with -plenty of hugging and kissing in it. I like that in or out of a novel -myself. There must be some iron-clad obstructionists in it, too, cruel -parents or other able marplots, and the hero must get her in the last -chapter or sooner. Anything but a story that doesn’t end all right. The -public abhors it. Now, your book is loaded with high-up, mountain-peak -thought, and wouldn’t sell at all.” - -Another, with whom also, she had a personal interview, a young man -with extraordinary faith in his own wisdom, smiled as he returned her -manuscript, and made his smile so vocative it needed few accompanying -words. “It is, ah--you know, Mrs. Doring, so wide a departure from -the standard of art in fiction, that it might make even a publisher -ridiculous, to say nothing of the author. One must keep somewhere -within sight of the existing canons. This, if you will pardon me, flies -in the face of every one of them.” - -“I dare say,” answered Cartice. “I never troubled myself about the -existing canons. It is life as I know it that I have tried to portray; -not life as somebody else says it should be painted in books.” - -After a number of equally disheartening experiences, the book was -carefully laid aside to await the judgment day. - -Meantime these same publishing houses were exuding cart-loads of -marketable abominations, which were scattered in all directions, doing -their share in weakening the minds of their unfortunate readers. Life, -as depicted by them, was a mere sex-chase, more or less interrupted by -the usual difficulties, all of which was quite in accordance with the -“existing canons,” so much respected by the young man with the smile. - - * * * * * - -Perhaps nothing gives us a lonelier feeling than to be cut off from -our field of daily activity, whatever it may have been. Cartice found -herself set back to the dreadful days of her beginning in New York. It -was as though she had gone steadily up a steep slope, to a respectable -height, only to be knocked violently to the bottom by the hand that was -helping her upward. - -“Had I developed the best that was in me--followed my ideals”--she -said, “this could not have happened. In that case I should have stood -alone long since, leaning on no prop, depending on no person’s caprice. -Set-backs and knock-downs are our schoolmasters, and they are ever busy -with us until we learn our lessons.” - -A loneliness assailed her heart, poignant, sharp, deep. All her life -its resistless waves had at times rolled over her spirit,--a flood that -would not be stayed. It was that kind of loneliness that creates a -solitude which is not placed in a densely peopled universe. - -Then came the comforting reflection that we are never alone, never -solitary, however much we may seem to be, and never absolutely on our -own hands, in spite of appearances. About us are ever the spiritual -hosts, and back of us, within us and about us, the Supreme Self, to -which each is both inlet and outlet. - - * * * * * - -On the evening of Mrs. Doring’s first day of idleness, Gabriel Norris -called to see her. For several years he had been a resident of New -York. In the worst of the thick mass of the miserables he had set up -his cobbler’s bench, and opened an adjoining reading-room; and there he -fished for the souls of men, in the great ocean of wretchedness whose -huge waves beat about his door. - -Cartice told him the story of her summary ejectment from the place -that she had so long occupied, and the various shifts that she had been -making in her mind for the future. - -“It’s a good thing,” he said, “when you don’t know just what to do, -not to do anything--to wait,--wait without worry or anxiety--wait and -trust. Unseen influences are ever at work on our destiny. We can hurry -nothing, change nothing. Rest for a time. You have been so busy most of -your life that you have had but little chance to get acquainted with -yourself. You have a little capital ahead; rest on that. New ideas come -in seasons of repose, for then the mind is receptive.” - -“That is what I had half-decided to do,” she answered, “though I am -still so much a slave to the old, erroneous belief that I carry myself -on my own shoulders, I scarcely could get my consent to it.” - -“And when you feel so disposed,” continued Gabriel, “come to my -reading-room and read a story or a poem to my sheep--‘my po’ los sheep -o’ de sheepfol,’ whom I try so hard to gather in. You may not know -it--you know yourself so little--but you have the most beautiful voice -I ever heard. Your reading, as well as your speech, is exquisite music. -‘The soul of man is audible, not visible,’ says Longfellow. ‘It reveals -itself in the voice. A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal -fountain.’” - -Anxiety and worry fell away from Cartice Doring soon as she determined -to rest and trust. A profound philosophic truth is here revealed. When -we trust, God Himself carries our burdens, and we are set free from -care. Trust is the essence, the vital principle of religion, which is -at heart a recognition of the divine intelligence within us, about us, -and is reflected by us,--the reality we call God. - -It was a joy to be the mistress of her own time, to know when she began -the day that she could do with it what she pleased. It was luxury to -sit at an open window and feel the air blow over her, and not be goaded -by any thought of duty undone. She went about the city and enjoyed its -treasures of art and beauty. She formed new friendships and cultivated -old ones. She read and, through sympathy, entered into, the lives and -feelings of authors and the people of their creation, as never before. -She became better acquainted with herself, and by that means with all -others. She went to Gabriel Norris’s unsectarian temple and helped him -feed his sheep. There the music of her beautiful voice called in many -a lost one. The bitter loneliness that shadowed her at times fled away -and troubled her no more. Her spirit came in sympathetic and loving -touch with others, with all that is, with the universal mind itself, -for this is the purpose of life, the union of the entire being with -its original. This is the true freedom which is the destiny of the -human race. The individual self becomes one with the universal, and is -henceforth free from limitations, from restrictions, from bondage of -every kind. It exchanges its little circle of personal desires for the -great world-consciousness. Whosoever does this even in the most limited -degree puts care and trouble behind him. - -Thus it was that this truth which Cartice Doring had long theoretically -accepted, became a part of her being. She began to live it and be it, -for we only really accept truth when we are it. Her eyes lost the look -of suffering that lighted them at times with a moving and resistless -fire, and became trustful, hopeful, peaceful, like those of a happy -child. - -Difficulties and disappointments vanished and fear vexed her no more. -She was like those who have won all battles, put all troubles behind -them. She had the knowledge that within herself was power over all -temporal dragons; that her welfare depended on no man’s whim; that -there are no accidents; that He who slumbers not nor sleeps, is -“guiding each of His creatures in the current of an eternal purpose”; -that she was as indestructible as the universe, and as old, as young -and as deathless as its builder. She thought no more of happiness, -because blessedness had come into her life,--the blessedness which -“consists in progress toward perfection.” In an undefined way she felt -herself approaching high summits, understanding that there is neither -high nor low, near nor far in the universe save in thought. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII. - - THE BOOK AND ITS CRITICS. - - The tale is as old as the Eden Tree--and new as the new-cut tooth-- - For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and - Truth; - And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying - heart, - The Devil drum on the darkened pane: “You did it, but was it - Art?” - - --_Rudyard Kipling._ - - -One day Mrs. Doring received a letter from a lawyer announcing -Kendall’s death, and advising her that by his will she was sole heir to -his property, which was valued at about twenty-five thousand dollars--a -fortune in Bohemia. A few lines from the testator were enclosed, the -last his hand penned. He had but one request to make in regard to the -disposition of it, and that was that she use part of it in bringing out -her book. - -“See,” she said to Lilla Joy, who had long lived with her in the little -flat, “how my trust is rewarded. Influences unseen were working for me -while I rested. Had I been a little wiser, I might have saved myself -much torment all my life. Worry hinders instead of helps, I believe it -is one of the forty deadly sins the Egyptians tried to avoid.” - -With money to work with it was not difficult to find a publisher for -the book. It was a true tale, told in a simple, straightforward manner, -of life and its meaning, as its author understood them. The theme -of it was that life goes on after the change we call death, and is -inconceivably enlarged and ennobled for all who aspire. - -Such of the critics as worship plots and believe that the chief aim of -life in stories and out is to marry and be given in marriage, made it -the subject of very rough surgery. - -“It is a most unwholesome book,” said one. “Love and marriage are -scarcely mentioned in it. Some twaddle that pretends to come from -across the river of death is the only bait it has with which to angle -for the reader’s interest, a theme in which healthy minds will find no -attraction.” - -Death waits for every one that breathes, yet any light thereon is -“unwholesome and not attractive to healthy minds,” according to those -who tell us what we ought to read. Strange doctrine, but prevalent! - -Another said: “One more of those deplorable books that deal in the -supernatural and aim to make readers take a morbid interest in death. -Its author has no eyes for the thousand fresh themes of life, but must -needs delve into the darksome hereafter for material with which to -burden her absurd pages. Why should any one turn from the sweet theme -of love to wander in paths so remote from taste and wholesome imagery -as this?” - -Some sneered at it, some ignored it and many abused it. Few had so -much as a tolerant word for it. Yet verily a mystery guideth the fate -of a book as well as the growing of a daisy, for “The Last Enemy” sold -astonishingly fast, and was read and talked about far and wide. In a -few months it was the best known book of the year, in spite of the -critics, and brought fame and money to its author, though too late, her -friends said. - -Is anything too late? Come not all things at their appointed time, -neither sooner nor later than they are due? In the divine drama of the -universe the curtain never falls until the play is finished. In our -short-sightedness we say our friend died too soon, or his good fortune -came too late; but we are in error. Everything is part of the eternal -plan, and to be out of time or place an impossibility. - -Never to Cartice Doring had life appeared so well worth living, nor -work so well worth doing. To Lilla Joy she said: - -“I am just beginning to live. I am learning what life means, what we -can make of it, and what I am. We are love. - -“We love because we cannot help it. It is our expression, and the -greater, wider and more all-inclusive our love, the fuller, larger, -more perfect and more abundant is our life. How beautiful it all is! -How orderly and harmonious! How glorious! - -“Most of my life I have written down to the majority of readers. Now I -shall bring them up to me. I shall follow my ideals, as I did in ‘The -Last Enemy.’ Our ideals! What are they but our souls, trying to reveal -themselves to other souls. Here in this noble poem by Katherine Lee -Bates, the ideal speaks: - - “At the innermost core of thy being, I am a burning fire - From thine own altar-flame kindled, in the hour when souls aspire: - For know that men’s prayers shall be answered, and guard thy spirit’s - desire. - - “That which thou wouldst be, thou must be; that which thou shalt be - thou art; - As the oak, astir in the acorn, the dull earth rendeth apart, - Lo, thou, the seed of thy longing, that breaketh, and waketh, the - heart. - * * * * * - - “Call me thy foe in thy passion; claim me in peace for thy friend: - Yet bethink thee by lowland or upland, wherever thou willest to wend, - I am thine Angel of Judgment, mine eyes thou must meet in the end.” - -“I know that well, Lilla. Woe be to those who have outraged their ideal -on that day, when their souls shall meet it face to face. I have sinned -against mine, and have met its accusing eyes already. But now I have -begun my atonement, and am eager to go on with it. There is joy in -creating what we wish to create--that means giving form to our ideals.” - -But Lilla was silent, wondering what ideals her friend would follow in -that country into which flesh and blood can never enter. In her eyes -Lilla saw the strange light that flames up only when the end of the -journey is near; and on her face, and in all that she said and did was -a hint of imminent change, plain to others, unseen by herself. - -In the Sanscrit is a story of one who asked what is the most wonderful -thing in the world. The answer is that every man should believe that -all shall die but himself. The reason of this is that he shall not die, -and his soul knows it. - -Remember this, you who see your beloved going down into what we call -Death’s Valley, serene, hopeful, unconscious of their doom. They are -wiser than you. They know they shall not die. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV. - - WHO ARE THEY? - - “Who are they that are compelled to recommence the same existence?” - - “They who fail in the fulfilment of their mission, or in the endurance - of the trial appointed to them.” - - --_Allan Kardec._ - - If the red slayer think he slays, - Or if the slain think he is slain; - They little know the subtle ways - I keep and pass and turn again. - - --_Ralph Waldo Emerson._ - - Personally I must confess to one small weakness. I cannot help - thinking that the souls toward whom we feel drawn in this life are the - very souls whom we knew and loved in a former life, and that the souls - who repel us here, we do not know why, are the souls that earned our - disapproval, the souls from whom we kept aloof in a former life.--_F. - Max Müller._ - - -Months on swift wing slipped away. Cartice’s pen was busy every day, -and every day she delighted more and more in her work, because she was -saying what she wished to say, was expressing herself fearlessly and -freely. New plans of action fairly rioted in her brain. Plans! When had -they ever worked for her? - -There are persons who mark out everything ahead, and Fate lets them -live their arrangements to the letter, but Cartice was not one of them. - -The lamp of the spirit, which tells unutterable things, now burned in -her eyes, with an unearthly brightness, throwing its touching radiance -over all her words and deeds; but she did not understand. She alone saw -not the heavenly illumination. - -But one day the imminent change was made plain to her, though how she -never told. Coming to Lilla, with whitened face, and the old-time, -all-compelling appeal in her eyes, which neither man nor woman could -see without a bursting heart, she said: - -“I must soon leave you. It has been shown me and I understand.” - -Under the spell of the wordless pain in the glorious eyes, her heroic -friend flung her arms about her, crying, “Cartice! Cartice! My dear -one! I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it!” And together they wept tears -of such anguish as only the strong ever weep. - -For a few days the heart-breaking look continued in Cartice’s eyes; but -in the silence of the night help came from the great source, and she -got up one morning with peace shining in her face. - -“Often in the past,” she said to Lilla, “I have wished I could die -and be out of trouble. But now I want to live: now I know that dying -doesn’t put us out of trouble. We must grow out of it by evolving above -it, learning to master it. - -“Most of my life, as I look back upon it, seems to have been mere blind -groping. Now, when I think I have learned how to live, the business of -life is done. And I have learned how to work in a way that never would -meet failure; but that, too, is done. - -“And yet, in spite of the mystery and the grimness of it, something -tells me all is well; that nothing can be lost; that what I have -learned will be useful somewhere. Perhaps we are here for the purpose -of learning how to live and work. When that is accomplished, we must -go on and learn other things, and we can take no other road than the -one we have named Death, and painted black. But you and I know that it -leads into light, and, though we die, we shall continue to live, and -shall evolve, unfold and expand, even ‘it doth not yet appear what we -shall be.’ - -“Yet knowing this--for we have knowledge, not simply belief--there -are moments when a childish terror seizes me. But why should I fear? -Millions have traveled the same road, the timid and faint-hearted as -well as the bold and brave, and all went forth alone. We say alone, -because we see no visible companions go with them; yet we know that no -one is ever alone, either here or on that inscrutable journey, or at -its end. - -“But notwithstanding all I have learned of the life to follow this, I -cannot picture it--cannot form any clear idea of it. Nor can I realize -that life as I know it now must end. I try to think of the days to come -when I shall not be here, nor be anywhere as I am now, and when the -form through which I act will have vanished utterly from the face of -the earth, but I cannot! I cannot! - -“I am always I in consciousness, always existing, never dead, never -different. Is it not the mystery of mysteries? - -“I try to imagine a time when I may come here to our little home and -be unseen by you, unable to lift a book, flutter a curtain or speak -one word that you can hear; but I cannot. How inconceivable it is that -in a short time I shall be in a condition so different from this that -imagination itself cannot paint it!” - -Cartice awoke from sleep one day with a loud cry, a wail of terror that -went to the heart. - -“What is it, dear?” asked Lilla, bending over her. - -Her eyes wandered wildly around the room, and at last, reassured by a -sight of familiar objects, lost their look of affright. - -“It must have been a dream,” she said, “but so very real. I was lying -under the elm tree at home, as I so often did when a child; yet I was -as I am now. Close about me came a little company of people shining -like the sun. When they were very near, I knew them to be people from -my planet--my own people, whom I remember well, and whom I saw in a -dream years ago. One, a woman, the most beautiful of all, had a face -so familiar I almost spoke her name; but I could not quite grasp it, -though she seemed very near and dear to me. - -“‘Your work is done,’ she said; and there was sadness in her voice, and -pity in her eyes. - -“‘Well done?’ I questioned, though with a sinking of the heart, for I -began to be afraid, I knew not why. - -“‘Did you always do your best?’ she asked. - -“‘No;’ I answered, conscience-smitten. - -“‘Then’-- - -“I interrupted, for I could not bear to hear what I feared she would -say. - -“‘Who art thou, who look so pitiful and seem so dear, and whom I yet -fear?’ I asked. - -“‘I am thine Ideal--thine Angel of Judgment--who hath so often come to -thee and from whom thou hast almost as often turned away.’ - -“‘But I serve you now,’ I cried. ‘I do my best. I have learned my -lesson.’ - -“‘Yes, you have learned the lesson, and will do better next time,’ she -said, compassionately. - -“‘Next time?’ I echoed, trembling with fear. - -“‘Yes; next time, for you must come again and do it over and do it -right,’ she said, sternly. - -“Then I shrieked and awoke. O Lilla, now I see, I know, I understand. -I must live my life again and live it better--must do my best all the -way through. I don’t want to--no; I don’t want to; but I must, and so -must all who fail to give their best--not as penalty, but because it is -the only way to learn, and to grow. - -“We have lived always; we shall live always. This is the foundation -rock upon which we build the indestructible temple, character. Victor -Hugo spoke of life as a fairy tale a thousand times written, and said -there was not an age in which he could not find his spirit. He believed -he would exist forever, inasmuch as he felt in his soul thousands of -songs, and dramas that never had found expression: He was sure he -should come again and give them life. I, too, feel within me numberless -tales untold which must be born somewhere. A great soul, like Hugo, may -voluntarily come again and again to help others; but a recreant dreamer -like me MUST come. - -“Years ago I had a dream that now I understand. It is my belief, as -you know, that every mortal has a soul-guardian--a being higher than -a spirit, a dweller in the land of souls, beyond the middle kingdom, -far away from the earth and its ties. This guardian gives us all the -experiences we have, because he sees their uses in our development. The -bitter cups we would fain have pass from us he resolutely holds to our -lips, because he knows it is good for us to drink of them. Blessings -disguised as calamities and sorrows come from his hand, and all the -fires of anguish that scorch us are fanned by his breath. - -“I dreamed of this guardian angel. He was going with me through life, -or rather through a series of scenes or situations representing -different lives. I could talk to him, and hear him, but could not see -him. Of the many pictures that were shown to me I remembered only two -when morning came. - -“In the one which represented a life before this I was resting on -a rude couch, outdoors, near a blazing fire, in the midst of a -nauseating swamp. It was after night, and the light from the fire -played fantastically on dank little pools, rank tufts of grass, curious -plants, watery mosses and slimy roots. - -“Looking off into the swamp I saw a great mottled snake curled up in -a hollow, looking directly at me, malignity darting from his eyes. I -pointed him out to the people who were about me, and told them I would -kill him. But one and all urged me to let him alone, and predicted -serious trouble, if I disturbed him. - -“I answered that it was trouble to have him there, throwing hate upon -me with his eyes, and that, at least, I would give him a hint that his -presence was not desirable. So I got up and threw a stone at him. It -struck him straight on his back, but rebounded as though it had met a -wall, without so much as bruising him, save in spirit. It enraged him -fearfully. He raised himself in the air perpendicularly till he stood -on his tail, and hatred flashed from his eyes in bright electric rays. - -“He did not stop at this, but hurled invective after invective at me in -plain English, and threatened me as a snake never threatened before. He -hissed, raved, cursed and glared at me, and swore that he would take it -out of me in slices scattered along a thousand years. In short, he made -me understand clearly enough that his principal business forever after -would be to make me wretched. So direful were his threats that I lay -down on my small bed quaking with terror, fearing either to sleep or -stay awake, and ‘none had power to protect me from mine enemy.’ - -“To make it worse, the people about me said, ‘I told you so,’ and -sermonized on the matter. They said, ‘You can’t destroy hate with hate. -That increases it. That mottled fellow in the swamp is not the enemy -you have to dread. The cruelty you put out, when you threw a stone at -him, is your real enemy. It will come back to you through him, because -it is the law. He will trouble you far down the line. Your heart shall -bleed again and again, because of blows from hands you never injured; -but it will be but your own deed returning to you, and something of -your mottled foe shall mark you, for many and many a day.’” - -(Lilla looked at the mottled eyes of her friend with a new interest, -wondering if the curious splashes of tawn had been flung there by her -ancient enemy.) - -“Now I understand why I have been treated cruelly often by the very -persons I loved and believed in. Somewhere I have earned it. Somewhere -I gave it forth, and it has come back a hundredfold, for good and bad -both multiply themselves on their return trips. Even Farnsworth’s -cruelty to me, which hurt me so much, was no doubt in accord with the -law of causality I had set in motion. But he, too, shall reap as he has -sown. - -“The other picture represented this life, I think. I was climbing a -hillside, accompanied by a little party of friends and attended by the -guardian of my soul, who beguiled the way by pleasant speech and cheery -good-will. At last we reached the top and found there an old-fashioned -inn, clean and comfortable, with bare white floors, big rooms, and -broad wooden sofas, that looked inviting to our tired bodies. Before -I entered, I looked to the west, and saw a scene of beauty never to -be forgotten. Sunlight, soft as moonlight, fell on fields of swaying -grain, on trees gay with blossoms and heavy with fruit at the same -time, on flowers whose perfume sweetened all the air, on birds whose -bright plumage dazzled the eye. I gazed spellbound. The very sky above -was new and strangely beautiful. Looking down, I saw what before I had -not noticed, that the hill was cut off close by my feet, and between me -and this lovely landscape yawned a bottomless ravine. Stretching forth -his hand and pointing to it, my guardian said, ‘Behold the promised -land! But you shall not enter in--not yet! No; you shall not enter in -until you come with the great seal in your hand.’ With one longing, -hungry glance at the paradise I was not yet ready to know, I turned and -went into the inn, longing for rest. - -“I have almost reached the inn. I have seen the promised land but have -not yet the great seal. After a rest in the inn--who knows,--perhaps I -can bridge the ravine.” - -Those last days--those precious last days, how beautiful they were! - -Northern forests put on a glory of gold and red after the frost has -touched them with its destroying hand, and the winter is near. Dying -suns diffuse a strange brightness, and the spirit of man, when passing -out of sight, often radiates a heavenly splendor. - -So it was that the soul of Cartice Doring never gave forth so much of -sweetness as in the last days of her stay here. - -“It is much to have learned one’s lesson,” she said. “Next time I -can begin in a higher class. So you see, after all, this life wasn’t -wasted. Yes, I have learned a little, and shall not find the road so -rough next time. - -“Would I could give others what I have learned. - -“I smile at my early idea of happiness, though it wasn’t unique at all, -but quite common--the ideal of all the undeveloped. - -“Now I know that happiness is a spiritual condition--spiritual -healthfulness--spiritual unfolding the heaven within one which comes -when self is forgotten and we see our oneness with all that is. It is -our unfolding, our growth or evolution into knowledge, truth and light. - -“It comes when we learn how to love,--when we see ourselves in every -other self, and the supreme self in everybody and everything. - -“What matter whether we call the great ocean in which we move and live -and have our being, God, soul, energy, force or thought, we are its -offspring or manifestation, and can never for one instant be separated -from it. We are because it is. And see how this divine principle ever -strives for our highest health and happiness. If I but cut my finger, -it miraculously heals the wound. Out of its boundless resources it -forms a new cuticle to cover the abrasion. If my spirit becomes sore -the same power brings to me from every side, the sympathy and love, the -spiritual sunshine and air which heal that too. - -“The hunt for happiness is a true instinct of the soul, a prophecy of -its divine destiny. We were intended for happiness, but a happiness far -beyond our usual ideals. - -“A great seer has said that ‘love is life, and love in us is the life -of God in the soul of man.’ - -“My soul has always been homesick for its native land and its own -people--which are but other names for love and sympathy--infinite -love, changeless sympathy. Others, too, are familiar with this kind -of hunger. All feel it and give expression to it in the chase of one -phantom after another, and to each phantom they give the name of -Happiness. - -“Does it not prove that all souls are irresistibly drawn toward the -great source of love from which they sprang, but know not the way -thither? The bosom of infinite love is the happiness they long for, but -in their ignorance of their true being and destiny, they pursue every -will o’ the wisp that dances before their eyes. - -“It is the soul’s quest for its home, which is not place, but state. -We need not wait for death to let us in, for it is no more beyond the -grave than here. The pure in heart have reached it. - -“We can experience resurrection before death, if we will. When our -spiritual nature is awakened, and we are set free from thraldom to -material gods, we have been raised from the dead. We can take hold on -eternal life now, for it, too, is a state of the soul. It is to know -and live and be the good. - -“The long, long sleep of ignorance must end. The soul shall awaken to -a knowledge of itself and be consciously one with Eternal Being from -which it was projected, and be free, full-grown and happy. - -“How shall this union be brought about? By our growth, our unfolding. -We are our own redeemers. The individual is the reflection or -manifestation of God. The higher man grows intellectually and -spiritually, the more of God does he reflect. When he becomes pure -in heart, high in mind, noble and unselfish in all his instincts and -desires, he is in union with God, working His Will. - -“A modern philosopher expresses it thus: ‘An individual is a subject -which unfolds itself as an object.’ - -“‘Man, the progressively unfolding thinker, has descended from the -eternally perfect creative Thinker.’ - -“‘Eternity for every man is but the unceasingly clear consciousness of -his own identity in nature with the primal Thinker, of whose thought -the whole universe is but the outer, organic form!’ - -“‘An individual is an indivisible, immortal, self-completing, ideal -totality.’ - -“Now I think I know why at any cost we should give expression to -our ideals. They are streams from the central fountain of thought. -To ignore them is to put ourselves out of harmony with the truth and -essence of the universe. To give them expression is to vibrate in -harmony with the great heart of all that is. What is a genius but one -who is in touch with the central source of truth and transmits it to -others? - -“Now we begin to understand what the love of God is--a great ocean in -which we perpetually swim, the ‘infinite and eternal energy from which -all things proceed,’ an energy that science admits but cannot explain. - -“It is written, ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make ye -free!’ We shall know! WE SHALL KNOW. - -“Already you and I, Lilla, know a part of the truth. We know that -death is not the extinction of memory, conscience, love and all their -attendant emotions. These are manifestations of the soul and cannot be -destroyed. The body, a clay image projected by the soul to make itself -visible, shall pass, but ‘the soul lives on, and all space, all time, -all beatitude are its heritage and its domain.’ - -“The great secret of what, whence and whither shall yet be known. The -dream of man’s perfection shall come true. You and I have read a few -pages in the sealed book. For us the last enemy has been destroyed, the -dark river bridged. We know there is no separation; that the dead are -neither dead nor gone. This is the great secret of the universe. - -“I think I understand what it means to see God. The more we see of Him, -or It--the great principle of intelligence and love--in the atom, the -insect, the human being or the angel, the nobler and sweeter will be -our lives. All possible forms and modes of existence are expressions -of himself. As Whitman says, ‘A mouse is miracle enough to stagger -sextillions of infidels.’ - -“My lifelong dream of finding my own people shall be realized. - -“My people, my own people--they who aspired, struggled and -suffered--who came to their own, and whom their own so often refused -to receive. They who first announced the truth in all ages, and were -stoned and crucified. They who brought their divine gifts of poesy and -prophecy, of art and science, of light in its thousand forms and laid -them on the world’s ungrateful altar. My dear people, I see you in -the far dim aisles of the past, and I see you toiling up the shining -heights of the future, and know you for my own, my spiritual kindred, -with whom I dwelt in pleasant and also difficult places ‘huge times -ago,’ and with whom I shall yet mount and mount great steeps now unseen. - -“Are not all, all our own people, each a manifestation of the great -soul or self that is imaged in all other selves? But they who know -how to love are more truly our own. They are farther on their upward -journey. ‘For as many as are led by the spirit of love, these are the -sons of God.’ - -“All philosophies, all religions, all literature that fail to lead us -back to love, our central source--love, the essence and substance of -life, the energy of the world, the potential, moving force of all that -is or ever shall be, are vain and foolish. - -“Only to love one another. This is the whole law. This is what we are -always longing and hunting for, though we give it many names and see it -through many veils and in many shapes. But it is love, only love, the -greatest and simplest thing in the world. - -“Once I read a story of an Oriental magician who performed miraculous -cures. When one whom he had healed asked his name that he might mention -it in his prayers, he answered: ‘I have many names, but they all mean -the same--Love.’ - -“Love is all there is. Everything else is only an appearance or -phantom. My search for my own people was but the search for love, yet -how many mirages I saw, into how many pits I stumbled before I came in -sight of its temple! - -“But the love that opens the kingdom of Heaven, like the love of God, -is ‘broader than the measure of man’s mind.’ It _is_ the love of -God--for it is the love of all that is. We know not love until we see -ourselves one with the whole, without division and without difference, -until we see every man as our brother and every woman as our sister and -every child as our own, or better, as ourselves. - -“Since I know that the law of sowing and reaping is inevitable in its -operation, I begin to believe I have not found love in satisfying -measure, because I have not given it out. My conception of it was the -usual narrow one, and that fills one with self and selfishness. Love -knows no self. - -“Am I about to leave this world? No; because the world is part of the -great Everywhere, which is the soul’s home. Yet it is a solemn time -with me. But I shall float out on trust. I _know_ that all is well, and -never can be anything else. - -“The Hereafter, so much wondered about.--What is it? Just a -continuation of being--an eternal now, an endless is, an everlasting -present moment. - -“Shall our dead be as they were here, when we find them again? This is -the cry of the bereft. They forget that nothing is the same from day to -day. The child becomes a man. As a child the mother loses it whether -it live or die. Change, incessant change, is the law of external -nature. But the soul of the man is the soul of the child awakened and -enlightened. Shall it be less, when it puts off its eternal form and -becomes clothed in finer matter? - -“‘Give us our dead, as they were, when they left us,’ wail the mourners -at the tomb. Does any one here go away for a year or years and come -back the same? Never. - -“Is the future beyond death a mystery? Yes; but not more so than the -future here. Does any man know what the next hour will bring upon him? -Every moment ahead of us is as completely wrapped in mystery as is all -that lies on the other side of the grave. In both cases we can only do -our best, trusting in the love that created us, and that shapes our -course. - -“But the loneliness of life! Who can fathom it or explain it? and what -can mitigate it? Mediocrity feels it not, for its sympathizers swarm. -But in the hearts of the highest it is densest and deepest. As the soul -grows upward, it feels itself isolated, and the isolation has in it a -poignant anguish. - -“Hours come upon us, when we feel that we touch no other soul. Even -the companions we take to our hearts never enter the most solemn -recesses of our nature. There the soul sits alone--always alone. And -this invisible place, this awful solitude is the soul’s real world, its -most fateful portion of existence. Yet into this secret place, this -hidden and lonely life, we take the ideas and feelings we cherish in -relation to our fellow-beings, so that though we seem to live alone in -the depths of ourselves, yet we are never severed from our kind, never -really solitary. The oneness of humanity asserts itself and its claims -upon us, and in spite of the soul’s solitude we understand that no man -liveth to himself. - -“But the ache that nothing cures is always with us. We turn to the -arms of human affection, it is there. We sit down to the feast of the -intellect; it is there, likewise. We wander in search of new scenes; -but, in the face of all that can delight the eye, it cries out from -within for the satisfaction it never finds. - -“Satisfied! Satisfied! Shall the yearning soul ever be satisfied? In -the hope that it would, mankind constructed its far-off heaven, and -said to the weary and the disappointed: ‘There ye shall be satisfied.’ - -“But it is not true. Never, never shall we be satisfied. Though we -explore all the mysteries of all worlds and taste all the joys and -pleasures therein, we shall not be satisfied. ‘We but level that lift -to pass and continue beyond.’ - -“When I walk in graveyards and see the childish twaddle about ‘Rest,’ -‘Heavenly Mansions,’ and ‘New Jerusalems,’ there carved upon the -stones, I am pained at the mental infancy they denote. Dying does not -mean rest, nor does it open heavenly mansions or golden cities to us. -The striving and the climbing go on and never end. - -“It is the ache in the heart, the void in the soul that cries out to be -filled which lift us upward. Were we content, we should rise no higher. -Were we satisfied, we should be in a condition which would insure our -destruction. But the soul’s hunger for finer and better food is the -principle of eternal life which makes us indestructible and eternally -expansive. By means of it we grow. Thank God that neither here nor -elsewhere can we attain content! - -“And as we go higher we can reveal to lower souls their sorrows, and -show them how to overcome them--how to grow. This is the greatest -service one soul can render another. - -“But we must not be content with mouthing theories--we must live our -love, must give from the heart and look only to the heart, for ‘out -of the heart are the issues of life.’ ‘The sign of the mastery of the -divine life in us is the readiness to serve.’ - -“And we must not dream of rest. There is none anywhere, neither here -nor on all the endless road that stretches before us. Life is action, -ceaseless action. - -“Nor is there any heavenly shore where we can wander free from -perplexities and obstacles. Always, always will there be something -to overcome. We are building, building, ever building, we know not -clearly what. Every unfolding of the divine life within us opens the -way to still more unfolding. The heaven, the happiness, the joy we -dream of and search for, is in the unfolding, not in any fixed state at -which we shall arrive, for we pause nowhere. - -“‘This is not Death’s world: it is Life’s. Death has no empire -anywhere.’ In time to come its very signs shall pass away. There shall -be no more graves, nor marks to graves to say that the dust of any -lie there. All dust is the same and all places the same; and life -everlasting is the eternal heritage of all souls.” - -A few days later Cartice said she saw the Butterfly near her, and that -she now had most beautiful wings. Others thought her mind wandered, but -Lilla understood. - -Clasping the hand of her friend, she smiled and slept; but her waking -was on the other side of death, with her own people. - - - - - CHAPTER XXV. - - LAST WORDS. - - Come, lovely and soothing death, - Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, - In the day, in the night, to all, to each, - Sooner or later, delicate death. - - Prais’d be the fathomless universe, - For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious, - And for love, sweet love--but praise! praise! praise! - For the sure enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death. - - --_Walt Whitman._ - - -Gabriel Norris uttered the few reverent words that consigned the dust -of Cartice Doring to the purifying flames. This was his conclusion: - -“‘No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.’ We all -understand that better, when in the presence of the voiceless dead, -than at any other time. Then it is that we feel our oneness most; -then do we come into more solemn touch with the great heart of all; -then, even when our hearts are breaking, we better understand the -infinite love that manifests in every event of our lives, even the last -mysterious one which takes us out of the sight of our fellow-men. - -“Then it is that the problem of life confronts us with importunate -appeal, and demands from our bleeding hearts an answer. - -“She whose still white form lies here, lived, aspired, suffered, joyed -a little perhaps, and learned a part of the great lesson whose book has -no end, worked side by side with us, and then passed out of our sight, -leaving only this perishable temple to return to its elements. - -“Has she but passed through a door to array herself in new garments -on the other side, in a larger chamber, or has the unit of her -individuality melted back into the Universal ocean, as a drop of water -falls again into the sea from which it has been dipped? - -“Does the heart that has groaned in anguish and throbbed with love find -the end of everything in dreamless oblivion? Or does it still throb on -somewhere out of our sight, but not out of the care of the divine love -that thought it into being? - -“For her this great question was answered long before the illusion -we call death transferred her to a larger chamber. She _knew_ that -she should never die; that, as a unit, an individual, a soul, she was -indestructible, the heir of all the ages through all the ages. - -“Communion of spirit? Do you sneer at it as an unsatisfactory, even if -a possible thing? What else have we here? We are spirit now as much as -we shall ever be, and all our communion with each other is spiritual, -for every act of our lives has a spiritual quality, and is but the -expression of spirit. - -“The things we see are but fractions of that which we see not. We never -saw the soul to whose visible form we bid farewell for a time to-day. -We saw but its mask, its clay image. That which made its impress upon -us was the spirit. By means of what it said and did, by the flash of -kindness in the eye, by the pressure of the hand in sympathy, by all -the means great and small by which it expressed its good will and love -to others, it revealed itself. These are what we shall remember and -cherish. - -“Life is not all ‘a striving and a striving and an ending in nothing.’ -It is an endless becoming. - -“Let us work by every means in our power to educate the individual, to -develop the unit, the imperishable, never-dying unit, for this is the -secret of all improvement, all growth, all happiness. Only by growth -out of ignorance into knowledge can we come into our inheritance of -eternal good. - -“Nothing is great in this world and nothing is small. I cannot say of -the soul whose transition we celebrate to-day that it was either, for -there is no distinction. It aspired, and that means much. It strove to -go up higher; and that striving will lift it into the fulness of light. - -“That living, loving, truthful, beautiful spirit, has not gone back -to the sea of universal Being to lose its identity. There is no going -back. In that sea we live and move and have our being now, as well as -in the future, yet we remain individuals. The union with the one mind -toward which we are all moving is an harmonious ever-upward-tending -life, not an extinction of the individual. The school, the club, the -state are its prototypes here,--a blending of the many units in one -body, but the extinction of none. - -“We sorrow, but not without hope. Our friend still lives. We shall find -her again.” - -“I loved her,” said Gabriel Norris, as he sat with Lilla in the little -flat after all was over. “To be near her I came to New York. She never -knew; but now she knows. My love did not crave possession. I was happy -in loving. I am still happy in it. She lives and I love her. It is -enough.” - - - THE END. - - - - - Transcriber’s Notes - -Errors in punctuation and spacing have been fixed. - -Page 138: “as much as as any” changed to “as much as any” - -Page 173: “defeat and humilation” changed to “defeat and humiliation” - -Page 194: “would is queer” changed to “world is queer” - -Page 302: “by the wall” changed to “by the well” - -Page 306: “have a monoply of it. What idocy!” changed to “have a -monopoly of it. What idiocy!” - -Page 311: “The animal knows” changed to “The animal known” - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INDEX FINGER *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: An index finger</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Tulis Abrojal</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 19, 2023 [eBook #69837]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INDEX FINGER ***</div> - - - - -<h1>AN INDEX FINGER.</h1> - - - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p class="center"> -<span class="xbig">AN INDEX FINGER</span><br> -</p> -<p class="center p2"> -BY<br> -<span class="big">TULIS ABROJAL</span><br> -</p> -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“All the Sutras are but fingers that point out the shining moon.”</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Man, thou livest forever.”</span><br> -<br><br> - -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Has any one supposed it is lucky to be born?</span><br> - -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I hasten to inform him, or her, it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.</span><br> - -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look’d at the crowded heaven.</span><br> - -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And I said to my spirit: When we become the unfolders of those orbs, and the</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be filled and satisfied then?</span><br> - -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And my spirit said: No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond.</span><br> - -<span style="margin-left: 20em;">—<span class="smcap">Walt Whitman.</span></span><br> -</p> -<p class="center p2"><span class="figcenter" id="img001"> -<img src="images/001.jpg" class="w10" alt="Decorative image"> -</span></p> -<p class="center p4"> -<span class="big">R. F. FENNO & COMPANY, 9 and 11 EAST<br> -SIXTEENTH STREET: NEW YORK CITY</span><br> -1898<br> -</p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> - - -<p class="center"> -Copyright, 1897<br> -BY<br> -TULIS ABROJAL.<br> -</p> -<p class="center p4"> -<i>An Index Finger.</i><br> -</p> - -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="DEDICATION">DEDICATION.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>To those who faithfully follow their ideals, ever doing the work they -love to do, always giving to the world the best that is in them—the -truth as they see it—though in the face of difficulties, disasters -and defeat; enduring persecution, poverty and want, meeting the dread -spectre of starvation, suffering death itself if need be, yet counting -all not too great a price to pay for the freedom of their souls, this -book is sympathetically dedicated.</p> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2> -</div> - -<hr class="r5"> - - -<table class="autotable"> -<tr><th class="tdr">CHAP.</th><th></th><th class="tdr">PAGE</th></tr> -<tr><td></td><td> -<a href="#PREFACE"><span class="smcap">Preface</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_I"><span class="smcap">The Child and Her Own People</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_13">13</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_II"><span class="smcap">Where the Road Divides</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_III"><span class="smcap">Confidences and Questions</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><span class="smcap">Her Story and Fate</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_V"><span class="smcap">The End of the Dream</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><span class="smcap">The Butterfly</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_110">110</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><span class="smcap">Opportunity</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><span class="smcap">Death’s Narrow Sea</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_148">148</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><span class="smcap">Things not Dreamed of in Everyday Philosophy</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_156">156</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_X">“<span class="smcap">Ye Shall Not Understand</span>”</a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_168">168</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><span class="smcap">A Little Board Bridges the Great Gulf</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_179">179</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><span class="smcap">And the Prophet was Stoned</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_202">202</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><span class="smcap">The Tongues of Angels</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_218">218</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><span class="smcap">The Simple Way</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_240">240</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><span class="smcap">It is Well with the Child</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_248">248</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><span class="smcap">The Story of One Returned from the Dead</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><span class="smcap">Uprooting a Human Tree</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_277">277</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><span class="smcap">Bohemia’s Highways and Byways</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><span class="smcap">The Joys</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_310">310</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><span class="smcap">People of the Past</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_317">317</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><span class="smcap">The Butterfly’s Flight</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_331">331</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><span class="smcap">The Prop that Failed</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_340">340</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><span class="smcap">The Book and its Critics</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_353">353</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><span class="smcap">Who are They?</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_358">358</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></td><td><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><span class="smcap">Last Words</span></a> -</td><td class="tdr page"> -<a href="#Page_379">379</a></td></tr> -</table> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span></p> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE.</h2> -</div> - - -<p>The good old custom of the author telling his readers in a preface why -he wrote his book, happily has not yet gone out of date. Though no -particular friend to guide-board literature in general, I confess to a -weakness for the preface. It has its helpful uses. There the author can -talk directly to his readers, without filtering his thoughts through -the brains of his characters; and in consequence the readers come into -closer sympathy with him and understand him better. In not a few cases -I have wished books were all preface. I hope others may not wish so in -this case.</p> - -<p>In the preface we meet the author face to face, as it were, and he -becomes ours or we become his at once. It is a little confidential -glimpse into his soul, which he kindly gives us before we enter it by -means of the book.</p> - -<p>Yes, I am decidedly in favor of the preface, both as reader and author.</p> - -<p>A time-honored method of prefatory writing, made the author assume a -modesty that was self-depreciatory in the extreme. More often than -not he warned readers off by throwing out hints disparaging his own -ability. To such few readers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span> as he thought might follow him through -the book in spite of his assurance that it would be unprofitable to do -so, he apologized with the utmost humility for the waste of their time -and drain upon their patience for which he was about to be responsible.</p> - -<p>I shall do no such thing. On the contrary, I believe that he who -reads this book will not find his time ill spent. Its theme is the -most important that can engage the human race. It is my answer to the -mightiest question ever propounded. <em>My</em> answer. Its value extends -that far and no farther. “It is only insight into the ground of being -that secures satisfaction and thorough knowledge.” My light may be only -a rush-light; but such as it is I obey the behest to let it shine.</p> - -<p>Says one of the greatest of modern philosophers: “If anything in the -world is worth wishing for—so well worth wishing for that even the -ignorant and dull herd in its more reflective moments would prize it -more than silver or gold—it is that a ray of light should fall on the -obscurity of our being, and that we should gain some explanation of our -mysterious existence, in which nothing is clear but its misery and its -vanity.”</p> - -<p>To each of us things are what they appear from each particular point of -view. Our idea is our limitation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p> - -<p>He who writes a book presents to other minds a picture of life as it -appears to him, from whatever point of view he has chosen. His work -portrays both that which he sees outside himself and that which is -within. It is a combination of himself and the world as he sees it, for -of subject and object are all things made.</p> - -<p>When we read a tale it is the author we learn to know, rather than -his people; but we know him through his people. They are the dwellers -within his mind, and we cannot know them without entering that realm -and knowing it, be it enchanted or disenchanting.</p> - -<p>Sight and insight make up all literature. Every book is a combination -of the author and what he looks upon and studies objectively as well as -subjectively. It is truth as he sees it.</p> - -<p>I have read many interesting works of fiction; but for the most part -I laid them down dissatisfied. They lacked something for which I was -always searching. They gave no answer to the questions that early began -to trouble me—questions that nobody could answer and few cared to be -bothered with. Often they were very attractive pictures of that which -the world is to so many—a fool’s paradise.</p> - -<p>They dealt with the emotions of those whose lives they portrayed, and -they appealed to the emotions of those who read them; and all had ever -the one, one theme—the pursuit of happiness.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span> And all pursuers saw the -alluring phantom in the same shape, and gave chase to it by the same -road. Sometimes they captured it, and then—the book ended. There was -nothing else for the author to do when he reached that point, but to -let the curtain drop and turn out the lights, lest his audience see -that the happiness so hotly pursued was not the true thing after all; -but only an appearance, an illusion, a disappointment, as veritable a -phantom as ever—which left the one in possession of it no better off -than he was before he captured it.</p> - -<p>Now the form of this phantom, was the love of the man and the woman for -each other, and the possession of each by the other. Romances have been -mostly amplified sex chases. They wrought upon the reader’s emotions -through many harrowing chapters, the end thereof being that a certain -man married the particular woman he was pursuing.</p> - -<p>An old man whom I knew in my youth said he only read the first and -last chapters of a novel. In the one he became acquainted with the -hero and heroine; in the other he found out “whether he got her or -not.” By so doing he escaped much emotional wear and tear to which -less discriminating readers subjected themselves. As we all know, -sometimes “he didn’t get her.” What then? Well, perhaps she died or -he died, and that ended the story. Everybody accepted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span> that event as -final and incontestable. That was the end, and nobody ventured to ask -what lay behind it. It was the end of the successful as well as of the -disappointed—the end of everybody in the world, yet nobody sought its -meaning.</p> - -<p>In this respect the people outside of books were precisely like the -people in books. They had the same ideal of happiness, chased it -through the same difficulties and disasters, and would not admit that -it was a phantom; would not see that Death stalked behind every joy, -sat at every feast, touched elbows right and left with the victorious -as well as with the defeated, and waited for everybody under the sun. -They knew it, of course, but they did not want to think about it or -talk about it.</p> - -<p>And what was this spectre to which all closed their eyes because of -terror? Death was death. That was all they knew. It was the terrible -and final thing that could happen. More; it was sure to happen; but it -must be put off as long as possible and ignored in the meantime.</p> - -<p>To me it ever was incomprehensible that so dreadful an issue was so -hopelessly accepted and so little inquired into.</p> - -<p>I pondered much on this strange problem. The dream haunted my mind that -somewhere there was a solution.</p> - -<p>I sought it everywhere from men and books; but long without success. At -last a ray of light<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> fell upon my path. Faithfully following it through -years of earnest inquiry I learned that Death is not death. With that -knowledge happiness took a new form and beckoned to me over a new road.</p> - -<p>Because of the new ideals it placed before me I wrote this book. Its -people are my people; its gospel my gospel. From the truth as I was led -to see it I found a reason for my own being as well as for that of the -book, and I have tried to give it to the reader as simply as it came to -me.</p> - -<p>The psychical phenomena described are not exaggerated. Most of it -came within my own experience, and would be accessible to any one who -devoted to the study as much patience, time and effort as I did.</p> - -<p>There will be those who will give to the book only the sneer of -conceited ignorance. For such I have no message. With them, the first -condition of all learning—receptively—is lacking. I make no argument. -I try to convince no one. I simply tell a story. It will bear its own -message to those ready to receive it. None else can understand. God -Himself cannot give us what we will not receive.</p> - -<p>The book is but a finger that aims to point out to others a moon that -made glorious light for me. And if you will patiently look in the -direction it points, you, too, will see the shining moon.</p> - -<p class="right"> -<span class="smcap">The Author.</span><br> -</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span></p> - -<p class="xbig center">PART I.</p> - -<hr class="r5"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.<br><span class="small">THE CHILD AND HER OWN PEOPLE.</span></h2></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>There are some of us who in after years say to Fate, “Now deal us your -hardest blow; give us what you will; but let us never again suffer as -we suffered when we were children.”</p> - -<p>The barb in the arrow of childhood’s suffering is this; its intense -loneliness, its intense ignorance.—<i>Olive Schreiner.</i></p> -</div> - - -<p>Under a great tree a child was singing softly to herself:</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Beautiful, dear, and noble old tree</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Bend your green branches caressing o’er me.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For oh! a day’s coming, and soon will be here,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I shall be far from your presence and cheer;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And my heart will be lonely without your embrace,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And you—you will long for a sight of my face.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Your branches bend low to the ground,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Bend low and caressingly,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And they sway with a murmurous sound—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A language of nature profound—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Sway softly and caressingly,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As they bend, with a sigh, to the ground.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They chant the grand chorus of ages,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">In musical monotone;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And open the past’s mystic pages—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The wonderful, solemn, sealed pages—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">So vaguely and dimly known.</span><br> -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span><span style="margin-left: 1em;">They sing me the song of the ages.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I listen with spirit and soul</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To each swaying, whisp’ring bough,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The silent centuries backward roll</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And open before me like a scroll.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And I view the “Then as Now”—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I listen with spirit and soul.</span><br> -</p> - -<p>She was lying on the grass, with her face toward the sky, which she -could only see in spots through the tree’s thick branches, which hung -low and swayed in the slightest breeze, with a motion that was very -like a caress to one beneath them. A house stood near, but the tree -completely hid it on one side. One coming from the south saw only a -beautiful grassy hill surmounted by a great green umbrella.</p> - -<p>Under this friendly shelter the woman-child lay, singing her own words -to her own tunes. Oblivious to outward sounds, she heard no footsteps -until the branches parted and a stranger entered her temple.</p> - -<p>At this a dog that had been enjoying the profoundest of slumber near -her, sprang to his feet with a great show of vigilance, making up for -his tardiness by the most energetic barking.</p> - -<p>“Be quiet, Bliss,” said the child, rising to a sitting posture and -looking steadily at the stranger, with the utmost composure. The dog -at once became silent, but he went close to her and posed as on the -defensive.</p> - -<p>“I beg pardon,” said the intruder, politely raising his hat, “I saw no -one, and thought to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> rest a bit in the shade, and get a cool drink of -water, too.”</p> - -<p>“The well is on the other side of the house,” she said, making a motion -in that direction with a thin, nervous, unchildlike hand. Her words -and manner expressed the utmost indifference—yet there was a gleam of -interest in her big, clear eyes.</p> - -<p>The stranger moved on, murmuring thanks. She looked after him with a -sudden yearning in her heart for his return. He was not of her world, -that was sure; and yet somehow it was quite clear to her that he was -of her world—the world of her dreams, where she longed to be, fancied -she had been, and from whence she had somehow sadly strayed. Yes, in -that instant of contact she understood that in spite of all apparent -difference their worlds were the same.</p> - -<p>In another moment he returned. Gracefully begging permission, he -seated himself on the grass and leaned against the tree. His manner -captivated her. It was respectful and deferential as to a woman grown. -It enchanted her, for she was one of those misunderstood children who -have thoughts and feelings far beyond their years and suffer great -humiliation when treated patronizingly.</p> - -<p>“You are not at all afraid of me although I came unannounced and -unintroduced, are you?” he asked, half laughing.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span></p> - -<p>“Afraid? Why should I be? I am in my own door-yard. Besides, you don’t -look like a wild beast, and if you were one, here is Bliss to take care -of me.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you. It’s a comfort to know you have no doubt that I am human. -But what is this?” he asked, as a piece of cardboard blew toward him. -“Ah! a drawing. May I look at it?”</p> - -<p>She nodded her consent.</p> - -<p>It was a pencil drawing of a woman’s head, and interested him at first -glance, because, imperfect though it was, it had that which makes -art great when it is so—the human quality, the power to express its -creator, the aim and object of all art. This penciled face gave an -insight into the artist’s mind, showing that which she had tried to -express and yet had not made clear. It showed the height to which she -rose in fancy, and the long and rugged road between present performance -and the perfection of which she dreamed.</p> - -<p>All this the stranger saw, because we see what is within ourselves. It -takes genius to recognize genius. He had traveled the road on which she -was taking her first feeble steps.</p> - -<p>“Is it your work?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she nodded, coloring faintly. It was plain that she expected no -praise, yet longed for a helping word.</p> - -<p>“Is it a copy?” he asked, for there was about<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> it, although but half -expressed, that which he thought must have been suggested by something -from a master hand.</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>“Then who is it?” There was unaffected interest in his voice.</p> - -<p>“One of my people,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“Does she live here?”</p> - -<p>“She is here sometimes, not always.”</p> - -<p>“Well, she must be a beautiful woman—even more beautiful than you -depict her.”</p> - -<p>“You understand,” said the child. “I cannot put her on paper as I see -her. I know but little of drawing, but I am always trying to draw -faces—the faces of my own people—and trees, for they are my own -people too; but I am never satisfied with my work. They do not get on -the paper as they are in my mind.”</p> - -<p>“Why not have some instruction?”</p> - -<p>She shrugged her shoulders.</p> - -<p>The stranger understood, but in order not to seem to, he began to pick -up some scattered leaves of paper near him. Seeing that they contained -writing he was about to lay them down with an apology when the child -said:</p> - -<p>“It is a letter I have written to Helen, the woman whose picture you -have just been looking at. You may read it, only not aloud. I couldn’t -stand that.”</p> - -<p>“But why should I read it at all?” he said.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> “It would be impertinent -on my part. Besides, I am not afflicted with the despicable vice of -curiosity.”</p> - -<p>“If you don’t mind, I wish you would read it,” she said. “It may help -me. You will understand when you have finished.” But she looked ill at -ease, nevertheless.</p> - -<p>The stranger read:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><span class="smcap">My dearly Beloved Helen</span>:—Since you went away I am very -lonely indeed. None other is so near and dear to me as you. I fill the -hours with thoughts of you—thoughts so intense and absorbing that at -times I actually see you by my side. But, alas! you do not stay when -you come like that. You fade out of my sight; you go back to your -world and I cannot follow you only with my thoughts, my dreams, my -love and my letters.</p> - -<p>But I shall go and find you some day. I shall be one of the people -of your world, and shall be busy with work which shall fill my time, -my brain and my heart. I shall meet all my people there—my very own -people, and shall love them and work with them and know loneliness no -more. I have a story to tell you, Dear Heart. It is this:</p> - -<p>In a world nameless to all mankind, lived a woman, sweet and fair. -It was a beautiful world. There the men were all true and the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span> women -all faithful. Misery was unknown and none sought happiness, for all -possessed it.</p> - -<p>But this one woman dreamed dreams and saw visions. She heard voices -calling to her from another world—a world whose people sought -continually and vainly to attain a condition they knew only in name, -and which they called Happiness. All believed in the existence of -this condition and gave chase to it, each in his own way, but none -found it. Often hearing the voices of these unhappy people and -seeing them in visions, this woman longed to go and help them. The -longing disturbed the harmony of life in all her world, until it was -decreed that she must leave it and go to that other whose vibrations -of anguish had shaken the spheres. But they did not tell her of her -destiny. “She will know when she is there,” they said.</p> - -<p>So she slept, and the sleep was long in the eyes of the children of -Time.</p> - -<p>When she awoke, memory was gone, and everything had to be learned -over again. At first her consciousness was very dim, and her strength -feeble, and having slept so long she could scarcely keep awake at all.</p> - -<p>But after a time a faint memory of the past came to her, and she saw -that all was different from that other time, which now seemed like a -dream. This was not the same world, nor were these the same people -she had known, for she was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span> in the sad world she had seen in visions, -whose people so persistently and often frantically sought Happiness -and never found it—and that sad world was this in which we live.</p> - -<p>She was changed in appearance, too, for when she looked in a mirror -she saw a face that was new to her and a tiny figure. She was like a -child, and everybody called her a child, though to herself she seemed -not to be a child, because part of her memory had come back, and it -was the memory of a woman.</p> - -<p>It was very hard to feel like a full-grown person in mind and be -treated like a creature with almost no mind at all. One of the most -painful things she saw was that sometimes the most ignorant and -unfeeling were in positions of power over sensitive children. She -suffered much from the very beginning of consciousness.</p> - -<p>To go back to the world she could so dimly remember was her one dream. -But when she spoke of it those about her laughed and said she had -never been in any other world, because there was no other.</p> - -<p>Once in a dream she went back, or perhaps it was that some of her old -friends came to her. They told her to be patient; that she had been -sent to help the unhappy ones who had so often called to her; that -scattered all over the planet in which she dwelt now were others like -herself, who had come for the same purpose; that she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span> would meet them -from time to time and that would pay her for much of her pain.</p> - -<p>They said, too, that she had a particular work to do here and could -not leave until it was done, but she must find out what it was -herself; that the road would often seem very hard and very long, but -it had an end, and if she did her work well—</p> - -<p>There the dream ended; but it comforted her, all unfinished as it was.</p> - -<p>By and by her childhood was gone. She was a woman, and went forth to -find her work, earnest, enthusiastic and eager, and they said she had -precious gifts.</p> - -<p>“I will paint pictures,” she said, “for always in my mind are noble -faces and figures, like the gods when they walked among men, and these -shall show mankind how glorious it can itself become.”</p> - -<p>Beautiful creations, perfect shapes of beauty came forth from her -hand, but the world, for the most part, passed them by. It said, “We -see nothing in these,” and it spoke the truth, for that in them could -only be seen by those like unto them.</p> - -<p>A few, however, stood before them filled with delight. They were -people of the planet from which the artist came, and they recognized -their kindred in the faces and forms she had depicted; but she herself -was never satisfied with what she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> had done. Within her mind, faces -more glorious, and forms more perfect struggled for expression.</p> - -<p>“I have a tale to tell,” she said, “that many will be glad to hear, -for it contains help for all.” But again the world did not understand. -It said, “The people of this book are impossible people, and what -is the author trying to say? We see nothing in it.” A few only -understood; but these were of her planet.</p> - -<p>“Now,” she said, “I will write again, and this time the world will -read and be charmed. I will give it what it wants, not what I want to -give it.”</p> - -<p>She spoke truly. She wrote and many were pleased; but the people of -her planet closed her book with pain in their faces, and she herself -found no joy in it. To her conscience she made this excuse: “I want -bread and the easy, comfortable things of life, and the world wants -foolishness, so we exchange products. Some day I will write that which -pleases myself. Then I shall make no concessions, no bids for favor. I -shall say what I feel and think.”</p> - -<p>Time went on, and the world became interested in new names, and -almost forgot hers. Days of discouragement and distress arrived. The -ease which she had bought by pleasing the commonplace, vanished, and -loneliness, ill-health and poverty came in its stead. Weary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> and -sick unto death in spirit and body, she longed to end it all, and so -longing fell asleep, and sleeping dreamed.</p> - -<p>She saw again the faces of those from her other world who had come to -comfort her when a child. One, the most beautiful of all, and yet just -now the saddest, seemed nearer and dearer than the others. It was a -glorious face, radiant with strength and sweetness, a type of perfect -womanhood. All her life it had visited her in dreams and haunted her -imagination. Sometimes the name that belonged to it hovered on her -lips, yet was never spoken, for it always vanished before it took -shape in her mind.</p> - -<p>“Did you find your work?” they asked.</p> - -<p>“I tried hard, dear friends,” she said. “I have not been idle.” But -their faces showed no joy.</p> - -<p>“Have I not done my work well?” she questioned, beginning to be afraid.</p> - -<p>“Have you given your best?” they asked.</p> - -<p>A flush of shame covered her face. “No; the world did not want it.”</p> - -<p>They were silent, and there was that in their eyes which made her more -and more ashamed.</p> - -<p>“I needed bread,” she said, anxious to make excuse.</p> - -<p>“Is bread all that is worth striving for, that you paid for it so high -a price?” they asked.</p> - -<p>She was silent.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p> - -<p>“Did you come to please or help the people of this world?” they asked.</p> - -<p>“You told me long ago that I came to help,” she answered, “but they -made it very hard. When I wrote that which burned within my soul -they cared not to hear it, but wanted something that entertained and -diverted them from what they call the cares of life; and I—well, I -was often hungry—so I gave them what they wanted.”</p> - -<p>“And did they reward you?”</p> - -<p>“You see I have nothing,” she answered. “For a time I had some of the -possessions all value so much; but they are gone.”</p> - -<p>“You tried to tell these people what you thought and felt, but they -would not listen, you say; so you told them little foolish tales, -like those that please children, but instruct not, help not, and thus -you passed your life neglecting to unfold your own soul by expressing -it truly. Only the weak and feeble of will, or the indolent and -indifferent, turn back at the first obstacle. Where was your faith?”</p> - -<p>“I sold it, as you see, for a pitiful price,” she answered, weeping.</p> - -<p>“And were you satisfied?”</p> - -<p>“Never. My conscience always lashed me. I have been punished already. -Give me no further penance.”</p> - -<p>“It is not ours to punish or pardon, nor in all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> the universe is there -either punishment or pardon. There is only unchangeable, ever-active -law. Had you done your work well”—</p> - -<p>“What is it to do one’s work well?” she interrupted.</p> - -<p>And now the woman of the glorious face came near and answered: “It is -to give the highest and best that is in you, without caring whether -it will please or offend; to express truth, as you see it, though the -world be against you; to pay whatever price is asked, though it be -starvation and disgrace for the freedom of your soul, for the soul is -only free when it faithfully follows its <span class="smcap">Ideal</span>.”</p> - -<p>“Then I know I have not done my work well,” said the woman, sadly. “I -seldom gave my best. I had not the courage. I was afraid the price I -would have to pay would be too high. But what is the fate of those who -do not do their work well?”</p> - -<p>The faces of the company were full of pity, as they answered, “They -must do it over again.”</p> - -<p>Then the woman wept aloud. “But not just yet,” they said. “You are -very tired; your strength is gone. You shall rest for a time.”</p> - -<p>Then one touched her eyes gently, and they closed to the light of this -world!</p> - -<p>Helen, dearest, I dreamed that story, and I was the woman who -did not do her best. It always seems to me that I lived long ago -somewhere—many<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> lives perhaps. At times I can almost remember scenes -and people of that far-off time. It may be that it was right here in -this world, and that I have been sent back to do what I left undone. -Or it may be that here in this life I shall not do what I ought to do, -and must come again. Ever with me is the thought that there is some -particular thing for me to do and that I must make haste to find it -and do it, because the time is short.</p> - -<p>Part of my work is to find my people—thy own people whom I knew in -that far-away life, you are one of them, and—</p> -</div> - -<p>The stranger laid the unfinished letter down and looked curiously -at the author. He had not observed her closely until then. He saw -in her face that which is higher than beauty, but is only seen and -understood by its spiritual kindred. The mouth, that unmistakable key -to character, because it is the door through which the soul expresses -itself, was perfect in shape and exquisitely sensitive, though the -other features had a dash of boyish ruggedness in them. But the eyes, -the dark grey eyes, mottled with tawn, had in them a look, indefinable, -yearning, appealing,—a look that might have ages of suffering behind -it—and perhaps before it—that went to the stranger’s heart like a -knife, and filled his eyes with a mist. In after years more than one -strong spirit lost its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</span> strength and wept it knew not why, before that -flash-light of a soul.</p> - -<p>In the same moment the stranger saw another thing. It was that the -child was entirely without self-consciousness and the consequent -coquetry which so often spoils the manners of even very little women. -She was not thinking how she appeared in his eyes. He could see that. -It was nothing to her that her feet were naked, her hair twisted and -her clothing crumpled. It was plain that these unconventional facts -did not even present themselves to her mind. Her shoes and stockings -and big straw hat lay near her on the grass, and she gave no sign of -embarrassment because she was not arrayed in them. She met him on the -ground of mind to mind. In her shining, yearning eyes was an eager -interest.</p> - -<p>“A free, original, aspiring spirit,” he mused. “Life will be a rough -pilgrimage for her. She will find it hard to shape herself to iron-clad -standards. The vast army of the commonplace, unable to understand her, -will claw at her like birds of prey. It is a pity that she must be -bruised and beaten into the usual shape, as she surely will be. But the -world is a relentless potter, with inflexible ideas of how its human -jugs and vases are to be modeled; and it shapes us all, in a measure, -in spite of ourselves.”</p> - -<p>“If the question isn’t impertinent, how old<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span> are you?” he asked, with a -cadence of melancholy in his voice.</p> - -<p>“Eleven; but I feel <em>very</em> old sometimes. Old, old, old!”</p> - -<p>“Yet you are not old enough to be writing of loneliness,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Ah; you think so? Can you imagine the loneliness of a child who is not -altogether a child and yet not a woman?”</p> - -<p>“Where are your dolls?” he asked, hoping to divert her mind from -subjects too serious.</p> - -<p>Her handsome mouth curved into a sneer. “Dolls?” she echoed. “Dolls? -Poor, miserable little images made by stupid people to deceive those -they believe to be stupider. Well, I have several. They were given to -me by foolish friends who meant to be kind; but they live in boxes -upstairs. I never get any good from them, wretched imitations of people -that they are, with expressionless faces and stuffed bodies. I prefer -my own people.”</p> - -<p>“The lady of the picture and letter is one of them, you said. But of -course they are not all grown up like her.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, they are, for I like grown-up people best. I don’t like those of -my own age. At least I have seen but few whom I liked. The reason I am -so fond of my own people, is because I make them myself, and so, of -course, I make them to suit me. They are charming, and very<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span> fond of -me. You would call them unreal; but to me they are more real than the -flesh and blood people hereabouts, and much more agreeable.”</p> - -<p>“Ah! I understand now,” said the stranger. “They are your own people -in the sense of being congenial, companionable, of your own way of -thinking. You have gone direct to a great truth, little friend. Our own -people are those with whom we are in intellectual sympathy, no matter -where we find them.”</p> - -<p>“But your other people,” he went on, after a short pause, motioning -with his hand toward the house, “your family,—you love them, too?”</p> - -<p>“No; we don’t love each other,” she answered, frankly; “we seem not to -fit well together—not to be thinking the same thoughts. The most of -me is completely shut away from them. I cannot talk to them as I am -talking to you. They would laugh at me; they would ridicule me, and -that enrages as well as hurts me. And they are going away one by one, -interested in their own lives and knowing nothing of my dreams and -longings. Two of my sisters married recently and have gone far away, -and last week my oldest brother left. I watched him out of sight as he -went down the road, with my heart almost bursting. So it was when the -others went. Everything was desolate without them, and they will never -be back here again in the old way. Not that the old way was so good, -for it wasn’t, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> I could not bear to see the end. I suffer if only -an animal dies or is taken away. And I always wanted to love them; but -they did not understand.”</p> - -<p>The stranger’s eyes grew pitiful, not so much for what she had suffered -as for what she was destined to suffer. He saw her as she was, and -as no other had seen her, none having the power to understand,—a -sensitive, affectionate, aspiring soul, held for a time in a place -alien to her spirit, among people most truly not her own.</p> - -<p>“Another,” he said, mentally, “destined to travel the rough road that -leads to the heights. Another with a dash of the weightiest gift of -the gods. I did not think to find one of the climbers of Olympus here. -Yet where none dreams to find them there they are. Poor little soul -touched with the wand of genius, already living in a world of her -own creation, because the other world is ungenial and intolerable, -and longing for sympathy, which is recognition, appreciation, and -encourages expression, which is life itself. The old, old spirit in -the new body, not comprehended, often wounded, yet striving, striving, -always striving against hard conditions to tell what it feels.</p> - -<p>“But you have some friends of your own age among the real people—those -we call real—have you not?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; and I play with them sometimes in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> their way; but in a little -while I am tired of them, and am generally glad when they are gone, -so that I can be with the friends I have been telling you about. But -I have one comrade of my own age whom I love. She talks very little; -but she understands. We often spend whole days together away from -everybody. She doesn’t fit into her family much better than I do in -mine, but she is happier, because her family are kinder than mine. They -love each other better.”</p> - -<p>The stranger was struck with the simple and forceful analysis of the -difference between the two families.</p> - -<p>“When people love each other they are kinder, as a matter of course,” -he said, feeling that he was guilty of the stupidest of platitudes, but -anxious to keep the young philosopher talking. “But your family love -you, surely?”</p> - -<p>“No,” she said, decisively, the mottled eyes showing a flash of pain so -intense that he turned away.</p> - -<p>“What makes you think so?”</p> - -<p>“They find fault with me all the time. It is a terrible thing to be -blamed always and never praised. When I am grown, should I have power, -should I be able to get others to listen to me, I shall tell them that -if they want to make people better they must praise them. Fault-finding -helps nobody. I am sure of that. It is the worst possible thing for -me, for it fills my heart<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> with rage and a sense of injustice, and of -course it has the same effect on everybody else. I can see plainly -enough what would make an angel of me, and angels of all others, too. -Love and praise are what is needed. What couldn’t I be and do if they -only loved me and saw good in me, and told me so. But to be nagged, and -blamed, scolded, rebuked and humiliated incessantly is making me wicked -in my mind all the time. I know how devils are made. They just take -a child, neither better nor worse than others, and put it some place -where it hears nothing but blame all the time, never a word of love or -praise, and when it is grown up it is a devil, ready to give back the -pain that had been inflicted on it. If it were not for my own people, -my thought people, I could not endure life at all.”</p> - -<p>“A bad case,” said the stranger to himself, with a sigh, “heart and -intellect both hungry. I fear the road will be very rough.</p> - -<p>“Why did you let your friend Helen go away? Since she is your own -creation, why not keep her here at will, when you are so fond of her?”</p> - -<p>“She is my own creation, but I could not keep her here. She has her own -life to live, so she went back to the world from which I drew her, for -I do truly believe away down inside of me, that she is what you call -real. Just now she is in Paris, and she is a famous author, but not -too conceited to love me and find pleasure in talking<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> and writing to -me. I was willing she should go away, as it gives me an opportunity of -writing to her. I enjoy writing even more than talking, sometimes. I -get letters from her often. I have a box full of them. Of course I have -to write them myself, but after they are written it really seems that -she, not I, is their author, and I enjoy reading them just as other -folks enjoy sure-enough letters that come from the post office.”</p> - -<p>“How do you send letters to your people?”</p> - -<p>The yearning eyes became grave. “Well, that is awkward. I leave them -in queer little places where big, bad, real people are not apt to find -them—at the root of a flower, in the crevice of a wall, or under a -stone—and persuade myself that somehow they reach their destination. -Sometimes I carry them clear to the woods and leave them in hollow -trees, or under great, cool rocks, where, perhaps, there are fairies or -some kind of invisible messengers who will transport them for me.</p> - -<p>“But when it rains, now and then, they are washed out of their places, -and I find them all wet and blurred. Then a chilly feeling comes over -me, and I am half afraid that, after all, my people have not seen -them. You see it hurts me if I think <em>nobody</em> reads them. That’s -why I wanted you to read my letter to Helen. I felt sure you would -understand.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span></p> - -<p>“You have many of these unseen friends of yours?” asked the stranger.</p> - -<p>“Yes, many; but Helen is my only confidante. Of course I am not a -little girl when I am with my people. I am grown up, and am important, -for I, too, am a famous writer, and I paint the most wonderful -pictures. Yes, I have great fame and the wisest and most distinguished -people are pleased to be received by me, and they—well,—they hang -upon my words.”</p> - -<p>“Of course,” said the stranger.</p> - -<p>“It is beautiful,” continued the child, “to be treated with -consideration. When will big folks learn that little ones are human -beings like themselves, with the same feelings exactly, and that they -can’t respect themselves if they are ordered about rudely, scolded, -snubbed and generally treated as inferior beings?”</p> - -<p>She was enjoying the first appreciation the world had accorded her; was -breathing the air of her dreams, the congenial atmosphere which is only -found where there are sympathetic souls to breathe it with us.</p> - -<p>The stranger, understanding, thought of “how widely yawns the moat that -girds a human soul,” whose “real world is always an invisible place, -removed from the rush and chatter of crowds, for the most important -portion of life is the secret and solitary portion.”</p> - -<p>“Are your people all women, or do you permit<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> poor, imperfect, earthly -man to enter your paradise?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“Our world is made up of human beings, and of course that means men -and women,” she replied. “It would be a stupid place if it contained -only women or only men. But our men are men, not merely creatures who -pass as such, like so many one sees walking about here. And yet, I must -confess that the men of my thought world are not quite so real to me as -the women. I want to make them excellent, perfect; but I don’t succeed. -When I get them just so far along, I seem unable to complete them, and -so they are more or less dim and shadowy to me.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, I see,” said her listener. “Your ideal of mankind is too high -for even your imagination to give form to. What are these men like -who still seem dim to you? Some of them are knights and lords of high -degree, or kings, perhaps?”</p> - -<p>“No; we don’t care for that kind. They would be too conceited for our -world. We don’t like fighters, either. We have great men, of course, -but they have earned their laurels; but even then they don’t talk about -themselves, till they tire one all out like living men do. But we will -not have any who are not truthful, and then they are courageous, for -liars are always cowards, you know. And then, they are kind, very kind -to everybody, and they don’t think themselves better than women. We -couldn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> stand that, especially as our women are all so magnificent. -I’m one of them, you know.”</p> - -<p>It was beautiful to him to see her so frankly reveal herself as she saw -herself. “Your men do something, I suppose,—something more than to be -merely agreeable?” he said.</p> - -<p>“We all work, but we dream too, and the dreamers are prized as highly -as the workers if they dream good dreams.”</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“For a dreamer lives forever,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And a toiler dies in a day,”</span><br> -</p> - -<p class="p0">hummed the stranger softly.</p> - -<p>Then in memory he turned to the past, murmuring, “Bohemia, thy grapes -are sweet.”</p> - -<p>He saw again its hot and dusty highways, its tangled byways and the -long procession traveling thereon. One by one they passed him in -review, some with road-worn feet, faded garments and weary eyes; some -stepping lightly, with joy in their hearts and flowers in their hands. -There were the hopeful, the mirthful, the witty and the merry. There, -too, were the baffled and beaten, the hopeless and the joyless. The -successful went by with proud mien, and smiling face, and they who had -failed also bore themselves erect and smiled, that the world might -not dream of the pain at their hearts. “Their heads were bloody but -unbound.”</p> - -<p>Grapes grew abundantly overhead, but a few,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> only a very few of the -many travelers gathered them. He saw it all in memory as he had seen -it all in reality. Now, as one by one the struggling, striving throng, -dowered with the fateful gift of genius, passed again before him, he saw</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Their faces all showed suffering,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though no voice uttered plaints.”</span><br> -</p> - -<p>How courageous they had been! How faithful! Not a few had met -starvation face to face, and even that dread sight had not power to -turn them from the pursuit of their ideals. Again and again he had -seen the bravest and brightest fall, their aim unattained, their hands -empty, their names unrenowned, their hearts broken. But now he saw, as -by a revelation, that the defeated were victors too.</p> - -<p>Putting his hand over his eyes as if to shut out the sight of the -striving, suffering throng, he groaned mentally, for here in this quiet -spot, far from the great centres of life, was another getting ready for -a pilgrimage on the same hot, dusty road.</p> - -<p>The child was the first to break the silence into which they had fallen.</p> - -<p>“My own people are somewhere in the real world, I am sure, and I must -go and find them,” she said. “I was singing about it to this dear old -tree when you came, for when I go the tree<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> will miss me and be lonely. -We are great friends. I tell it many things, and it answers by waving -its branches over me—see, like that, and I understand.”</p> - -<p>“You are eleven years old,” said the stranger, “and are eager to go -and find your people. I am many, many years older and yet have found -very few of mine. The search is long and sometimes heart-breaking, but -it has to be made. But remember one thing, and forget it not, I pray -you. If you have some dream in your mind dearer than all others—some -thought that burns to spring forth into life—be faithful to it, for -it is your ideal. Follow it at any cost. Your story of the woman who -did not do her best contains a great philosophical truth. Somewhere, -sometime we are destined to reach a state where our dreams shall come -true, where we shall have the desire of our hearts, where we shall be -in accord with all beauty and all good. But we can only reach that -state by doing our best every day—in little things and great. If we do -less we shall have to do it over again.</p> - -<p>“One is with you who always knows. It is your soul—your real self. -When you want to find your work, when you are ready to tell what you -feel, ask not the world what it wants, but say to your soul, ‘What wilt -thou have me to do?’”</p> - -<p>She looked at him admiringly, gratefully, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> said, “I thank you. I -know you are wise, for you come from the big, busy world that I long to -enter, and shall enter. There one can see and learn everything. Less -than a mile away two railroads cross each other. I hear the locomotives -whistle every day as they pass, dragging people after them. I shall go, -too, some day, and then, and then”—</p> - -<p>“And <em>then</em>,” said the stranger, sighing; but she did not -understand. How could she?</p> - -<p>“And then I shall be happy,” she added.</p> - -<p>“You must find me when you come into my world,” he continued, after a -pause. “Perhaps I am one of your own people. At any rate, the great -world knows me a little. Now I must leave you and go back to where the -two railroads cross. My train was hours behind time, otherwise I should -not have had the pleasure of meeting you. I assure you I shall not -forget you, and when you come into my world I shall know you for one of -us, even as I know you now.”</p> - -<p>They had risen as he spoke. He took her slender, sunburned hand in his, -bent down, kissed it and was gone.</p> - -<p>“He is truly one of my very own people,” said the child to herself, as -she watched him out of sight. “Now I am sure they live somewhere, and -I shall find them and know them as soon as I see them, and shall be -happy.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.<br><span class="small">WHERE THE ROAD DIVIDES.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“O Urania! the earth and the air and the sea</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the infinite spaces are vocal with thee,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the sunset and moonrise seraphic with thee.”</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">—<i>Ben S. Parker.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>The tall young man alone on the porch walked slowly back and forth, -looking off into the sweet spring sunshine, with troubled eyes.</p> - -<p>He stopped and his face flushed with pleasure as a young girl dressed -for the street came out of the door.</p> - -<p>“You here, <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Kendall?” she said, interrogatively. “You toil not -neither do you spin to-day? How’s that?”</p> - -<p>“Because I am weary and fain would rest,” he answered. “Yes, and I fain -would do several other things, too; but I dare say I shall not. But you -have been idling lately, too. Why so?”</p> - -<p>She shrugged her shoulders. “Like yourself I am weary and fain would -do—I scarcely know what, and go I scarcely know where.”</p> - -<p>“Do you mind my asking whither you are bound just now?”</p> - -<p>“Not at all,” she answered, pleasantly, “only I can’t say definitely, -because I don’t know. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> shall probably fetch up at the nearest open -square where there is some green grass on which I can rest my eyes a -bit, and either lose myself or find myself for a little while.”</p> - -<p>“May I go with you?” He made the request a little timidly, for she had -a high-handed way with him that made him a little afraid of her, though -she attracted him with resistless force.</p> - -<p>“I shall be pleased.” Her voice had a sincere ring in it that flushed -his face with pleasure. “You are always a good companion, because you -don’t tire me talking too much.”</p> - -<p>“A dubious compliment, but I am grateful for it, nevertheless. Though -if it be intended as a hint for me to keep silent this morning it will -not be taken, that’s all.”</p> - -<p>They walked away together with the manner of persons accustomed to -seeing much of each other.</p> - -<p>The wide old streets had birds twittering in the trees, and sunshine -warm upon them. The air was soft and mild, and brought with it the -gentle melancholy peculiar to spring, a melancholy that creates or -awakes a strange unrest, and makes us long to go journeying to far -countries, we know not why.</p> - -<p>Each of these two were touched by the spirit of this unrest. They spoke -of the beauty of the day, of the joy of idling now and then, so sweet -to busy people, but soon fell into silence, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> their thoughts were -not with their words. The young man’s eyes became misty from time to -time, though his companion saw it not, for she did not look at his -face. He was thinking that in after years he should often recall this -walk. On his mind he was painting every object his eyes encountered, -that he might treasure it as a comforting picture in the possible -lonely future.</p> - -<p>After wandering about awhile they sat down in a tiny park near a -fountain, and idly watched the water spraying in the sunshine.</p> - -<p>“How long have you been here, Miss Hill?” Kendall asked abruptly.</p> - -<p>“Four years,” she answered, tossing a pebble into the fountain and -showing little interest in anything but her own thoughts.</p> - -<p>“And I five.”</p> - -<p>As she said nothing, presently he went on: “Now, I want you to do me a -service, a real service. I want you to decide a question, an important -question for me, and I have determined to abide by your decision, -whatever it may be. Yes, I will do exactly as you say.”</p> - -<p>Expecting a word or look of interest from her, he paused; but she went -on drawing lines on the gravel walk with her parasol, in silence. Being -of the large, fair type of man, his face flushed with every emotion. -Just now he colored deeply because of her apparent unconcern, but -continued:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span></p> - -<p>“There are times in each life when it is necessary to do one of -two things. Until we reach this point we get on very well, and are -untroubled by doubts. But when we have to decide whether to keep the -right hand road or take the left, then we look about for something or -somebody to cast the die for us. The doing is always comparatively -easy; it’s the deciding that muddles and troubles us. Now I have come -to the place where the road divides, and I want some help on the -decision.”</p> - -<p>She looked up at him now with unaffected interest.</p> - -<p>“I am thinking that I ought to strike out and do something better than -I am doing,—be something more than a cog in a great machine. I am -tired of that. In the office over there”—making a motion with his hand -in the direction of the commercial part of the city—“are men who would -faint, I am sure, or weep like children, if they should lose their -situations, such cowards have they become by long dependence on the -weekly salary. Some have been there years, and have given their manhood -as well as their time in exchange for the money they pocket every -Saturday. They act like slaves in the presence of their employer. If he -had bought them at the auction block they could not be more cringing to -him. When he is in sight self-respect withers and they are mere worms, -crawling in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> spirit at his feet. I don’t want to become like that, and -yet I am sure to if I remain. That sort of thing is contagious. No -man can stand forever against it. I know just enough of the degrading -feeling to be willing to make a sacrifice to avoid familiarity with it. -In reality the wage-earner and the man who hires him engage in a form -of coöperation, each to be respected by the other; but the relation -is universally misunderstood. The employer develops into an autocrat -and the employee into a serf, and so both are injured. To be an -employee too long is to become a dependent, helpless, pitiable being, a -degenerate man. I am sure of it. Believing that, I feel I must escape -from such direful consequences.</p> - -<p>“Yet it takes courage to voluntarily give up what they call a good -salary, and go into the wilderness, so to speak, and take the risks -that all that implies. A ship sails from New York for San Francisco day -after to-morrow. I have been thinking I would resign my situation and -take passage on her. The territories are big and full of opportunities. -I thought to go to one of them and carve out life for myself on -broader lines, if possible. I have a little money, and I can still put -forth effort. As I have no family to consult—not a relative in the -world—and being on the fence, as it were, in the matter of deciding, I -have a fancy for leaving it to you and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span> will do what you say. Tell me, -shall I go or stay?”</p> - -<p>She looked at him with something like admiration shining in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“Go,” she said, unhesitatingly. “Go, and be an individual, a fully -developed unit, a man, not a mere cog in somebody else’s wheel. Cogs -have their uses, but they have also their limitations, and they are so -plentiful. You can be a whole machine, if you try. Yes, go and be a -figure in the world, on your own account, not simply a cipher, useful -only as auxiliary to the figures.”</p> - -<p>“Good!” he said, with forced emphasis, making a brave effort to appear -delighted, but in his heart wishing he could hide somewhere and take it -out in a hearty schoolboy blubber. “Day after to-morrow at this time I -shall be aboard my ship.”</p> - -<p>He knew that her decision was wise, but it pained him that she was so -ready to send him. And then, there was the ordeal of parting from her, -a tug of war he could not calmly face.</p> - -<p>“You should go for the sake of preserving your self-respect,” she -continued, “lest in time you become like the slavish wretches by whom -you are surrounded, and also to preserve your life if you care for it. -Two years more here bent over your desk in dingy, close rooms, and you -will be hopelessly ill of consumption.”</p> - -<p>“I have thought of that,” he said, “and it has something to do with my -wish to get away.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span></p> - -<p>“Well, when you go elsewhere, don’t make the mistake of beginning the -same kind of life over again. Don’t imprison yourself, and don’t hire -yourself out to any man. The air of the West will not save you unless -you breathe it fresh and pure. Live outdoors as much as possible. How -hideous is this habit of herding in cities—hideous and hurtful! How -sensible of you to think of going where there is breadth, freedom and -outlook in all senses of the words; but I am surprised, because I never -heard you express any discontent.”</p> - -<p>“To be honest, I had very little—too little for my own good,” he said, -coloring deeply. “It has cost me a struggle to force myself to think of -going. Don’t forget that it is you who are sending me after all; but -for you I swear I should not go.”</p> - -<p>“I am sure I am doing you a service,” she answered, “though I shall -miss you, as a matter of course.”</p> - -<p>“And you, what of your future? You advise me to leave this plodding -existence, where there is neither growth nor freedom, and go where I -can be more than I ever can be here; but you are passing your life in -exactly the same jog-along way.”</p> - -<p>“I—oh! I, too, shall be gone some day.” As she spoke she smiled, -looking afar off.</p> - -<p>“If I make a place for you will you come?” he asked.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p> - -<p>There was nothing lover-like in his voice or attitude, yet he loved the -girl beside him with a faithful, dog-like, worshipful affection. Not -loving him, and not having a grain of coquetry or even vanity in her, -she had never been aware of it. Even now, when his meaning became plain -to her, she did not make a situation of it, or give it the slightest -shading of the sentimental. Entirely unmoved herself, she knew not -what the avowal cost him, made in the face of defeat, as he well knew -beforehand.</p> - -<p>“Oh, dear, no,” she said, simply, without a shade more or less of -feeling in face or voice. “If I were a man, yes, I would go; but as it -is, no. Be grateful that you are a man and have no hampering, cramping -sex limitations to work against in the public mind if not in your own. -You are free to go where you will and to do what you wish, and if it be -but half-way well done, both fools and wise will chirrup your praises. -One thing I ask of you. Throughout your life, never lose an opportunity -of helping womankind to a freer, better, broader life. Do this in -memory of me, and if I meet you in the future, either here or on the -other side of life—should there be another side—I shall not fail to -thank you.”</p> - -<p>“I promise, and doubtless shall do more than that, in memory of you.” -The last words had a quaver of agony in them, which she did not sense.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p> - -<p>“I have been growing restless of late, too. Some day I shall be -gone—perhaps before long.” She looked afar off with dreamy eyes as she -spoke, and Kendall’s heart ached as he realized at last, that in the -future of her dreams he had no part or place.</p> - -<p>“Do not forget, wherever you may be, that I am always your loyal, -humble servant,” he said, gently.</p> - -<p>“I am sure of that, and I thank you,” she answered, with kindness in -her voice.</p> - -<p>It was like the man that he did not try to relieve his almost bursting -heart by talking of his love for her, even though it was without hope, -but he understood none of the arts of Eros, and was disciplined in -repression.</p> - -<p>In truth, it was preposterous that he should dream of winning this -woman, and in a vague way he always knew it; yet he had dreamed. From -the day he first saw her she had enthralled him, an achievement of -which she seemed altogether unconscious, though everybody else read it -clearly enough.</p> - -<p>They had met daily in their common home, a boarding-house, for four -years. They had enjoyed concerts, plays and lectures together; had -walked and talked together and been good comrades and yet had never -agreed. Nothing under the sun did they see from the same point of -view, and the topic upon which they thought alike had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> never been -found. In spite of this, Kendall patiently worshipped at her shrine. -Had he not been of the steady, hopeful, never-give-up brand of lover, -he would have lost heart long before. But he had the confidence of -the self-satisfied and shortsighted, and a heart that held on to its -fancies with the desperate clutch that wins sometimes when finer -methods fail.</p> - -<p>To his credit be it said that while his devotion was open and -above-board, for all the world to see, he was never obtrusive. Early in -his acquaintance with his torturer he had learned to take a third or -fourth place about her candle and make no fuss. He was at her service -whenever she needed him, and always out of the way when she didn’t need -him.</p> - -<p>Many a night he had climbed to his fourth-story room, humming a -cheery song, while his heart was being gnawed in holes by the monster -Jealousy, all because Miss Hill was chatting and laughing in the parlor -with some of the other moths who circled about her. When chaffed about -his ill-requited devotion, he laughed it off, and said he was happy to -be tolerated at all. To himself, as a matter of graveyard whistling, he -said: “It is a question of waiting. She cares for none of them. When -she tires of them she may think of me. Meanwhile I think of her because -I can’t help it.”</p> - -<p>He kept this up for four years. Then a restlessness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> of spirit came -upon him; the unseen forces of destiny began to work upon his mind and -urge him to go forth, he knew not where. Yet how could he go out of -the sight of her, voluntarily? There was but one thing that would give -him the required courage, and that was to make her bid him go. Then he -could feel that, at least, he was obeying her, hence his little plan of -having her cast the die. It might comfort him in the future.</p> - -<p>The four years of their life together under the same roof rolled -through Kendall’s mind in panorama, and filled his heart to bursting. -The daily sight of the girl beside him had sweetened the days—had -been life itself to him, for she radiated light and life, like a -sun. That she did not love him, mattered little in that moment. The -years in which he had lived in her presence could not be taken from -him. Remembering this his spirit was lifted up, and the poor, common, -selfish ambition to possess her vanished, and the joy of having known -and loved her took its place.</p> - -<p>He looked at her long, earnestly, adoringly, photographing her on the -fadeless walls of memory that he might carry the picture with him -through all the years to come.</p> - -<p>“I want to make a confession to you, Miss Hill,” said Kendall, when he -thought the mental photograph of her was complete. “You have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> converted -me to broader views, not by words, but by your daily life. I see -you filling a useful place, unaided, in a profession that only men, -heretofore, to my knowledge, have attempted. You not only succeed, but -you excel most of your male co-workers. You make as much money as any -of them, and you have more brains, and you command everybody’s respect. -Thinking over these things, I am ashamed to remember that I thought -I ought to vote, but women must be kept from it at all hazards. Your -example has enlightened me by taking some of the masculine conceit out -of me. I feel small and mean that I in my insignificance should have -thrown a straw in the path of women like you.”</p> - -<p>“I am glad your mental horizon has widened,” she said. “It will be -a pleasure to think of you as one of my converts. I may never make -another, unless, as in this case, it be done by example and not -argument. I begin to believe that discussion availeth little. When -I hear poor, undeveloped beings fighting the ideas that would make -them free, I do nothing to convert them to my way of thinking, I just -silently say, ‘May God enlighten them,’ for that’s all that can be -done, and the enlightening process is usually slow.”</p> - -<p>“I remember now,” he said, “that I haven’t been able to draw you into a -discussion in many a day. I suppose you saw it was a hopeless case and -just simply prayed for my enlightenment.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes; and it has come sooner than I expected. So now I am more than -ever persuaded that argument is useless. None can be taught until ready -to learn. ‘Except ye become as little children’—receptive, teachable, -ready for light—applies to entering all kingdoms as well as the -heavenly one.”</p> - -<p>“While I am confessing,” said Kendall, “I will tell you that I used -sometimes to take sides against you for the pleasure of hearing you -express yourself—you do it so well.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him and her eyes made him ashamed, as she said: “That was -not kind. I was always in earnest. However, I am learning a little more -about human nature every day. I shall soon cease to be a Galatea, I -think.”</p> - -<p>“No; it was not kind nor honest, but I did not realize it until this -moment, and now I ask your pardon. Many of the offences of us men are -the outcome of ignorance rather than meanness. We know no better. Our -conceit has stood in the way of our enlightenment. Forgive all my -shortcomings, and remember my defects no more. Be a little kinder still -and do one other service for me. Read me my future.”</p> - -<p>“I am no occultist,” she answered, laughing.</p> - -<p>“No matter. I have a fancy for believing you are for the time being. -Tell me what lies ahead. It may keep up my courage. Since you are my -confessor, I don’t mind telling you that there are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</span> moments when I feel -a childish cowardice about what I may have to meet, and wish I could -run away from it all and hide forevermore.”</p> - -<p>“That recalls a bit of rhyme I read years ago which has always stuck in -my memory,” she said:</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“‘What is Life, Father? A battle, my child,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where the strongest arm may fail;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Where the wariest eye may be beguil’d,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the stoutest heart may quail.’</span><br> -</p> - -<p>“’Tis no shame to admit that one’s courage is not always high. No one -lives always on the heights. I know something about those moments of -childish cowardice you speak of; but there, I belong to the sex that is -supposed to have the right to be cowardly—we are even driven to it. -Courage brings reproach upon us, while the more we shrink and cower -and quail and complain the more ‘womanly’ we are said to be. What a -fine outlook for the human race! But as to your future. Now I am an -astrologer and must draw your horoscope.” (This was accomplished by -scratching several circles on the walk with the end of her parasol.) -“There, the rings and dots and figures all mean tremendous things. I -shall not weary you, however, by telling you the why and wherefore -of everything. I shall stick to facts. Here goes: I see a journey by -water which ends where the sun sets. You will meet disappointments and -difficulties; will know privations<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span> and dangers, and also that most -dreadful form of homesickness—the homesickness of one who has no home. -But you will overcome all obstacles and be what is called successful; -you will find your place and hold it. You will become bigger and -stronger in body and in character, and you will <em>never come back -here</em>.”</p> - -<p>“And the indescribable thing called Happiness; has it no place in my -horoscope?” he asked, after a pause.</p> - -<p>“Is it not included in the thing called Success?” she answered. “Can -the defeated be happy?”</p> - -<p>“On the whole your reading is not half bad, as the English say, when -they want to compliment a thing, and I believe in it.” Yet he sighed -as he spoke. The promised success was not alluring, meaning as it did, -lifelong separation from the sun that warmed his life.</p> - -<p>Still he was in dead earnest when he said he believed in her -prophecies. Long ago he had made up his mind that this girl was his -fate—not in the sense that she was likely to unite her life to his. -He had never been honestly hopeful of that in spite of his steady -perseverance; but it seemed to him that in some way she was to direct -his life, to be the star of his destiny, as it were. And never was that -belief stronger upon him than now when he knew that the end of their -daily association had come.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span></p> - -<p>Rising, she said, “Let us each cast a pebble in the pool of this -fountain and see whose circles will last longer.”</p> - -<p>As they watched the rings widen, multiply and vanish until those made -by her pebble had obliterated his, he said,</p> - -<p>“There! Your spirit will trouble the waters of life to greater purpose -than mine and longer. It needs no divination to tell that.”</p> - -<p>When they went back to the house they met Westfield coming out. “Will -she eventually throw herself away on him?” was the query Kendall put to -himself.</p> - -<p>At the breakfast table next morning Kendall’s chair was vacant, and the -place was to know him no more under the sun.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.<br><span class="small">CONFIDENCES AND QUESTIONS.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Too weak to change, though a mental hell</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To me the rôle of clown;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A coward bound by a self-wrought spell,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I wait the sound of the prompter’s bell</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which rings the curtain down.”</span><br> -</p> - - -<p>Sunday’s restfulness was in the air. Miss Hill and Westfield sat in the -shade of the great tree in the yard, with books and newspapers about -them. Nothing was more delightful to Westfield than to hear her read -aloud. She had a voice of great natural sweetness, with no artificial -notes in it. In truth there was no artifice in her character.</p> - -<p>The man beside her to-day was one of whom poor Kendall had often -been bitterly jealous, a man of finer fibre than his rival, greater -charm and graver defects. Older, he was also wiser, particularly in -melancholy wisdom.</p> - -<p>“Read me something,” he said, “some wild wail from a tortured poet. -There are always plenty, and I like ’en, no matter how woful they are. -God bless the poets every one, high and humble. They help us out in the -dreary business of life.”</p> - -<p>She read:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span></p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“White-footed the snow comes,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O’er the hills of beauty,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Treading like a penitent</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Rough paths of duty.”</span><br> -</p> - -<p>“What an exquisite figure,”—he interrupted,—“the personification of -the snow, with white feet, like a penitent.” He had once made a bright -mark in the world of letters, then ceased to strive and later ceased to -care, so it might be supposed that his commendation was of some value.</p> - -<p>“Miss Hill,” he said, with sudden animation, “what are you going to do -with your life?”</p> - -<p>“Live it, if I am permitted.”</p> - -<p>“How?”</p> - -<p>“I have my dreams.”</p> - -<p>“Of what?”</p> - -<p>She smiled, looking far away, but kept silence.</p> - -<p>“I can’t make you out,” he said, a little peevishly. “I believe you -have genius for literature, yet you seem to be perfectly indifferent -about cultivating it. Were you like others one might suppose that love -and marriage made up your dreams; but you are as indifferent to lovers -as to possible fame. I don’t understand you.”</p> - -<p>“Well, it isn’t worth while to bother about me,” she said. “I shall be -gone some day.”</p> - -<p>“I fear you will,” he answered, with feeling; “I have thought of it a -thousand times, and dreaded to enter the house, lest I should not find -you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> there. A sense of your impermanence is always with me. You don’t -belong here in any sense, and I fear that Fate will not let you stay -much longer. There is an unreality about your being here at all that -is like the experiences we have when we sleep, real enough while they -are occurring, but unreal to remember. Yes, you will be gone some day. -Therefore, I shall take Fate by the forelock and go first, that I may -not be here when you leave. I could not endure that. The very sight of -the old house and this tree would then be intolerable to me.”</p> - -<p>His face and speech were impassioned, but the girl saw it not. That was -what made her so exasperating to those whom she fascinated. She seemed -incapable of seeing that she could fascinate. The truth was she was -self-absorbed.</p> - -<p>“You would miss me, I am sure,” she said, in the most matter-of-fact -tone, “and I should miss you greatly, if you were gone.”</p> - -<p>“Where will you go to when you leave here?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“To my own people, I hope,” she answered, dreamily, her eyes wandering -away to the horizon.</p> - -<p>“Tell me about them,” he begged. “I have often tried to lead you to -talk of them, but you never would. You are a tell-all, tell-nothing -sort of person. Others do not notice that, but I do, and have woven -some theories about it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p> - -<p>“I dare say they do me great honor, but in all probability they are far -from true.”</p> - -<p>“Well, then, why will you not tell me about yourself?” he asked, in an -injured tone.</p> - -<p>“You talk as though I have been making history on this planet for -ages. I am young; what could I have to tell that would satisfy your -expectation of the extraordinary. You have known me here in this house -for more than two years. As the Indians in the old story-books say, -we have ‘eaten salt together daily,’ and we have walked and talked -together with the freedom of children. What is there of me still -unrevealed?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know,” he said, “but I feel there is something—a part of you -and your experiences from which I and others are shut out, and that -part is the greatest part of you. I argue that, because, although you -attract many, myself, poor moth, among them, no one gets near to you. -An invisible but formidable wall surrounds you, from which all our -attempted gallantries rebound like arrows which strike rocks. And there -you are behind it, always smiling and agreeable, but entirely unmoved -and secure. Now, somebody or some experience built that wall, for it is -not in the nature of things for it to be there without cause.”</p> - -<p>“Go on,” she said, smiling, as he waited for her to speak. “You will -end by being a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> architect yet. How like magic you put up that -wall.”</p> - -<p>“You may chaff as much as you please,” he said, a little savagely, “but -I am not to be put off that way. Now that I have begun I am going to -say some things seriously and you must hear them seriously.”</p> - -<p>“I told you to go on,” she said, composedly.</p> - -<p>“And so I will,” he grumbled, “though I know perfectly well that it -would be manlier if I kept silence. As you say, we have eaten and -walked and talked together as freely as children for more than two -years. In that time we have become well acquainted—not the poor, -shallow acquaintance of formal society, but the near, intimate -association of two human beings who honestly express themselves to each -other. The result of this comradeship is that I love you. I will not -say I have learned to love you, for something of the fact was clear to -me the very first time I saw you. In all probability you don’t remember -the incidents of that day at all, but I do. Brooks, our good host, as -you know, is my old friend. I had drifted to this city in an aimless -way, as I had been drifting for years. He met me and brought me home to -dinner with him. I have always adored intellect in man or woman. One -look into your eyes told me that you are of uncommon endowments. Then, -along with a beautiful but simple stateliness of manner, you<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> have -certain childish graces of which you are unconscious. You have never -put your childhood entirely away from you. I particularly noticed the -correct school-girlish arrangement of your knife and fork at the end -of the dinner, and was charmed by it. After we left the table I said -to Brooks that you had wonderful eyes. He agreed with me, but warned -me not to let them undo me, because he said you were constructed on a -novel plan, one man being the same as another to you, and all being as -nothing.</p> - -<p>“I paid no attention to his warning, as you see. On the contrary, -when he went to the <i>Times</i> office and secured me a situation, I -accepted it gratefully, because I could then become a member of his -household and see you every day. I have loved you ever since, and have -had much quiet joy in it, and it has bettered me in many ways. I know -perfectly well—I have always known—that you do not love me, and in my -least selfish moments I am glad of it, because I have nothing to offer -you that is fit for you to accept. I would not tell you that I love -you—never a word of it—were I not sure that it will not hurt you. -In the years to come the memory of it may comfort you. It is a great -comfort to me now, hopeless as it is. It helps me only to tell it. O -my child, my heart has long been sick and sore from bruises the like -of which I pray you may never know. We men are set up to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span> so strong -and pretend to be so self-satisfied, but we are only grown-up children -after all. When we are sore in spirit we long for some loving woman -soul to take us to her arms and pet and soothe us mother-like, yet we -often live our lives without it.</p> - -<p>“I am fifteen years older than you, and know the world well—better -than I wish I did—so well that I should like to protect you from its -ugly phases. Yet I am powerless to do it. Never did I so deeply lament -my aimless, wasted life as now, when I see myself with nothing to offer -you and yet loving you with all my heart. Sometimes, since I have known -you, I have dreamed that with your help I could pull myself together -and make something of my life yet; but the dream is only temporary—it -flees, the reaction comes and I sink back to the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</i> of a -nobody which I have long been playing, and doubtless shall play to the -end—an end that I may make for myself any day.</p> - -<p>“To say that I despise myself for being the wretched failure I am is -to express myself but lamely. My love has in it an element of the -paternal. I am not thinking so much of what you might be to me, but -of what I earnestly wish I might be to you. I long to shield you from -the infinite horror of the experience we call life, as it is revealed -to many. You are like a tall young pine-tree standing alone on a high -rugged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span> and rocky mountain side, enjoying the sunshine and swaying -gently in the summer breeze, not knowing that the winter of the future -will bring storms that may tear its roots from the earth. You know not -your own value, that is the danger. Some day you may give your love and -have your heart broken. That’s what happens to strong souls usually, -and you are one of them. I know the answer to the woman poet’s question:</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“‘Is it so, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer most?</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That the strongest wander farthest, and most hopelessly are lost?</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the anguish of the singer, makes the sweetness of the strain?</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“‘I have many things to tell you, but ye cannot bear them now.’</span><br> -</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know the answer to that, and it makes me anxious about your -future. Behold the pitiful spectacle of a man who loves a woman, tells -her of it, and yet confesses himself a hopeless failure.”</p> - -<p>“But why do you insist upon considering yourself a failure?” asked Miss -Hill. “You are not old, you have good health, education, ability, the -necessary ingredients for achievement.”</p> - -<p>“Child, you do not understand. How could you? the ruin is within, not -visible on the outer walls.”</p> - -<p>“No; I do not understand,” she said.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p> - -<p>“I will tell you,” he said, “how I came to be a loiterer in the race, -what</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 6em;">“‘——wrought my woe,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the diamond morning of long ago,’</span><br> -</p> - -<p class="p0">as the song says. You see I began by asking you about yourself, and, -with the artless art that distinguishes you, with scarcely a word, you -have switched me off the track I had taken and set me talking about -myself instead. I shall lose in your respect after I tell my story, as -a matter of course, but I would rather you knew it.</p> - -<p>“Years ago, in the days when the earth was new and sweet to me—in -the mountain-moving period of life, the tragedy began. I loved, and -like the lover of Annabel Lee I may say that the angels of heaven -coveted the love of her and me. I was one of the editors of the most -prosperous daily newspaper in the city that was my home, my uncle being -its proprietor. He had no children of his own, and had brought up my -brother and me, our parents having died, when we were very little.</p> - -<p>“A sensational criminal trial was before the courts of a distant city, -and it was arranged that I was to attend it and send daily letters to -my journal. As it promised to last several weeks, the separation from -Emma looked unendurable. I must marry her and take her with me. But -when I told my plan to her she said she couldn’t<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span> leave her father, who -was old, feeble and almost blind, with nobody else to care for him. In -my selfishness I had forgotten him. ‘I cannot go with you,’ she said, -‘but I am willing to marry you before you go. It will comfort me while -you are gone just to know that I am your wife.’</p> - -<p>“So we married, telling no one but Emma’s father. The secrecy was -needless and foolish, but when young we are all more or less enslaved -by the ways of others, and this was too violent a departure from custom -to be proclaimed just then.</p> - -<p>“Ours was an unusual but not unhappy honey-moon. We wrote every day, -long, glowing letters, and annihilated distance with our thought.</p> - -<p>“But one day a telegram came announcing that my wife had been -murdered—struck down in her own home, in the light of day, in the -presence of her helpless old father.</p> - -<p>“Behind the dreadful deed was the usual crazy rejected suitor. I knew -the wretched boy well—he was but a boy—but never dreamed of the -ghastly possibilities within his crooked mind. But what know we of any -one? Who is safe from treating the community to a hideous sensation?</p> - -<p>“He had long been fond of Emma, but lost hope when he saw that my -attitude toward her was an assured one. But after I went away he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> got -it into his crazy head that we had quarreled, and took heart again. -When he implored her to marry him, and she refused without telling him -that she was already married, he shot her dead and then shot himself.</p> - -<p>“Horror, grief, and remorse overwhelmed me. I blamed myself. Why had -I not announced the marriage at once? Had the wretched boy known that -Emma was my wife, he would have let her alone, I am sure. What did -it avail that I put a tablet at her grave bearing the name of Emma -Westfield? Humble as was the name it might have protected her had it -been openly bestowed upon her.</p> - -<p>“This happened ten years ago, before my friend Brooks, our host, ever -met me. He knows nothing of it—doesn’t dream that I ever was married. -To speak of it would oblige me to enter into explanations, to uncover -my heart to gratify curiosity, which, however kindly meant, is always -painful to a sore spirit. I tell you that you may understand I have -at least the shadow of an excuse for being what I am, a man without -purpose, a withered, useless branch of the human tree, waiting for the -man with the pruning knife to come and cut me down.</p> - -<p>“See the irony of fate. A few days after my wife’s death, my uncle -died, leaving all his property to my brother and me. We were now owners -of the newspaper on which we had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span> worked as employees, and of other -valuable interest besides. It only emphasized my misery. Of all my -possessions I could give nothing to the woman I loved—nothing but a -stone at the end of a little heap of earth.</p> - -<p>“It might have been better for me had I not inherited my uncle’s -property, for it enabled me to idle away my time and indulge my selfish -grief, until my will became enfeebled, and that means the crumbling of -the whole character, which goes to pieces like an old wall.</p> - -<p>“I went away, wandering over the earth aimlessly, not trying to benefit -by travel, only hoping to make new scenes blot out the old, unbearable -ones. I spent years in the vain effort to run away from myself. I am -still engaged in that hopeless effort, though I have learned that it -can’t be done. We take our world with us wherever we go—heaven and -hell bring both within us.</p> - -<p>“I am but a morbid idler, who has lost the qualities that give a man a -place among men. Though I never tried to stifle memory and misery in -debauchery, my money melted away. The coarse pleasures many men pursue -never had charms for me, but my destruction was none the less sure. It -has come without degradation, I am thankful to say, save that which any -man must feel who has let himself slide down hill so far he never can -climb up again.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p> - -<p>“Once only since that dreadful thing happened have I accomplished -anything. I braced myself against my inner foes long enough to write -the little book you know. It gave me fame enough for a foundation for -future work, had I followed it up; but I didn’t. I fell immediately -back into the clutches of the miserable devils who possessed me—made a -complete and inglorious surrender to them for all time, caring naught -who wins the prizes in the hateful race of life.</p> - -<p>“My story proves me a contemptible weakling. I know I am not a whit -above the cheap hero of the old-time, pirate novel, the fellow who does -the gloomy, manages to look as though the hand of Fate was ever upon -him, and has a secret sorrow as big as an omnibus, which he wants all -the world to know. I am not made of the right kind of stuff or I should -not have given up at the first blow of Destiny. ‘Man yields himself not -to the angels nor even unto Death itself, save through the weakness of -his own poor will.’</p> - -<p>“Had Emma’s father lived, the care of him might have proved a prop to -me, but the shock killed him, and he died a few weeks after she did. -I had my brother, younger than myself, and we loved each other, but I -argued that he did not need me, and left him. He loves me still and -follows me with the kindest, dearest letters, and is always begging -me to come back to him; but I will not be a cloud upon his happiness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> -and prosperity. Yet his sympathy and yours are all that is left in the -world precious to me.</p> - -<p>“My love for you is different from my early love. In that day the -castles I constructed were very worldly ones. Now, I have no worldly -ambitions whatever. It seems to me that by some kind of kinship of -soul, if there is such a thing as soul, you belong to me, and never -can be taken from me, though our lives may be widely separated. If you -were the vilest and most degraded creature in the world and yet were -yourself, I should love you just the same.</p> - -<p>“After Emma went away I tried hard to tear from Death its well-guarded -secret. I wanted to know if the dark hole in the ground is the end -of us all. I pounded fiercely on the very doors of the tomb, begging -piteously for an answer. None came. No; never a word came out of the -silence into which she had gone. The people who say they believe in -a hereafter quote at us those exasperating scriptural questions: ‘O -Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’ I can answer -them. The sting is here, in my heart. The victory is over all my hopes, -dreams and ambitions. People who believe! Are there any such? They only -say they believe. It is all mere mouthing. Can any man believe that -which he does not know? Their twaddle about faith and heaven enraged -me. I wanted proof, proof—though but a whispered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> word, the faintest -touch of a vanished hand, or the tiniest scratch of a familiar pen. -Proof! Proof! Oh for the proof that she lived somewhere. Had I had that -I could have laughed long and loud at Death, the liar and the cheat. -The merest thread of a rope would have served for me to hold to, I was -so eager to believe. But nobody let it down to me—not then, nor in all -the years since.</p> - -<p>“Yet now, in spite of all that, when I look at you, I cannot persuade -myself that you are to die—to cease from living. You carry with you -a conviction of immortality. Your intense individuality seems like a -deathless thing. It reminds me of the words of the young Greek in the -drama of Ion. When his life was to be sacrificed, his beloved asks if -they shall meet again. He says, ‘I have asked that dreadful question of -the hills that look eternal—of the streams that flow forever—of the -stars among whose fields of azure my raised spirit has walked in glory. -All are dumb. But as I gaze upon thy living face, I see something in -the love that lights its beauty which cannot wholly perish. We shall -meet again, Clemanthe?’</p> - -<p>“What answer have you for the question? ‘If a man die shall he live -again?’”</p> - -<p>“About that I think much, hope a little sometimes, but know nothing,” -she said.</p> - -<p>“No; we know nothing,” he echoed, with a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> sigh; “but it is something to -hope. I have a fancy that the road is not long ahead of me here, and -I may soon have a chance to know what there is or know nothing. If we -have an existence beyond this objective one, I may be able to help you -from there. It would be helping you could I but come and tell you that -I lived, would it not?”</p> - -<p>“What greater service could you do me?”</p> - -<p>“If I could do that I might do more. Who knows? Of course it is absurd -to speak of helping you without explaining what I mean. Apparently you -need nobody’s help. You are strong of character, self-poised, capable, -successful and fearless. I see all that, yet I cannot rid myself of the -fear that you are destined to suffer much and will need the service and -sympathy of all who love you. From life I have learned a little. When -great strength is given I know it will be needed. And you are stronger -in character than you know. I should like to save you from suffering, -but were I ever so rich and powerful, I know I could not do it. You -must meet your destiny, whatever it may be. As the Scotch say, ‘must -dree your weird.’ Nobody else can live your life for you, for, alas! -life admits of no proxy. I have woven many fanciful theories about you -and your past, present and future.”</p> - -<p>“Tell me one,” she said.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span></p> - -<p>“I will give you my favorite. You are not what you seem to be—not less -but more than you pretend to be. You have been tenderly reared and much -loved. You are not here earning your bread because of necessity, but -for some purpose not thought of by those with whom you come in contact. -Having demonstrated your ability to stand alone, you will go back home -some day and be done with it. You are supported in whatever otherwise -would be hard, by the knowledge that you are free to turn your back -upon it whenever you wish. Am I not a good clairvoyant?”</p> - -<p>“Permit me to ask why you think as you do about me?”</p> - -<p>“Because you give me the impression of not belonging where I find you. -You seem to be playing a part and doing it with exceeding skill; but -your real self is not in it. As you say, you will be gone some day to -your own people. And now that I have confessed myself a failure and a -fool, I too, shall go away.”</p> - -<p>“Why?” she asked, regretfully. “Why must the men and women who find -each other companionable be lovers or nothing to each other? I am fond -of you, very, not in the sentimental fashion, but as good comrade and -friend. Why can’t we go on just as we have been doing? That talk about -loving me need make no difference.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span></p> - -<p>“You are like a child about these things,” he said. “You know not the -creature man in his bondage to selfishness. You credit us with the -strength of gods, and we are mostly such poor, ill-developed wretches -that if we want what we cannot have we must run away to avoid showing -how little we are masters of ourselves. But tell me what are you going -to do with your life?”</p> - -<p>“I have my dreams.”</p> - -<p>“Of what?”</p> - -<p>“Happiness.”</p> - -<p>“Would it be offensive if I asked upon what particular brand of the -article you have set your heart?”</p> - -<p>“The most commonplace one in the world,—the love and companionship of -him who is dearest.”</p> - -<p>Westfield was too astonished to say anything. Was the riddle so simple? -Was this self-contained, independent girl following the same everyday -illusion that lured all other women? While apparently caring nothing -for lovers was she worshiping the one she carried ever in her heart?</p> - -<p>“I will tell you all there is to tell,” she said, after a moment, “and -then you will understand.”</p> - -<p>He nodded assent, but felt his heart sinking.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.<br><span class="small">HER STORY AND FATE.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Who reads the riddle right?</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And who can answer why</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">These clouds sweep over our mental life?</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Not you, brave priest, nor I.”</span><br> -</p> - - -<p>“Instead of being tenderly cared for, as you imagine,” said Miss Hill, -“I had a loveless childhood, though above all things I wanted to be -loved and to be told that I was loved. I could have been an angel of -goodness had I had even a little love; but next to none was given me. -If parents only knew that by showing love for their children they made -for them a foundation of happiness which no after experiences could -knock from under their feet, perhaps they would be kinder than some of -them are. But why speak of ifs at all? If we knew at the beginning of -life what we know at the end of it, perhaps we should never have to -make the journey. I have thought often that I could bear my trouble -courageously if I had sweet memories of childhood; but I have only -bitter ones. Sometimes I have been unhappy since I have been earning -my own bread among people unknown to me before, but never, never for a -moment so miserable as I was always in the home into which I was born.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span></p> - -<p>“I understand the reason of it all better now and blame nobody. The -law was simply working itself out into its natural results. If I -suffered—well, who doesn’t suffer as the mills of the gods grind, -set in operation as they usually are by ignorant hands? My father and -mother were natural enemies, who should have lived as far asunder as -the poles, instead of enacting a hideous, lifelong tragedy in the name -of marriage. I am quite sure they hated each other energetically most -of the time and bitterly the rest of it, yet they stuck together and -brought seven children into the world to suffer in a thousand ways -from their incompatible union, and considered themselves virtuous in -so doing. Yet, that is the kind of thing that passes for morality. -Long ago I saw that it was a foul lie, and the direst foe to morality. -When my eldest sister was married, and I heard the words ‘What God has -joined together let no man put asunder,’ clinching the curse, as it -were, it set me to thinking and asking questions. Somebody explained to -me that all husbands and wives were joined together by God, and could -not possibly be separated without going violently against His will, -except by death, and that, of course, was in accordance with His will. -I pondered over this with a heavy heart. Then God had united my father -and mother. This dreadful work had been done by His hand, and I was -wroth against<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span> Him, for every day I felt and saw the evil effects of it.</p> - -<p>“Is it strange that ours was a loveless family? With no love between -husband and wife, could they be expected to love their children? Can a -mother be expected to love the child who comes unwelcome to her arms? -Can a father love children in whom he sees the features and traits of -the woman to whom he is hopelessly bound and yet hates? We were all -victims of violated law, so who was to blame? Ignorance! Ignorance, -which is responsible for all the evil and all the suffering under the -sun. In fact ignorance is evil, and evil is ignorance, nothing more nor -less. You know Shakspeare says there is no darkness but ignorance.</p> - -<p>“We frequently have well-meaning persons say that ill-mated married -folk should stick together ‘for the sake of the children.’ Yet for -that very reason they should separate. Their children and children’s -children pay the penalty of their violation of the laws of harmony, -and still farther down the line of the future goes the misery that had -its origin in a hateful marriage. Pray tell me how is morality served -thereby?</p> - -<p>“In addition to the discord that made our lives wretched my parents -were victims of the desperate struggle for existence, in which the -finer qualities were squeezed out. This so absorbed them that the true -meaning of home and family<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span> escaped them, and the material side of the -situation alone received attention. We were all wretched. It was a -horrible experience. There we were, not of our own choice, wedged into -an unwelcome place and unable to extricate ourselves. We were plainly -told that whatever was done for us was to help make us able to take -care of ourselves. We were urged to be industrious at school, because -learning would enable us to be self-supporting. I never heard any -other reason put forth in defence of education. This was dinned into -our ears until life had but one meaning,—that of getting on in the -world. The problem ended there. The result, I need hardly say, was to -make us selfish. Instead of loving one another and sharing each others’ -burdens, each thought only of his or her individual success, and the -cherished dream of all was to get away—to go forth where there was -opportunity.</p> - -<p>“I was next to the youngest, a sister, an extraordinary little being, -who had brought with her traces of a wisdom not of the earth, and a -recollection of conditions and surroundings more to her taste than -our jarring household. She talked much of a home that she had had -somewhere, and often wept to go back to it, nor could she ever be -persuaded to call the place in which she found herself home. God knows -how alien and comfortless it must have seemed to her delicate spirit. -When three years old she left<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> us, such was her good fortune. At -least it seemed good to me even then, and when they told me the usual -fanciful tales of wings and a shining heaven, I envied her.</p> - -<p>“One by one my sisters and brothers made haste to leave. So eager -were they to get away that some took the first matrimonial boat on -which they could secure passage, and thereby made sad shipwreck of -their lives. How I longed to be loved. When I saw other children -petted and caressed my heart swelled almost to bursting. The result -of my unsatisfied longing was that I took refuge in my imagination -and there lived a life as congenial and blissful as my outside life -was distasteful and miserable. I surrounded myself with imaginary -friends whom I loved and who loved me—charming, agreeable, superior -people—men and women, not children. The misery that prevailed in -our home had taken my childhood from me before I knew I possessed -it. I early learned the solemn truth that ‘each soul in what is most -itself, in what is deepest and nearest, lives alone, and that there -is more loneliness in life than there is communion.’ I, too, like my -little sister, suffered from a strange homesickness of the spirit, a -longing for sympathetic association, for companionship, in short. I -wanted congenial air, ‘that air which may be found everywhere, if we -can find sympathetic souls to breathe it with us, and which is to be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span> -found nowhere without them,—the air of the land of our dreams, of the -country of the ideal.’ Plotinus says ‘Our true country is that from -whence we came.’ It has always seemed to me that far back in the past -I lived somewhere and was happy. Now I am ever searching for the souls -who are in sympathy with me, as in that far-off time. They are my own -people, rather than those to whom I am related by consanguine ties. -They or their counterparts exist somewhere on the earth, I believe, and -the real business of my life is to find them.</p> - -<p>“One’s own people! Think of what it would be to dwell among them, where -sympathy met one in every glance, and love made itself felt in every -tone of the voice.</p> - -<p>“I was fond of study, was quick to learn, and when only seventeen was -so far advanced that I felt ready to begin life on my own account. -Like the others, I was restless to leave a home which had never been -more than a shelter to me. I had no dreams of marrying, and walking in -the same treadmill in which so many millions of women have worn out -their souls as well as their bodies. I could never see why all women -should spend their lives in cooking and nursing children any more than -why all men should till the soil, which was civilized man’s primal -occupation. I saw, too, very clearly, that women could never be more -than half-fledged mentally, or have any<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span> real influence in the world -of affairs so long as they were dependents financially. They must -achieve pecuniary independence before they could hope for wider orbits, -as it were. To get an opportunity to carve my own way in life was my -unceasing wish. So unceasing and earnest was it that it created its -own fulfilment. You may put it down as a great truth, that a desire -held with earnestness, faith and persistence, will bring to the one -who holds it its object. ‘Ask and ye shall receive’ is a law that is -operative everywhere.</p> - -<p>“I held myself ready to do whatever I could find that needed doing, but -always in the day-dreams of my future I saw myself a successful painter -and author, because hundreds of beautiful pictures danced before my -mind and begged to be put on canvas, and thousands of thoughts and -fancies flitted through my brain that I longed to share with all who -would hear me.</p> - -<p>“I had a gift for drawing, but had advanced as far as I could go -without better instructors than were attainable where I lived. One -thing, however, I had, which was a blessing to my artistic sense and a -solace to my spirit. That was a beautiful landscape to look upon. As -the mental atmosphere of home was always inharmonious I lived outdoors -as much as possible, and from the fine view the location commanded I -extracted much profound pleasure.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p> - -<p>“One day I saw an advertisement in a newspaper to the effect that a -lithographer in a little city fifty miles away wanted an assistant whom -he could train to suit his needs. The next day found me face to face -with the advertiser, talking myself up unblushingly. He was surprised, -of course, that a girl whose frocks as yet came no lower than her -ankles, should want to learn an art presumably sacred to men; but after -some hesitation he engaged me, and I found myself launched in life as -an independent, self-supporting factor. It was a proud day for me, I -assure you. To the hardships of the situation I never gave a thought. -The chance to work was the wedge that was to split up the tree of my -future, so I set myself to hammering upon it with might and main. -My pecuniary recompense was microscopical, but even that gave me no -distress. Such as it was I managed to live within it, and look forward -to something better.</p> - -<p>“The lithographer’s establishment proved to be very interesting to -me. Some excellent work was done there, and some odd jobs of various -kinds—even the engraving of spoons sometimes—all of which I learned -to do. In fact I learned to do anything and everything there as well -as anybody, and before long received a larger salary, though never -anything very imposing. I considered the time well spent, however, for -I was perfecting myself in drawing, and when out of office<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span> studied -languages and read much. I was happy—happier than I had ever been in -my life, for I was out of the wretchedness that prevailed at home, and -was treated with politeness and respect by everybody.</p> - -<p>“Among the patrons of our establishment with whom I came in contact was -<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Doring. He made no particular impression on me, until an epidemic -came and his three children fell victims to it and died. Then as I -heard considerable talk about his sorrow in the office, I tried to -express my sympathy when next I saw him.</p> - -<p>“Nearly a year passed when the community was startled by the -announcement that his wife had died suddenly and suspiciously, and -he had been arrested as her murderer. As in all such cases, some -considered the accusation preposterous, and others believed in it with -vindictive energy, and clamored for his punishment. I was indignant -at their gross cruelty and expressed my opinion freely—too freely, I -was told. He was tried and acquitted, but his acquittal did not set -him right in the eyes of many of his townspeople. They talked over the -circumstances, magnifying all the suspicious indications and inventing -new ones, and they treated him to cuts, contemptuous looks and other -expressions of malevolence, until they almost broke him down. You know -there are human beings who bitterly resent it when a sensation doesn’t -develop into the last phase of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span> the horrible, and of such that town was -largely composed.</p> - -<p>“A few days after his acquittal Doring came into our office and thanked -me warmly for my kind expressions of faith in his innocence, of which -it seems he had been told. He looked haggard and ill, and at sight of -him I felt renewed indignation at the cruelty of man to man, and I said -so as earnestly as I could.</p> - -<p>“About that time I began to notice something queer in the faces -of people when they talked about Doring to me. I could not read -it clearly, but that it was inimical to me I soon discovered. It -was something they pretended to conceal, yet really wanted to make -conspicuously noticeable. It was a suspicion of a low order, but what? -The man was nothing to me more than any other victim of injustice. What -had I to do with him and his sorrowful affairs?</p> - -<p>“I am intuitive and sensitive. As soon as I began to notice this -unspoken suspicion, I began to look guilty. My face flamed red at the -mention of his name or any allusion to the case. You can understand -that, but minds of a lower grade could not. They construed it as a sign -of guilt, yet it was but the knowledge of their offensive thoughts -that embarrassed and unsettled me. To know that I was suspected made -me look confused and guilty. It was always so even when I was a child -at school. If a culprit were sought, I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span> looked like one. You know, -however, that most people are mere surface readers of others, and -nothing in the world is so little understood as a delicate, sensitive, -high spirit. I who was far removed in thought from that of which I was -suspected, crimsoned with horror when I encountered this base suspicion -in the faces of those who harbored it, and it made me self-conscious -and shy when I spoke with Doring himself. In short, it ate into me and -destroyed my peace.</p> - -<p>“In a little while the air grew black with it. All pretence of -concealment was abandoned, and significant looks blossomed into speech. -They said Doring and I were infatuated with each other, and that he had -killed his wife in order to be able to marry me, and that I had put him -up to it. The vilest and falsest tales were circulated about us. The -miserable local newspapers printed thinly-veiled insinuations, and fool -friends came and poured abhorrent stories into my ears.</p> - -<p>“The brutal malevolence of their lies amazed as well as horrified me. -I could not see what I had done to bring such an avalanche of malice -upon me. You may imagine what I suffered. Alone, and with a heart that -had in it originally nothing but good will for everybody, this cruel -experience almost withered me for life.</p> - -<p>“I longed to leave the accursed place which now seemed peopled with -devils. Driven almost<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span> to desperation, at last I went forth to find a -spot untainted by the hatred that there had destroyed my peace. I came -here to Gougal’s great engraving house, and with nothing in the way of -help or influence from anybody, asked for employment and got it.—‘Ask -and ye shall receive’ being a true law. Here I have been ever since, -almost happy—at least not miserable.</p> - -<p>“But this is not all my story. The difficult part is to come. A few -days before I left <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Doring came into the office where I was at work -and told me that he loved me. I was surprised and startled, and yet I -listened gladly, and the story sounded sweet to me. It seemed to me -that I had always loved him, though I don’t know why, for I am sure -I had not thought of it before. We were both victims of unjust and -malicious public opinion, so perhaps it was natural that we turned to -each other for consolation, though I have often wondered since what -it was that suddenly filled my mind with love for a man who, until -that moment was no more to me than any other. Are the words ‘I love -you’ so potent that they can create responsive love? In no sense is -he my ideal, but the feeling that came into life when he spoke those -words to me has dominated me from that hour, though I have never -seen him since that day. I have wondered if he loved me before that -scandal came upon him, and if, in some mysterious way, people found<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span> -it out and constructed their tales according to their light on such -situations? Or whether their stories put it into his head, and if so, -through what occult channels was it communicated to me? I am almost -persuaded that it was brought about somehow by the accusations of -the community in which we lived. Somebody put out the suggestion, it -reached his mind and there sprouted, took root and grew until it was -strong enough to transplant a counterpart of itself to mine, for ideas -are transmissible, you know. Ah! if we but knew the mystery of mind we -should know all there is to know, perhaps.</p> - -<p>“After I came away, Doring left too. He writes me constantly, and is -now urging me strongly to marry him. I believe that I love him, and -the knowledge that he loves me sustains me. Merely thinking about it -keeps me from being lonely. ’Tis said that love is life; that even the -love of a bird or a dog will keep a human being alive. You and others -have wondered why I am apparently so contented and cheerful and want no -lovers, only good comrades. It is because my heart is anchored.</p> - -<p>“And yet I shrink from marrying Doring. It would mean the stirring up -of all the now stagnant pools of scandals. I am content to go on as I -am, for a time at least, finding my joy in the thoughts of being loved; -but he is not willing. He says he has waited long enough—that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span> -matter must be decided one way or the other very soon. When I think of -giving him up, of putting it all out of my life and plodding on with -nothing to sustain me, I feel that I can’t do it. Unhappily, I am one -of those miserable beings who are loyal by nature and cannot help it -if they would. An affection becomes a part of me, and can’t be put off -without disaster to the whole structure.</p> - -<p>“This love has absorbed me to the extent of destroying my ambition to -achieve something excellent with pen or pencil. What dreams have I not -woven around this central idea—dreams impossible of fulfilment, yet -nearly as blissful as reality.</p> - -<p>“In a few days <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Doring will be here. He has written me that he -intends to come to talk over our future. So you shall see him.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>One evening soon after as Westfield was returning to the house he met -Miss Hill accompanied by a stranger. “It is Doring,” he said, and -his heart sank. Intuitive moments come to all of us, when the hidden -is revealed, when souls stand naked before our eyes, stripped of the -cloaks and without the props which make them fair and imposing to -ordinary perception. Such a moment came to Westfield, and he saw Louis -Doring with an inner sight to which everything was made plain, and as -he looked his face grew<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> white to the lips and his eyes became fixed -and glassy like those of the dead.</p> - -<p>“God help her,” he groaned inwardly, as he passed on. “The man is a -fool—a stupid, brainless, flabby character—a dull dolt with regular -features and a straight figure made imposing by the tailor’s skill, -and a selfish heart. Exactly the kind of beast that can dazzle women -as brainless as himself. But how has he bewitched <em>her</em>? Why do I -ask, when I know that the destinies of the grandest and sweetest souls, -a grim and perverse fate often rules? The ‘highest suffer most,’ the -‘strongest wander farthest and most hopelessly are lost.’</p> - -<p>“How can I bear it? It crucifies me to know that that wax-faced, -tailor-made biped has been carried in her mind as a hero and -worshipped. And now after years of deception he will destroy her whole -life.</p> - -<p>“I see how it came about. The scandal invented by the community -suggested it to him—sowed the seeds in both their heads. We live under -the influence of suggestion of one kind or another all the time. What -is the force of public opinion but this on a gigantic scale? The wretch -has sighed and maundered and posed before her about his sufferings -until he awoke her sympathy, and he will hang on to her and will not -give her up because he is attracted by the magnetism of her strength -of character. And<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span> she, deluded soul, idealizes him, endows him with -splendid qualities—in short, sees in him that which is in herself. She -will go straight to her destruction, and I can’t save her. Until I saw -him I believed the best of him; but now I <em>know</em> what is before -her if she should marry him. It will be like awaking from a blissful -trance—it will be just that. O my heart of light! O, my tall young -pine! The tragedy of your life is more than I can bear.”</p> - -<p>Going hastily to his room he made ready and tore away to the country -for a few days. “I could not endure to see the creature again,” he -said, as his train pulled out of the station.</p> - -<p>When he returned everything was going on as usual at the house, yet -nothing was the same to him, nor could it ever be again. He did not -speak of Doring to Miss Hill, but she herself went back to the subject, -chiding him for going away.</p> - -<p>“I saw <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Doring,” he answered, curtly, “and didn’t like him. You may -think my opinion of him is colored by jealousy, but I am sure it is -not. I hope you will never marry him.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I have not yet decided to marry him,” she said.</p> - -<p>“If you have not given him up entirely it will end that way at last. -You are merely temporizing with the situation, and it will master you.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span></p> - -<p>“Probably,” she said, wearily, and then they spoke of it no more.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Not long after, Westfield went away. When he was gone she felt a sense -of desolation new in her experience. He was so good a comrade. Why -had he been so foolish as to leave? Could men and women never be good -comrades—only lovers, or nothing?</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>The days went on apparently as though there had never been a Westfield, -though the other members of the household thought Miss Hill was not -quite like herself, that perhaps she was fonder of Westfield than she -had believed herself to be, and regretted him. Brooks was strongly -inclined to this opinion, though when he talked with his wife about it -he drubbed Westfield soundly. “Blast the fool,” he said, “what could -she do but let him go, even if she were fond of him? What woman not -an idiot would think of marrying Westfield, who is simply a charming -failure, a penniless, indifferent, intellectual tramp?”</p> - -<p>In truth they were half right in their surmises. The old content had -vanished. She missed the intellectual sympathy of Westfield, and Doring -kept her restless with his importunings. She read his letters by the -light of her own integrity, and therefore saw not the rank selfishness -of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span> writer, who was vain and dull, but persistent to a degree that -made him formidable as a wooer. He had recourse to all the selfish -arguments of little souls. He said he was so perturbed in mind that he -could not get on in anything, consequently in danger of financial ruin, -and hinted darkly at suicide. A crisis had come to her. Forces within -and without were wrestling over her destiny. Unseen hands were pushing -her. At times she determined to marry Doring at all risks, and thus -settle the problem, but the decision did not bring peace, as decisions -should. A sickening sense of imminent disaster followed, and she was at -sea again.</p> - -<p>Weeks rolled into months, and the chaotic misery of her mind was making -her look worn and ill. A day came at last in which the genius of her -fate cast the die.</p> - -<p>“The pursuit of happiness is a constitutional privilege, even for -women. At least one has the right to choose the particular form of -misery one prefers. Now Fate,” she said, “I am tired. Take you the -reins and guide. What I am to meet, I must meet, and no shrinking or -hesitating will avail against the inevitable.”</p> - -<p>And so she too, went away, never to return.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.<br><span class="small">THE END OF THE DREAM.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“O shaven priest that pratest of souls,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Knowest thou not that men are moles</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That blindly grope and burrow?</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The field that is grey shall be green again;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But whether with grass or whether with grain,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He knoweth who turns the furrow.”</span><br> -</p> - - -<p>Miss Cartice Hill had been Mrs. Louis Doring six months,—a little -portion of time, yet long enough to destroy all her illusions, and -arouse her from her trance. The man she had idealized and loved for -four years was a different person from him who was now her husband. -Day by day the awakening had been going on, until his character -stood revealed before her in repellent nudity, with all its pitiable -defects unconcealed, and the worst of it was that he was not ashamed. -A brilliant rascal usually has some qualities that command respect, -however abominable his knavish ones, but Doring’s defects were the -contemptible frailties of a fool. His wife had expected intellectual -companionship, but she found his even-featured face a mask over dull -nothingness, a shield for the emptiness of his mind. When the full -force of this discovery came upon her it covered her with humiliation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span> -and destroyed her self-confidence and self-respect, nor did these -qualities ever return to her in their former strength in all the future -years. To have made so fatal a blunder shook her faith in her own -wisdom forever. How was it that she had been blind and now saw? Who had -woven the spell which had glorified its object from afar? She had been -her own enchanter, though she knew it not. In him she had seen only -that which was within herself, until forced to see him as he really was.</p> - -<p>Two days after their marriage her husband said to her, “Cartice, do you -have any money?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she answered, pleasantly.</p> - -<p>“How much?”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know. See,” and she handed him her purse.</p> - -<p>He took it and counted fifty dollars. “Is that all?” he asked, in a -disappointed voice. “As you had only yourself to support you should -have saved money.”</p> - -<p>“I did save some,” she said, turning pale.</p> - -<p>“Where is it?”</p> - -<p>She told him.</p> - -<p>“I guess we shall have to use it right now,” he said. “Some business -ventures of mine have not begun to pay yet, so it’s a good thing we -have this ready money.”</p> - -<p>From time to time she checked out the little capital that represented -years of self-denial, until<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span> it was all gone. In the meantime she -learned that the “business ventures” were airy nothings, having no -existence outside of empty words. What he had done in the past four -years she never knew, as he had nothing to show for the time, not a -foothold anywhere.</p> - -<p>They floated about until her money was gone, without definite aim and -without effort on his part to change conditions. To her it seemed a -steady journey to destruction.</p> - -<p>Their marriage had revived the story of his trial for murder, and -other dark stories were added thereto and published in vile newspapers -throughout the country. Some of these came to Cartice’s hands by -accident, and some by the foul designs of wretches who find pleasure -in giving pain. In these infamous columns she saw herself described as -a bold and scheming adventuress, who had obtained an unholy influence -over a hitherto blameless man, inciting him to murder and ruining him -financially as well as morally.</p> - -<p>“I have heard newspapers called civilizers,” she said, “but such as -these should be called heart-breakers.”</p> - -<p>That experience did break her heart, since we have no other name for -the loss of all joy in living. It wrought a pitiful change in her. -Her bright mobile face became set, rigid and unreadable. “Oh, but to -hide from the eyes of men”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> is ever the cry of the proud spirit when -suffering. When this cannot be done, it makes for itself a mask behind -which its wounded pride and aching heart take shelter. The mask which -Cartice Doring then put on was so impenetrable that it repelled any -meddling with or probing into what lay beneath. It was her shield -against that most merciless of all weapons, the human eye, and she wore -it for many and many a day and could not cast it off.</p> - -<p>Every heart, however self-sufficient its outward bearing, craves -sympathy, that precious and potent power which holds the universe -together, yet so little faith have we in the compassion of our fellows -that nothing in hours of anguish is so dreaded as their gaze.</p> - -<p>Cartice’s family discarded her. Being loveless by nature and -worshippers of the Monster God, Self, they saw her position only in the -light that affected them, by the unpleasant notoriety she had attained, -and showed no consideration for the poor victim of malice.</p> - -<p>With all this came the humiliation of dire poverty. Her money was all -spent, and they could no longer pay for the food and shelter they -were receiving in a dingy little hotel in a second-class city. For a -time she was kept from sinking under the avalanche of miseries that -fell upon her by an illusion to which she held with the clutch of -desperation. That was her faith in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> Doring’s love. Feeble of intellect -and contemptible of character as she now knew him to be, she still -loved him and believed that he loved her, not knowing that the power to -love is in proportion to intellectual capacity and moral development, -that a weak nature is as wavering in its affections as in other things, -an easy prey to every fulsome word and smile from new sirens.</p> - -<p>A woman in the hotel made the art of flattering men a business and had -had many years practice in it. By way of recompense for what external -charms Time had taken from her, it had given her considerable skill in -her art, a skill she seldom used without effect. Her method of erotic -archery was of a coarse and common order, but as her victims dropped -readily enough, when she twanged her bow, there was no need to resort -to subtler ones. It was her opinion that fine work in her specialty -was thrown away upon men, one and all; that nothing was too gross for -their vanity to feed upon, and her experiences bore out her theories. -Doring’s symmetrical face and figure caught her fancy, and she leveled -her trusty crossbow at him, and brought him down with the first arrow, -an albatross to be proud of, she thought. Her work went merrily on, and -the unsuspecting Cartice saw none of it. More experienced eyes did, -however. All the rest of the women in the house were aware of it, and -some of the bolder ones<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span> undertook the delicate work of opening Mrs. -Doring’s eyes. While they veiled their good intentions in indirect -phraseology she would not see it, and when they came down to plain -speech she resented it as a thing absurd and impossible. They went away -with ruffled feathers, but predicting a day of doom for her in the near -future, when something would happen that would make her see. They were -true prophets, for the day was at hand.</p> - -<p>As she was passing through the hall in the twilight she came upon two -figures clasped in each other’s arms under the broad stairway. They -were her husband and Mrs. Parker, the distinguished archer. Without a -word Cartice walked away from them.</p> - -<p>In a few minutes Doring entered her room with the tittering, airy -manner of one who pretends to find himself in a highly humorous -situation.</p> - -<p>“Well, Heart’s Ease, you caught me flirting a bit, didn’t you?” he -gurgled, making a stagy effort to be facetious.</p> - -<p>“Is that flirting?” she asked, in the most composed and polite voice.</p> - -<p>“Why, yes, of course. What else could it be?”</p> - -<p>“I acknowledge that I am so untaught in matters of that kind that I do -not know the correct names to apply to them,” she said. “What<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span> would -you call it had I been in Mrs. Parker’s place, some other man in yours, -and you in mine?”</p> - -<p>“Nonsense, child; that is not to be thought of.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is,” she said, determinedly. “My idea of marriage, as I have -repeatedly told you, is perfect equality in all things, neither owning -nor dominating the other. I give the fidelity of the heart and expect -the same from you. The mere outward appearance of loyalty, which some -wives enforce with a club would be of no value to me. But the conduct -reveals the state of the heart. Were I found in the arms of a man, -receiving and answering his kisses, it would be because I loved him -intensely, devotedly; and I will not judge you by a lower standard than -I wish to be judged. Marriage must mean marriage in the highest and -truest sense of the word, or nothing. Now that I know you do not love -me, I shall not blame you, for love is not a matter of the will. You -shall go free.”</p> - -<p>“Hang it all, Cartice,” said Doring, now thoroughly frightened, “you -are not going to be melodramatic about a bit of fooling like that, are -you?”</p> - -<p>“A bit of fooling?” she echoed, unable to understand him.</p> - -<p>“Yes. What else do you suppose it could be?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span></p> - -<p>“I can only suppose that you love Mrs. Parker. Otherwise how could you -have had her in your arms kissing her?”</p> - -<p>“Love her? What rubbish. As if a man dreamed of loving every woman -he—he found it expedient to kiss.”</p> - -<p>She looked at him too amazed to speak. This was a revelation of man -nature that was overwhelming. She was unaware until then of the light -value many men set upon constancy and even decency in themselves, -though all prate loud about them as jewels necessary to the adornment -of woman’s character. She was a genuine Galatea, in some respects, -expecting to meet gods and shocked to find the world peopled with men -and women of very crude minds. She was engaged in the difficult and -pathetic task of trying to idealize the actual.</p> - -<p>“Why should a man kiss a woman he does not love?” she asked at last.</p> - -<p>“Why?” echoed Doring, beginning to think he could flounder out of his -dilemma by a little bold bluster. “It’s a habit most of us have got -into, I guess. In this case I made up to the old flirt because she so -manifestly wanted me to. That was all. I meant nothing by it but to -gratify her vanity, which is on short rations just now, I fancy.”</p> - -<p>This coarse speech made his wife shiver with shame. The man was surely -leaving her nothing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</span> to respect in himself. As she was silent he -thought he was gaining ground and went on:</p> - -<p>“The idea of your being jealous of her! Why, she is old enough to be -your mother.”</p> - -<p>Meantime Cartice had rung for a hall boy, who presently tapped at the -door. Stepping outside she sent him to ask Mrs. Parker to have the -kindness to come and make her a visit.</p> - -<p>The archer promptly fluttered in, all smiles, believing there was only -plain sailing ahead.</p> - -<p>“Do you love my husband, Mrs. Parker?” Cartice asked.</p> - -<p>“Why, what do you mean?” snapped the enraged siren.</p> - -<p>“I must suppose you love him, because I saw you and him kissing each -other. I could not kiss a man I did not love, and I suppose it must -be the same with you and all other self-respecting women. I have been -telling him that if you and he love each other, I will not stand in -your way. I want to tell you the same.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Parker was unaccustomed to this kind of a situation. She was only -skilled in slyness, not in open combat. Embarrassed, she turned to -Doring, who stood convicted and shrinking, unable to defend himself or -her.</p> - -<p>“<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Doring,” she said—her voice was dry and nervous—“you should -have explained to your wife that we saw her coming and made a foolish -attempt to tease her.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span></p> - -<p>“He explains it differently,” said Cartice, quietly. “He says you -seemed to expect some demonstration of affection from him, and he ‘made -up to you,’ as he calls it, because not to do so would be to disappoint -and mortify you.”</p> - -<p>Then Parker turned to Doring swelling with rage and chagrin, fire and -flame darting from her eyes, and then, without a word flounced out of -the room, and early the next day left the hotel.</p> - -<p>Doring, a victim of the cowardice for which his sex is noted when -entrapped, began to breathe freer. He sent a snort of derision after -the retreating charmer. “There, the sentimental old lady will not -trouble us again, I fancy,” he said, with the air of one who sees the -end of a disagreeable affair.</p> - -<p>“That may be,” said his wife, sadly, “but it cannot put us back in our -old places.”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“Is it necessary to explain what is so clear? This affair has changed -my attitude toward you entirely. It has killed my confidence in your -honesty, and revealed your character to me in a new light. I can never -be the same to you as before.”</p> - -<p>Thoroughly frightened he began to cast about for bigger straws to catch -at. His wife took on new value in his eyes. An hour or so before he -had commiserated himself for being tied to her, and had wondered why -a being so superior as he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> had ever been attracted to one so ordinary -as she. Now he wanted to keep her at all costs. He was one to whom -blessings brightened astonishingly as they took their flight.</p> - -<p>“You don’t mean to say you would leave me for a trifle like that, -Cartice? It would be ridiculous. Everybody would laugh at you. Why, -that little episode is nothing. You should know some of the really -reprehensible things married men do and think nothing of it. Men don’t -bother much about loyalty and the finer moralities, I assure you. -They’re good enough for women, but men can’t walk that kind of a line, -you know. Your ideas are too depressingly antique for the age you live -in.”</p> - -<p>“What men do and what other women accept cannot change my idea of what -constitutes marriage. I will not be a party to a contract kept only by -one of the two interested. I have seen women whose husbands violated -every canon of decency going on patiently, under the delusion that they -were doing a virtuous thing. To my mind they were encouraging vice. -Kisses represent feelings. One kisses because one loves. I could not -kiss a man I did not love because it would be repulsive. One is loyal, -not because of a sense of duty, but because one loves; or disloyal -because one has ceased to love.”</p> - -<p>“Anyway, Cartice, don’t leave me or talk about leaving me. You are all -I have in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> world. Forgive me, and love me if you can. I feel mean -enough without your contempt.” As he said this, Doring flung himself on -the floor clasping her in his arms and began to weep.</p> - -<p>“He does not understand; he never will understand—he cannot. He thinks -it is something to be forgiven and then to go on as before,” she said, -mentally.</p> - -<p>Anyhow she went on, but not as before. In that hour her love for her -husband had changed its form and face. It had become maternal. All hope -that they could make the journey of life as companions on an equal -footing was dead.</p> - -<p>No more painful experience can come to a proud woman than that of -seeing that the man she has idealized must be propped up instead of -leaned against.</p> - -<p>The days went relentlessly on for Cartice Doring, as days have a way of -doing for everybody. One trouble had grown to proportions so huge that -his hateful shape blotted out all the rest, and his name was Poverty. -The bread of dependence is bitter. Every bite to her was heavy as lead. -Civilization has many tortures; but it is doubtful if it has any more -cruel than this.</p> - -<p>Every waking moment Cartice racked her brain in the effort to think of -some means of earning money, and at night when she slept her dreams -were full of horrors. Thoughts of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> river obtruded themselves and -were driven away only to come back more determined in aspect than -before.</p> - -<p>Somewhere she had read that if every suicide would but wait twenty-four -hours after determining to end life, deliverance would come. So she -waited, and the worst depression would pass, and her courage come -slowly back.</p> - -<p>Meantime her husband walked the street in his helpless way seeking -employment, returning at night with the story of failure written on his -face.</p> - -<p>Cartice had been used to a busy life, and the enforced idleness of -those depressing days was more of a weariness to both flesh and spirit -than the hardest labor would have been. In trying to escape from her -own thoughts she sometimes walked long distances. One cold day she was -accosted by a woman who asked her to buy some trifle she was selling.</p> - -<p>“I wish I could, but I cannot, for I have no money,” said Cartice.</p> - -<p>“Ah, don’t say that,” said the other, with incredulity and disgust in -her voice. “So many say it when it isn’t true. It is impossible that -any one so comfortably dressed as you, is without money. Compare your -warm and beautiful wrap with my thin shawl.”</p> - -<p>“It is true I have a good cloak,” Cartice answered, “but I am probably -poorer than you, for I cannot pay for either my shelter or my food.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> -Your position is superior to mine, for you are trying to earn a -livelihood, while I am longing to do so and know not where to begin. -And besides poverty I have other woes from which I hope you are exempt. -I tell you this that hereafter you may not judge from appearances. Many -whom you envy are, perhaps, more miserable than yourself.”</p> - -<p>Her old childish fancies came back to her sometimes, and she would half -believe that some good fairy would suddenly comfort her and mercifully -change everything. And her people—the dear, kind, fond, ever-courteous -people of her very own world, unseen by all who had not sympathetic -eyes, came to comfort her. The inner world in which they dwelt afforded -her a refuge when the miseries of the outer one became too heavy. -Perhaps it was because of much time spent there that she scarcely took -on the ways and speech of this world. There was ever something unusual -and not easy to understand in her presence, something that suggested -another and a different world.</p> - -<p>“O my own people, my dear people of my dreams! How far I have wandered -in my search for others like you clothed in the flesh!” she said, on -returning from a long walk one evening, as she looked at the dingy -hotel where she was obliged to take unwelcome refuge.</p> - -<p>Within was no soul akin to hers, not one whose<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> words or presence, in -any sense mitigated the deep solitude and loneliness of spirit in which -she lived.</p> - -<p>With it all she was physically wretched. A climate that was ungenial, a -sunless room and a daily diet of anxiety combined had made deep inroads -on a physique elastic but never rugged. Overstrained nature was giving -way. For weeks her body had been racked with pain. Fevers came, tarried -awhile and went away to come again, and languor had taken entire -possession of her.</p> - -<p>One day the culmination came. A neighbor passing her open door saw -Cartice lying helpless on the floor where she had fallen. Assistance -was called and she was lifted to the bed, rigid as in death. “A -congestive chill,” said the doctor. Then science and humanity united -their efforts to save her from death and succeeded. When her husband -came back in the evening, she was lying powerless to speak and only -faintly conscious of being alive.</p> - -<p>The doctor—may it be a star of great radiance on his breast in the -unseen world in which he now dwells—was attentive and kind to a point -far beyond the ordinary. He had seen much of life and its inevitable -suffering. Experience and a heart of exceptional goodness enabled -him to read the signs of the sick soul as well as the sick body at a -glance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p> - -<p>A few days later as he sat by her bedside, Cartice edged herself -nearer, and laying one of her slender hands on his, said, “I am -grateful to you, doctor, very grateful for helping me so much.”</p> - -<p>The words were commonplace enough, but there were the eyes, the -wonderful eyes, with their strange power to melt the heart, gazing into -his. The doctor’s soul was shaken, he knew not why.</p> - -<p>“I don’t understand it,” he mused as he left the house. “What was it -that came out of her eyes and unnerved me in a flash, making me want -to cry like a baby.” At the memory of that look, in which the mask of -pride fell off and the suffering spirit revealed its anguish, the tears -rushed anew to his eyes.</p> - -<p>“No, I don’t understand it,” he repeated, “but if I had been performing -a surgical operation of the most delicate and dangerous kind, and she -had looked at me that way, I am afraid I should have dropped the knife. -What was that indefinable thing I saw in her eyes? What was it? If -anguish can accumulate for ages and ages and then look out through a -pair of eyes, it was that.”</p> - -<p>Days of convalescence came, bringing the despondency, gloom and -sometimes despair that attack those who have retreated from the edge of -the grave before they are quite out of sight of it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span></p> - -<p>Cartice sat by her window with the breeze blowing over her, and it -seemed that a thousand years had passed since last she saw the spring. -Watching the people on the street, hurrying hither and yon, she envied -them their strength, their activity, aims and interests. Idle and -purposeless, weary and hopeless, she sat wondering what she was to do -with the rest of her life. By nature she was an outdoor child, who -loved field and forest and brook and hill. The hateful brick walls that -stared at her now fatigued her eyes and depressed her spirit. When -funeral processions went by she wondered what mystery the narrow black -box represented. Sable and solemn and dreadful as it all was she envied -those who rode in the long black wagon of death. “At least they are out -of this horror,” she said. “If there be another life its conditions -cannot be worse than they are here. If there be nothing on the other -side of death’s silence, then the problem is very simple.”</p> - -<p>This great problem at the end of life always interested her more than -all those to be solved on the journey. If death be an open door to -larger activities and happier conditions, then we should bear with -courage whatever comes upon us here, and go smiling on, indifferent to -pain and disappointment; but if all our striving and longing, sorrowing -and suffering and loving reach a finality in the grave, then—no words -are strong<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</span> enough and bitter enough to tell the tragic story of the -cheat.</p> - -<p>Cartice had always marveled that many could see their nearest and -dearest pass into that dread silence, and yet put the thought of what -it is out of their minds, and go on pursuing their foolish little -pleasures exactly as though the riddle was not for them also to solve.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.<br><span class="small">THE BUTTERFLY.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Well, may there not be butterflies</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That lift with weary wings the air;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That loathe the foreign sun, which lies</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On all their colors like despair;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That glitter, homesick for the form</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And lost sleep of the worm?</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">—<i>S. M. B. Piatt.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>In these trying days the neighbor who came closest in friendship and -loving service, oddly enough, was the Butterfly of the house, Mrs. -Layton. She and her husband had a richly furnished suite of rooms near -that of the Dorings. They received many calls, went out frequently, and -appeared to find life well worth living. Mrs. Layton was pretty, was -always arrayed as the lilies of the field, and all male humanity bent -the knee before her.</p> - -<p>Cartice’s illness had revealed the unsuspected fact that the Butterfly -had a heart as well as a pair of gorgeous wings. She had been -astonishingly faithful and kind in her attentions, and astonishingly -efficient too, so that now, in the dull days of convalescence the two -had become close friends, the formal wall between them having<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</span> fallen -under the pressure of suffering and sympathy.</p> - -<p>It was the Butterfly who had sent for the doctor when Cartice was found -unconscious on the floor, helped him when he came, and kept a watchful -eye on his patient afterward. Nothing makes such close friends as to -help and be helped in suffering. We learn to love those to whom we do -good.</p> - -<p>Cartice had always found a strange enjoyment in looking at the -Butterfly since she first saw her, she knew not why. Was she beautiful? -Yes, she had beauty worthy of a higher order of being than a butterfly. -That was the marvel of it, that she could be a butterfly with a classic -profile and the eyes of a mystic—eyes that could see through all masks.</p> - -<p>Now that Cartice knew her so well the strange attraction increased, -though she could not determine wherein lay her remarkable power to -charm. This power, however, was acknowledged on all sides, and many -fell under its influence. Even on the street, women as well as men -turned to look after her, though if asked the reason could not have -told it. The inexplicable quality we call magnetism belonged to her to -an extraordinary degree; but who can explain what that is? It attracts; -it compels planets as well as persons to follow after it; but that is -all we know about it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span></p> - -<p>“Mrs. Doring,” said the Butterfly, one day, “you must cheer up or you -will die. Worse than that, you will make yourself old long before your -time. I know it isn’t a polite thing to say, but you look five years -older than when you came to this house.”</p> - -<p>The aching heart of the other swelled almost to bursting. The faculty -of unburdening herself by friendly confidences had never been hers. -Something within her stood like a grim sentinel forbidding all outlet, -and though she yearned for sympathy, could not seek it nor meet it -with loosened tongue when it came. The instinct of repression had been -fostered by a loveless, lonely childhood and lifelong habit. Not a -word could she utter now, but the eyes, with their pitiful, wordless -appeal, their unbearable burden, turned to the Butterfly, and in one -never-to-be-forgotten glance laid bare their owner’s broken heart. Then -with a moan she fell forward, and the long repressed agony burst forth -in sobs.</p> - -<p>The Butterfly’s arms clasped her closely, her tears fell over her, and -the words she spoke were wiser than a butterfly ever uttered before. -The greatest mind could not have devised a better method of cure for -the sick soul than the sympathetic instincts of this airy creature -suggested. From that hour between those two no fence or wall, or -barrier of any kind existed. They knew each other as we shall all be -known when the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span> armors and masks our hypocritical social usages have -forced upon us shall be laid aside with our clay garments.</p> - -<p>“Dear Mrs. Doring,” said Mrs. Layton, presently, “it is not necessary -to tell me what troubles you. I know it through sympathy. You are -greatly distressed for lack of money. You cannot pay your board, and -you and your husband are strangers here. I dare say you never imagined -it, but my husband and I are almost without a cent in the world, too. -We owe this house an immense bill for board, and I am afraid it will -never be paid, for every day the situation grows gloomier. It half -kills me to go to the table, when I know that we are not paying for -the very food we eat, and I suspect you suffer the same way for the -same reason. Our outlook is as bad as yours, only we are not strangers -here and you are. Yet being known has its disadvantages as well as its -advantages. It is hard to be humiliated in the eyes of one’s friends. -So far our difficulties are not generally known, but things too bad to -think of are ahead of us, I fear. You see I pretend to be sunny and -happy. I sing and dance and affect to be merry all the time—for that -is the best way, though I assure you my heart often weighs a ton.”</p> - -<p>“I am astonished,” said Cartice. “I thought you a butterfly out and -out, with no troubles at all.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span></p> - -<p>“Naturally, I believe I am. I love the beauties and pleasures of life; -but nobody knows what butterflies are thinking about while they are -fluttering around looking so care-free and joyous. I do the butterfly -act now with a fell purpose—two fell purposes in fact. I keep others -from suspecting that things are going wrong, and I keep myself from -dwelling on my troubles. You must learn butterfly philosophy too. You -must go out and meet people and make friends, let yourself out a little -and show what is in you.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t, dear, for many reasons,” and Cartice glanced at her well-worn -gown, and thought of the hopeless condition of her wardrobe.</p> - -<p>“Clothes, eh?” said the other, going straight to the point. “Don’t -worry on that score, I am handy with a needle and can help you tinker -up some of your things to look quite fine. I can toss up a delicious -little bonnet, too.”</p> - -<p>“But I have no heart in anything,” said Cartice. “You don’t know -all—no; you don’t know all.”</p> - -<p>“I know more than you think I do. I know precisely what it is to -be pitifully disappointed in one’s husband, to find that he is the -opposite of what one thought him, to lose confidence in his ability, -his manliness, his loyalty and his love.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, that is the hardest of all,” wailed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span> Cartice, shaken to the -soul to learn that what she believed hidden was written in big letters -on the outer walls of her life, as it were.</p> - -<p>“That, too, you must throw off,” said the philosophic Butterfly. “There -are few wives who haven’t had some of that kind of experience. For the -most part men are abominable wretches, their whole lives made up of -deceit and lies. It hurt me cruelly, cruelly when I found it out and -just had to believe it in the face of not wanting to; but now, well—I -have taught myself not to care very much.”</p> - -<p>“It seems to me that a wife only ceases to care when she ceases to -love, and then she ought to give her husband up entirely,” said Mrs. -Doring.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is true; when one doesn’t care it is because one doesn’t love -one’s husband any more. Of course, it would be honester, more moral -and self-respecting to leave him, but we women are mostly tied up by -different kinds of chains, so that no matter how wide our eyes are -opened we usually go right on pretending we don’t see, and so become -hypocrites, too. The whole fabric seems to be pretty much a warp and -woof of lies. But I don’t puzzle much over problems as big and hard as -that. I haven’t the head for it. I just edge along the easiest way I -can, and leave the things I don’t understand, and couldn’t set right if -I did, for others to puzzle over and fix up if they can.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span></p> - -<p>Cartice was astonished at the Butterfly’s hard trials and airy method -of ignoring them. We are always astonished to learn that another has -had the same kind of a load to carry that we have borne, all the more -if that other has carried it gaily. It is common to believe our own -experiences unique.</p> - -<p>“You are ever so much cleverer than I when it comes to things learned -out of books,” Mrs. Layton went on, “I have very little of what they -call learning—too little entirely; but any one can see that you are -well instructed. But when it comes to knowing about people as they are -and not as they ought to be, I am far ahead of you, though I am only a -month or two older. You are a mere baby in all that, absolutely blind -to what I can see across the street; and you are such an earnest, -honest, credulous soul that you are bound to have your heart broken -dozens of times while you are learning what you ought to know already.”</p> - -<p>“How did you learn it all so soon?”</p> - -<p>“By experience, the only school whose lessons we remember. I was -married at seventeen and am twenty-four now. One can learn a heap of -things in seven years, with so good a chance as I have had.” (Here the -Butterfly’s mouth took on a hard and bitter curve, which told more than -her word of what her sad wisdom had cost.) “That I was romantic goes -without saying. I believed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span> in the foolish love-stories I read and -expected life to be like them. Were I clever like you, I would write -books and tell about life as it is and not as novel writers generally -pretend it is, deluding the ignorant and inexperienced. I actually -believed there was such a thing as happiness, and that I could secure -it in the usual way, by marrying the man I was in love with—otherwise -the man who had succeeded in casting a spell over me that caused me to -see him through a mist of enchantment, for that is what it means. But -my fool’s paradise didn’t last long. I soon learned to my sorrow that a -man out of a book is not at all like a man in a book. One shock after -another came, until at last nothing could surprise me. After a time -my husband began to drink heavily and does yet, and that is what has -brought us to poverty. When he is bad drunk he is ugly and dangerous. -In short, my life is hard and hateful ’way down out of sight.”</p> - -<p>“O my friend,” cried Cartice, with glistening eyes, “it is a tragedy, -and I thought nobody suffered as I do.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Layton continued: “When I married I loved him, was proud of him, -believed in him. Now I only pity him, and care for him only as a mother -cares for a child. Could he read my thoughts his vanity, should he have -any left, must suffer. Such men lose far more than we do, after all, -but they are so steeped in selfishness,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> so besotted in ignorance, they -can’t see it. And he has wretched health, as any one may see. I don’t -know what the end will be, and dare not think of it.”</p> - -<p>“I wish we could know what such experiences mean,” said Cartice. “What -is suffering for? Why must it be? We try hard to find the right road; -we do the best we can; the way looks fair and smooth, and then from no -fault of our own that we can see we are plunged into dark depths. I -wish we knew the reason of it, the purpose of it. I wish we knew.”</p> - -<p>“It is rather strange, Mrs. Doring, that I tell you everything so -frankly. I have never been so confidential with any one before. -Chatterer as I appear to be I am as proud as Clara Vere de Vere, and -keep my own affairs to myself; but in talking with you everything -bubbles right out, yet you never ask any questions. I shouldn’t mind -telling you anything, even if it wasn’t to my credit, I feel so much -confidence in you, and somehow it helps me to tell you. I was attracted -to you from the first, but you were so reserved and unapproachable -that if it had not been for this illness of yours, I doubt if we ever -should have become so well acquainted. You have a curious effect on -me. I couldn’t tell a fib to you nor to any one in your presence if I -wanted to, and yet it has always been easy to me to tell little bits of -lies about things that couldn’t hurt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> any one. I never thought there -was any harm in it. But somehow I can’t do it when you are near, nor -even when I think of you, and I shouldn’t wonder if I gave up the habit -altogether. Do you remember one day before you got sick, when several -of us were in the parlor and I had a new fan and the rest were admiring -it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Mrs. Orton asked me how much it cost. Of course it’s the -worst of manners to ask the price of things, but one meets plenty of -impertinent, ill-bred people as one goes along, and must be civil to -them. I was about to tell her that it cost five dollars, though it only -cost two, when I saw you looking at me, and quick as a flash out came -the truth. You didn’t know the price of it, so I wasn’t afraid you -would catch me in a fib; but I was ashamed not to speak the truth in -your presence. Your eyes look into one, deep down inside, and expect -to see everything there sweet and clean and honest, and I could not -disappoint them.”</p> - -<p>“You can’t be half so wicked as you represent yourself, for you have -one of the sweetest faces I ever saw, and one of the most beautiful,” -said Mrs. Doring, with fervent admiration.</p> - -<p>The Butterfly lilted out a significant little laugh. “Yes, I have been -told that I have an innocent face; but that is a freak of nature, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> -I am not innocent. I am tolerably—yes, tolerably well informed on -some subjects, and I do one thing that you will consider abominable, I -flirt.”</p> - -<p>“Dear friend, do tell me exactly what it is to flirt,” Cartice asked, -entreatingly. She remembered that her husband had taken refuge in that -word on the occasion of the affair with Mrs. Parker.</p> - -<p>The Butterfly looked at her pityingly. “If any other woman asked me -that question,” she said, “I should be sure she was a villain of the -deepest dye, and was affecting ignorance in order to pull the wool over -my eyes; but you are such a muff about such things that I can readily -believe you don’t know. It isn’t very easy to explain. Words can’t -describe it very well. Not mincing matters in my case it’s making a bid -for the attention of men and getting it.”</p> - -<p>“Politeness demands that ladies receive attention from gentlemen,” said -the unsophisticated Mrs. Doring, innocently.</p> - -<p>“My benighted friend, your name should be Galatea. I don’t mean mere -polite attention, but particular attention, sentimental, lover-like -attention, with a strong flavor of danger in it.”</p> - -<p>Cartice began to understand. “What comes of it?” she asked.</p> - -<p>A shrug of Mrs. Layton’s graceful shoulders. “Nothing, often. -Sometimes—well, there are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span> extraordinary cases, and at the beginning -it’s best not to think of the end.”</p> - -<p>“What do you get out of it?”</p> - -<p>Another shrug. “Come to think of it, nothing particular, unless it be -distraction.”</p> - -<p>“And those who flirt with you,—how do they come out?”</p> - -<p>“Some of them have the bad taste to become serious, which makes it -rather awkward. Then they have to be sent off for good, and perhaps -they wail about bruised hearts and such like, which I don’t mind. They -never get a whack amiss. What I don’t owe them some other woman does. I -only help to even up for women in general.”</p> - -<p>“But you might grow serious, too, some time.”</p> - -<p>“I am not afraid, because I have no heart any more. It is as dead as -the traditional door-nail. I can dance nearer the edge of a precipice -than anybody else and keep my head.”</p> - -<p>“Some do go over, don’t they?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; poor fools with hearts who ought not to play in that kind of a -game.”</p> - -<p>“It is something I know nothing whatever about, but it appears to be -both perilous and unprofitable,” said Cartice.</p> - -<p>“You are quite right in your conclusion. The liquor habit is also -perilous and unprofitable, yet the man addicted to it keeps right on -in it. One must do something to keep from remembering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span> certain other -things. With me it’s a case of keeping my mind off misery. I got into -it because in the first year of my married life my husband neglected -me shamefully, spending most of his time with a mincing little woman -who posed for goodness itself. For a time I broke my heart over it; all -women do. Then I braced up and began to administer his own medicine -to him, only not in such repugnantly large doses. We all do things it -would be better not to do, because somebody else does us an injury. We -get into one trouble in trying to escape from another. It’s merely a -matter of choice between the frying pan and the fire,—a puzzle far too -deep for my light head to work on.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Nothing is accidental. We meet the people we are destined to meet, and -with their help or hindrance work out our problem, be it hard or easy. -The most feather-weight of mortals may prove our greatest teacher. In -whose keeping we shall find the most precious treasures we know not. -But it was written in the great unopened book that the Butterfly was to -be help and healing to the bruised heart of Cartice Doring, and to bear -a torch which should light for her the very darkest page of life.</p> - -<p>When affairs are at their worst a change has to come. Misery itself -does not stand still. It moves slowly, nevertheless it moves. -The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span> finances of the Laytons and Dorings had reached the stage of -desperation. Colonel Layton found the situation too grave to face -without frequent liquefactions. The result was that he escaped facing -it altogether, for he forgot it completely during the day, and at night -went into a stupor too profound for landlords or other monsters to -invade.</p> - -<p>The Butterfly and Cartice thought of a means of extricating themselves -at last. They decided to leave the hotel, take lodgings and eat, -Bohemian fashion, when they could pay for it, and fast when they had no -money.</p> - -<p>They found furnished rooms, side by side, which they provided with some -tiny traps for cooking, by selling some of the Butterfly’s personal -treasures. To the surprise of the others, Colonel Layton volunteered -to go daily to market and bring in supplies for both families, a task -he performed for some time with a faithfulness not natural to his -character, which was uncertain and ease-loving to the last degree. He -went early and returned loaded like a porter. Among his purchases, -cream cheese in liberal quantities was always a certainty. This was the -bait that lured him to the market. He had a boyish fondness for it, and -like a boy was willing to go out of his way to get it.</p> - -<p>Cartice and the Butterfly rejoiced in each other more and more every -day. They shared their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> money and whatever else they possessed freely, -and the unqualified frankness of their confidences was salvation for -them. To tell a trouble to sympathetic ears is, in a measure, to throw -it off. Repression kills, but expression is life. The seed that sends a -plant upward from the earth expresses itself. Were conditions such that -it could not do so, it would die and rot away in the darkness.</p> - -<p>The blessed Butterfly, whose extraordinary baptismal name of -Chrissalyn, fitted her so exquisitely, had a far nobler mission in the -world than she herself dreamed.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Doring continued to search for the meaning of things. She had -sought happiness and found wretchedness, and in the first anguish of -disappointment failed to see that she was not the only one who had had -a fruitless quest. There was the Butterfly whose experience was the -same, and many others, now that she thought of it. Perhaps all had more -or less disappointment were their inner lives known.</p> - -<p>Dimly she began to see that the pursuit of happiness could not be the -true purpose of life, though all the world assumed that it was. Her -dream of conjugal companionship had vanished altogether. There were -times when she hated her husband, times when she pitied him, times when -she despised him, and times when she tried to believe that she loved -him,—must love him or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span> die. Had any soul in the universe so yearned -for love as she and been from birth so stinted of it? Behind the -immobile mask that hid her proud, suffering heart from other eyes, her -soul cried for it. What could not she have endured, with a laugh on her -face and a song on her lips, had love walked by her side? Could poverty -or any other terror which civilization has nursed daunt her then? No, a -thousand times no, she said.</p> - -<p>Her own troubles diminished, however, in the presence of the heavier -ones under which Chrissalyn now staggered.</p> - -<p>Colonel Layton was going down hill distressingly fast, and nothing -could be done to save him. His health was broken, his wits muddled and -wandering most of the time, and the end of his resources at hand. He -had let go his anchorage and was drifting to his destruction, careless -of wind or tide.</p> - -<p>Meantime the brave Butterfly smiled before the world and chatted -cheerily when her friends called, though with her heart in her mouth, -and her ear ever alert for her husband’s wavering footsteps. When -she heard the unwelcome sound, she made excuse and went outside to -intercept his entrance. Usually at such times he was pathetically -obedient, and sat where she placed him, in some vacant room or dark -corner of the hall, till her visitors left and she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> came for him. To -be sure he complained and whined and swore in a rambling way without -rage, yet when Chrissalyn came he went with her like a worn out child. -However, he was not always so tractable. There were times when he -blustered and threatened, and his eyes had a light dancing in them that -made one’s blood run cold.</p> - -<p>One night Mrs. Doring could not sleep, a sense of impending danger -oppressed her. Getting up and putting on a wrapper, she went to a -window and looked into the street. All was still, and yet somewhere -she fancied she heard mutterings. On going into the hall she saw the -Laytons’ door open, the lights at full flare, and, to her surprise, the -colonel, fully dressed, sitting in the doorway whetting a razor, with a -slow, sibilant stroke, which seemed to give him extraordinary pleasure, -for he smiled in a gratified way and his eyes twinkled like stars. -There was no fury in his face, but something far more dreadful—the -look of a lunatic who meditates a deed he considers delightful. Sitting -by the window, opposite the door, was Chrissalyn, clad only in her -sleeping gown, with a face white and rigid, and a pistol held firmly in -her hand.</p> - -<p>At sight of the scene Cartice grew cold with fright; but she went close -to Colonel Layton and was about to speak, when, without pausing in his -razor whetting, he said, gently, “Go away, now,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> Mrs. Doring, and come -back a little later if you want to.”</p> - -<p>In spite of the apparently innocent words, she felt that behind them -lurked some terrible intention. If she called help the arrival of -others might precipitate whatever horror lurked in his mad mind.</p> - -<p>Chrissalyn heard everything but said nothing, and her silence was -eloquently ominous.</p> - -<p>“Why should I come again if I go away?” she asked, thinking to lead his -mind from the work in hand.</p> - -<p>Shrugging his shoulders significantly, he said, “Merely to see sights,” -and then laughed the low satisfied laugh of one who knows and enjoys -things his listener dreams not of.</p> - -<p>“What sights?”</p> - -<p>Another shrug. His vanity, ever strong, overcame his secretiveness, and -he could not refrain from boasting of his intended exploits. “The last -of Chrissalyn and me,” he said, presently, with a chuckle. “I’m tired -of the whole damned business of living, and shall give it up, but I -shan’t leave her behind me. Oh, no! She goes first.”</p> - -<p>Though chilled to the marrow at this cool statement, whose truth the -scene and the hour confirmed, Cartice pretended to put no stress upon -it. Hurriedly racking her brains for some pretence for her call and -pretext for his services,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> she said, “I’m sorry to trouble you just -now, Colonel, but Louis is very sick, and I want you to go and ring -up Barton’s night clerk and get some whiskey for him as soon as you -can. You are always so kind and obliging; I’m sure you won’t mind my -bothering you.” He was ever the most easily flattered creature. Then, -too, there was magic for him in the word whiskey.</p> - -<p>“You’ll go, won’t you?” she asked, entreatingly, as he made no answer.</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes, of course,” he replied, absently holding the razor close to -his eyes and looking critically at its edge, but making no move.</p> - -<p>“You will excuse me if I beg you to make haste, please,” she continued. -“Poor Louis is in a wretched state.”</p> - -<p>He got up slowly, took his hat and began to waver about the room, still -holding the open razor in his hand. As he moved toward Chrissalyn she -raised the hand that clutched the pistol, and her eyes had a steady, -determined look that said she would defend herself to the death.</p> - -<p>“Come, Colonel,” cried Cartice, apparently in good-natured haste, “I -hear Louis groaning. Please go as quickly as you can.” He laid the -razor down and went out and down the stairs as docile as a dog.</p> - -<p>Chrissalyn fell forward in a dead faint. When she returned to -consciousness, limp and pale, and Cartice suggested taking her into her -apartment,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</span> lest the Colonel return, she smiled feebly, saying, “There -is no danger. He will not be back in ten or twelve hours. You probably -think this scene unusual, but its like has occurred several times -before. Once I had to shoot, and the ball went through his hat. The -shock of it was almost too much for me, for I thought I had killed him.”</p> - -<p>“My poor Chriss, you must leave him, and not run such risks any more. -One such experience is enough to make you grey-headed.”</p> - -<p>“I stay on because I can do no other thing, and if I could I should -stay to take care of him, poor, helpless, wandering soul that he is. -He will come home to-morrow weak as a baby, go to bed and lie there -helpless for weeks.”</p> - -<p>She was a true prophet. At midnight of the next day he crept wearily up -the stairs, a feeble, disheveled, miserable figure, with a pale, peaked -face, and faded, watery eyes. Taking refuge in bed, he arose no more -for over a month.</p> - -<p>These days of terror and anxiety were telling seriously on the -Butterfly, ever a fragile being, who hung to earth seemingly by the -most delicate thread. The pity of it was that she loved life so. Even -as it had disclosed itself to her, full of disappointment, of tragedy, -heartache and humiliation, with want menacing her daily and trouble -elbowing her at every step, still she loved it. Her ideal was not -particularly exalted.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</span> Given pretty clothes and surroundings, a few -pleasant friends, a modest retinue of moths to circle round her and a -few gold pieces to jingle in her purse, and she could squeeze joy out -of life still. But remember she was a butterfly.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.<br><span class="small">OPPORTUNITY.</span></h2></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“A new friend is a new fortune.”</p> - -<p>You have sometimes known happiness, eh? Yes, the happiness of others.</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -—<i>Aresene Houssaye.</i><br> -</p> -</div> - - -<p>One Sunday morning Mrs. Doring sat at a window, making a sketch of a -figure she saw on the opposite side of the street, when Chrissalyn, who -had entered by the open door, went near and looked over her shoulder -with the familiarity of close friendship.</p> - -<p>“Why, how wonderful!” she exclaimed, the most flattering admiration -in her voice and face. “That’s Gabriel Norris, the street preacher, a -local celebrity. You’ve done him to perfection—even better than he -looks himself—that is, I see something in his expression here that I -never saw in him, and yet I believe he has it after all. The picture -brings it out strong. I can’t tell just what it is, but it makes me -want to cry.”</p> - -<p>The eyes of the sketcher glowed with an indescribable light—the light -which the intangible, potent, holy thing we call appreciation calls -from the depths of human souls. To portray nature so that the most -heedless and untaught see the soul of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span> the subject and are able for the -moment to roam about in that awesome country,—with the artist, and -feel his heart-throbs—is ever the dream of art. By the effect of her -work on the Butterfly, Cartice realized that in this modest drawing she -had accomplished this.</p> - -<p>“There, he is moving on and the boys he has been talking to are going -with him,” said Chrissalyn, leaning out of the window. “He preaches -every Sunday morning at the South Market, and is probably on his way -there now. He is a queer fellow, though he belongs to a rich and -respectable family who are greatly mortified at his peculiar doings. -But he hasn’t lived with them for ten years, nor taken a cent from -them. He has a little cobbler’s shop away down town in the very ugliest -part of the city, and supports himself making and mending shoes, and -does excellent work, they say. On Sundays, and other odd times he -preaches to people who are too poor to go to church, and does lots -of other things for them besides. You see he is cheaply dressed, -though as clean as a pin. He could have better clothes, but doesn’t -want them—has views about such things—says he does not want to be -separated from the people he tries to help by being better dressed than -they are. Of course he is an out-and-out crank, but wasn’t always so. -A dozen years ago nobody was fonder of the good things of the world. -He was the leader of the very swellest<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span> social doings. All at once -he took a turn in the opposite direction—said he had been wasting -his life, and was going to put what remained of it to some use. Some -say an unlucky love affair set him off; others that he had a dream or -vision that changed him. At this very moment I dare say his father -and family are rolling to church—the swellest church here—in their -fine carriage. But Gabriel preaches against the rich—or at least -against the selfish use they make of their money, and prophesies no -end of difficulty for them here and hereafter if they keep on as they -are going. I have always laughed at him, but I never shall again, -because your picture of him gives me a queer thrill and lets me see -into him as I never did before. But how did you get the features, the -expression,—everything so perfect, seeing him only from the window?”</p> - -<p>“I saw him a few days ago, with his head bare, just as I have him -here, preaching to a little group on a street corner,” said Cartice. -“I stopped a moment to listen, and his face has been often in my mind -since. So when I saw him from the window, this morning, talking to the -boys, I hurried to make a sketch of him.”</p> - -<p>Then looking up, with an eager light in her mottled eyes, she said, -“Chrissalyn, let us go and hear him. You say he speaks to the poor. We -are of them. Who needs help more? Let us go.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span></p> - -<p>The Butterfly gave but a grudging consent. She was the natural enemy -of all serious instruction. As they went she babbled on about Gabriel -Norris:</p> - -<p>“As he was bent on preaching, his father wanted him to go to a -theological college and be shaped up into a first-class regulation -preacher, wear the correct thing in clothes, have a fashionable church, -gilt-edged Bible, velvet pulpit cushions, fat salary and everything -that goes to make preaching respectable; but Gabriel wouldn’t have it -that way. He said there was more than enough of that kind of thing; -that what he wanted to say to people had nothing in common with -theological factories, and as for pulpit cushions and the like they -were abominations in the sight of the Lord; that Jesus had none of -them, nor would he have.”</p> - -<p>The scene at the market-house was one to take hold upon the heart. The -people who sat there on rude benches were all from the bitter land of -indigence. Its hard conditions were written in their faces, their poor -garments, stooping shoulders, weary and awkward attitudes. Many women -were there, for women are ever found where a word of promise and hope -is to be spoken, and that fact is eloquent of what they suffer, of the -bitterness of their disappointments, of the weight of their sorrows, of -the hunger of their hearts and the yearning of their spirits.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span></p> - -<p>Before the preacher had spoken ten minutes Cartice was under the spell -of his oratory, which was simple, strong and sympathetic. It wasn’t -preaching. It was the life-giving, hope-inspiring talk of a loving -friend, and it went to the hearts of his hearers and there awoke nobler -aspirations. He said nothing of seeing evil in them. Instead, he told -them how good they were—much better and higher than they themselves -had dreamed; that possibilities of wonderful and beautiful growth were -in every one of them; that they had an eternity in which to grow, and -on themselves depended their well-being now and forever.</p> - -<p>It was good to see the light of self-respect come into their dull eyes -under the potent spell of the young preacher’s earnest words. Some of -them had shrunk internally to almost nothing, under the blight of the -self-depreciation which close intimacy with grinding poverty begets. -Now their souls began to gather confidence and stand erect, conscious -of their own value.</p> - -<p>“My dear ones,” he said, “don’t make the blunder of thinking that the -aim of life is to be happy. Do not spend your time hunting happiness, -seeking it where it never was and never will be—in the external things -of life, in possessions that pass even while you use them, in pleasures -that leave a bitter taste in the mouth and a regret in the heart. I -doubt not that our Divine Father intended us to be happy, but not in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span> -the way we imagine. His way is so very clear and simple, and yet we -are so blind we see it not, and wander in such hard paths, and lose -ourselves often. It is to love each other. Ever so brief a trial of -this way proves it the true one. But to love each other does not mean -to love only your own families, your friends and those who treat you -well. It means to love everybody, even your enemy. When you love your -enemy, a miracle happens. He ceases to be your enemy. Love always and -to the end.</p> - -<p>“When we love as we should we do not question whether we are happy -or not. Then another miracle happens. We are happy, for we taste the -highest order of happiness, that of forgiving and loving our enemies, -of giving out good will and kindness to all, of making others happy. -The less we think of our own happiness the happier we shall be.</p> - -<p>“Did any man or woman whose life has helped the world go about -complaining because he or she was not happy? Serve others, thinking -not of yourselves and, without knowing the hour of the great -transformation, you will find you are already a dweller within the -kingdom of heaven.</p> - -<p>“Love, and judge not—that is, don’t find fault. When you learn to -love, you will not wish to judge; you will not see the faults; you will -see only the good in everybody.”</p> - -<p>The Butterfly would have found the experience<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> dull, but that on the -edge of the assemblage she spied a handsome male acquaintance. This -enabled her to await the end of the lecture with heroic patience. Her -face wore an expression indicative of complete indifference to his -presence, for that was part of her method of attracting moths, though -in fact she saw nothing and thought of nothing but him. It goes without -saying that as soon as Gabriel Norris had dismissed his people, this -imposing moth was by her side. She greeted him with demure civility, -as though he was the most ordinary apparition that could loom up—for -that, too, was in her tactics—then presented him to Cartice as <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> -Prescott.</p> - -<p>He had a reverent way with women, unstudied and natural, which usually -won their good will and sometimes more at the first meeting. He took -her hand with old-fashioned friendliness, and as he looked into her -face, and her eyes met his, the mask of self-repression she had been -wearing slipped aside for a moment, and her sore and suffering spirit -stood in mute appeal before him, and he saw and understood.</p> - -<p>“Show <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Prescott your sketch, Mrs. Doring, please,” said the -Butterfly. Without demur Cartice opened her sketch book which she had -brought to give the finishing touches to Gabriel’s picture. Prescott -started in surprise when he saw it. After a moment or so of silence, he -said, “It is admirable.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span></p> - -<p>Mrs. Doring’s face glowed. A word of praise with the genuine ring in it -warmed her heart to the core.</p> - -<p>“You draw well, too, Mrs. Layton,” he said, with a significant smile; -“but not in the same way.”</p> - -<p>The Butterfly disdained to reply. Turning to Cartice, with the most -winning deference, he said, “I should like to purchase your sketch, -when completed, Mrs. Doring. I want to publish it. Write me a -description of the services here this morning, to go with it, will you -not? You <em>can</em> write, I know without asking.” (Mentally—If she -would write what her eyes tell it would move the world.)</p> - -<p>“<abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Prescott is the editor of the <i>Register</i>,” said the -Butterfly, by way of explanation.</p> - -<p>“I shall be delighted to do so,” Cartice answered, with swelling heart.</p> - -<p>“And do some more of the same kind of work afterward. I want things -like that—plenty of them,” he said.</p> - -<p>As they talked together Gabriel Norris joined them, for he and the -newspaper man were old friends. Cartice thanked him earnestly for his -helpful words, saying frankly that she needed them as much as any of -his hearers. Accustomed to the indifference and contempt of that part -of the public which should have understood him, and to the stupidity of -that which could not,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</span> he had long used himself to live without praise; -but he was human, and his heart was lighter and warmer for a word of -appreciation.</p> - -<p>Cartice walked home on air. The long lane of her misery was turning. -A chance to work had come to her, and that meant a means of climbing -out of the slough of despond. Idleness is the prelude to decay, an -invitation to destruction. Enforced idleness, when the spirit longs -for activity, and yet finds itself hedged in, helpless, cut off from -opportunity, is the death of hope, the very day of doom for the soul. -Now that was all over. The ladder that leads out of despondency and on -to the best the world has to give was before her, her feet already on -its first round.</p> - -<p>She could hardly wait to get home and write the description that was to -accompany the drawing. It took shape as she went, one sentence chasing -another in her mind, all eager for expression, which is but another -word for life.</p> - -<p>The Butterfly had a new theme to chatter about—Prescott and his -doings, though her companion scarcely heard her, so deep was she in her -new dreamland of action.</p> - -<p>“Prescott is a genius, they all say, though a capital fellow, -nevertheless. Nobody can back him down, for he fears neither man -nor devil, and I like that. He is divorced from his wife who was -considerable of a fiend, I guess, and no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</span> doubt he is too, on -occasions. She married again. It was lucky we went to hear Gabriel. One -never knows where one may encounter a streak of good fortune,—even at -so unexpected a place as church sometimes.”</p> - -<p>Though but few words had been exchanged the famished spirit of Cartice -Doring had been refreshed by meeting Prescott and Gabriel Norris. Words -are but a cumbrous means of communion anyway. When we better understand -the laws of our being we shall need them less. Our thought goes forth -and becomes a part of others, by a subtler method than articulate -speech; and this is why no man can live unto himself, and why if one be -lifted up he lifts up others also.</p> - -<p>The turning point in ill fortune had come, sure enough. The very -next day Doring announced that he had “dropped into something.” It -was not a chance to make a fortune, but it was—well, just what he -said—something.</p> - -<p>Is it not true that there are persons who bring us good luck from -the very moment they cross our paths, and others who dower us with -ill-fortune as long as we are associated with them? Mascots and Jonahs -are realities, not myths. Meeting Gordon Prescott and Gabriel Norris -had turned the tide for Mrs. Doring. One had opened the gate of -opportunity, and the other had given her a kind of help not easy to -label. It might be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</span> described by saying that she felt better for having -met him.</p> - -<p>Her sketch of him, with an accompanying word picture of the scene -at the market-house went promptly to the <i>Register</i>, and was -responded to in person by Prescott, who brought her a crisp five dollar -note, said an appreciative word or two in his curt, laconic way, and -repeated the order for more.</p> - -<p>The joy of expression took hold of her, and to her great amazement -her pen could more than keep pace with her pencil. Its creations -were distinguished by an originality, a strength and grace that at -once attracted attention. To her the pleasure she found in writing -was not in the admiration it excited, but in the doing of it,—in -the never-ceasing surprise that she could do it so well. Sometimes -when she read her own productions after the fire that created them -had died out, they seemed new and strange to her, like the work of -another. An apparently inexhaustible well within herself had been -opened, into which she could reach at will and draw forth sparkling -draughts. In this way she became aware of the complexity, temerity and -unfathomableness of that wondrous, unseen, indescribable thing we call -mind, which has everlastingly within it all that is, was or shall be.</p> - -<p>It astonished her to see the facility with which her pen danced -humorous jigs, flung off diamonds<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span> of wit, and set in motion rippling -waves of laughter. It was strange that she who was but emerging from -the valley of despair, and whose life so far had had in it but little -of the glitter of pleasure, could write as one who knew the light, the -joyous, the mirthful, the happy side of existence.</p> - -<p>Yet even in her most jaunty and jubilant products, here and there would -be a bold, strong stroke of another kind, which made the reader know -that he was following no light soul. In all she wrote, whether grave or -gay, were the “fresh eyes,” to which we give the name of originality, -and another quality, for which we have no name, which moves us, we know -not why.</p> - -<p>When it began to be rumored that the <i>Register’s</i> new writer was -a woman, the smart people, who knew everything, shook their heads and -sniffed incredulously, saying that there was too much force in the -work; that the style was not womanish—it was Prescott in disguise. -They expected the apron-strings to flutter conspicuously from every -page prepared by a feminine hand. For them genius has sex and that sex -is always male.</p> - -<p>It must not be understood that these early efforts of my heroine -were worthy a place among the works of genius. They were only fresh, -spirited, striking sketches of life as their author saw it, and they -went into the great ocean of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span> newspaper literature here, there and -all about, that lives but for a day. Some of them, it is true, found -a pathetic scrap-book immortality. Others were picked up by mightier -periodicals than the <i>Register</i>, and given a flatteringly wide -circulation, and a few met the dreary fate of getting into imposingly -bound collections of “Literary Gems,” there to rest in undisturbed -security on village parlor tables for many a year to come.</p> - -<p>In a few weeks Mrs. Doring had the felicity to be installed as -associate editor of the <i>Register</i>. Her salary was not munificent, -as salaries usually are in fiction. Let no one imagine that all -aspirants get an opportunity to do newspaper work and ascend the ladder -as easily. Her good luck in this particular could be traced to her -fitness for the position. Prescott soon discovered that besides having -extraordinary ability and originality as a writer, she had what he -called the “editorial instinct,” which, being interpreted, meant that -she knew instinctively what an attractive newspaper should contain.</p> - -<p>In novels it is always easy to get to the top. In that respect the -people who live in books have a much better time than they who live -outside of them. There young heroes make dazzling flights up the -journalistic mountains. A young man comes out of college, writes -something for a powerful daily newspaper, whose editor at once begs -him to accept a lucrative situation thereon.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> He allows himself to -be persuaded, after some hesitation, and takes advantage of the -opportunity for distinction thrust upon him, after which he goes up -without delay or hindrance, till he becomes editor-in-chief, owns the -paper and is a recognized power in the land. But in real life, alas! -the get-there road is a harder one to travel.</p> - -<p>Another thing in real life is managed less excellently than in fiction. -The women who do newspaper work, too frequently have a little place -fenced off to operate in. This is called “Woman’s Corner,” or “Woman’s -Work,” or “Woman’s World,” and therein the entire female part of the -population is supposed to find satisfactory news aliment. There the -whole mass of reading women are expected to pasture in peace and -plenty. And why not? There they can find out just how long a sponge -cake should be left in the oven, what is the best lotion for the -complexion, how to polish their finger nails, the latest thing in -embroidery stitches, the newest style in visiting cards, the most -approved method of conducting an afternoon tea, and no end of valuable -and ennobling information in regard to what “they” are wearing.</p> - -<p>Beside all this indispensable instruction the corner is sure to contain -many proud allusions to that terrible scourge, the “true woman,” who -is always found sitting serenely within her “sphere,” her feet on a -hassock, her embroidery<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span> in hand, ignorance in her head, selfishness -in her heart, vanity and jealousy written all over her feeble face, -saying that she “has rights enough,” just as she would say she has -bread enough. But evolution, that “slow performance of miracles,” will -eventually oust even this stumbling-block in the path of human progress.</p> - -<p>Cartice Doring was not a “true woman,” nor was her work on the -<i>Register</i> to be found in a “corner,” neither had it a fence of -any kind about it, seen or unseen, nor was it addressed to women more -than to men. As she saw it, newspapers were for all and dealt with -matters of interest to all humankind.</p> - -<p>Happily Prescott thought the same. He held almost no opinions dear to -the average mind, and scarcely ever put pen to paper without tearing -up the ground under the feet of those who insisted upon thinking -“the same thoughts their fathers did think.” He had founded the -<i>Register</i> and made it the vehicle of his opinions rather than a -mere news journal. These opinions were invariably so new and daring, -and so entertainingly expressed that his worst enemies could not -deny themselves the pleasure of reading them. Hence it was that the -<i>Register</i> was a flying success.</p> - -<p>As it was well known that Prescott was as ready and able with his -revolver as with his pen, his views on current events were respected, -and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> seldom openly disputed. He was the mortal enemy of fools and -fogies, and found his chief joy in outraging that chaos of ignorance -and prejudice we call public opinion. In short he was brilliant, bold, -witty, kind and cruel—a tremendous engine with sand in the joints.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Doring found her new field of activity stimulating and delightful. -It had been her belief that happiness could be made of but two -ingredients—companionship and congenial employment. Now that she had -the latter, the want of the former troubled her less. Besides, she met -many people, and the contact of sympathetic minds is to another what -moisture is to vegetation—keeping it alive and invigorating it. In a -day, as it were, the world had expanded, and she was in touch with its -heart, vibrating in sympathy with its deep pulsations.</p> - -<p>She learned much of human nature, particularly gifted human nature, for -the <i>Register</i> had literary leanings, and many of its friends, men -and women, who came to chat a vast half-hour in the informal editorial -den, were toiling up the narrow way that leads to eminence and fame.</p> - -<p>Some have achieved the fulfilment of their dreams and are now enjoying -their little day of renown. Others had but a taste of the delirious -cup of renown when they were called into the silence. Some grew weary -and ceased to strive,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span> and some are still plodding on in the old road, -having neither lost nor gained ground.</p> - -<p>As a matter of course, enemies arose. The spiteful, the envious, the -jealous, the bitter-hearted, the undeveloped must needs have their -little fling at the woman whose pen was a power. But Cartice was too -busy to heed them. Scarcely had she time to ask herself if she were -happy. “Almost,” she said, when she thought of it, though it was a -different kind of happiness from that of her earlier dreams.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.<br><span class="small">DEATH’S NARROW SEA.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The child that enters life comes not with knowledge or intent;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So those who enter death must go as little children sent.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Nothing is known, but I believe that God is overhead;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And as life is to the living, so death is to the dead.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">—<i>Mary Mapes Dodge.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>One morning Cartice met Colonel Layton in the hall, as he was about to -go out for the day. His unusual appearance struck her at once. He was -clean shaven and carefully dressed; his face was pale and no signs or -fumes of liquor were upon or about him. This, of itself, was enough -to attract particular attention; but there was more. An indefinable -something in his manner asked for sympathy in a silent way, like an -animal; and in his eyes which of late were unusually glassy and vacant, -was an expression of reminiscent sadness, such as comes to the eyes of -those who in a quiet, self-questioning hour, look back upon their lives -and see scenes that bring regret. Cartice felt her heart stirred by a -wish to comfort him.</p> - -<p>Perhaps he was conscious of that vibration of sympathy, for he smiled -and the smile was singularly sweet and winning, revealing a glimpse<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span> of -his old-time handsome self, when he had won the Butterfly’s heart.</p> - -<p>In conversation the Colonel was ever a failure. His ability in that -art did not go much beyond a few stock expletives, eked out with -significant shrugs and emphatic grunts. But now he tried to make talk, -and lingered as though he had something to say and knew not how to -begin.</p> - -<p>“Hang it all,” he growled at last, “what is there in this life anyhow? -What are we here for, I should like to know? What’s the object of the -whole, miserable procession? It’s a devil of a grind for everybody, and -we have to give it up at last, and go out of it, God only knows where. -What do you think is at the end of it, Mrs. Doring?”</p> - -<p>“O Colonel, I think and think, but I know nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, that’s the dickens of it, nobody knows,” he sighed. “But if there -is a hell most of us will be well seasoned for it by tough times here. -I feel about ripe myself. At least I am certain they can’t get up -anything worse than this world anywhere. Mighty little happiness here.”</p> - -<p>There was something inexpressibly pathetic in this ruined man’s mention -of happiness. Like all others he had been in pursuit of it, yet his -seeking had but led him farther astray.</p> - -<p>“Should you like to live your life over again?” he asked with sudden -animation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span></p> - -<p>“I have not the courage,” she answered.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that I have either,” he said, with a weary air. “I don’t -know that I want to; yet all the morning I have seen myself as I was -when a child in my father’s house, and my grown-up life seems but a -dream. If it were so, and I remembered the dream, I would not again -travel the same road, I assure you. I recall one spring morning, -particularly—a Sunday morning—when I sat with my mother on the shady -old porch with vines running up the sides, and she sang this:</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“‘There is a land of pure delight,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Where saints immortal reign.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Infinite day excludes the night,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And pleasures banish pain.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“‘There everlasting spring abides</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And never-withering flowers.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Death like a narrow sea divides</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That heavenly land from ours.’”</span><br> -</p> - -<p>A good tenor voice had once been his, but the best of it had gone the -irrevocable road, like many of his other endowments and possessions. -Enough remained, however, to give a touching sweetness to the grand -old words, and as he sang his face became softened, beautified, -transfigured, all that was erring and evil dropping out of it. The -years, too, fell away, and he was a little child again—nor had he -ever been anything else—just a child, weak, wandering, blundering, -stumbling often—just a child, brother to us all.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span></p> - -<p>“Do you think there is anything for us on the other side of death?” he -asked, the childlike look still upon his face.</p> - -<p>“I hope so.”</p> - -<p>“Well, I believe there is,” he said, with unwonted decision. “I have -always believed so, in spite of my bad practice, though I don’t know -what it is; but I am not afraid though I’m no saint. It seems all -right.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, whatever it is, it must be all right,” Cartice answered. “It -could not be anything else. But I wish we knew something about it. I -wish we knew.”</p> - -<p>“It may not be long before I know. You see what I am—a shadow of what -I used to be, a wreck in everything and nobody to blame but myself. I -guess the end of the road can’t be very far ahead. After I make the -lonely journey, I’ll come back and tell you something about it if I -can.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, Colonel Layton, thousands, millions have started on that journey -with the same promise upon their lips, but who has kept it?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it is a stumper,” he said, reflectively, “but in spite of it -I have faith that perhaps I can. Mother and father are on the other -side somewhere. This morning they seem very near to me—nearer than -ever before since they went away. I feel that I might meet them at any -turn.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</span></p> - -<p>With a sigh and a smile he lifted his hat in graceful adieu and went -slowly down the stairs, softly singing,</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Death like a narrow divides</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">That heavenly land from ours.”</span><br> -</p> - -<p>Two hours later Cartice was sitting at her desk in the editorial office -of the <i>Register</i>, when a stranger entered. Speaking low, as even -the rudest do when they bring dread news, he said:</p> - -<p>“Colonel Layton fell dead on the street a few minutes ago. He has been -carried into <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Olcott’s office, and the doctor wants you to come at -once. He knows you are a close friend of Mrs. Layton, and I guess he -wants you to tell her and help make arrangements.”</p> - -<p>Dazed and trembling, Mrs. Doring was about to start when Prescott -entered, and he volunteered to accompany her.</p> - -<p>They found everything calm and orderly. The doctor was noted for -keeping an even mind under all circumstances, and had permitted no -intrusion of the curious and idle. He opened the door to an inner room, -and led them to a sofa on which the dead man lay awaiting the coroner. -With professional coolness the doctor turned down the sheet, saying, -“He was already gone when they brought him in.”</p> - -<p>In very truth he had become a child again. The fair weak face wore a -look of youth and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span> innocence. The light, shiny hair, scarcely ruffled -from its careful arrangement of the morning, had on it baby tints of -sunshine, and under the blonde moustache lurked the remnant of the -childishly sweet smile that lighted his face when Mrs. Doring saw him -go singing down the stairs two hours before. The placid form before -her was his semblance, indeed, but it was not he. That mysterious fact -Cartice realized in an instant. There were his clay garments, but all -that was he was gone.</p> - -<p>The funeral took place two days later. Mrs. Doring could not be -present, for she was unable to raise her head from the pillow. Thoughts -of the great mystery which had just touched elbows with her haunted -her all the time. The “narrow sea that divides the heavenly land from -ours,” what was it like? What shore touched it on the other side? Was -there a heavenly land or any land beyond that dark ocean? And where was -Colonel Layton now?</p> - -<p>No answer to these perplexing queries came. And yet, perhaps an answer -always comes could we but read it. Perhaps it came to Mrs. Doring, -for as she lay there wondering about it, a calm came upon her, and in -imagination she saw Colonel Layton as he stood at the top of the stairs -on the day they talked together about this greatest of all problems, -and heard him say, “I am not afraid. It seems all right.” Far down<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> -within herself she heard the echo, “all right! all right!” and then she -saw again the Colonel’s childish smile, and he repeated assuringly, -“Yes, it’s all right.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Chrissalyn went to live with a friend and determined to find a way -to earn her bread. The end of one path through which she had sought -happiness was reached and only sadness and disappointment were there. -Now she must look for others, for the endless quest goes on, clear to -the grave itself and possibly beyond. When she with the last scrap of -her possessions was gone and her apartments left solitary, Cartice -felt a sense of desolation greater than she had known since she and -the Butterfly had been friends. Life is as inexorable as death; its -separations are often more cruel.</p> - -<p>In the office of the <i>Register</i> the final fate of man was a -subject often under discussion. Prescott snorted in derision at any -mention of a continuance of life in a sphere invisible to us now. “We -die and turn to dust, like the worm,” he said. Cartice held to the -hope of something more than we have here—a sequel to this life, or a -continuation of it, but she could advance no basis for the hope which -he considered tenable.</p> - -<p>Well-known figures in the state and community passed out of sight -into the silence of the grave every now and then, and it was the -<i>Register’s</i><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> custom to speak with unvarnished frankness about -their lives. Without doubt this, in many instances, added to the -terrors of death, for Prescott was capable of very rough surgery in -his post-mortem analysis. He flouted the old injunction, “speak no ill -of the dead,” saying that mere dying did not excuse a man’s misdeeds, -nor make an angel of him, and that they should reap an obituary -harvest of whatever crop they had sown. Not even the time-honored -“regular subscriber” or “constant reader,” had immunity from this -harsh ruling. He was willing to take the same medicine himself when -his time came, and it should never be said of him that he was in the -habit of plastering people all over with laudatory lies just because -they had died. “O yes,” he would snarl, “lots of men serve the devil -all their lives, and then expect newspapers to put plenty of heaven in -the truck they print about them when they die. But the <i>Register</i> -isn’t conducted that way. They shall get in it what they have earned, -no more, no less.” Truly, many found, even without dying, that it -was a terrible thing to fall into the too truthful hands of the -<i>Register’s</i> editor.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.<br><span class="small">THINGS NOT DREAMED OF IN EVERYDAY PHILOSOPHY.</span></h2></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“Communication between the spirit world and the corporeal world is in -the nature of things, and has in it nothing supernatural.”</p> - -<p>The body, after all, is only a portable, two-legged telephone through -which the soul, or part of it, communicates with other souls which -for purposes of education and evolution are temporarily imprisoned -in these cumbrous and ingenious, but very inconvenient physical -machines.—<i>William T. Stead.</i></p> -</div> - - -<p>Chrissalyn had the usual difficulty of the untrained in finding -employment. The search was long and disheartening and might never have -had a happy ending but for a curious accident, which was no doubt down -in the books of destiny.</p> - -<p>She was going up a public stairway one day, when a man descending at a -break-neck gait ran against her, throwing her down. Distressed at what -he feared might have a serious ending, he picked her up, bewailing his -awkwardness, and offering to do anything in his power to atone for it.</p> - -<p>She opened her eyes to consciousness just as he was saying, “What can I -do for her? What can I do for her?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p> - -<p>“Get me a chance to earn my bread,” she gasped, with almost her first -breath.</p> - -<p>“I’ll do it at once,” he said. “I’ll take you right up the stairs -into my office and install you, out of gratitude that I didn’t kill -you.” So it could be said in all truth that she “fell into a good -situation,” for that it proved to be. Her ignorance of the duties she -was to perform was patiently borne with until it was overcome. Never -was butterfly more painstaking and industrious than she, and work -proved a blessing to her, as it does to everybody whose heart is in it. -Occupation gave her a stronger hold on life, for self-dependence is a -wonderful invigorator. It gave her added dignity, too, leaving just -enough of the butterfly instinct to give her exceeding grace.</p> - -<p>Seldom did she speak of her husband, save to Cartice, from whom she -concealed nothing, for Mrs. Doring was always tolerant, helpful, -receptive, kind and sympathetic, never critical and condemnatory. -Others beside the Butterfly understood this, and went to her with what -they needed to tell. The mind that is receptive, never meeting any -honest communication with hedgehog defiance or fool’s sneer, becomes a -magnet which draws knowledge from the very fountain of light and life. -Into it flow the secrets of the universe as well as of individuals.</p> - -<p>Speaking of her husband one day to Cartice, the Butterfly said, “I -never shed any tears because<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> he died. It was the only road out of -misery for him and for me; but I did weep for the happiness we never -had together, yet might have had.”</p> - -<p>One Sunday she came, but was silent and reflective, unlike her usual -self, for a time. At last she said: “Cartice, dear, I want to tell you -something that will certainly seem queer to you. I dare not speak of it -to any one else, lest I be locked up as a lunatic. But you are always -so kind and so sensible, you may be able to understand it. I don’t. -When I think of it I feel afraid that I am a little off my base.”</p> - -<p>“You can tell me anything, Chriss, you know that.”</p> - -<p>The Butterfly looked nervous and paled a little, but began:</p> - -<p>“To-day I have been to the funeral of Jess Hanley, a schoolmate of -mine. We were always the best of friends, though for some years we -have seen comparatively little of each other, because she has been -tied down at home so closely on account of sickness. Her husband died -of consumption two years ago. A year later their little boy went. Then -Jess became ill, and for months she has been expecting to go any day -almost. Last week she sent for me and I went. She told me she knew her -time was nearly up. She was quite cheerful over it, as she believed -she would be with her husband and child again<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span> after she had ‘passed -over,’ as she called it. She was a spiritualist, and thought that dying -isn’t dying at all. One thing she made me promise—a mere sick fancy I -suppose—and that was that I should not fail to go to her funeral.</p> - -<p>“Well, I went of course. It was like most other respectable funerals. -People looked solemn, there were flowers, and a preacher made the usual -harrowing remarks, which set everybody weeping—everybody but me. I -didn’t shed a tear, yet I loved Jess as well as any one there except -her mother, I am sure.</p> - -<p>“I didn’t cry because I was so dazed I couldn’t. That was the queer -part of it. I was dazed, because all the time the minister was speaking -I saw Jess, her husband and little boy running around the coffin, -laughing, kissing each other and throwing flowers in all directions. -They took the flowers from the mass on top of the coffin, yet there -were never any fewer there, though they threw them around by handfuls.</p> - -<p>“Once when the preacher said, ‘We shall see our sister no more until -that great and dreadful day of the Lord, when all shall stand at the -bar of judgment,’ Jess looked at me, laughed in a knowing way and threw -a rose into my lap; but when I tried to pick it up it wasn’t there. Now -what do you think of all that? <em>Am</em> I crazy, or what was it?”</p> - -<p>“What do you think it was, Chrissalyn?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span></p> - -<p>“I don’t know, and don’t dare to think too much about it lest I get -upset over it.”</p> - -<p>“Did others see them, do you think?”</p> - -<p>“No; I am sure they did not, and that frightens me. If they were really -there why didn’t the others see them? If they were not there why should -I see them, unless something has gone wrong in my head? I am sure the -others saw nothing, for I thought of that and watched them closely and -could detect no astonishment in their faces.”</p> - -<p>“How did the dead people whom you saw look, Chrissalyn?”</p> - -<p>“Just like living people, clothes and all. Only I knew they were not -living and had no business to be there, and couldn’t be there, and yet -they were there.”</p> - -<p>“Have you ever seen anything of the kind before?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, several times; but I always drove the recollection of it out of -my mind as soon as possible, because it seemed uncanny and creepy—and -I ended by persuading myself that I had imagined it all.”</p> - -<p>“Did your friend Jess know you had seen such things?”</p> - -<p>“Come to think of it, she did. Once a good while ago she told me -about some queer things of that kind she had seen. That’s the reason -she was a spiritualist. Then I told her what I had<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</span> seen.” (Here the -Butterfly’s face lighted up). “Now that may be the reason she made me -promise to be sure and go to her funeral. Perhaps she intended to make -herself visible to me if she could. At least that view of it makes me -feel easier. I prefer to believe I saw ghosts rather than to think my -brain is going bad. It has been a long time since I saw anything of the -kind. Each time I hope will be the last. But what do you think of it, -Cartice? You believe I saw those dead people, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“I think you saw just what you say you did; but I can’t explain it.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Doring had always clung to the belief that the universe held many -mysteries beyond her ken; that marvelous things, hidden from common -vision, were destined to some day stand revealed, and no man knew the -manner in which they might make themselves known. She had had some -experience with professional clairvoyants which had been disenchanting. -For the most part they had been clammy, illiterate, unscrupulous, -pitiful types of humanity, ready to violate truth and the English -language without hesitation or remorse. Now she looked at the Butterfly -with an interest that almost amounted to awe. Could it be that the gift -of seeing the hidden and unknown belonged to this bright, winged being, -who loved the world and the things of the world only?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</span></p> - -<p>At last she said: “Chrissalyn, you have heard of the faculty of -clairvoyance, have you not?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, of course.”</p> - -<p>“May it not be that you are a clairvoyant, and saw your dead friends -clairvoyantly?”</p> - -<p>The Butterfly lifted her hands in horror. “O Cartice, how can you -suggest such a thing? I a clairvoyant? It would be too dreadful. I -wouldn’t have a hint of such a horrid thing get out on me for the -world. Why, clairvoyants are hideous creatures, ugly, old, frowsy, -untruthful, and advertise to tell you all sorts of things for a dollar.”</p> - -<p>“But, my own Butterfly, you are not old and ugly and all the rest of -it, neither are all clairvoyants. History contains the names of some -very eminent ones. What a wonderful and enviable gift clairvoyance must -be. How I wish I had it. And if it be true that you are possessed of -it, think what it brings to you—light, light from heaven itself—the -most glorious light in the universe—proof that the dead have never -died.”</p> - -<p>Her friend’s enthusiasm ensnared the Butterfly’s vanity at once, so -that she pricked up her ears and gave heed. Whatever Cartice said had -weight with her. It gratified her, in spite of her prejudices, to have -a faculty unattainable to ordinary persons. All this darted through her -head and settled down into acceptance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p> - -<p>“Well, I don’t mind if it is clairvoyance, only don’t tell anybody.”</p> - -<p>“It’s not a thing to be talked about with those who don’t understand or -respect it. It’s too precious. Would I could see such sights. Then I -could sing light-hearted tunes and walk on bravely, be my pack never so -heavy. Don’t fail to tell me if you see anything more.”</p> - -<p>Chrissalyn did see something more of the same character very soon, and -made haste to describe it to her friend.</p> - -<p>She had gone to a bank to attend to some business which required more -explanation than was convenient to make through the cashier’s window, -so she was invited to take a seat in the office of the president, with -whom she had some acquaintance.</p> - -<p>While she sat there his son entered, bearing strong evidence of having -tarried too long at the wine. His reputation as altogether too jolly a -dog was well known. His father sent him off as speedily as possible, -and then said to Chrissalyn in a burst of distracted confidence, such -as we all give to somebody at times when the load grows too heavy, “My -boy is going to ruin in spite of all I can do. I have borne with him -till I am out of patience, yet my forbearance is wasted. I am tempted -to cast him off entirely, to throw him on his own resources and see how -that will work. Maybe it will bring him to reason, since<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span> no amount of -kind treatment does him any good.”</p> - -<p>On the instant Mrs. Layton saw a woman stand behind the banker. Whence -she came or how she knew not, but there she was, and she spoke—spoke -in an earnest, anxious voice, with an entreating gesture: “Tell him not -to do that. Beg him not to do it. Say that <em>I</em> implore him not to -do it.”</p> - -<p>Under the impulse of the request, before she had time to think what she -was doing, the Butterfly told the banker what she had just seen and -heard.</p> - -<p>He was a big, commonplace, worldly man, whose head was never heated -with super-mundane problems, yet he whitened as he heard this strange -story.</p> - -<p>“What was the woman like?” he asked.</p> - -<p>“She was young and plainly dressed in a calico gown of an old-time -mode, and she looked astonishingly like your son.”</p> - -<p>The face of the banker whitened more and more and his eyes became -glassy and fear-struck.</p> - -<p>“That describes my first wife, Rob’s mother,” he said, “yet you did not -know—no one here does—that he is not the child of my present wife. I -was poor while she lived, so poor that she never had anything better -than calico to wear.”</p> - -<p>By that time Chrissalyn began to have a sheepish<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span> feeling about what -she had done, and wished she were well out of it. A force that was -resistless had impelled her to speak, but now that the tale was told, -the impulsion gone and she became master of herself again, her first -thought was that she had let out the secret of her ability to see -things not within the range of common vision. So she attempted to make -light of it, lest the banker go about telling it as a queer thing, and -then the detested name of clairvoyant would be fastened on her in spite -of everything.</p> - -<p>“I dare say it’s all nonsense, and I hope you won’t think of it again,” -which was as near as she could delicately come to saying, “I hope you -will not speak of it.”</p> - -<p>The stout banker mopped a cold perspiration from his face, with a good -deal of nervousness. He was tolerably shaken up, and was making a wild -effort to regain his equilibrium. Though not a man to go very deep into -anything outside of finances, he was neither dogmatic nor unteachable. -He knew what he didn’t know, which is a rare bit of wisdom, and in that -territory were all things beyond the commonplace.</p> - -<p>“Anyhow, whatever it was, Mrs. Layton, I’m obliged to you for telling -me—more obliged than I can express,” he said, with unaffected -earnestness—“and I will do as she wants me to. I will not turn Rob -out.”</p> - -<p>“I’m glad of that,” said his visitor, whose instincts<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> were always -kind. “It could hardly do him any good.”</p> - -<p>The springs of the banker’s emotions had been touched, and for a -moment he looked like a big boy about to cry like a little boy. That’s -what he saw he must do, or pour himself out in uninvited and prodigal -confidence, and that’s what he did.</p> - -<p>Thus it was that the banker’s skeletons held high carnival that -afternoon in their owner’s business office. The reminder of the wife -of his youth, the companion of his poverty, pressed the closet door -unceremoniously open. The unhappy owner of the unique outfit took a -full breath and unreservedly told how miserable he was, and that the -only happiness he ever had was during the life of his first wife,</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“When there was scarce bread to eat</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the wolf was at the door.”</span><br> -</p> - -<p>Now, he had money, and with it a wife who wore purple and fine linen, -and loved nobody but herself. He spoke of his loneliness, and told -what a poor, mean, paltry sham his life was, and how at times he had -wondered if his dead wife could see and understand. He kept on till the -closet of skeletons had been pretty well swept and aired, and they had -stretched their legs in a fine dance after long suppression—kept on -until the Butterfly held him and his wretchedness, so to speak, in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span> the -hollow of her hand. When she went forth it was with a sure conviction -that he would say nothing about her clairvoyant experiences. He would -have enough repenting to do about the break-out of the skeletons to -keep him busy.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.<br><span class="small">“YE SHALL NOT UNDERSTAND.”</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Whatever happens to anybody it will be turned to beautiful results,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And nothing can happen more beautiful than death.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">—<i>Walt Whitman.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>Two years had passed since Colonel Layton died. Renewed health and -beauty had come to the Butterfly, who still contentedly earned and -ate her own bread. Self-dependence has many rewards for its faithful -disciples, not least among them being the conscious dignity that -belongs to usefulness, and expresses itself in the greater ease and -calmer assurance of bearing. Being a factor instead of a cipher gives a -woman new value in her own eyes, as well as in the eyes of others.</p> - -<p>If Chrissalyn could see into the world to follow this, Cartice wondered -why she had had no glimpse of her husband. She had not, she said, and -didn’t want to. She hoped she never would see any one who had been -near to her—it would be too terrible. She insisted on keeping all -knowledge of her queer experiences from Prescott. His sniffs and sneers -of ridicule would be too much for her, nor did Cartice feel equal to -them either. According to Phillips Brooks there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> are two kinds of -cowardice, that of the conservative, and that of the radical, both of -them fatal to freedom of thought. The former is afraid of being called -an innovator, the latter fears to be thought conservative. One pliantly -conforms to established methods; the other strikes defiance of them. -Neither of them are free.</p> - -<p>Perhaps Prescott was of the second. Perhaps he fought what he called -superstition lest he be forced to believe in spite of himself. At any -rate his two friends, perhaps the loyalest he had, were not bold enough -to take him into their confidence. The intolerant always pay this -penalty. They shut out confidence; they make people afraid of them; -they keep light and good away from them, and drive angels themselves -from their gates.</p> - -<p>Cartice had a notion that the Butterfly and Prescott loved each other. -Being something of which the gods themselves must approve, she could -not understand the Butterfly’s reticence on the subject, for the winged -creature said not a word in regard to it. In spite of his aggressive -character and some other deplorable defects, Prescott was a man to be -proud of.</p> - -<p>The three were much together. Prescott was the Butterfly’s tireless -escort everywhere, and they were usually anxious to have Cartice with -them, and often they came together to pass a few hours with her in the -evening, as she was invariably<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span> alone, Doring finding places more to -his taste than the one he called home. Some of Prescott’s friends said -more than once that he was growing gentler and kinder, both on paper -and off.</p> - -<p>One evening the three friends were together in Cartice’s apartment. -Prescott’s face was radiant, with a light never seen there before. It -refined and softened his rugged features, making his countenance sweet -and sunny.</p> - -<p>“He has spoken,” thought Cartice, “and this is the light of love that -has naught to fear.”</p> - -<p>“Children,” he said, after a time, with an unusual sweetness and -confidence that became him well, “dear children, I am going to have -happiness.”</p> - -<p>Both looked at him in affectionate inquiry.</p> - -<p>“What kind of happiness?” asked the Butterfly, in a low voice, for -there was that in his face which made them feel they were upon holy -ground.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know! I don’t know! That’s the inexplicable part of it. Yet -it seems so near I can almost reach out my hands and grasp it. This -feeling has been upon me all day, and grows stronger every moment. I -never experienced anything like it before. I don’t know why or whence -it comes, nor can I explain it well; but I feel it. Yes, I am very near -to something good—near to happiness at last.”</p> - -<p>His voice sank low, and its tones had a thrilling<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span> sweetness, a -holy joy. His companions listened in silence, under a spell, their -astonishment too vast for words. This was strange talk to come from him.</p> - -<p>As in reverie he went on, after a pause, “All my life I have wondered -how it would seem to be happy—really happy—if only for one hour. -Misery I know well; but happiness and I have never met. Now, it is -so near that I am already in its sunshine.” And he smiled, with the -wonderful light on his face, and the smile was strangely sweet and -beautiful.</p> - -<p>The Butterfly shook herself out of the seriousness that was upon her, -and said:</p> - -<p>“You are going to have money—plenty of money—all unexpected as it -comes in stories, and then—then you must give a big supper and Cartice -and I will wear our prettiest gowns and be queens of the feast.”</p> - -<p>He looked at her and smiled again, but did not even hear her chatter, -for his soul was revelling in soundless melody. The exaltation was -still on his face when he and Chriss bade Cartice good-night.</p> - -<p>It was ten o’clock next day when Mrs. Doring reached the -<i>Register</i> office. The entrance was full of men, with frightened -faces, one of whom motioned to her to stop. Obeying, she stood in her -tracks, chilled with a sense of disaster, until he reached her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span></p> - -<p>“You must not come in,” he said. “There has been an accident at the -elevator, and—Prescott is dead.”</p> - -<p>In silence she turned away. “And this was the happiness he felt so -near to him—this?” she gasped. “Yes; it was so near, yet he did not -understand, and we did not understand. And it was this! It was this!”</p> - -<p>Prescott and death were irreconcilable. He was typical of life, force -and action. Who could think of him as out of the conflict, as voiceless -and silent? How could they ever learn to speak of him as one who was -but is not?</p> - -<p>“Saw you nothing, Chrissalyn—nothing that portended this?” Cartice -asked.</p> - -<p>“Nothing.”</p> - -<p>“Yet we had a sign, and were too blind to see it. His glorified -face last night, and his strange feeling that happiness was near to -him—these were signs, though we understood them not.”</p> - -<p>From the first a sense of the unreality of what had occurred came to -Mrs. Doring and never left her. She followed the sable carriage of the -dead to the cemetery, and returned to find his chair vacant, his pen -idle, his presence gone forever, yet it was not like reality,—none of -it. She shed no tears, nor was she sad. After the first startled moment -she was at peace, though she knew not why.</p> - -<p>Later she understood, as will all of us after a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span> little time. Now we -weep and moan over sorrow, questioning it all, resenting it all; but a -day is coming when we shall see and know and understand, and in that -day we shall re-name many things, having until then miscalled them.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Now another serious event confronted Mrs. Doring. She had done her -best to save her husband from himself but could not. Now she saw -clearly at last, after much striving to bring compatibility out of -incompatibility, that their union was a sham, a pretence, a lie, which -if persisted in could only bring destruction to both of them. The -conviction came to her that it must end.</p> - -<p>Few experiences are bitterer or sadder for a sensitive, proud, -high-spirited woman, than to face a domestic calamity like this. To see -the love upon which she had founded her dearest hopes turn to ashes; -to have what she once thought happiness become a burden so intolerable -that it must be cast down, acknowledging disappointment, defeat and -humiliation before the world, is, indeed, a bitter cup.</p> - -<p>The coarse, the malicious, the undeveloped have sneers, jeers and -taunts for this order of sufferer; but the enlightened, the truly moral -bow before her reverently, not only because she has suffered, but -because she stands for a great principle.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span></p> - -<p>That the separation must be legal as well as actual, she saw would be -best for both. Though the laws of their state were as humane as most -others, still they had not evolved beyond the point, where in order to -secure freedom from irksome marital bonds one of the parties must make -a damaging charge against the other.</p> - -<p>In talking it over with her husband she said, “We can arrange that as -decently as the law will permit. If I make the application, I shall put -it on the most inoffensive ground possible. If that is not agreeable to -you, I will leave you and you can charge me with desertion.”</p> - -<p>Doring determined to do at once what he had long been arranging to do -slyly, which was to go away himself, and as a Parthian arrow announced -that he had intended to do so for sometime, but not alone.</p> - -<p>It was a curious ending of the most delicate and important relation in -life. Cartice gathered his effects together, packing everything with -careful hands. When he went she watched him out of sight, and out of -her life. Late into the night she still sat at the window, with a white -face and eyes that stared into the darkness yet saw only the scenes of -the past.</p> - -<p>When Louis Doring boarded the train that evening he knew that within -awaited him the sharer of his future fortunes.</p> - -<p>His story can soon be told. It was the natural<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</span> outcome of his weak, -selfish, stubborn and vain character. A few months later, deserted by -the companion he had taken with him, penniless and alone in a southern -city, he fell a victim to a malignant fever and passed out of life.</p> - -<p>Cartice saw a brief mention of his death in a daily newspaper of the -city in which it occurred. Accompanied by the faithful Butterfly she -went at once, arriving there in time to put his mortal part out of -sight with the decency custom requires.</p> - -<p>These two loving hearts, both bruised from sad experiences, sat -together late that night, talking of the curious events we call life -and death. What they knew of one made it almost as terrible as the -other.</p> - -<p>“Ah, Butterfly, dear,” said Cartice, “I envy the women who have lost -husbands worth lamenting. Such tears would be sweet, not bitter.”</p> - -<p>“You call me a seeress, sometimes,” said Chrissalyn, “and perhaps I -am, for I have been looking off into the future—a future that is very -far away, indeed—and I see you, and you are happy. At least I read it -so, for there is light all about you, and your face is like a picture -of joy, it is so bright. And you are more beautiful than the sun, of -whose radiance your clothes are made. But I am not with you, and it is, -oh! so far away—so far that it looks to be even on the other side of -death though that is a queer way to put it.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</span> Yes, you will be great and -renowned some day as well as happy; but the road there is so long—I -don’t understand it—as long as several lives put together, I should -say.”</p> - -<p>“And you, child of the far-away eyes, see you naught for yourself?”</p> - -<p>“No; I never do; but I have a firm belief that I am yet to have satin -couches and plenty of time to rest on them.”</p> - -<p>Splendor be it observed, was her deal of bliss, which was natural, she -being a butterfly.</p> - -<p>That night while her friend slept, Mrs. Doring sat by the open window -thinking of the cold, still form she had seen put out of sight that -day, and wondering with a chill sense of awe where now was the soul -that had been represented by it. The moonlight whitened everything, and -added its electric beauty and pale sadness to the loneliness of the -night. She recalled other nights when that form had pulsated near her, -and yet her spirit had been as lonely as now.</p> - -<p>What did it all mean, the loving and the suffering, the dreaming and -the awakening, the meeting and the parting? The road together had been -long and hard, yet here was the end—the same end to which all roads -lead—but what was the purpose of it all?</p> - -<p>The problem of life; what can it be but the development of the -individual, the unfolding of the soul, that marvelous, persistent, -god-like thing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span> of whose unlimited possibilities we are but beginning -to dream? And all that we do and have done to us, enjoy and suffer, -think and dream, hope and aspire, make to that end, and are necessary -and therefore good.</p> - -<p>Memories came to her from a remote past, that antedated her birth—or -so it seemed, for their origin was not within her earthly experiences. -Yet surely they were memories, for one and all met with recognition. -Faces she had loved came and smiled their sympathy and fondness. -Familiar voices spoke to her—voices whose heavenly sweetness mortal -ear hath not heard. Snatches of songs, celestial in their thrilling -melody, floated by. Scenes restful and beautiful unrolled themselves -for a moment and were gone. But it was the inner eyes which saw and the -inner ears that heard.</p> - -<p>Yes, she knew them all, for they were her people, her very own people, -of whom she was always dreaming, and for whom she was always searching. -They had come to comfort her. See, all smiled, not one wept, and their -words and songs were joyous.</p> - -<p>“My own people! My dear people, I shall yet find you,—I am finding -you,” she said, glancing at the Butterfly’s pretty face, with its crown -of sunshiny hair on the pillow, and thinking of Prescott, with his head -like carven granite and eyes of fire; and others, with some of whom -she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span> had clasped hands but once, yet knew them as her own.</p> - -<p>But what of the new-made narrow mound in the cemetery? It presented -itself at the end of every life, mutely asking an explanation of its -existence. This was the wall against which the race of man has ever -beaten the wings of inquiry. There it always stands, unresponsive and -forbidding, the grim silence, like the shores that shut in the sea, -saying, “Thus far shalt thou come and no farther.”</p> - -<p>Yet above and beyond the awe and wonder that filled her soul, was that -curious sense of the unreality of death which had come when Prescott -went away and still remained.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.<br><span class="small">A LITTLE BOARD BRIDGES THE GREAT GULF.</span></h2></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Even here the soul of man is a member of the immaterial world; present -and future, life and death, make one continuous whole in the order of -spiritual nature.—<i>Kant.</i></p> -</div> - - -<p>Cartice Doring was one of those blessed beings who intermeddle not -with the affairs of another. She asked no questions and was free from -the vulgar vice of curiosity. She listened with sympathetic interest -to all confidences that came to her, but solicited none. This made her -a charming and lovable friend. Speaking once of the pernicious habit -some well-meaning but ill-taught persons have of asking where you were -born, if your parents are living, what religion you adhere to and the -thousand other catechetical shots which compose their list of topics of -conversation, she said:</p> - -<p>“There may be a reason why the simplest and apparently most inoffensive -question may give pain, so I never ask any. I have no wish to, for I -have no curiosity. When I make a new acquaintance I am not concerned -with the locality of his birth, the residence of his parents, or any -part of his personal history. What he <em>is</em> individually, not the -accidents of his life, interests me,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span> and that reveals itself as I -become acquainted with him, without any probing on my part. Neither do -I wish to bore into the sacred recesses of a friend’s heart. What she -tells me I shall listen to lovingly; what she does not tell me I do not -even wish to know.”</p> - -<p>Hence it was that when the Butterfly fell into a meditative mood one -evening when they were together, Cartice did not disturb her. By and by -Chrissalyn said:</p> - -<p>“I dreamed of Prescott last night. At least I suppose it was a dream, -though it seemed extremely real. I was walking on the street and -met him, and he held in his hand that queer little heart-shaped toy -somebody sent you once—a thing with a French name that I don’t recall -now, but you said it meant ‘little board.’—It has three legs, and one -of them is a pencil.”</p> - -<p>“A planchette,” suggested Mrs. Doring.</p> - -<p>“Yes; that’s it. Well, Prescott held that up before me and said, ‘Try -it, Butterfly! Try it!’”</p> - -<p>Cartice’s eyes widened with interest.</p> - -<p>“You remember we did try to write with it once long ago,” said the -Butterfly, “but it only wrote foolishness, so we flung it aside and -never tried again. I have been thinking about it all day, and should -like to try it again, for I can’t get Prescott’s face, as I saw it last -night, out of my mind.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span></p> - -<p>The planchette was brought forth, and its history retold. The donor was -a man from whom Death had taken every member of his family. For years -the desire of his heart had been to know if the dead are dead, or if -they still live though unseen of men. After he went to another city, -he wrote Mrs. Doring that he had received some startling revelations -through Planchette, and sent her one, that she might experiment for -herself. Having some ability with the brush and palette, he had painted -an allegory on the under side of the tiny walnut board. Psyche in the -celestial robes was passing upward out of sight. Cupid in fashionable -modern attire, had thrown aside his bow and arrows, and held his right -hand on a Planchette, upon which he concentrated all his attention, -saying to it:</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Tell me hopeful messages</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To beguile earth’s sorrow;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But of evil things, Oh! keep</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Silence till to-morrow.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then, perchance, I’ll be asleep.”</span><br> -</p> - -<p>“A pretty thought,” said Cartice, displaying the picture, and reading -the text aloud. “Love is always anxious to know the fate of the soul. -He hopes, but seeks for something to keep hope alive. Benson wrote me -extraordinary things about Planchette, but I tried it several times and -got nothing.”</p> - -<p>“But I got something when I tried,” said Mrs.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> Layton, with an air of -interest. “To be sure it was rank nonsense, but it was something, and -<em>I</em> didn’t do it myself, whatever it was.”</p> - -<p>“No; you said it was the work of the devil, and flung the planchette -aside in disgust. What a convenience the devil is, anyway! How could -the world get on without him? Everything the veriest dunce doesn’t -understand is laid at his door. If he had never been invented, who -would shoulder all the mysteries? Poor devil! Without being to blame he -has been a terrific stumbling-block to the enlightenment of mankind. -Wherever a persevering and heroic mind clipped out a crevice in the -wall of ignorance, some dense-minded being was on hand to seize the -devil and put him into it, to obscure whatever light might filter -through. And so, though innocent himself, he has kept mankind in -darkness through the centuries.”</p> - -<p>However, devil or no devil, they covered a table with a big sheet -of white paper, of the kind used by the <i>Register</i>, and put -Planchette upon it. The Butterfly put her tiny hand thereon, and they -awaited its pleasure. As they were ignorant of the particular methods -of its operation, they could but grope tentatively till they found the -true way, just as the human race has groped upward through countless -vain experiments and innumerable grievous blunders into such light as -it now enjoys.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</span></p> - -<p>The occasion was in no way tinged with solemnity. They built no hopes -on its outcome, nor gave it serious thought. It was the Butterfly’s -inspiration, born of her dream. So little importance did they attach -to it, that they fell to chatting of other things at once, leaving -Planchette to its own devices, Mrs. Layton’s hand still resting on it, -however.</p> - -<p>Suddenly their chatter ceased. Planchette began to move across the -paper, not aimlessly, as they expected, but deliberately and precisely, -with intelligence and force. As suddenly as it had begun it stopped. -They lifted it up and looked at its trail, and there was a word plainly -and evenly written--the word “Gaily.”</p> - -<p>“More of its nonsense, just as I feared,” sighed the Butterfly, in -disgust.</p> - -<p>“Well, try it again, dear,” pleaded her friend. “It’s worth studying, -even if it does write nonsense. It’s extraordinary that it writes at -all.”</p> - -<p>With polite alacrity it wrote again with more ease and speed than -before: “Do you not remember Gaily—Gaily, the Troubadour?”</p> - -<p>This had no meaning for the Butterfly, and she was about to express her -displeasure, when she glanced at her friend. Cartice was leaning far -back in the chair, her face white and drawn, her mouth slightly open, -her eyes startled and staring, and her breath coming in gasps.</p> - -<p>“O Cartice, dearest! Don’t look like that!<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</span> Don’t!” Chrissalyn cried -in a terrified voice, jumping up and seizing her friend in her arms, -alternately shaking and embracing her. “What is it? What do you see? -What has happened?”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Doring tried to speak, but her mouth was parched and dry, her -tongue leaden. She could only point with her finger at the writing.</p> - -<p>“Yes, yes; but it’s only foolishness—a line out of one of Moore’s old -songs. Don’t be frightened at the silly thing. It must have come from -my mind somehow, though I wasn’t thinking of it.”</p> - -<p>“It means everything to me,” Cartice gasped at last. “I understand it. -Try again, dear. Try again. I will explain presently.”</p> - -<p>Rather rebelliously Chrissalyn straightened Planchette and put her -tiny hand again upon it, growling; “I feel more like smashing the -mischievous thing than humoring it, since it gave you such a fright.”</p> - -<p>“It was not fright, dear. It was astonishment, awe, wonder—many -emotions blended, but fear was not among them.”</p> - -<p>Several minutes passed but Planchette moved not. The operator’s -patience would have been exhausted, had not her friend kept her -faithful to the work with cheering speeches. Presently the weird little -instrument began to walk off again, leaving this line in big, bold -letters:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span></p> - -<p>“<i>Gaily, the Troubadour, offers his love once more to the tall, young -pine.</i>”</p> - -<p>Cartice read it aloud, then threw up her hands and burst into -weeping—a weeping that was half-laughing, an ebullition of pent-up -emotion like that which comes at the fortunate ending of a long strain -of anxiety.</p> - -<p>“He lives! He lives!” she cried, in passionate joy. “All live—all, all -who have gone out of our sight into the silence. Not one is dead. Not -one has ever died. The greatest of questions is answered.”</p> - -<p>Picking up Planchette she touched her lips to it reverently. Then -putting her arms around her dazed friend, she kissed her again and -again, saying:</p> - -<p>“Chrissalyn, dear Chrissalyn, you have always been a blessing and a -comfort to me; but now you have opened the whole universe to me; you -have given me light—the brightest light that can come to any one. -That scrawling line tells me more than any volume ever printed could. -It is from an old-time friend, who died soon after I last saw him, one -who loved me well. His name was Westfield, but because of his fondness -for quoting from Moore in political speeches, and what the slang of -newspaper offices calls ‘fine writing,’ his chums dubbed him, ‘Gaily, -the Troubadour,’ and by this affectionate nickname one of his old -comrades frequently addressed him<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span> in my presence. And he named me a -tall young pine. You knew none of this, for I am sure I never told you -about him. Therefore it cannot have been taken from your mind, neither -can it have been drawn from mine, for I never thought of <em>him</em>. -If I had any one in mind, it was Prescott, because you had dreamed of -Prescott in connection with Planchette, and because I have wondered -so much about him since he went away—wondered in what part of the -universe his dauntless spirit has found action, or if he <em>is</em> -at all. Yet I scarcely dared hope even for him, for there was the -possibility that death was the end of everything. I had no proof to the -contrary.”</p> - -<p>The Butterfly was a trifle dazed by the emotion of her friend, who -was usually so self-possessed. Even by the light of her explanation -she could scarcely take it in. The subject of death, no matter how -treated, was repugnant to her. Even proof that death was not death had -but little interest for her. Of course there was something afterward. -Everybody knew that. Wasn’t it all set down in the books somewhere, -straight enough? But what was the use of dwelling on a subject that -had so many unpleasant features in it? Or why delve after the facts in -regard to it? That was her manner of dealing with this mighty question. -What attracted her was life—yes, life, poor, cramped, hard and ugly -as some<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span> of it had been for her, still she loved it, found joy in it, -craved it and its material pleasures and never wanted to be reminded -that it had an end. A new gown could arouse her enthusiasm, and a -flashing jewel give her supreme pleasure; but death, ugh! who wanted to -talk of so gruesome an event? Dead people lived somewhere, as a matter -of course, but wasn’t it best to let them alone in their own place -wherever it is, and have nothing to do with them?</p> - -<p>This is a curious attitude of mind toward a subject of more importance -to us than any other, yet thousands of presumably intelligent people -think the same. They want the dead treated like dangerous criminals, -although their nearest and dearest may be of them. They shut them away -with relentless cruelty, doing their best to put them out of their -very thoughts. In this way they slay them more effectually than Death -himself has slain them. Resistlessly they move on to the same end -themselves, yet zealously refuse to learn aught of what that end may -be. Astonishing mental darkness and indolence, but alas! not uncommon.</p> - -<p>It was some time before Cartice recovered self-possession and induced -her friend to go on with the experiment. But the chain was broken, -Planchette refused to move again.</p> - -<p>Still, Mrs. Doring had enough to dwell upon. Late into the night she -lay awake, thinking of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span> it, marveling at it and rejoicing in the new -light that had come to her. True, it was a little thing, perhaps, or -might appear so to those who are ever ready to make havoc of whatever -differs from the usual and accepted, but its possibilities might be -limitless, and already it had expanded her world into infinity.</p> - -<p>Whatever the intelligence that acted through Planchette might be, it -was subject to a law in its manifestations, of which as yet she knew -next to nothing. For more light thereon she must study by experiment. -Simple as this law appeared to be in its operations, it was mighty in -its results, since it annihilated space and destroyed death, the last -and greatest enemy whose destruction has long been foretold. But are -not all nature’s laws astonishingly simple, when understood? So simple -that the searcher after knowledge, filled with delusion that it was -afar off on inaccessible heights, for ages passed them by, trod them -under foot, touched them at every turn, yet found them not.</p> - -<p>A few evenings later the two friends were ready to begin the -fascinating work of experimenting with Planchette, the Butterfly’s -tiny hand resting on its heart-shaped back, inviting it to action. Was -ever priestess of the occult so emphatically a creature of worldly -attributes as she? Her pretty face, soft, fair hair, slight, graceful -figure modishly attired, and gentle bearing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span> conveyed no suggestion of -power to reveal hidden mysteries.</p> - -<p>In silence they waited a little while, Planchette as still as could -be. Then, unexpectedly it whirled away at a startling pace, with a -force well-nigh resistless. When it reached the end of the paper, which -completely covered the table, they picked it up and carried it back to -the place of beginning, the hand of the pretty priestess was replaced, -and it went on at tearing speed, until its message was finished. Then -they looked and saw this in big, firm chirography:</p> - -<p>“<i>Love laughs at Death as well as at locksmiths—Pagan.</i>”</p> - -<p>Cartice read it aloud with a whitening face and staring eyes.</p> - -<p>“Prescott!” she whispered, with a husky voice, motioning to Chrissalyn -to put her hand again on Planchette. Pagan was a name she had given -him and which he delighted in, though unknown to any but her. The -little board whirled away again with the same determined swing. Its -very movements were characteristic of him, who had ever a trace of -savageness and fierceness in all he did and much that he said. These -were its words:</p> - -<p>“<i>Butterfly, tell her what I told you as we went home that last -night.</i>”</p> - -<p>Now Chrissalyn began to tremble and tears gushed from her shining eyes. -The conviction<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</span> that it was Prescott who thus silently spoke to them -came to her with overwhelming force.</p> - -<p>“Cartice, it is Prescott, I am sure. He loved you with all his heart, -and you know how intense that heart was in everything. I saw it from -the very day I introduced him to you at the market house, when we went -to hear Gabriel Norris preach. He adored you, but never spoke of it, -and you were too blind and had too little vanity to see it. But that -last night before his death, when he and I were walking home together -after we had spent the evening with you, he told me about it. You -remember he spoke of having a presentiment that happiness was near -him, and he looked almost transfigured that night. He said he believed -that somehow you would soon be free from your husband, and then he -would take you whether or no. He swore to that. But the next morning he -was dead. That’s what he wants me to tell—that’s what he means when -he says ‘Love laughs at death as well as at locksmiths.’ He is the -same—just the same kind, fierce old savage. He loves you still.”</p> - -<p>“Why, Butterfly, this is astonishing,” said Cartice, in amazement. “I -thought you and he loved each other, and that you were made for each -other.”</p> - -<p>“<em>I</em> loved him; but he loved you, not me.”</p> - -<p>This touched Mrs. Doring beyond her power to express. She tried to -speak, but could say<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</span> nothing, for a great lump, like a live coal, had -closed her throat.</p> - -<p>“I was never jealous,” continued Chrissalyn, “no, never; but a trifle -melancholy at times, wishing he loved me instead of you, because I saw -that you didn’t love him, only as a good comrade, and didn’t know that -he loved you. If you had loved him I don’t think I should have been -jealous, because I love you so much.”</p> - -<p>Both pairs of eyes were moist now. Cartice rearranged Planchette, and -after kissing her friend’s dainty hand placed it thereon again.</p> - -<p>“Yes; it is true, I love you, Cartice, and did from the beginning,” -wrote the little board, with the same impetuous dash.</p> - -<p>“I thank you for telling me,” said Cartice, humbly. “But how are we to -be sure that you are Prescott. Give us a proof if you can, though it be -only to write your name in the old way.”</p> - -<p>“Gordon Prescott,” was instantly and rapidly written in the firm, -sharp-pointed handwriting characteristic of the man—a good fac-simile -of the original signature, even without making allowance for the -clumsiness of the implement. Then came “Good-night” in the same hand, -and nothing could induce Planchette to further movement.</p> - -<p>They talked it over. Even Chrissalyn was interested. Prescott writing -through Planchette did not seem like dead people coming back in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</span> -gruesome way she dreaded. Rather was it as though he had never died, -but only become invisible. There was nothing about this to inspire -terror. After the first surprise of it, it even seemed natural; and it -was a pleasure to have a word from him, though it were of his love for -another. What matter? She loved him,—that was enough. And it was a -comfort to know that he was sometimes near, in spite of the fact that -she had believed dead people ought to keep to themselves. However, with -Prescott it was different. Somehow he was not dead people.</p> - -<p>Then, too, the priestess had her vanity—a streak of the kind that -wants appreciation for her ability as well as her beauty. Cartice’s -gifts of pen and pencil she had craved, if not envied. Now that she -knew she had a power her friend had not—one which Cartice thought of -inestimable value—she saw that this gave her additional importance in -Mrs. Doring’s eyes, hence she secretly plumed herself a little.</p> - -<p>She consented to continuing their experiments with Planchette on -condition that no one else should ever be told. Were it known, she -would be called a “spirit medium,” and that would be disgraceful, -unendurable. They might say almost anything else of her and she -wouldn’t mind; but to have that name fastened upon her would be a -calamity.</p> - -<p>A “medium!” To her the word was beyond<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</span> words in its despicable -significance. Were not mediums a disreputable order of human buzzards, -who preyed upon the credulity and holiest emotions of honest folk? -Were they not despised, abhorred, shunned and feared by the better -class of society? Were they not ignorant, frowsy, ugly and generally -dirty? Did they not invariably say “sect” when they meant “sex,” -and talk mind-weakening twaddle about “controls,” “influences,” -“impressions” and so on, in English that was in open warfare with all -grammatical rules? And were they not frequently chummy with invisible -Indians,—going about boasting that they were constantly attended by -some “Blackhawk,” “Fire-eye,” “Thunder-Tongue,” “Yellow Feather,” or -“Crow-on-the-head,” who made them the mouthpieces of idiotic gibbering?</p> - -<p>Do they not come out of cabinets, wearing trailing robes and tin -crowns, trying to palm themselves off as dead and gone kings and -queens? Have they not an uncanny affinity for tables? And do they not -talk through trumpets, ring bells and play other stupid pranks and -lay the blame of it all on the defenceless dead? Had they not thrown -discredit upon Noah Webster himself, accusing him of a written message -which said, “It is tite times”?</p> - -<p>Truly their sins were as scarlet. Cartice admitted their iniquities -without argument, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</span> promised her friend that never, never, even in -her most secret thoughts would she call her a medium, much less breathe -the opprobrious epithet to others.</p> - -<p>They went patiently on with their investigation, devoting two evenings -a week to Planchette and telling no one. It was by no means all fair -weather work either. They soon found that the only thing they could -be sure of was that they could depend on nothing; that with the -intelligence which manipulated Planchette no contract could be made. -They came, or they came not, just as it suited their good pleasure, and -were obedient to no mandate or appeal. They were arbitrary always, and, -as in most affairs of life, it was the unexpected that happened. From -what the investigators could learn, it would seem, as <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> W. T. Stead -says, that although this world is queer the next appears to be queerer.</p> - -<p>As they went on, they held more and more to the belief that they were -actually communicating with persons who had lived in flesh-and-blood -bodies like our own, and who still lived, retaining the same -characteristics that distinguished them here, but invisible to our -eyes—inhabitants perhaps of the much discussed Fourth Dimension of -Space. At least, one and all represented themselves as the persons whom -we call dead, but who live—live in a freer, larger life.</p> - -<p>Occasionally they gave proofs of their identity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</span> so convincing that all -doubt vanished. They made it clear that the spark of divinity we call -individuality is a persistent, indestructible, deathless thing. Again, -messages were written which were not only trifling and valueless, but -also unsettling.</p> - -<p>However, Cartice and the pretty priestess went on, feeling their way -through laws as yet scarcely discernible, but stupendous. It was soon -evident that each spirit could manifest its individuality through -Planchette as forcibly and unmistakably as is done here by means of -epistolary correspondence—more clearly, perhaps, since when the little -board writes, its movements and general behavior betray the mannerisms -of the unseen writer. When a woman spoke through it the feminine touch -was unmistakable, and the writing itself showed the finer element of -femininity. It must be remembered that the Butterfly, as the visible -operator, was simply part of the implement. The real writers were -inhabitants of the unseen world. These the two investigators sometimes -spoke of as spirits, though they realized that assuredly they were -people like ourselves, though existing under different conditions. -They were spirits, without doubt; yet so are we, though most of us are -unaware of our true being.</p> - -<p>But few women came. Cartice was surprised at this, and asked one the -reason why. She said the men were stronger, and were so eager to write<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</span> -that they crowded women out and took possession of the opportunity. -Hence it may be supposed that masculine selfishness is not eliminated -from the character by dropping the body, and that what we call brute -strength, (which is in reality, strength of the spirit) is still -formidable where bodies, as we know them, are not.</p> - -<p>It was noticeable that these invisible folk seldom spoke of themselves -as dead. They had almost no use for the word. They spoke of those we -call living as “people still with you,” and of those whom we call dead -as “with us.” When asked if they knew such and such a person, they -sometimes met the question with the inquiry, “Is he with you or with -us?”</p> - -<p>At times they readily wrote during a whole evening, first one, then -another, and so on, each writer showing a different personality by -means of manner, chirography, style of speech and character of thought. -At such times page after page as large as the table top would be -covered. Again, evenings would pass with but trifling results, and now -and then no communication whatever would be received. Nor could the -investigators learn the reason of this. Simply, so it was, and the fact -had to be accepted without explanation.</p> - -<p>The revelations were not always serious. Occasionally they were of -clown-like jollity, evidently proceeding from clownish intellects. -Frequently<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</span> the writers refused to give any clue to their identity, and -as for names there was a palpable avoidance of them that was puzzling. -Occasionally a name would be given as readily as when its owner was -here, but usually friends and acquaintances revealed themselves by -their peculiar characteristics and references to past events, and this, -of course, was the better method, as any mischievous spirit could -pretend to be somebody else, if names were the sole reliance.</p> - -<p>Prescott came often, and was always unmistakably Prescott. Transition -had not changed him. His individuality, so original, distinct and -strong, was as conspicuous and recognizable, revealed through the -little board, as when he had mingled with men, uttering himself boldly, -without fear or favor.</p> - -<p>Sometimes he burst upon his two faithful friends like a tornado, -making Planchette fly fiercely. They could almost see him sweep others -aside and take possession. His speech was crisp, keen and sparkling, -as in the old days, but, if possible, he was less communicative about -himself than ever. When they questioned him on that point, he made neat -evasions; but they gathered the impression that he was not entirely -satisfied. Though he did not say so, they could not help feeling that -the activities of life here still attracted him, and that he was not -content at being unable to take part in them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</span></p> - -<p>Remembering his sneers and jeers at all belief in the extension of -life beyond death, in whatever form, Cartice reminded him of them, and -asked what he thought now of his previous errors. With his customary -frankness he answered:</p> - -<p>“I was a fool then; but I confess now that I always believed far more -than I would have acknowledged. I was afraid you would think me weak if -I admitted all I thought possible. I was a coward, you see, though I -showed precious little mercy to other cowards.”</p> - -<p>Then she asked about his presentiment of happiness on his last evening -on earth, and he answered: “I suppose it was given me so I might know -that the end of trouble and turmoil was at hand; but I was blind, as -you all are, and did not understand.”</p> - -<p>She begged him to relate his experiences in the new life from his first -moment of consciousness. To this entreaty he replied:</p> - -<p>“I will try to do so sometime when I am better instructed than now. As -yet I am too new here to tell you what you wish to know. I have much to -learn before I can be a safe teacher for anybody.”</p> - -<p>To many questions he made neither answer nor apology for his failure to -answer. It was plain that he could not, would not or dare not tell much -about the life he was now living. Once in response to a particularly -direct question bearing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</span> on that, he said, with a shade of sadness in -the words:</p> - -<p>“Wait in patience, and be as happy as you can till your time comes.”</p> - -<p>And again: “Could you but see how things are carried on here you would -know how foolish some of your questions are.”</p> - -<p>From this they gathered that conditions in the unseen world are vastly -different from those we are familiar with here, but in what respect -they could form no idea.</p> - -<p>He had been a strong advocate of cremation. When asked if he still held -to his former opinions on that subject, he said:</p> - -<p>“To us it makes no difference what is done with the carcass. To you it -is important that it does not endanger the public health.”</p> - -<p>Once when Cartice remarked to her friend, as they sat together awaiting -Planchette’s pleasure, that perhaps the disembodied people suffer -because of the destruction of their bodies, Prescott sprang upon them -in a kind of fury, writing with savage haste:</p> - -<p>“Do you suffer when you cut your finger-nails and throw away the -cuttings? Or when you clip your hair and burn the clippings? The body -is of the same character, mere waste material—cast-off clothes.”</p> - -<p>When asked why he did not always come when they called him and awaited -him, he said:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</span></p> - -<p>“I wish you understood. I come when possible, but I cannot always -control the matter.”</p> - -<p>Sometimes Cartice and Chrissalyn devoted an afternoon to Planchette, -but generally with less satisfactory results than when they -experimented in the evening. The reason of this they could not fix -upon until Prescott gave them a clue. On one such occasion, he said -with petulance: “Why do you call us in the broad day, when we can give -you more satisfaction at night? Day is your time for action, but night -is ours. Life here is the antithesis of life with you. Conditions are -reversed.”</p> - -<p>“May we inquire why you cannot do so well for us in the daytime when -you do come?” Mrs. Doring asked, humbly.</p> - -<p>“Because the vibrations of light are destructive to the power we make -use of for purposes of communication with you.”</p> - -<p>This, then, is a rational explanation of the dark séances so much -condemned by persons unacquainted with psychic law, and which, -unhappily afford such fine opportunities for knavish deception.</p> - -<p>“You speak of our calling you. Does it really call you when we sit with -the Planchette and ask for you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; through a law it would be difficult for you to understand, -however carefully I might try to explain it. Even I as yet comprehend -it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</span> but dimly. Your thought reaches us, for thought is omnipotent in -all the universe, and is the finest form of electricity which travels -with incredible speed. Your desire is a great force going forth to draw -to you what you desire. The law of demand is met by the law of supply -throughout all worlds, when it is properly set in motion. Your sitting -expectantly, with Planchette as the instrument of communication, makes -a magnetic centre, a veritable telegraph office to which we can come -and through which we can transmit messages. It is all done under law, -and so is everything in the universe. Find out the laws that govern -your own being and there is no limit to your powers.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.<br><span class="small">AND THE PROPHET WAS STONED.</span></h2></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Those who believe, as I do, that spiritual beings can and do, subject -to general laws and for certain purposes, communicate with us, and -even produce material effects in the world around us, must see in -the steady advance of inquiry and of interest in these questions the -assurance that, so far as their beliefs are logical deductions from -the phenomena they have witnessed, those beliefs will at no distant -date be accepted by all truth-seeking inquirers.—<i>Alfred Russell -Wallace.</i></p> -</div> - - -<p>One Sunday afternoon when the two friends sat together, with Planchette -as telephone to the invisible world, the responses were unusually -prompt and full, for a daytime effort. Prescott came and was in a most -obliging mood, as charming as of old. Without warning, when in the -middle of a long sentence that he was writing at his usual furious -pace, some invisible force drew the Butterfly’s arm from Planchette and -sent the little board flying across the room. At the same instant she -rose, raised her right hand and pointed directly before her, her face -ashy and an unearthly look in her dilated eyes. Straining her faculty -of sight Cartice looked in the direction of her friend’s outstretched -finger, but saw nothing. In a few seconds the beautiful seeress sank to -her chair exhausted, with dry mouth and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</span> stiffened tongue, like one who -returns to consciousness after a deep faint.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Doring rushed for water for her to drink, and cologne with which -to lave her face, embraced her, and soothed her with reassuring words -until she was herself again, though more subdued and humble than ever -before.</p> - -<p>“What was it, dear?” asked Cartice at last.</p> - -<p>“Prescott,” she gasped. “He was as real in appearance as ever I saw -him in life. The scar on his left cheek was plain, and the tooth in -front that had been built up with gold was just as it used to be, for -he smiled and I saw it distinctly. He spoke, but I could not understand -what he said. He came so sudden, and I was so frightened. I hope he -will never do that again. It gives me a horrible feeling to see any of -them.”</p> - -<p>After a little coaxing she touched Planchette again, to ask an -explanation of the singular occurrence.</p> - -<p>“I did not mean to frighten you, poor child,” wrote Prescott, “but I -wanted to see if I could make myself visible to you for an instant. -The exhaustion you experienced afterward was not all owing to fright. -In order to appear to you I took a certain substance from your body -with which to make myself visible. I made my body, for the moment, out -of yours. That leaves you weaker, but what I took will be restored -to you. This vital substance is everywhere, and your<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</span> body, being a -magnet, attracts it to you, particularly when you are out doors in the -sunlight. Oh, if you but knew the valve of sunshine, and air—pure, -fresh air.”</p> - -<p>“Why couldn’t I see you, too?” Cartice asked. “I should not be -frightened; but even so, I am willing to be.”</p> - -<p>“I have tried to lift the veil from your eyes, but cannot.”</p> - -<p>“But the scar and the tooth of gold? Were they not of the cast-off body -only, or do you have them still?” she asked.</p> - -<p>“The human eye must have that with which to identify those from this -side, so they are simulated as they last appeared in the flesh.”</p> - -<p>One evening, when another was writing, Planchette was unexpectedly and -violently flung to the floor, by a blow on the Butterfly’s delicate -arm, from an unseen hand. When order had been restored, Prescott took -possession, and it was plain to be seen that he was agitated. He wrote: -“I tried to prevent that, but could not. Chrissalyn must be prepared to -expect almost anything. The situation here is incomprehensible to you.”</p> - -<p>“What is it that makes the Butterfly a medium, if she will pardon the -word?” Cartice asked.</p> - -<p>“Something for which there is yet no proper word. You would call it, -magnetism. She is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</span> wonderful,—powerful, magnetic to the dead, as you -call us, as well as to the living—you cannot imagine how much.”</p> - -<p>Cartice had ever been sensible of a powerful and unaccountable -attraction in her friend. She had always loved to watch Chrissalyn, -she knew not why, loved to be near her and never wearied of her. -For others, both men and women, the Butterfly possessed the same -attraction. If she wanted to ensnare the most wary masculine mortal, -she had only to cast her eyes upon him and he was hers. If she wished -for the good-will or friendship of a woman, a smile and a pleasant word -or two were all she need give in order to gain it.</p> - -<p>“Tell me, what is magnetism?” was the next question.</p> - -<p>“A power we cannot see but can feel—the power that attracts through -all nature, but I cannot define it, for as yet I know very little about -it myself.”</p> - -<p>When asked to explain his manner of using Planchette, Prescott said:</p> - -<p>“When the Butterfly’s hand rests upon it we stand behind her, with -our hands above hers—a few inches above—and we move her hand and -Planchette by the power of magnetism.”</p> - -<p>“Why can’t you use my hand as well as hers?” Cartice asked.</p> - -<p>“Because you are a positive. Your magnetism<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</span> is of the controlling and -not the controllable kind.”</p> - -<p>Early in her investigations Mrs. Doring learned that the people on the -unseen side of life are like unto those seen, in that there are good -and bad, wise and foolish, busy and idle, truth-tellers and liars, sane -and insane. Character there is exactly what it was here, growing better -if it aspire and worse if it be indifferent to growth, for evolution -apparently goes on forever and forever.</p> - -<p>She learned, too, that a message was not necessarily infallible, -because it came from that we call a spirit. Frequently it was wofully -fallible. Liars will lie and the mischievous make mischief wherever -they are. In short, undeveloped souls, no matter where they dwell, give -very direct evidence of their imperfection.</p> - -<p>Yet, all things considered, Cartice met comparatively few obstacles in -her study of psychic life and law. Much, to be sure, was inexplicable -and perplexing; but that which was satisfying outweighed all that was -disheartening. To the harmony existing between Chrissalyn and herself -she attributed the remarkable success of their efforts, harmony being -the key to all the secrets and forces of nature. Then too they sat with -business-like regularity. Now she understood why the “conditions” for -which professional mediums are such noted sticklers, are necessary.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</span></p> - -<p>When we stop to think of it, we see that we must comply with prescribed -conditions to do anything. If we send a letter through the post office, -the conditions imposed oblige us to stamp it properly and post it. If -we merely write the letter and fling it out of the window, ignoring the -needful conditions, most assuredly it will never reach its destination. -If we wish to make a journey the conditions oblige us to go aboard -whatever railroad carriage or ship will take us where we want to go.</p> - -<p>The knowledge gained through Planchette was precious beyond price to -Mrs. Doring. “Is it not the answer to the riddle of the ages?” she -asked herself. “Does it not change the face of everything, by giving -us not only the key to death, but to the great mystery of life? In the -light of this knowledge life takes on an importance, a sacredness and -responsibility formerly inconceivable. Heretofore we have hoped that -it goes on beyond the destruction of the body, now we know it does, -and that we are shaping our destiny by every thought and act—building -indeed for eternity.</p> - -<p>“Of what moment are the ills of life here, with this glorious vista -before us? Who, having seen this light, need be cast down by any -earthly trouble? In the face of it are not all the experiences which -wring our hearts and drain us of our tears mere fictions or illusions?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</span></p> - -<p>“Since Death is dead, what is there to affright or distress us? Though -to-day be lost, to-morrow is ours. Though our dear ones pass out of -sight there is neither separation nor bereavement. Scientific knowledge -makes it plain that immortality is not dependent upon belief; but is -a fact in nature. Though we may wander in any part of the universe -there is nothing to fear, for we are indestructible. Disease, war, -accident, every terror known to man, is swept out of existence by this -indisputable demonstration of our deathlessness.</p> - -<p>“How poor and pitiful is the pursuit of happiness in which all engage -here, when seen by the light of this revelation! Is it not clear as -sunshine that the purpose of life is not happiness, as we misinterpret -the word, but growth? And how shall we grow? By getting knowledge of -law and living according to that knowledge. Then we need seek no more -for happiness for it will be one of our indestructible possessions—the -happiness for which nature destined us, but which consists not in -external conditions, but internal development.”</p> - -<p>Under the influence of this knowledge Mrs. Doring became transformed -into a new being. Her previous life now seemed to have been simply -a blind groping after the most unstable and foolish ideals,—a more -intellectual childhood. So uplifted and filled to overflowing was -she with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</span> joy and gratitude that her face took on a new beauty that -impressed even the least observing of her friends. But one flavor of -bitterness tinged her cup, and that was that she was forbidden to share -the glad tidings with others.</p> - -<p>Chrissalyn had been insistent that nothing be told, and Cartice -was obliged to yield to her ruling on this point, and also saw the -necessity for it, but longed fervently to gather in many dwelling in -darkness and share her light with them. Why hide it under the bushel of -timidity? Was not all the world searching for that which had come in -beautiful simplicity and generous fulness to her? How grateful others -would be to know what she knew? She was humbly, profoundly grateful, -and of course they, too, would be.</p> - -<p>After a time this pent-up fountain began to overrun its borders and -trickle its way to other ears. When she heard people bewailing the -difficult and cruel conditions under which they suffered, she could -not help giving of her inexhaustible store of comfort. She must say -to them, “These things are unreal and of no moment. Your true life is -above and beyond them always, and is of unlimited possibilities here -and hereafter.”</p> - -<p>And when they wept because of some slain lamb, she said, “He is not -dead; he never died and never shall die. This is an appearance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</span> only, -an illusion. There is no death. Life goes on, on, without end, I -<em>know</em> it.”</p> - -<p>In order that they might believe and be comforted, she related -the experiences on which her assurances were based, leaving out -Chrissalyn’s name, of course.</p> - -<p>She met the fate of all who have lovingly tried to set poor, ignorant -humanity free from its self-imposed chains. She was stoned.</p> - -<p>Some heard her with tolerant pity, as we humor weak-minded people by -pretending to accept their statements and vagaries, but turned from -the subject as quickly as they could. Not a few sneered openly, and -with the brutal frankness of small and self-satisfied minds coarsely -expressed their contempt for her credulity. Others patronizingly said -they believed in <em>her</em> honesty, but were positive she was being -deceived. Still others shrugged their shoulders in disgust, saying that -they loathed the “supernatural,” and would none of it. This benighted -class labels their dead with that obnoxious word and shoves them out -of mind as quickly as possible. Some of the contemptible creatures who -advertise their lack of intelligence and breeding by putting their -hands over their mouth when they talk to hide their impolite and -ignorant grinning, could not listen to Cartice with naked lips at all. -But perhaps she was most astonished at the “conventional believers who -disbelieve,” those who accept all the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</span> spirit manifestations described -in the book of their faith, yet reject everything modern that helps to -prove the truth of them.</p> - -<p>Some listened to her story and then asked the surprising, the -astounding question: “What good can come of it all, even if it be -true?” If the dead did not come to tell them how to make fortunate -financial speculations, or whom they are destined to marry, they saw no -use in their coming at all.</p> - -<p>Here and there Mrs. Doring encountered some who took interest in her -revelations as a matter of curiosity, and wanted to gratify their love -of wonder-mongering, by seeing Planchette at work.</p> - -<p>A few, a sacred few, gave reverent ear, and were eager to learn all -they could of the marvelous and mysterious thing called life; but these -had become as little children—receptive, and therefore were prepared -to enter the kingdom of knowledge, which is heaven.</p> - -<p>But, alas! for the unfortunate many who cannot be enlightened, because -they are already wise in their own conceit. Having lived here a score -or two of years they fancy they know all the Creator’s plans and -purposes and can learn no more. At the door of their mind they post a -sentinel armed with a club, whose duty it is to beat and drive away any -stray angel in the guise of a thought or idea that may wander near.</p> - -<p>Some who did not want to be disturbed in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</span> their enjoyment of things -external, pettishly said: “All you tell may be true, but one world at -a time is my motto.” Yet any one who said that a child should be left -uninstructed and unprepared for the grown-up life ahead of him would, -very appropriately, be called a fool.</p> - -<p>Cartice learned what all prophets and teachers have learned to their -cost—that the world is in bondage to its own ignorance, because it -refuses to be liberated. The minds of men are in thrall to a law we -have but recently named—the law of hypnotism, which is at once both -the agent of darkness and of light.</p> - -<p>Everybody lives continually under hypnotic influence, otherwise the -power of suggestion. What we call public opinion is thought that has -massed itself into a barrier so formidable that only spirits the most -heroic and dauntless dare assail it. The many are fused together as one -and become a gigantic hypnotizer of men.</p> - -<p>It has been demonstrated a million times that if there is anything a -man cannot do it is to stand out against the united thought of his -fellow men. Human beings, for the most part, are in slavery to whatever -thought has formed their environment, “as neat prisoners as ever slept -in jails.” In other words they are hypnotized and refuse to be aroused -from their hypnotic sleep.</p> - -<p>All who allow others to do their thinking live<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</span> and die in a hypnotic -trance. The thought that is steadily thrown upon the minds of children -year after year usually hypnotizes them for life. This is proven in -their religious leanings. The majority follow the lead of their parents -and it is the same in politics. The boy is a democrat or republican, -because his father was. We call it the force of early education, but we -might as well say early hypnotism.</p> - -<p>The press is the greatest of hypnotic operators. It makes public -opinion through the hypnotic principle. Its daily reiteration puts the -minds of impressionable readers into as profound a hypnotic trance as -any professional operator ever achieves. Every orator who sways his -audience does so by means of the hypnotic law, and every writer who -thrills his readers sets the same law in motion. In it lies the power -of all government, from the primitive paternal to the broadest Republic -the earth has yet produced—the will of the passably intelligent few is -imposed upon the less intelligent many.</p> - -<p>Even the most potent force known—the attraction that draws the sexes -together, operates largely through hypnotism, or suggestion. Do we not -become like that we hear and see and live among? Are we not the product -of whatever thought we have absorbed during our life? In short, we are -that thought embodied, neither more nor less. Steady suggestion makes -public<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</span> opinion, that terrible, formidable, irresistible wall against -which new thought must beat and hack and storm for centuries sometimes -before an incision can be made in it.</p> - -<p>We are all more or less in an hypnotic sleep. Certain intellectual -hair-splitters deprecate the use of the word, hypnotism, when employed -to describe a condition of mind that is not sleep, as we commonly use -that term. Yet we may be awake to certain facts and asleep to others. -When one cannot see a truth for a time and then recognizes it, we say -he awakens to it. Was he not asleep as far as it was concerned before?</p> - -<p>The hypnotic principle is as old as the human race. Yea, the hills are -young beside it. By means of it we have become what we are, and because -of it our progress has been slow, for the hypnotized subject holds to -his illusions with a tenacity that throws barnacles into the shade. -We were hypnotized into the old thought that enslaves us, and must be -hypnotized out of it into that which shall set us free.</p> - -<p>This law is operative far beyond our range of knowledge. It links this -world or this state of being, rather, to the one that follows it.</p> - -<p>What is the spirit medium but a person under the hypnotic influence -of a resident of the invisible world? And many who do not dream of it -are hypnotized to an astonishing extent by suggestions from the same -source.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</span></p> - -<p>Therefore, it is not remarkable that Cartice Doring found nearly -everybody holding aggressively to the thought that had formed them, -no matter how limited and erroneous it might be, and ready to fight, -tooth and nail, anything contrary to it. They groaned in pain, yet at a -suggestion of relief from misery they but hugged it closer, lest it be -taken from them by force.</p> - -<p>She did not expect any one to believe so tremendous a tale as she had -to tell on hearsay evidence alone; but she hoped to find some interest -and desire to search and learn. When many turned away and she grew -heartsick because they would not let her help them with that which had -helped her, she thought she understood Jesus weeping over Jerusalem. -“Ye would not! no; ye would not!” is ever the cry of all who yearn to -make the yoke easy and the burden light for humanity.</p> - -<p>And yet no earnest effort made by any soul is entirely vain. Mrs. -Doring found two who would among the many who would not—two who were -eager to learn, who begged for the chance. They were the Joys, the last -persons one would expect to turn their attention to anything not known -by the name of pleasure. As a matter of fact they were <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> and Mrs. -Hanley, but everybody called them the Joys, because their days were an -unbroken ripple of delight, and they were continually making a joyful -noise over<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</span> something. They joyed in each other, in their children, -in their friends, in their home, in the world at large, in life, -in everything. All days of the year were for them days of jubilee. -Everybody welcomed them because they carried with them a joyful -atmosphere, a little of which generally rubbed off and stuck to those -whom they visited, for a time at least. A gay, guiltless pair were -they, with no need of prayer, and no sins to be forgiven, so far as -any one could see. It may be wondered why they cared to learn anything -about life’s extension since they found this world so pleasant. Yet -care they did, and gladly turned from the impermanent things of the -world that had delighted them to study reverently the great question of -our destination.</p> - -<p>Chrissalyn liked them and was finally persuaded to let them enter -Planchette’s charmed arena, on condition that they tell it not in Goth -nor whisper it in Askalon.</p> - -<p>Their very first experience was convincing beyond doubt or question. -All they had joyed in before was as nothing to the joy they found in -the knowledge that came to them through the little board. In spite of -their pleasure-loving natures and phenomenal optimism, they belonged to -the thinking fraternity; and now that their outlook was extended beyond -the boundaries that so far had hedged them in, they saw ahead an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</span> -endless life of Joy, and that intensified and ennobled the joys of the -present. They had been happy always, but now they were secure in their -happiness—nothing could take it from them.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.<br><span class="small">THE TONGUES OF ANGELS.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“When by suffering thou hast learned not to suffer—by passion learned calmness;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then shalt thou know what I am to thee—then shalt thou be</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A clean mirror where I am reflected—a face with a splendor which burns not!</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Past all pain, seeing Me thou shalt know Me—the Strength and the Truth of Thyself.”—<i>Voltairine DeCleyre.</i></span><br> -</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Being may be called the poorest, but it is at the same time the most -marvelous concept of our whole mind. It is the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">sine qua non</i> of -all we are, we see, we hear, we apprehend and comprehend. It is not -our body, nor our breath, nor our life, nor our heart, nor what is -most difficult to give up—our mind and intellect. It is simply that -in which all these reside—that, in fact, in which we move and have -our being.</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -—<i>F. Max Müller.</i><br> -</p> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>The truth of being and the truth of knowing are one.</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -—<i>Bacon.</i><br> -</p> -</div> - - -<p>Cartice and Chrissalyn permitted the Joys to join them in their -investigations at certain times, but for the most part they pursued -their study of psychic life alone. As they went on, their experiences -became more interesting and convincing. In the new world opened to them -they made new friends. To be sure they could not see these friends, -but they learned to know them well, to love them, and to distinguish -one from another as readily and certainly as though they were of the -visible part of creation.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</span></p> - -<p>One of these new friends called himself Moreau and won their hearts -completely with his courteous speech, kind instincts and gentle -manners. Indeed, after making his acquaintance they understood how -little the personality depends upon that which we call the person, -which is but a mask, as the word originally meant. He came often and -sometimes remained a whole evening, kindly writing for those who had -not yet learned to manipulate Planchette, and answering questions with -well-bred patience and never-failing politeness. When asked why he came -to them and remained so faithful, when he had not known them here, he -explained that he was attracted to both of them, because they were -magnetic to him; but that beside, it was his especial mission to make -lonely women happier. They learned to rely implicitly upon everything -he said, just as they did on the word of Prescott, whose strict -truthfulness had been his one vanity.</p> - -<p>“How long is the act of dying?” Moreau was asked.</p> - -<p>“It is longer for some than for others; but you are sleeping at the -time and know it not.”</p> - -<p>This statement was corroborated by the others. They said the -death-sleep in some cases was of several days’ duration,—days as we -reckon them here, but there Time’s markings are unknown, for Time is -not.</p> - -<p>When Moreau was asked whether he knew<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</span> everything about his friends -here, present and to come, he said: “Not everything. There are some -things we are not permitted to know any more than you are.”</p> - -<p>“Do you pass on into other stages of existence—experience a change -analogous to our dying here?”</p> - -<p>“I think so; but I am no more certain of that than you are about your -future state.”</p> - -<p>“How do you travel?”</p> - -<p>“Like lightning, or even more swiftly. We think of a place and in the -same instant we are there. This is a thought world. So is yours, but -you are blind to the power of thought on your plane.”</p> - -<p>“Are you affected by the sorrows and pains of those you love, who are -still on earth?”</p> - -<p>“We cannot help feeling the troubles of earth when they touch what -you would call our heart-strings. But, as it were, we see with larger -eyes—we understand better the purpose of suffering and the good that -comes out of it.”</p> - -<p>A friend to Cartice who had achieved considerable eminence as an -analytical author, came occasionally. In the noonday of success she -went away, after months of great physical suffering. When asked whether -she was happy, she replied:</p> - -<p>“It is happiness to me to have no aching heart, no pain, no burning -brow.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</span></p> - -<p>“Can you come to us when you please?”</p> - -<p>“Sometimes only, not always. I feel a restraint, though no restraint -seems put upon me.”</p> - -<p>“How do you occupy yourself, Edith?”</p> - -<p>“We do not have to occupy ourselves. We are occupied by others only. I -cannot tell you better.”</p> - -<p>When questioned as to the kind of clothing used there, she said: “The -mist of earth is not a substance to be measured, weighed or worn by -you. The material of our raiment is a thing of almost misty texture.”</p> - -<p>“What is death?”</p> - -<p>“To that question I will give you an explanation given me by one far -wiser than I and much older in this realm of life: ‘Death simply -denotes a rising from inactivity to action, from obscurity to eminence, -awaking from sleep, or promotion from an inferior condition.’”</p> - -<p>“Is there a resurrection?”</p> - -<p>“Every death is a resurrection.”</p> - -<p>“Edith, do you ever wish to be back here in the body?”</p> - -<p>“Never. There would be nothing to gain and much to lose.”</p> - -<p>“Why is it that although you and others come and talk with us clearly -and freely at times, there is yet so much of your new life of which you -tell us nothing?”</p> - -<p>“There are many reasons, which I am not permitted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</span> to give, nor could -you understand them. I myself comprehend them but dimly. I simply obey -the law.”</p> - -<p>“What is the judgment, if there is a judgment?”</p> - -<p>“For me it is the beholding of my mistakes.”</p> - -<p>“What is the most wonderful phase of your present life, if I may be -pardoned for so bold a question?” Cartice asked.</p> - -<p>“The knowledge that love is all there is—that it fills all universes; -lights all worlds; encompasses every soul, and is the life of every -soul. This is as true of your world as of ours; but nearly all there -refuse to believe it. Here we cannot doubt it—that is, those who have -love in their own hearts cannot doubt it. Those who love not do not -know it, for all is darkness to them; but that darkness disappears when -they begin to love.”</p> - -<p>“What is love?”</p> - -<p>“The living principle of good, which by a law that includes and governs -all that is, constantly flows out from the infinite centre. The more -you have of it the more of good in its highest and best form will -you receive, because it is the greatest of all magnets, irresistibly -attracting its like. Love is God. God is love.</p> - -<p>“You are destined to realize this fully some day; but you might realize -it even now if you would, and then the whole face of the earth<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</span> would -change and become new and beautiful. Heaven, indeed, would be opened. -But the love I speak of is not the sentiment that usually goes by that -name on earth, which too often is but an exaggeration of self, a kind -of sublimated selfishness, going out to special persons with whom your -lives are intertwined and whose well-being particularly conduces to -your own. No, no; the love that is God is universal in its application, -enfolding the humblest and most wayward as well as the highest and -most perfect. Cultivate this love and you will find heaven even on the -earth. All good will come to you. It is the kingdom of righteousness -spoken of in your scriptures, to which, if you first seek and attain, -all other things shall be added. Love, even in its crudest, most -selfish expression and narrowest interpretation yet has in it a spark -of the divine principle from the great source or centre which lights -and gives life to all worlds and all consciousness.”</p> - -<p>“If you could give us but one precept to live by, what would it be?”</p> - -<p>“That which was given you by the beloved disciple: Love one another, -for love is, indeed, the fulfilling of the law. But remember that ‘one -another’ includes all that live. The law is not fulfilled when you -only love those of your own household, or such as minister to your -enjoyment.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</span></p> - -<p>“What are we here for? What is the purpose of life?”</p> - -<p>“What is the purpose of any school? Is it not to fit its pupils for -that which is to follow?”</p> - -<p>“How can we best do that?”</p> - -<p>“By the unfoldment of your souls or selves—the best possible -development of every unit. Your ethics have taught you to aim at the -highest good to the greatest possible number; but the true ethics -of love are only content with the highest possible good to each -individual.”</p> - -<p>“How do the things of earth appear to you now—the things we value and -strive for so hard, wealth, fame, power, pleasure?”</p> - -<p>“As veils, or illusions which keep you from seeing the great and -glorious light of truth—soap-bubbles, glistening and beautiful to the -eye, but absolutely empty.”</p> - -<p>“Do you not suffer at separation from friends here?”</p> - -<p>“There is no separation. We are all one—all closely and indissolubly -united—and that one includes what is in your world as well as worlds -upon worlds, far, far, beyond my power of imagination—all that is, or -was, or ever shall be. Sometimes death unites us more closely than ever -to those still upon earth.”</p> - -<p>“Does not the spirit sometimes faint with fear, when it first becomes -aware that it has left the body forever?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</span></p> - -<p>“It was not so with me. I was prepared. During my long illness I -thought much of the future, knowing that the end of what you call -life was near. In my mind I dropped the robe of flesh without regret, -feeling that annihilation or anything that set me free from pain would -be welcome. When at last I found that the silver—(otherwise the -electrical) cord—was loosened and the body left behind, the experience -seemed natural. True, it was not without awe, but that feeling of awe -arose from the light and beauty, the newness and yet the familiarity of -that on which I had entered. Yet it is not all new, for we still have -the old, but understand it better—we see it with more comprehensive -eyes—from a larger and higher outlook.”</p> - -<p>“Is there anything there to depress or sadden you?”</p> - -<p>“To depress me, no; yet something akin to oppression I sometimes feel, -because of the vastness, the immensity, the endlessness of everything. -Doubtless you experience the same feeling often, when you look up -at the stars and the mind is staggered and shrinks back upon itself -at the majesty and grandeur of creation. But do not forget that the -experiences of no two souls are exactly alike here, any more than on -earth. That which this state of consciousness means to us, or holds -for us, depends upon the degree of enlightenment we have attained -before entering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</span> it—upon our mental, moral and spiritual attitude, -our aspirations and desires—or character, or in short on what we have -become.”</p> - -<p>“Can you make things there, as here—shape things out of crude -material, I mean?”</p> - -<p>“We have no crude material. We have to do only with the finer forces. -With us the idea creates. We form the idea, and lo! it immediately -<em>is</em>. We think, and the thought takes visible form. Wonderful as -this may seem to you, it is nevertheless as true of your world as of -this, only the method is slower. The idea is always the true creation, -but to make it objective you must give it form with the hands, out of -material substance. The imagination is the creative realm.”</p> - -<p>“Have we each a guardian angel?”</p> - -<p>“Yes; every soul has a guide or helper, who ever works to incline one -to good, and away from evil, yet leaves the will free. You, yourself, -not he, must make the decisions. He suggests, but does not lead.”</p> - -<p>“Who is my guardian angel?” Cartice asked.</p> - -<p>“Who could he be if not one who loves you?”</p> - -<p>Once only Louis Doring came. He was the same as when here, full of self -and empty of all else. Cartice did not encourage him to come again, -feeling the distance between them to be greater than ever,—a distance -measured by an absence of sympathy, which is the only distance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</span> known -to the soul. After uttering some of the flavorless nothings which ever -characterized his conversation, he went and came no more.</p> - -<p>Chrissalyn’s great dread, frequently expressed, was that her husband -or some of her near kindred might come. As long as none of her own -household came, Planchette did not seem uncanny; but again and again -she declared that if any one of them came she would be wretched for the -rest of her life. Colonel Layton did not respect her wish, however. One -night he took her unawares, as it were. Giving Planchette a peculiar -spin, he wrote his name as characteristically as he had ever done in -life. When Chrissalyn saw the signature, she burst into uncontrollable -sobbing, and begged him to go away.</p> - -<p>Cartice consoled her, and implored her to let him remain, while she -talked a few moments with him, and this at last Mrs. Layton consented -to do.</p> - -<p>“Don’t cry, Chriss,” he wrote. “I knew you didn’t want me to come; but -I wish to tell you that I am better here than there, just as you are -far better without me. So it is well as it is. I was a poor devil there -for a fact; but I’m on the up-grade here.”</p> - -<p>Chrissalyn wept afresh, but heroically went on, and the Colonel wrote:</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Doring, why didn’t you attend my funeral?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</span></p> - -<p>Cartice looked aghast, the question, at first blush, being so -extraordinary. At some length she explained that she was too ill to go. -Evidently reading her unspoken thought, he wrote:</p> - -<p>“Yes, I was present—the real I as well as the silent image of me in -the box. I looked around at my leisure, and saw everybody there. I -wondered at your absence, you and Chriss being such close friends. -Besides, you were always nice to me, too, God bless you!”</p> - -<p>At this tribute to her kindness from beyond the grave Cartice dropped a -grateful tear. The Colonel’s nature had something childlike and sweet -in it, in spite of its many defects. Most of his faults had been of a -peevish and childish order.</p> - -<p>“Thank you, Colonel Layton,” Cartice answered. “I am glad to hear from -you.”</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Doring, do you remember the conversation I had with you an hour -or so before I made the final journey?”</p> - -<p>“Perfectly.”</p> - -<p>“I sang about death being a narrow sea that divides your world from the -land of pure delight. Well, it’s a very narrow sea—so narrow we can -step across. In fact it isn’t a sea at all, for the two worlds are not -really divided. They only seem to be.”</p> - -<p>Several times Mrs. Layton’s friend, Jessie, came. When asked whether -she threw flowers<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</span> at her own funeral, she said she did; that she knew -beforehand that Chriss had the faculty of seeing certain things others -could not, and had it in mind before she went away that she would do -something to prove that death was only an illusion.</p> - -<p>Cartice’s great grandfather, who died before she was born, came and -wrote his name in full, which she did not herself know. He told things -pertaining to the family, which she afterward verified, among them -being the name of the political party to which he belonged, and which -had long been extinct. His handwriting was of an older style, and he -wrote with a deliberation uncommon in the present day.</p> - -<p>Some communications purported to come from North American Indians, -mighty chiefs and stalwart braves with great dignity of manner and -imposing names. After a time, however, Cartice inclined to the -opinion that both the manner and the names were masks used to conceal -identities that did not wish to be known. They spoke in the figurative -style attributed to gifted red men, and for the most part their -messages were interesting and instructive.</p> - -<p>Once when Mrs. Doring was very tired and discouraged one of them wrote:</p> - -<p>“Is it not a pleasure to the squaw to convince the braves and old men -that she teaches many truths? She must not let the ink dry in her<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</span> -horn, for she can carry many braves with her in the councils.”</p> - -<p>Again, apparently overhearing the two investigators of psychic law -talk of some poor, pitiful, hide-bound persons who found fault with -everybody that did not revolve within their pint-measure orbit, this -same Red Feather, as he called himself, wrote with emphatic force:</p> - -<p>“Be not tied by the ways of others. The eagle cannot fly with the wings -of a chicken.”</p> - -<p>One evening Prescott wrote a few minutes and then excused himself from -further work, saying that something had just occurred which made him -too nervous to write.</p> - -<p>His two friends looked at each other in speechless astonishment. Here -was a mystery beyond other mysteries. Too nervous? Were not nerves but -parts of the body, destined to dust with the rest of it?</p> - -<p>Evidently understanding their amazement, he added this line after a -moment’s pause:</p> - -<p>“Incredible as it may seem to you, I still have nerves.”</p> - -<p>Once when Chrissalyn was peevish and dissatisfied, she said she had a -mind to give up fooling with Planchette; that it was scary and risky, -and there was no telling what was at the bottom of its queer doings. -Prescott came like a flash to the rescue, fearful that she would put -her threat into execution, and so cut off communication entirely.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</span></p> - -<p>“O Butterfly, dear, don’t do that! Please don’t, for my sake,” he -pleaded, with an earnestness that touched their hearts. “You do not -appreciate this grand, beautiful privilege, which to me is so precious. -Who, besides you can do this—converse freely with friends so far away -that the railroad has never been made that can reach them?”</p> - -<p>Somewhat mollified by his pathetic tribute to her extraordinary psychic -gifts, she grumbled that for his sake she wouldn’t give up Planchette. -He continued:</p> - -<p>“Had I known as much about the unknown future, when on earth, as you -do, I should have thought myself wise, indeed.</p> - -<p>“It astonishes me now to remember that I ever doubted the persistence -of the individual, the continuousness of life. Fools who think -themselves savants will tell you to have nothing to do with spirits, -not to encourage them to come back, as that interferes with their -progression, and other rubbish of the same sort. Such persons know -nothing of the laws of progress here. The two worlds—in fact all -worlds—are one and the same. Your best interests and ours are -identical. There is no differentiation. Frequently our work lies -entirely with you. What higher mission could one have than to cheer -and strengthen the disheartened and fainting ones of earth? We help -you, and you in turn often help us.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</span> What would you think of a friend -who told you never to come and visit him, but to go on and progress by -yourself? Well, spirits are simply human beings living under conditions -as yet not understood by you. Many of them are your friends, whom you -would not dream of treating discourteously while they were with you -visibly. The pupils of your schools go from grade to grade. Those of -the highest grade are not prohibited from contact with those of the -primary, if they wish it, and often they return there as teachers. The -division between your world and ours only exists for those not yet -far enough developed to understand its non-existence. It is not real, -but only an appearance. It exists only in the consciousness of those -ignorant of the great law of oneness which is operative everywhere. And -this is true of many things that seem very real to you. They only exist -in your consciousness. Also that which is not within your consciousness -has no existence for you whatever. We are one—all the peoples of all -universes, and all are moving upward into light by means of the process -called evolution, which is the unfolding and perfecting of man, who is -spirit, not clay.”</p> - -<p>“Are we ever reborn into this world?”</p> - -<p>“I am told that rebirth is one of the many methods open to the soul for -progression.”</p> - -<p>“Can you see our future in this world?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</span></p> - -<p>“Some have this faculty. I have not. They only see the main incidents, -as a traveler, looking from a high hill, sees a guide-post ahead in the -valley.”</p> - -<p>“Are we ever entirely alone?”</p> - -<p>“Never. There is always the cloud of witnesses of which Paul spoke.”</p> - -<p>A stranger came sometimes whose character was of an antique mould. He -gave no name, but others, when questioned about him, said he had been -one of the great of earth, and also one of the good—none greater since -Jesus.</p> - -<p>“What is the soul of man?” Cartice asked him.</p> - -<p>“Can any one comprehend God?” was his reply.</p> - -<p>“I do not understand,” she persisted.</p> - -<p>“Eternal being mirrors itself in every existence—<em>is</em> every -existence. When you know that indefinable, illimitable, deathless and -divine manifestation called the soul, you will know God, for in the -one is imaged or reflected the other. Remember, eternal being is the -background of every existence.”</p> - -<p>Looking at these words fresh from an intelligence whose habitation -earthly eye hath not seen, Cartice Doring thrilled with a strange -joy, in sympathetic vibration with the wave of truth that touched her -spirit. For one hallowed moment the great gates opened and she saw a -light more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</span> beautiful than the light of the morning, more glorious than -the light of many suns, softer, brighter, more beatific than was ever -on sea or land, for lo! she saw the reflection of the soul itself, and -understood its infinite source and deathless destiny. In that ineffable -moment she knew that it never had birth and never should know death, -and that separateness was not of it, nor was it divisible from aught -there is, and difference there was none. On the bosom of eternal being -it rested secure through a thousand illusions.</p> - -<p>The key that unlocked all mysteries was revealed by a flash of the -soul’s own light. Pale and trembling she bent her head till it lay on -the written words of the nameless stranger, and closed her eyes that -she and the great white light might be alone together.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Thousands of years ago an Indian sage, when parting from his wife, -said: “We do not love the husband in the husband, nor the wife in the -wife, nor the children in the children. What we love in them, what we -truly love in everything is the divine spirit, (the eternal atman, the -immortal and absolute self)”—and as we should add, says Max Müller, -the immortal God, for the immortal self and the immortal God must be -one.</p> - -<p>Life’s boundless extension and endless progression was ever the -uppermost thought in Mrs. Doring’s mind. In it she found consolation -for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</span> all ills, as well as explanation of them. She pitied those still -blind to this tremendous fact. What had they to uphold them in the -terrible conflict we make of life?</p> - -<p>What of the literature that only reaches the grave and there halts, -unable to go further? Is it not the literature of children, useful only -to amuse and entertain them in idle hours? She had adored the art of -letters, had made a fetich of it, paying homage to its great names and -walking in its fair gardens with reverent steps. Now she asked herself -what literature had done for the voiceless army of the dead. What -representation had they in its pages? The dead, the sacred dead, the -beloved dead, what had letters done to bridge the stream that separates -them from the living?</p> - -<p>Poets had sent them to a far-off heaven or plunged them into a -flaming hell to suit their moods and meters. Romancers had used them -as spectres to come upon the scene at inopportune moments and treat -their readers to thrills. They were flippantly spoken of as “spooks,” -“ghosts,” “apparitions,” and “supernatural appearances.” They were -good stock in certain brands of stories which nobody believed in, -and occasionally they were allowed to have a bit of business on the -stage. Witless witlings had sneered at their claims to recognition, -and writers of many minds, however they differed on other points, were -generally<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</span> united in the effort to keep the dead, one and all, from -rising.</p> - -<p>Authors of romances found death a convenience in disposing of -inconvenient characters of their own creation. When they could not -manage them effectively any other way, they slaughtered them remorsely, -and that was the end of them; that put them out of both writers’ and -readers’ way for all time. Not even the good always escaped this doom. -If readers could be entertainingly harrowed and wrought upon by the -demise of the most angelic heroine, she had to die, and that finished -her for friends and foes. At the grave everything ended. There love -laid its treasures and turned hopelessly away; and there hate sheathed -its poniard in satisfaction, having reached its extreme limit.</p> - -<p>Now Cartice Doring saw clearly that there are no finalities here; that -the grave is not the end; that it never imprisoned a human soul. She -saw that a new literature must come forth to satisfy minds of larger -growth, which look upon death, not as a finality, but a change of -costume and the opening of a new act. And this literature must go to -the point, straight and clear; it must seek the solution of life’s -problem and not merely amuse and beguile travelers on the journey.</p> - -<p>Many a night, while she walked home after an evening’s talk with her -unseen friends, she felt in touch with all the universe. Nothing was -far<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</span> off, not even the stars, which looked down upon earth with tender -human sympathy in their bright faces. She feared nothing, and knew no -loneliness, feeling herself attended by an innumerable company. Already -she believed that what Kant said will yet be proved, “that the human -soul, even in this life, is by an indissoluble communion connected with -all the immaterial natures of the spirit world, acting upon them, and -receiving impressions from them.”</p> - -<p>Now she understood more clearly the meaning of this statement by our -greatest philosopher, Emerson: “every man is an inlet to the Divine -mind and to all of that mind.” Yes, and an outlet, also.</p> - -<p>Now, now she began to see that “the spirit of man is a personal -limitation of the supreme spirit,” as another philosopher says; that -“God is the all of man’s life, the power of man at bottom being the -power of God.”</p> - -<p>Now she could understand that “what we call the material universe is -but the manifestation of infinite Deity to our finite minds”; and that -“our individual self is found,” as the ancient wisdom of the East, and -likewise Jesus and Paul, affirms, “included in the contents of the -Absolute Being or Self.”</p> - -<p>“Eternal Being mirrors itself in every existence,” she murmured -reverently; “Eternal Being, and we are it.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</span></p> - -<p>The pulsing, eager, feverish life of the city was stilled. Its -people slept, at least they were asleep to the truth, and refused -to be awakened. Thousands of Ephraims, joined to their idols, dwelt -contentedly in their fools’ paradise, asking to be let alone. And -what were those idols? Mists of their own creation, perishable and -unreal—for nothing endures, nothing is real but being, Eternal Being. -Like the wayward sons and daughters of old Jerusalem, they will not be -gathered under the wing of even divine wisdom.</p> - -<p>The old dreams of childhood came back, with their perplexing -reminiscence of life in a land remote in the past, whose people knew -not misery.</p> - -<p>Had she lived before? Yes, always. How could it be otherwise with -Eternal Being as the background, the source and centre of her -existence? For this there was neither beginning nor end. Was she not an -indestructible part of all that is, was and ever shall be? Behind her -was no birth; before her no death. These were but “world-fictions.”</p> - -<p>And what was she? One of the millions of conscious atoms that make up -the great whole—a woman walking the path alone, with a dash of genius, -original, creative, commanding, it was said, and a force of will and -character that made her respected and conspicuous among other atoms. -Whence came the genius and the force of character? From the infinite -ocean of intelligence<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</span> and creative energy—from the one source and -the one force. Why had she gifts and qualities others had not? Because -she had reached upward toward the light; she had aspired, and as a -consequence had expanded and grown. She had mirrored more of the -supreme intelligence than many others, because she had desired it and -had held her mind receptive to it.</p> - -<p>All her life at times she had been a prey to a deep dissatisfaction. An -unspoken unrest, a profound melancholy lay beneath her sunniest hours, -and she had experienced a yearning of the soul for that which perhaps -no mortal ever attains.</p> - -<p>But now in these nights when she walked alone under the stars, -illumined within by the light of truth, there were moments when -her spirit vibrated in unison with the great spirit or self of the -universe, and she was satisfied. She saw humanity, like a mighty river -rolling slowly to the sea, each drop blending with others, and all -impelled by a resistless force that bore them onward, they knew not -whence nor whither. This river was rolling toward the ocean of truth, -there to enjoy the freedom which was its divine destiny, and which each -atom or drop could only reach by recognizing, living and becoming the -truth.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.<br><span class="small">THE SIMPLE WAY.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Life, with all it yields of joy and woe and hope and fear,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is.”</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">—<i>Robert Browning.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>Talking with Gabriel Norris one day, Mrs. Doring could not refrain from -telling him some of her astonishing psychic experiences.</p> - -<p>“I have long known,” he said, “that they whom we call dead are more -alive than we are. I, too, have talked with them. Like <abbr title="saint">St.</abbr> Paul I am -a spiritualist, a word which generally excites fear and horror in -unenlightened minds. I preach spiritualism, plain and pure, but I don’t -name it. Sometimes it is best not to label one’s knowledge. It only -prejudices the ignorant against it, and builds a fence around one’s -own mind as well as around one’s neighbor’s. A name is a limitation. -That’s one reason why I cannot work in any organization. I keep my -spirit free, ever ready to absorb more truth, and I preach a free -gospel, which, like all things else is susceptible to the influence of -new light. Truth is not all revealed to any man. Little by little one -learns to know a greater degree of it, and so grows more and more<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</span> free -from error. What is evolution but a gradual growing out of darkness -into light? The proof that we live again is of tremendous importance, -because with it comes the knowledge that every thought as well as every -deed helps in the building of our souls and our eternal destiny. That -we shall live always is a fact in nature, but in what estate depends -upon ourselves, upon our thoughts, aspirations and efforts, for man is -the expression, or sum, of his desires. Here or elsewhere they shall be -realized.”</p> - -<p>Gabriel wished he might have the great pleasure of a word with -Prescott, whom he loved. Chrissalyn granted permission, and he went one -evening to see the wonders of Planchette. Prescott obligingly came, -and when Gabriel, with tears shining in his eyes asked if he had any -particular message for him, answered:</p> - -<p>“Only to thank you for your good words about me in the church, when I -could not speak for myself.”</p> - -<p>Gabriel had been one of several friends, orthodox and unorthodox, who -made brief addresses at Prescott’s funeral, which, by the grace of a -liberal-minded and great-hearted minister, was held in a church, in -spite of the fact that the dead editor was a bold unbeliever.</p> - -<p>At these grateful words the eyes of the gentle preacher glistened and -his voice wavered with feeling, as he said: “You deserved all the -praise<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</span> I gave you. You did your best. You spoke truth and lived truth -as you saw it. None can do more.”</p> - -<p>In saying this Gabriel unconsciously raised his voice higher and higher -till he ended in a shout, so natural was it to think of Prescott as far -off because he was out of sight.</p> - -<p>“Thank you again, Gabriel,” he wrote; “but let me tell you, that -although I used to be a little deaf, I hear perfectly well now.”</p> - -<p>Gabriel laughed heartily as it dawned upon him that he had been -shouting at his invisible friend, and thought Prescott must be laughing -too.</p> - -<p>“Are all cured of their physical defects over there?” Gabriel asked.</p> - -<p>“Not immediately, for illness or wholeness is a matter of the -consciousness, and that cannot be completely changed at once. It is -all progression, growth, expansion, but it takes what you call time to -effect it. There is plenty of work for you, Gabriel, here as well as -there.”</p> - -<p>“I am glad of that,” said the unordained preacher. “An idle heaven -would be hell for me. Man’s desire for action and his pleasure in it -are strong evidence of his immortality. Were death—extinction—his -destiny, somehow he would have known it, and would have been indolent -instead of busy. It is true that much of his work is impermanent and -useless or worse than useless;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</span> but it is the effort he puts forth, -the exercise of will, that is the valuable part of it. That which he -is really building through all his blundering and the only part of his -work that endures, is character.”</p> - -<p>“Truth, Gabriel! You speak immortal truth,” Prescott wrote. “Now, -good-night.”</p> - -<p>“Do you really believe you have been talking with Gordon Prescott?” -Cartice asked.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Gabriel, simply. “I could not prove it to others; neither -can I prove that a letter is from the person whose name is signed to -it, without his personal affirmation, and even that is only valuable in -proportion to his reputation for truth-telling. Most of what we call -proofs of anything is flimsy and fallible.”</p> - -<p>“I want to tell you, <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Norris,” said Cartice, speaking with feeling, -“that I owe you far more than you are aware of. You first gave me -light, and you were a mascot for me, besides, in worldly success. -Through meeting you the tide of my fortune, the day I met you, -turned from ebb to flow. The drawing I made of you opened the door -of opportunity for me. But giving me light was the greatest service. -That day, in your lecture at the market house you told us we were -not here simply to be happy; that happiness as we pictured it, was -not the purpose of existence; that we were here to learn and to grow -to the perfection nature intended, as a plant or a tree<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</span> grows. In -other words, we are to unfold from the seed and express our true -being. Up to that time, like everybody else, I had made the hunt for -happiness my chief aim. When, in consequence of that, I found myself -swamped in misery, I considered myself injured, and felt sure somebody -was to blame. I could not see that I, myself, was the culprit; that -the selfish search for happiness must lead directly away from that -condition. Ah, I suffered much, much up to that time; but I see the -uses of it now. I was being educated by the only means possible. Had I -secured the kind of happiness I was looking for, I should still be in -darkness. It was the ideal of an undeveloped mind. Now I see plainly -that the spiritual side of suffering is good. It means birth—the birth -of knowledge, of light, of truth. I don’t think suffering is ‘sent -upon us,’ as many good people assert. We pursue false ideals and they -bring us to grief; but through that suffering we find the true ideals. -Suffering becomes our teacher. Truth, which is good, is ever struggling -to express itself through us; but in our ignorance we oppose and -obstruct it, and that makes pain for us. All suffering comes from our -obstinate opposition to good, though we are usually unconscious of it -till our eyes are opened. I thank you again for helping me. Since that -day suffering has fallen away from me to a great extent. As soon as I -became willing to suffer in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</span> order to get on the right road, I ceased -to suffer. Strange law, but true. And so I argue that when we cease to -pursue happiness or think about it we shall possess it.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, it has long been clear to me that we are not here to hunt -happiness; though I doubt not that every human soul is destined to be -happy; but it will be an order of happiness most unlike the common -dream. Even here it could be found, if we sought it where the master -told us to look. Did he not say that the kingdom of heaven is within -us? It is a state of consciousness. He told us how to attain it, too. -How simple the way! Only to love one another. This, indeed would make -heaven for us all. That is what we are here to learn—that is the chief -end of man, for, when we learn that, we shall know all the law—all -there is to learn, and shall have reached the full development which is -the purpose of our existence. How simple the way! We have no call to -go forth and reform our erring brother; to devise schemes to save his -soul; to build barriers to put temptation out of his way; to weave nets -to ensnare him to our faith. We have only to love him. Thus shall we -fulfill all the law; thus shall we do all we have to do. Neither are we -here to do good. Even this is not our work in life. Many well-meaning -people busy themselves, and bluster about doing good, from their point -of view. Oftener than not they put their<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</span> Father’s house in disorder. -We are to <em>be</em> good. Then the doing of good comes without effort. -We are here but for one purpose, and that is to learn and therefore -grow. To learn that we are the sons and daughters of God—otherwise -supreme wisdom, love, life, light and intelligence. The more we -recognize this infinite source of our being the more of it we reflect -and become, the more perfect our development. And how shall we do this? -In the simple way we were told—only by loving one another. This is the -purpose of our creation. This includes all there is to know, and to -become. This is the perfection at which we were told to aim. This sets -our feet on the road to happiness.”</p> - -<p>“What is the body?” Cartice asked.</p> - -<p>“Perhaps it is the objective side of our existence on this plane—the -self as it appears to others, but not as it really is.”</p> - -<p>After Gabriel was gone Chrissalyn said with a yawn:</p> - -<p>“Cartice, you and Gabriel tire one all out bothering about the ‘purpose -of life,’ the soul and the body and so on. What’s the good of heating -your heads about such things? Just to slip through easy, is all I’m -asking now.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, dear; but you are a Butterfly and have a butterfly’s standard. -Gabriel and I aim to be gardeners, who make it possible for butterflies -to circle about and enjoy themselves without bad<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</span> boys catching them -and pulling their wings off. But you have grown astonishingly, since -I first knew you, in spite of yourself. You used to find nothing -better to do than kill time with a procession of admirers. Now you -have outgrown that. And you were dependent on your husband for your -very bread. Now you are able to stand on your own feet, and are a -self-supporting, useful member of society. Don’t you see, dear, that -the lesson every soul must learn sooner or later, here or elsewhere, is -to be able to stand alone? Each of us, woman or man, must fulfill the -purpose of creation, which is to grow toward perfection, and we can’t -do that by leaning on somebody else. Woman is a human being as is man, -and is responsible for her own destiny. The responsibility can’t be put -upon another.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.<br><span class="small">IT IS WELL WITH THE CHILD.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle suggestion is fairer;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">—<i>Richard Realf.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>Mrs. Doring had a friend, a gentle, patient, heavily-burdened woman -who lived her difficult life with the high heroism of a daughter of -the gods. Though fragile as a flower she kept the wolf at bay for her -little family, and nobody ever saw a cloud on her face or heard a -complaint from her lips. Born and bred to the refinements of life she -met adversity as only the gently bred do meet it—by taking hold of -whatever work was at hand, without questioning whether it was what is -miscalled menial or not.</p> - -<p>When her baby girl was born she begged Cartice to name her, which she -did, giving her the name of the little sister who had died when she -herself was a child—Isabel. To her mother’s great delight she grew -to resemble Mrs. Doring as though of her flesh and blood, and loved -her in the same degree. Now she was nearly three years old, bright and -winsome, with never a day’s illness in her record.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</span></p> - -<p>But a fever came, and behind that stood the last enemy, who, however -often routed, is sure to return sometime and win the battle. This was -the time of his victory. In the night, when all was silent without, -and solemn within, he came. Cartice had the baby in her arms in the -last precious, awesome moments. The wasted little hand reached up and -silently stroked her face, and the soft, dark eyes, unearthly large -and earnest, looked at her with unutterable love. Something else, too, -was in their speechless depths—a message not easy to translate, but -it brought comfort. Then, that mysterious thing, the breath, which -connects us with the universal life principle, ceased; the cold white -veil dropped down, and little Isabel was dead.</p> - -<p>After holding the silent form close to her heart a moment, Cartice laid -it gently on the bed, and the two mother hearts so sorely bereft stood -silent but tearless beside it.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Later, when it was ready for its bed in the bosom of the earth, and -again together they looked down at its white silence, Cartice said:</p> - -<p>“She shall know no evil thought; she shall do no evil deed; she shall -tread no evil path. It is well with the child.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, in spite of my sore heart, it is well,” said the mother. “I -surrender her not to death, but to a larger life, and shall not mourn. -No<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</span> matter what comes, she is safe. My darling’s safe—safe and dead. -Since her father’s death I have been troubled at times with fears -for her future. I face the inevitable—a few months more here, and -then—the end. For the two boys I have arranged. They will have homes -and care, but it would have tried my courage to leave this one ewe -lamb.”</p> - -<p>“I would have been a mother to Isabel had you gone first,” said Mrs. -Doring.</p> - -<p>“I am sure of that; but you, too, may not tarry here long. Why should -we ever worry about the future? In spite of all our planning and -troubling all is managed by a higher hand. We have only to do the work -of the hour, leaving what the next may bring to be met when it comes, -and not in anticipation. The present alone concerns us. By living it -aright the future takes care of itself. It is the thought for to-morrow -that so often makes to-day gloomy. I distressed myself about my child’s -future, yet, see, all is well with her.”</p> - -<p>“I thank God for what I have learned of the mysterious event called -death,” said Mrs. Doring. “Yet there are people who ask what good can -come of knowing such things. What good? Is it nothing to know that the -little image lying here is not our Isabel but her earthly investiture; -that she is not dead nor separated from us; that her life is to go on -from grace to grace, from strength to strength? Is it nothing to know -that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</span> Socrates, Plato, Swedenborg, Shakespeare, Emerson, Hugo, Morse, -Fulton, all who have given the world the light of genius, have never -died, and that this baby is equal heir with them to a life of vaster -opportunities and greater blessings?”</p> - -<p>“Others,” said Mrs. Benton, “wonder what good there is in the coming -and going of so tiny a soul, who was here but for a day as it were. -Yet her little life is as important in the divine plan as that of the -greatest sage. She brought the gospel of pure love with her, and we are -the better because of her brief visit to us—for it was but a pause on -the great journey.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>On the evening after the discarded visible part of the child had been -put out of sight, as Mrs. Doring was returning home from her friend’s -house, two elderly men on the horse-car were talking of life, and their -verdict was that they were tired of it.</p> - -<p>One said it was an empty experience which he would not go through again -for any consideration. The other said he had had a good time, had got -as much pleasure out of life as any one, but that was all over now; he -was getting old and full of aches and pains, and found no fun in living -any more. The jumping off place had to be reached some day, and that -would put an end to it.</p> - -<p>His friend said that was the rub—the leap in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</span> the dark. For his part -he was disgusted with life, but abhorred death. He saw no good in -either one or the other, and was inclined to believe that we are all -victims of a tremendous cheat. If he could see anything to look forward -to beyond a damp bed in the ground he could go on all right, but nobody -knew anything about it—not even those who earned their bread talking -about it in pulpits. They said they believed certain things, but they -didn’t know any more than other folks. He wanted solid information.</p> - -<p>The other tossed his head to show his indifference to the subject. He -said it was something he had never thought about at all in his good -times, and now he guessed he wouldn’t bother with it for his few -remaining days.</p> - -<p>Thus was the most important question that faces man disposed of by -one whose opinion on any topic pertaining to commercial or political -interests would be received with respect by his fellow townsmen -and have weight with them. But both he and his friend had lived to -venerable years without ever learning what they themselves were. Of -that knowledge, which includes all other knowledge, they were as -ignorant as earth worms. They had acquired what is miscalled education; -had been factors in public affairs, and figures in social life, and yet -never learned that they were not bodies to go to pieces some day like -a broken machine, but spirits, with a life whose issues are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</span> spiritual -and eternal, not material and perishable. To one, life had meant a -chance to have a good time; to the other emptiness, because he had had -no good time. Neither dreamed that its meaning is in the unseen, not in -the seen,—in what they had become, not what they possessed or enjoyed. -They lived in dense spiritual darkness, yet knew it not, and they were -but two out of millions in the same condition.</p> - -<p>Hearing their pathetic though unconscious confession of ignorance, -Mrs. Doring wondered if little Isabel’s short, loving, trusting life -was not more complete than theirs of long years full of impermanent -and illusory importance. She wished she could tell them what she had -learned of life and its meaning and future, but, alas! she had already -been stoned and knew the danger of letting her light shine before those -who had not become as little children—receptive, willing to learn.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.<br><span class="small">THE STORY OF ONE RETURNED FROM THE DEAD.</span></h2></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“Is it wonderful that I should be immortal, as every one is immortal? -I know it is wonderful, but my eye-sight is equally wonderful, and how -I was conceived in my mother’s womb is equally wonderful.”<br>—<i>Walt -Whitman.</i></p> -</div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Thought in the mind hath made us.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">What we are</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">By thought was wrought and built.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If a man’s mind</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Hath evil thoughts, pain comes on him as comes</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The wheel the ox behind.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">All that we are is what we thought and willed;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our thoughts shape us and frame.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">If one endure</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In purity of thought joy follows him</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">As his own shadow sure.—<i>Sir Edwin Arnold.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>Mrs. Doring had read that the people of the unseen world, or other -invisible intelligent beings, sometimes condescended to write on slates -under certain conditions. As she now believed that Chrissalyn possessed -all the psychic gifts, she bought a slate and used her most artful -eloquence to persuade her friend to experiment. The capricious creature -consented after fishing up objections enough to make her acquiescence -received with great gratitude. This was her innocent way of making her -services valuable and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</span> herself important. But for love of her friend, -and also no doubt for love of Prescott, who was the only person on the -other side of silence that she cared to hear from, apparently, or at -least was not afraid of, she finally consented.</p> - -<p>Not knowing the correct manner of procedure they could do no more than -experiment blindly, till they learned something about it. They held -the slate under the table till their arms were all tired out and got -nothing. Then they laid it on the table, and becoming interested in -talking, forgot all about it and their experiment, till they heard a -soft, rapid scratching.</p> - -<p>Looking down simultaneously, they saw an incredible thing. The tiny -pencil, no bigger than a grain of rice, was writing, though no visible -hand guided it, and this was its message:</p> - -<p>“<i>Each soul is its own redeemer, here, hereafter and forever.</i>”</p> - -<p>The two spectators looked at each other in awe-struck silence. From -whom this came they knew not, for the one that wrote it wrote nothing -more. But for their familiarity with communications from the silent -majority they would have been sore afraid. As it was they were awed by -this extraordinary evidence of the nearness of unseen beings presumably -like themselves.</p> - -<p>Talking about it they sat there till the evening was nearly spent. -At last, Chrissalyn idly laid<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</span> her hand on the slate, and almost -immediately it began to throb or vibrate curiously, like a living -thing. Startled, she removed her hand, and instantly the throbbing -ceased. Turning the slate over they found the under side written full -in a feminine hand of exquisite daintiness, and signed with the name of -one of our most eminent women, one who has been dead nearly a century.</p> - -<p>The message had not been written after the manner of the previous one, -for there was no scratching or sound of the movement of the pencil. In -fact, as they soon discovered, the pencil was not there at all. The -method, whatever it may have been, was instantaneous, like telegraphy. -A few seconds of vibration in the slate and lo! it was there. If -thought could be photographed the process might be like this. It was as -though some one had thought the message, and the mere act of thinking -had made it visible on the slate.</p> - -<p>“Chriss, you are the most wonderful being in the world,” said Cartice, -reverently, “and you don’t know it. You have all the occult gifts, yet -value none of them.”</p> - -<p>The Butterfly flushed with gratification at the generous praise of her -friend who usually praised or blamed with miserly care. Beyond the fact -that they made her important in Cartice’s eyes she cared nothing for -the mysteries revealed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</span> through her. Being a butterfly, she was not -afflicted with any particular craving for knowledge. The world and the -things of the world satisfied her.</p> - -<p>This was what the slate contained:</p> - -<p>“To you, Cartice Hill Doring, I bring this message. Remember it well, -for I may never come again: Till the soil, and you will be prosperous. -Till what you have. Make more of your talents. Concentrate all your -thoughts and devote more time to your special one. If you are really -anxious to make a success of yourself, you must use every moment. You -not only owe it to yourself, but to the whole world, and God, who has -endowed you with this wonderful gift. You are a woman among a million. -It is certainly a wonderful gift you possess, and it is sad that you -have not already made more of it. So try now. Wait not for some one -to open the way. Make your own way. You can do it better than any one -else. Work in order to be great; then you can rest, and it will be so -delightful to rest with sweet laurels.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Doring read this aloud, astonished at its flattering import and -amazed that so many words, all as legible as the clearest typography, -could be put upon the tiny slate. The writing was a work of the most -exquisite art.</p> - -<p>“What does she mean by your special talent?” asked Chrissalyn.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</span></p> - -<p>“A bit of my brain garden which I have scarcely cultivated at all, -and would rather not name, for I never have been sure of my title to -it. In my early dreams it figured conspicuously; but of late years I -have almost dropped it from my thoughts. The business of bread-winning -pushes many a fair dream out of its sacred niche. In spite of the -encouraging words of this message I doubt if I shall ever till that -soil. I begin to feel too tired to make new departures. The torpor -of indifference and weariness is creeping over me. The old spirit of -action walks with a halting step, and turns its eyes longingly to the -meadows of ease and indolence. I think I understand how car-horses -feel. They know perfectly well that, whatever may happen to the rest -of the world, for them there is only a steady, day-after-day pull till -the end comes. Prescott used to say I wanted to eat my cake and have it -too; but he didn’t know how feeble and weary I often was.”</p> - -<p>One evening when they called their unseen friends new wonders -were shown them—wonders which took place under laws beyond their -penetration. The Butterfly wore a fresh white rose on her breast. When -Prescott announced himself, his first words were of its beauty and -fragrance.</p> - -<p>“Can you see it?” Cartice asked.</p> - -<p>“Certainly.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</span></p> - -<p>“And smell it?”</p> - -<p>“Of course. Give it to me, Butterfly! Give it to me,” he wrote, with -eager energy.</p> - -<p>“Well, take it,” said Chrissalyn, smiling at the impossible request.</p> - -<p>“I am in earnest. I really want it. Hold it in your hand directly in -front of you, and see me take it.”</p> - -<p>Laughing at what she believed to be a bit of pleasantry, she took the -rose from her breast, and held it between her thumb and finger, saying, -in mimicry of the old-time heroine of novels, “Please accept this token -of my esteem.”</p> - -<p>Instantly, quicker than a flash, with a suddenness indescribable, it -disappeared, vanished completely, in the sight of both pairs of eyes. -Whither? Could vacant space swallow a tangible object? Impossible. Yet -this impossibility was accomplished.</p> - -<p>The fact stunned them. Each looked in the face of the other, and -clasped the other’s hand to make sure they were not dreaming.</p> - -<p>“I should be frightened speechless if any one else than Prescott had -done that,” said the Butterfly, pallid and trembling.</p> - -<p>“Let us ask him about it,” said Cartice, who was shaken, too.</p> - -<p>With some reluctance, Chrissalyn asked Prescott how he had taken the -rose.</p> - -<p>“By means of what some of your scientific<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</span> people call the Fourth -Dimension of Space,” he replied.</p> - -<p>“Can you explain it more clearly?”</p> - -<p>“No; I have no terms in which to make it plain to you. It is all -natural enough, however, and comes under a law as yet not known to your -world. Now wait a moment and I will bring you a flower by means of the -same law.”</p> - -<p>Silent and expectant they sat for three or four minutes. Then, -apparently out of the air above their heads, two large fresh, red roses -fell on the table before them. Examination proved that they were real -and not illusory.</p> - -<p>“Where did you get them?” Cartice asked.</p> - -<p>“I went what you would call a long distance for them,—about two -hundred miles; but it is nothing to me, for I know no distance outside -of my own thought.”</p> - -<p>Unsolicited, one evening Prescott volunteered to tell his two faithful -friends some of his experiences since passing out of their sight. He -wrote with a rapidity and energy even greater than in life, though he -had ever a nervous, hasty manner of writing, which was his true form of -expression. In conversation he had little ability. He consumed three -evenings in the task he had set himself, and this was his story, which -was addressed to Cartice:</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>“There was the accident at the elevator. It<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</span> occurred in a few seconds -of time, but I did not realize what was taking place. A thought that -something was going wrong flashed through my mind, but it conveyed no -sense of danger. I was like a spectator who sees disaster overtake -another, yet has no clear idea what that disaster is. From this and -what I have learned here, I am inclined to the belief that victims of -accidents which result in sudden death have no painful experiences—do -not even suffer from fear.</p> - -<p>“As you know, I was killed instantly—that is pushed out of life -as you understand life, without warning. When I awoke, or regained -consciousness, on this side of death—which I believe was soon after -the accident, though I am not sure on this point—I found myself -groping blindly, staggering weakly in the dark and reaching about me -with my hands to find something that would help me to a knowledge of my -whereabouts.</p> - -<p>“I was never distinguished for patience. Now I began to feel impatient -and cross at finding myself in such an unaccountable situation. Then -the darkness got thicker, more depressing, and at last terrible, until -my spirit quailed before it, and the thought came to me that I was -indeed, in a place and condition strange and fearful.</p> - -<p>“Then I thought of you, Cartice, and of how devotedly I loved you. -With that thought came light, such radiant, phenomenal, overpowering<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</span> -light that it dazzled me. I shuddered before its awful effulgence, and -put my hands over my eyes that it might not blind me. My love for you -seemed to fill all space and include all things. While enjoying it, -drinking it in, floating in it, I moved on, for I was walking,—or so -it seemed—until I met my dear old friend William Bissell.</p> - -<p>“That astonished me, for I instantly remembered that he had died five -years before, and I had been one of those selected for the solemn honor -of carrying his body to the grave. Was I dreaming?</p> - -<p>“He came toward me smiling. I thought I had never seen him look so -well, so handsome, so young or so benignant. He was ever the soul of -kindness, not only ready but always anxious to serve others; and he had -a particular fondness for meeting friends at the railroad station when -they came back to the city after an absence—especially those who had -no near kindred to welcome them.</p> - -<p>“‘I’m glad to see you, Gordon,’ he said; but I thought I saw something -in his face more than the words implied, and a foreboding of unwelcome -news came to me.</p> - -<p>“‘How is this, William?’ I asked. ‘Am I dreaming? I thought I helped to -bury you five years ago.’</p> - -<p>“He smiled significantly and said, ‘Has it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</span> not occurred to you that -somebody may be arranging to do the same service for you?’</p> - -<p>“‘What do you mean, William?’ I asked, calling upon my soul to sustain -me against the shock of the reply.</p> - -<p>“‘Well, Gordon,’ he said, gently, kindness making his face shine like a -lamp, ‘tell me if a dead man’s arm has any bones in it?’</p> - -<p>“Instinctively I grasped my left arm with my right hand. Lo! the hand -passed through it. No bones were there.</p> - -<p>“Can you imagine one already dead fainting from fear? The sensation -I experienced was more startling, more fearful than anything I had -conceived of before. I sank down, down into immeasurable depths.</p> - -<p>“A feeling of shame at my cowardice took possession of me. Why was -I afraid? I had died, to be sure; my condition was changed; but the -experience was something millions and millions of other souls had -undergone. Gentle, timid, delicate women had trodden that solemn path -before me. Little children, too, had traveled it. Why should I, a man, -vain of my strength and courage, be affrighted? A vast compassion -for all humankind in this trying moment welled up in my heart, and -instantly I was lifted into light, and beheld about me loving and -familiar faces, beautiful vistas, and heard melodious sounds. The -loving thought I held<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</span> had borne me upward; but I did not then know it.</p> - -<p>“Many times I sank into a dark, bottomless void, and as often by some -mysterious power rose into ineffable light. I encountered massive walls -from time to time, before which my feet were stayed. Impassable and -impregnable, they seemed to bar my way, I knew not why. Eventually -I learned that the sinking and the rising, and the barriers I met, -were not external experiences, but all took place within my own -consciousness, and were but the picturing or appearances of my inner -condition. They were my own thoughts externalized, for <em>thought</em> -is the only <em>thing</em> in the <em>Universe</em>. We think, therefore we -are. Existence is thought. Man is thought made objective. Thought is -the creative principle: it is creation.</p> - -<p>“‘As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,’ describes life both here -and in the visible form, if you but understand its true significance. -Here every sensation is intensified a thousand times. I thrill with -joy and the universe vibrates in harmonious response. I suffer, and -it trembles in reciprocal anguish. And this is true of every soul in -whatever part of the universe it may dwell; but here our capacity -to feel is keener and greater than with you, and here we learn to -understand. Every sensation is intensified, because we enter into -closer relations with the One<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</span> Life, the One Spirit that fills all -space. Everything is within our consciousness, and outside of that -there is nothing. Within us is all that ever was or shall be.</p> - -<p>“For a time I was often wretched. The interests of earth attracted me, -I thought of them wistfully, and wished I were in my old place doing -the work in which I had found something akin to pleasure. The wish held -me there, and I was miserable, because the old methods of action were -lost to me. Often when you sat at your desk in the <i>Register</i> -office I was near, suffering keen torment, because I could not make -my presence known. It took me a long time to see that we were not -really separated. It was only the veil of your ignorance that shut me -away from you. I was near you, but you did not know it, that was all. -The veil that hides our world from yours is ignorance—a veil it is -possible to lift.</p> - -<p>“Still, I suffered until I found a means of enlightening you. I saw the -peculiar power the Butterfly possesses, and endeavored to arouse in her -a wish to investigate which would enable me to bridge the gulf between -us—a gulf that existed only in your thought.</p> - -<p>“I caused her to see me in what she believed a dream, and I held a -planchette that she might try to operate with it. To my unbounded -delight I was successful. I assure you that, although you were grateful -for the knowledge the little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</span> tripod brought you, I was a thousand -times more so, since to me it meant deliverance from darkness and -misery.</p> - -<p>“I could not rise into higher conditions—conditions being -internal—until I had established communication with you. The moment -you recognized me and believed in me, darkness and discontent began to -fall away from me. You made heaven for me on earth, inasmuch as I loved -you, and that love has made heaven for me here—both heaven and hell -being states of consciousness, though none the less real for all that.</p> - -<p>“My burden was lifted, when you fully understood that I still lived. -Not till then was I willing to accept my changed condition and seek -knowledge in new paths.</p> - -<p>“How delightful it was to discover that I had power within myself to -create conditions! Thoughts of love enveloped me in light, a light that -had in it all beauty and all harmony. The character of my love for you -changed. Desire for possession went out of it, and the wish to benefit -and help you in every way, without regard to myself, took its place. I -then learned that the more unselfish and universal our love, the deeper -and fuller and sweeter our own being becomes. Love is the supreme -power. Love is life. Love is light. Love is all there is, for love is -God.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</span></p> - -<p>“This is a scientific truth and not merely a figure and phrase of -religious philosophy.</p> - -<p>“God is spirit and spirit is substance, the only substance in the -universe. Men of science tell you that light is a mode of motion, and -they speak truly, for it is the physical expression of pure spirit -which is pure love. Spirit, which includes all worlds and all being is -in perpetual motion; all that you see is but its different forms of -manifestation.</p> - -<p>“Your sun is not your source of light; it is but a reflector or -transmitter of the one supreme light to the worlds of its system.</p> - -<p>“The more we love the more of God do we become and express. Oh! if -I could but tell you the joy that love brings. It can overcome all -things. Where it dwells no evil can come; and it enters wherever -the door is left open to receive it. It is everywhere, but, if your -consciousness is unaware of it, for you it has no existence. Only -recognize it and it is yours.</p> - -<p>“I passed my life in combat. I attacked evil, fought it ruthlessly, -and believed I was doing good. Yet I was only making evil important. -You would laugh at the teacher who fought children in order to make -them wise, wouldn’t you? Evil is only ignorance—otherwise spiritual -darkness, and men and women are but children in knowledge. There is -but one way to eradicate evil or ignorance, and that is to make more -light.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</span> Open the understanding and let in the light. The darkness will -flee before it. You remember Victor Hugo said: ‘Pay schoolmasters and -not soldiers.’ I see now that the only way to make men better is to -awaken the God or good in them; to put higher ideals before them, and -not find fault with them because they don’t know all there is to know.</p> - -<p>“Until I met you I lived a loveless life, therefore a pessimistic one. -My sympathy with humankind had a narrow limit. A wrong aroused my wrath -against the perpetrator of it, when it should have awakened my pity for -the dark condition of his mind.</p> - -<p>“I was conceited, intolerant, impatient, belligerent and often cruel. I -went about with a lash in my hand, ready to administer upon all who did -not live up to my standard. Now I see the simpler way of which we were -long since told. It is to love our wayward brothers. When men learn -that an injury done another injures themselves far more than the other, -they will cease to be unkind.</p> - -<p>“As a matter of course I could not give up my old ways of thinking at -once. I still found myself quick to anger and ready to hate at the -knowledge of offence or injury. These feelings instantly plunged me -into darkness and the companionship of demons hideous to behold.</p> - -<p>“It is so in your world also. Rage and hate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</span> darken your mind, and -bring into it hideous demons of thought; but love fills you with light -and beauty. Though your conception of love be crude and narrow, still -the germ of divinity is in it, and it will brighten your way as far as -its light extends. If you are faithful to truth as you see it, broader -conceptions will come to you.</p> - -<p>“I am not capable of instructing you on life here, only so far as it -has revealed itself to me. Another may have different experiences and -see a different outlook. Each soul is bounded by its own limitations, -which expand as it advances. I am but a student, at the feet of wiser -masters; but I must give you what I see, not what they see.</p> - -<p>“I believe the universe is electric; that spirit operates through -all nature by means of what you call electricity, in its different -manifestations. The infinite mind, or what is called God, is the -highest and most etherealized substance, including all else. It -possesses the attributes of inherent motion and living power, and it -has a centre like a great central sun, whose rays extend everywhere -through a system of transmitters. We live and move and have our being -in it, just as all physical life owes its existence to the sun of its -system. Electricity is the servant of this central and all-inclusive -mind, whose every thought is transmitted through creation by means of -electrical and etheric vibration. Every thought of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</span> yours creates a -flash of electricity in your brain, which becomes a transmitter, for -thought is electric. Do not forget, however, that I give this only as -what appears to me.</p> - -<p>“Life is an endless chain. To me now the mere fact of living after -death seems a very small thing—but one little link in the endless -chain. Dazzling heights rise before us as the soul goes on up the -steps of knowledge, where inexhaustible joys are laid up for us. -Nothing counts but knowledge—knowledge of the law. Now I understand -that eternal life is to know God. It takes eternal life to know him.</p> - -<p>“When you act from the outlook of love, you will never go wrong; for -truth is born of love.</p> - -<p>“Weave well the fabric of your thought, for everything is made from it. -The law of causation is inflexible. What you give you will get. Your -thoughts will come back to you, bringing whatever freight of evil or -good with which you sent them forth. Every time you think of a person -you affect him for good or ill.</p> - -<p>“If you sin, you will be the servant of sin. If you love good, you will -be the instrument of good.</p> - -<p>“‘God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit -and in truth.’</p> - -<p>“The whole law is there. If you live the life of the spirit, you -worship God because you express truth. Each man on earth, as to his -real self, is as true a spirit as he ever shall be. Only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</span> in most cases -he is ignorant of that tremendous fact. Understand this and live it, -and you worship God in spirit and in truth.</p> - -<p>“Here imagination is reality. It is also the creative realm in your -world. I think and will, and my thought takes form. I think of one I -love, and instantly I am with that one, no matter in how remote a part -of the universe he or she may be.</p> - -<p>“I say remote, because you think of distance as real. To the soul it -does not exist and never has existed. It is but the continuity of the -mind—a mode of thought. I speak of minutes, yet for us there is no -time. That too is but a mode of thought. I must, however, use terms -comprehensible to you.</p> - -<p>“Do I have the same form as in life? Yes.</p> - -<p>“Do I wear clothes? I am clothed by my own thought, and so are you, but -in a cruder way and by a slower process.</p> - -<p>“Have I sight? Yes, but it is not the same as physical sight. That was -for the objective life; this is for all that is related to my inner or -true being and the true being of others.</p> - -<p>“Have I the other senses as in the natural life? Yes; in a fulness and -perfection undreamed of before. I have them and others unknown to you -all blended in one vast consciousness which puts me in touch with all -that relates to me in a manner impossible to describe.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</span></p> - -<p>“The senses are but avenues through which your spirit takes cognizance -of its environment. Here the spirit learns that it is its own -environment.</p> - -<p>“Is communion between this world and yours beneficial to either one? -(Remember there is but one world. The division is all in your thought.) -Is not association with high-minded, well-instructed persons always -beneficial to you; and association with the evil-minded and untaught -always hurtful?</p> - -<p>“How are human beings to know they are deathless; if the fact be -not proved to them by ways within their comprehension? Can there be -anything but good in learning the law of your own being, by whatever -means are open to you? Not only is it beneficial, but it is the most -important branch of knowledge you can study.</p> - -<p>“Even spirit phenomena of the most rudimentary order are useful and -necessary to the awakening of minds incapable of understanding higher -methods of instruction. There is a primer stage in all learning.</p> - -<p>“The same law of attraction governs intercourse between us and you that -reigns throughout nature. Like attracts like. You call to you the same -order of mind from here that you attract there from among the living. -(In reality there is neither a here nor a there, save in your mind. -All is the same.) Your habitual quality<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</span> of thought will attract its -like. You will get what you give. Thus it happens that the foolish get -foolish messages, and the earnest and intelligent generally receive -sensible and instructive ones.</p> - -<p>“As I divine the purposes of higher orders of beings here, they care -relatively little for phenomena, and often lament much connected with -phenomena; but they do care a great deal for whatever agency can reach -human minds and cause them to think, even for ever so few minutes, of -what is gentle, humane, kind, considerate, unselfish and affectional. -These are the doors by which higher, gentler spirits reach human -understandings, and by these means they exert a power far greater than -is generally suspected.</p> - -<p>“For the production of ordinary phenomena a high grade of intelligence -is not necessary. You do not need a professor to teach a child its -alphabet. The better developed spirits find more subtle ways of -imparting knowledge, and select more advanced minds to receive it -than those that are satisfied with rudimentary phenomena. But that is -necessary to begin with.</p> - -<p>“Here as on earth—remember I use a term implying locality for your -better understanding, though the spirit knows no locality—all who -enjoy a larger light than the multitude are anxious to share it with -those less favored. By helping others into it they receive more of it -themselves.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</span> This is a law. Selfish, indeed, would be the soul who had -a faith that supported him through every trial, and yet did not want -others to have it. The heart’s desire of every prophet, genius and -savior, is to make others see as he sees that which illumines his own -soul. For this cause the noblest and best have often perished—that is, -given up their physical life—to perish in reality being impossible. -Therefore, communion between spirits still in the body and those out -of it is one of the most important means of education known—the chief -occupation of some who are here.</p> - -<p>“Toying with phenomena for the sole purpose of gratifying -curiosity—mere wonder-mongering—is always to be deprecated.</p> - -<p>“Often, as in my case, the opportunity of communicating with -friends left behind sets a spirit free from his own unhappy -thought-limitations. It lifts a burden from him. My desire to prove to -you that I was not dead held me in bondage until I bridged the gulf. -Intense love for one is always a kind of bondage. The perfect love we -shall know, when the truth has freed us, is all-embracing, universal, -like unto the love of God—it is the love of God.</p> - -<p>“When I read these words of Condillac I laughed at them: ‘Though we -should soar into the heavens, though we should sink into the abyss, we -never go out of ourselves; it is always our thought that we perceive.’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</span></p> - -<p>“Now I can affirm their truth. We can never run away from ourselves. -We take our own world with us wherever we go, for it is made of our -thought—‘it is always our own thought that we perceive.’ We are our -own thought—and the smallest insect or strongest and fiercest beast or -greatest genius is no less and no more.</p> - -<p>“In the life of the world I never knew happiness. Behind a cynical -and reserved exterior I masked a restless, suffering spirit. Creation -appeared a grim tragedy. This was because my inner eyes were closed, -and I took the distorted shadow for the reality. I was looking at a -fantastic mirror and saw only its exaggerated reflections. I ridiculed -the idea of any one’s being happy in such a world. Now I know that man -is destined to be happy, but his happiness is of the spirit, and can -only come with spiritual development, when he knows that he is spirit, -lives the life of the spirit, and so becomes free from the bonds of -ignorance. This is what is meant by the truth making us free. Ignorance -is the only evil there is—mere blindness to the light, though the -light is always shining. When you know the truth, you become the truth, -and are out of the darkness of ignorance, therefore free. This is, I am -told, the ultimate destiny of the whole human race.</p> - -<p>“Remember that God never punishes any one. He only teaches. This, -the children of the world<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</span> have to learn. They, too, must eliminate -punishment from their methods of dealing with the wrongdoers, otherwise -the ignorant.</p> - -<p>“A wise friend told me to cease my self-questioning and striving, -and let knowledge find me. He said we have only to <em>let</em> good -come to us and it will fill us. To do this we must make ourselves -receptive—negative—and the spirit, the one spirit, which includes all -wisdom, all love, all life, being positive, will flow into us. He said -our continual striving and struggling made us positive, and therefore -unreceptive. This enabled me to see a new meaning in the question, -‘Who, by searching can find out God?’</p> - -<p>“The law is to be still—ready to receive—and let him enter.</p> - -<p>“When I did this I emerged from suffering and darkness, and for the -first time in the memory of my conscious existence felt my spirit at -rest.”</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.<br><span class="small">UPROOTING A HUMAN TREE.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A man said unto his angel:</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">“My spirits are fallen through,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And I cannot carry this battle:</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">O Brother, what shall I do?”</span><br> -</p> -<hr class="tb"> -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then said to the man his angel:</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">“Thou wavering, foolish soul,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Back to the ranks! What matter</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">To win or lose the whole.”</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">—<i>Louise Imogen Guiney.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>The Joys, otherwise the Hanleys, fell into financial trouble. Burton -Hanley was forced to make an assignment for the benefit of his -creditors. He had enough to pay every dollar he owed, and he turned it -all over with an out-of-date honesty that scandalized the community.</p> - -<p>The envious found a certain sweetness in this news. Nodding their heads -knowingly, they said they guessed the Joys were about done with Joy. -But this did not seem to be the case. On the evening following the -assignment they were at an entertainment in the house of a friend and -were the blithest guests, as they generally were.</p> - -<p>The knowing ones said this light-heartedness was put on—a mere bluff -to make others think they did not value money. As a matter of fact<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</span> it -was not. They had simply forgotten all about their financial troubles -in the engrossing pleasures of the hour. This enviable faculty for -enjoying the present moment, unclouded by past or future shadows was -largely responsible for their joyous lives. For them there was only the -now. They never reasoned or philosophized about it, but just lived that -way by nature.</p> - -<p>“Wait till they have a hand-to-hand fight with Poverty,” said the -knowing ones, who are often the cruel ones. “Wait till he writes his -name on their clothes, their faces and their thoughts. Wait till he -walks with them, sits with them, eats with them and never leaves them -for an instant! Wait!” They said this in a way that made their hearers -understand the waiting would not require patience.</p> - -<p>Kinder ones sighed and said the Joys, poor souls, laughed at poverty, -because they didn’t know its horrors. But they were destined to better -acquaintance with the dreaded spectre. Meantime they went their way -rejoicing that affairs were no worse.</p> - -<p>Lilla was so full of what she had learned through Chrissalyn of the -deathlessness of herself and fellow beings, that she bubbled over -like a kettle filled to the brim and boiling. What was loss of money -and a contest with poverty to one who knew that Death was dead? This -knowledge was of a character too fermentative to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</span> remain bottled up -within her. She went around talking of it, unmindful of the injunction -not to cast pearls before swine. An enthusiast by nature, and endowed -with power to carry conviction to an extraordinary degree, it is -strange she did not succeed in the propaganda; but she did not. On -the contrary the swine turned upon her and she was rended, like other -prophets who have been guilty of similar indiscretion.</p> - -<p>To each other some of the swine said: “Poor Lilla Joy. Burton’s failure -has upset her after all. Talks about nothing but souls. Thinks she has -had proof of dead folks being alive. It’s too bad.”</p> - -<p>But Lilla refused to be cast down. After a time she gave up the -hopeless work of letting her light shine too far, it is true, but she -kept her strangely happy face and joyous ways—kept them through many -a dark day, on many a stony road—kept them to the end. She met all -things, troublous or pleasant, as Socrates said he wished to meet the -gods—with a bright face.</p> - -<p>This never-changing brightness made an impression on everybody who -beheld it. One might feebly describe it by saying that her soul seemed -too large and too happy for its mortal measure, and was always running -over.</p> - -<p>Perhaps the office boy of the <i>Register</i> hit it most felicitously, -when he thus described her to Cartice, who had been out, when she -called one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</span> day: “It was that lady who comes often and always looks -as if she had just heard good news.” Mrs. Doring recognized the word -photograph of Lilla Joy at once.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>There are times in the lives of all when new departures are imminent, -when a change is impending and obligatory, yet is slow to define -itself. There is the feeling that other paths must be entered, but to -the outer eye they are unblazed.</p> - -<p>Such a time had come to Cartice Doring. She had long felt its approach, -but knew not the end to which it pointed. Something more than impulse -stirred within her. The Spirit of Destiny itself spoke the inexorable -command to move on.</p> - -<p>Whither? “Move on.” This was the only answer, for Destiny has a way of -making us choose our roads, though for the most part the various whips -within and without which play upon us seem to make the matter of choice -largely a thing of name only. We do what we can rather than what we -wish. This should give us a grain of comfort on dark days by relieving -us of regrets, and settling us in the conviction that we are no more -and no less than that which we must be. Even though our own nature be -the compelling and directing force, we are none the less servants to -its dicta. Call that which rules us by whatever name we choose, how -supreme is the sway!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</span></p> - -<p>Looking over the situation Mrs. Doring summed up the reasons for making -a change. First, she was not doing her best; she was letting down a -little all the time, and that clearly was degeneration. Pleasure in -her work had gone and perfunctory performance taken its place. She was -weary of the miserable business of writing to please the many-headed -multitude, which the late <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Charles Mackay was fond of describing as -“fool of a public; pig of a public,” while her honest convictions had -to be kept locked up in her soul and labeled, “Dangerous,” like a can -of dynamite.</p> - -<p>In Prescott’s day she was free to say what she thought ought to be -said. Now, she was frequently brought to book for utterances far too -bold, in the opinion of the proprietors of the paper, who insisted on -a close connection between the counting room and editorial desk. As -a result of constantly trimming to suit the fitful breezes of public -taste, the <i>Register</i> was losing ground. Strange law that governs -the minds of men! Kowtow to them and they despise and neglect you. Defy -them and they respect and court you.</p> - -<p>No; she must not stay with the <i>Register</i>. Internal wranglings -were shaking it. An eruption might take place any day, changing the -whole face of its affairs.</p> - -<p>For her salvation, intellectual and physical, she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</span> must go. Yet habit, -friendship and a horrible dread of facing new difficulties put up a -plea for her to stay. No; she must go, no matter what she had to meet, -loneliness, humiliation, disappointment, defeat, want, death itself. -MUST. Something told her that in a way that brooked no contradiction.</p> - -<p>But she was so tired—more tired than any one dreamed, in spite of her -almost jaunty cheerfulness.</p> - -<p>And what had she as financial armor for the new battle about to begin? -Grimly she smiled as she cast her mind’s eye in that direction. A -few dollars only. “Verily industry and talent combined are richly -rewarded,” she said. Yet she had made reputation; she was considered -successful. However, many a slave to the pen knows that reputation and -money do not always go hand in hand. Besides this imposing capital she -had her experience and the knowledge of her own powers which it had -brought. Valuable capital, to be sure. Yet experience brings us another -gift which helps to weaken us by counteracting our faith in ourselves, -and that is a knowledge of the difficulties, a bold outlining of the -greatness of the task.</p> - -<p>What else had she wherewith to gird herself for that trip into the -unexplored, so sure to involve risks of many kinds?</p> - -<p>In the teeth of a wish to find a quiet place and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</span> there lie down, -closing her eyes to the world forever,—in the face of a weariness -untellable, she knew that within the hidden depths of herself, under -all the scars, disappointments and fatigues was courage.</p> - -<p>What other prop had she? A strong, an invincible one—the knowledge -that eternal being and her being were one and the same, and that she -was never alone or dependent on herself, however much this seemed to be -the case; that living, loving souls, angels, if you choose, had charge -concerning her and that the everlasting arms of universal love were -ever about her.</p> - -<p>She would go to New York, a field of many gleaners, truly, but big, -and therefore of promise. The needle of her destiny pointed in that -direction. There was its magnet. With the decision came peace.</p> - -<p>Yet day after day she lingered, telling no one of her decision, and -feeling that she belonged neither to the place she was in nor to that -for which she was bound—a curious, detached sort of existence such as -had ever been hers, when she must tear herself from an accustomed place -and seek an unaccustomed one. The work of uprooting herself involved -pains and groans like those of a great tree, when torn up by a storm.</p> - -<p>In love of locality Cartice was a tree, and frequently said so. Her -pleasure would have been to live always in one place, taking deeper -root<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</span> every day, and loving the soil that sustained her. Doubtless -because this was her nature, fate decreed that she should have no -chance to take deep root anywhere, for her own good.</p> - -<p>Those days of inward groaning and tree-like clinging to a spot of which -she had long been weary, reminded her of other days, now years in the -past, when she had uprooted herself from the only peaceful bit of life -she had known, to go forth and marry Louis Doring and become sister to -misery.</p> - -<p>Then she had swayed and clung and groaned day after day, only to yield -at last to the force that ruled her destiny, and she knew she must do -the same now.</p> - -<p>A time came, however, when the human tree lay prone, its uprooting an -accomplished fact. Its roots, bared to the sun and wind, trembled a -little, but the groaning was over.</p> - -<p>Now there was nothing to do but tell Chrissalyn and go.</p> - -<p>The Butterfly paled as she heard the decision.</p> - -<p>“I have known this for a long time,” she said, “long before you knew -it yourself, but I would not speak of it, lest you might be guided by -what I said. I learned it by the inside way that things are told me so -often. It’s hard for me to have you go; but I understand, and believe -it’s for the best. Does any one else know?”</p> - -<p>“Not yet. I don’t tell others, even good<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</span> friends, because they will -ask questions about my plans and dig my very heart out of my body to -find out all about what I am going to do. In the first place I don’t -know. In the second I should not care to tell if I did. Telling spoils -everything for me. Why do people make inquisitions of themselves and -torture others merely to gratify an idle curiosity?”</p> - -<p>“Cartice”—Chrissalyn spoke a little cautiously—“in the face of what -you have been saying, and knowing that your temper is not seraphic, I -will say I wish I knew for sure that you would have something to hold -on to, when you get to New York.”</p> - -<p>“Chriss, dear, I <em>must</em> find something, that’s all there is to -it. <span class="smcap">Must.</span> That word is a magnet drawing whatever it demands. -Whenever we <span class="allsmcap">MUST</span> have something, we get it.”</p> - -<p>Contact with the industrial problem had let a few practical ideas into -the Butterfly’s once airy head. Therefore she was concerned about the -financial future of her friend. Still, she did not comprehend the -situation in its tragic entirety. A prop of some kind had ever been -near for her to lean on in dire extremity. Fate provides props for -those who are not strong enough to stand alone; but the great souls are -placed where there is nothing to lean against, that they may both keep -and show their strength. They suffer; their hearts often bleed; but -they stand.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</span></p> - -<p>Then, too, Chrissalyn looked upon her friend as a person of such -incomparable ability, that she could overcome any obstacle, however -formidable. “How I shall miss you, Cartice,” she said, huskily. “How -lonely and bereft I shall be.”</p> - -<p>“You have your admirers, your moths.”</p> - -<p>“My moths? Yes, my miserable moths,” said Chrissalyn, contemptuously. -“They are about as much comfort to me, as so many of the genuine -insects. I am a proof of evolution. I have evolved too far to find -them interesting. But where are the men? Do they not exist outside of -novels any more? For a long time I cherished dreams of meeting one whom -I could love without being ashamed of myself, but I am giving them up. -Sometimes, where I hear of friends marrying, it all sounds so fine that -I am quite envious until I see their husbands, and then I am better -contented.”</p> - -<p>For Cartice the pain of parting from her friend was intensified by the -knowledge that it meant loss of opportunity to talk with her beloved -unseen people. The Butterfly was a telephone to the other world whose -like might never be met again.</p> - -<p>They spent the last evening together. Their invisible friends -understood what was determined upon, without any telling. Prescott was -asked if he had any suggestions to make in regard to Cartice’s plans.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</span></p> - -<p>“It is not for us to direct you,” he said. “You must steer your own -bark. That is the business of life. The field is wide, and you have -your place therein and will find it. Don’t be discouraged. We shall be -often with you, and shall keep an eye on you.”</p> - -<p>The evening was one long to be remembered by the two who were so soon -to be separated, tinged as it was with the melancholy that colors all -last occasions.</p> - -<p>The final glimpse Cartice had of the place that had been to her a -city of sorrow as well as of light, showed her the Butterfly waving a -loving and tearful adieu. Dear Butterfly! Was there ever so charming -a combination of vanity, love of pleasure, earthly prettiness and -goddess-like ability to do wondrous things?</p> - -<p>Cartice settled herself for her journey, feeling somewhat as a soul -might who had just issued from one very difficult and wretched -incarnation and knew that in a few hours it must begin another, which -in all probability would prove more difficult and more wretched.</p> - -<p>It takes courage to face the mouths of cannon; yet that, though -horrible, lasts not long. But the woman who, alone and unknown, goes -into the mixed and frightful mass of humankind represented by a great -city, to seek a chance to earn honest bread, displays a courage besides -which that of the bravest soldier must lose a little of its<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</span> luster. -And any one who makes her hard road harder, builds for himself a wall -which will not be easy to scale; he is but lengthening the period of -his own spiritual evolution.</p> - -<p>The train rolled on, its wheels beating a steady rhythm like the feet -of flying horses, their vibrations striking the sick heart of the weary -woman inside, and making it quake with terror.</p> - -<p>She had kept a smiling face before the Butterfly clear to the last; but -now that she was alone—at least unknown to her fellow travelers, hence -secure from intrusion, her courage evaporated, and she curled up on her -sofa, a mere lump of suffering.</p> - -<p>As the telegraph posts flew by she pictured herself taken out, tied to -one and shot dead by balls from many rifles, and earnestly wished she -could exchange her present situation for such brief pain.</p> - -<p>Is this world hell? The query had come to her before, and now it -challenged her boldly. Whose happiness or safety was secure for the -morrow?</p> - -<p>Of what was ahead of her she scarcely dared to think. Glimpses of its -grim possibilities flashed across her mind, making her mobile face -set and stern. A frightened light came into her eyes and a strange -expression fluttered around her mouth. In imagination she was seeing -the two rivers that flow on either side of New York,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</span> and was thinking -of what they had done and were yet to do for those who found the burden -of life greater than they could bear.</p> - -<p>In that moment she felt a cool, soft breeze about her, and with it -came the thought that she could never seek solace there—she who knew -that life reached out an unbroken line, beyond the sight and even the -dreams of men. Not for her ran rivers, whose flowing waters lapped and -swirled and wooed world-weary hearts. Did she believe that silence, -nothingness, insensate dust alone were at the end of our journey here, -there; blessed be the rivers! But she knew—knew beyond doubt that no -river can extinguish the spark of divinity we call consciousness.</p> - -<p>After all, why should she fear? No one stands absolutely alone. There -is no separateness, no differentiation. Back of each, eternal Being -mirrors itself forever; and that which we see is as nothing compared -to that which we see not. The cloud of witnesses more than witnesses. -Influences invisible, but powerful, are ever working for us. Threads -hidden from bodily eyes connect us with all life beheld and unbeheld.</p> - -<p>Her own people were in touch with her, loved and inspired her, no -matter in what part of the universe they dwelt, and nothing could -divide her from them.</p> - -<p>Remembering this, the shadow of fear passed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</span> and she prepared to meet -her destiny with courage.</p> - -<p>New knowledge had brought new responsibility. Life was not to be -haggled through as a hateful bargain; it must be lived in the highest -sense; its lessons faithfully learned and character constructed by the -master architect, experience. One must do one’s best, in the teeth of -the storm, in the front of the battle. We must always be able to look -our souls in the face without shame.</p> - -<p>Suppose her efforts and even her life ended in failure at last! What -matter? To succeed in the world’s opinion is often to fail in the -exacting eye of conscience. Perhaps the only permanent success is -failure. The joy, the glory and the reward are in the doing, not in the -result. The fateful question for all of us will be, not, “Hast thou -won?” but “Hast thou striven?”</p> - -<p>The things we call pain and pleasure she knew to be illusions, -mere thought pictures painted on the canvas of our consciousness, -by ignorance—ignorance of our true being and the true purpose of -existence.</p> - -<p>So she said, “No matter what comes, since I know that out of all the -pain and humiliation the world can put upon me, out of the shadow of -death, I shall rise and pass on to my eternal unfolding.</p> - -<p>“For me there is no want. Have I not bread<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</span> to eat that thousands of -others as yet have not, because they will not receive it?</p> - -<p>“For me and for the whole human race there is but one thing needful, -and that is the knowledge that eternal being is within, around, about -us and we are it.”</p> - -<p>Spiritualism? The ignorant will say with a sneer. Yes, in the highest, -broadest and deepest sense. It sustained this lonely woman on her -journey to a great city to work out her life’s problem, and after she -was there it gave her patience and confidence. It made it impossible -for her to seek the river, and enabled her to wear a cheerful face and -carry a hopeful heart, while her little store of money dribbled down to -a few lonesome dollars.</p> - -<p>Without this rock of faith those long, lonely days of seeking and -waiting would have been unbearable. Sometimes she sat in the public -squares looking compassionately upon the pitiful people about her. The -homeless, the hopeless, the hungry, the despairing, the weary, the -ailing, the suffering, the broken-hearted were there, some in rags and -some in fine garments. Within each one ached and ate the canker of a -wretchedness they tried to hide from happier souls who passed them by.</p> - -<p>Cartice read their misery by the light of past suffering, and yearned -to say to them: “Awake! You are in a dark dream. The conditions that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</span> -trouble you are unreal—mere illusions, and touch not your true life at -all. You are gods every one, but unaware of your divinity. One day the -dream shall pass and you shall know this.”</p> - -<p>But the etiquette of civilization forbade it. We see our fellow beings -suffer and perish from some wound in the soul, yet approach them not. -All she could do was to send out to them, through the silent waves of -thought, messages of hope and good cheer.</p> - -<p>In those days of striving and waiting and studying the swarming life -about her Mrs. Doring turned over the economic problem in her mind many -times. Curious industrial system, that condemns idleness and yet makes -the search for employment bitter and hard!</p> - -<p>The two arts which held her chance were hedged about in such a way that -the most she could do was to shoot an arrow from afar and trust that -it might stick. Nor was she unaware that many other arrows were flying -from other archers, each one diminishing the chances of the rest.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.<br><span class="small">BOHEMIA’S HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Work thou for pleasure; paint or sing or carve</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The thing thou lovest, though the body starve.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who works for glory misses oft the goal;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Who works for money coins his very soul.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Work for the work’s sake, then, and it may be</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That these things shall be added unto thee.”</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">—<i>Kenyon Cox.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>One day a miracle happened,—at least Cartice Doring considered it a -miracle. She was swinging to a strap in one of the always dirty and -frequently crowded cars of the elevated railroad—when, as the train -went ricketing round a curve she was flung against a man behind her -with such force that both well-nigh fell to the floor.</p> - -<p>Before she could apologize, a familiar voice said:</p> - -<p>“Mrs. Doring! I’m delighted to have been knocked down, since it proves -to be the means of meeting you.”</p> - -<p>He was a newspaper man whose occasional visits to the <i>Register</i> -she had greatly enjoyed; and his was the first familiar face that she -had encountered since she had turned her back on former scenes.</p> - -<p>“Why, <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Farnsworth, I’m glad enough to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</span> cry,” she blurted out, and -came near proving the truth of her assertion.</p> - -<p>When he learned that she had come to New York to seek her fortune, he -said:</p> - -<p>“I can put a spoke in your wheel, for I came here with that intention -myself, and have my tent permanently pitched. A pen and pencil like -yours need never be idle. Come to our publishing house to-morrow at two -o’clock—here’s a card—and we will lay the corner-stone of your future -greatness.”</p> - -<p>Cartice was wakeful far into the night nursing her gratitude, and -thinking over the miracle. Farnsworth had been a lifelong friend to -Prescott. Perhaps Prescott brought about their meeting, and put it into -Farnsworth’s head to employ her. Who knows what the people we call -dead may not be able to do? Perhaps they give us many of our thoughts, -purposes and plans. Does not every event in our lives, however trivial -and insignificant, hang upon thousands of preceding events, great and -small?</p> - -<p>And when it comes to a question of what a soul can or cannot do, -embodied or disembodied, who can answer?</p> - -<p>What is the soul of man? Before assigning it limitations it were well -to know its composition. It is assumed to be the “immortal unit which -represents personality”; but here and there have been men and women who -demonstrated a marvelous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</span> complexity of ego, their visible body seeming -a mere tenement for a variety of distinct personalities, all linked -together by some mysterious chain of kinship, though not all resembling -each other, and not always dwelling in harmony.</p> - -<p>Stevenson makes <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Jekyll say, “I hazard a guess that man will be -ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and -independent denizens.”</p> - -<p>Are we not all conscious of a <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Hyde within us who breaks out at -times and sadly stains the good record of <abbr title="doctor">Dr.</abbr> Jekyll? May we not be -harboring many Jekylls and Hydes, each differing in degrees of goodness -and badness?</p> - -<p>Thinking on this, Cartice remembered the answer of the nameless wise -one to the question, “What is the soul?”—an answer that startled her, -for it opened a vista so vast, since it meant that the soul is God, or -absolute being revealing himself or itself.</p> - -<p>This being granted, its personalities are beyond computation. Its -Jekylls and Hydes and its millions which are neither Jekylls nor Hydes -are past number.</p> - -<p>In a sea of wonder like this is it worth while to ponder the causes of -any miracle great or tiny?</p> - -<p>The next day Cartice found herself installed at a desk in Farnsworth’s -publishing house, pen and pencil both flying. The wished-for foothold -was found, and she stood upon it, busy and grateful.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</span></p> - -<p>After becoming acquainted with a number of the metropolitan people of -the pen, she was obliged to give up many of her illusions regarding -them. Some of whom she had formed a flattering opinion, on acquaintance -fell far below the mark. Others who flew high on paper, kept shockingly -near the ground off paper. Some who had been successful were struggling -frantically against a turn of the tide. But that which astonished and -pained her most was their lack of ennobling ideals. Their pens were -ever pointed toward the market, their talk was of prices, not ideas, -and the shrine at which they worshipped was the ninth letter of the -alphabet.</p> - -<p>For the most part they were so busy writing and talking of what they -had written and intended to write, that none read another’s production. -Like swimmers in a turbulent sea, their energies were wholly given -to the business of keeping afloat. In slavery to the baker and -meat-seller, they expressed only such sentiments as they believed -acceptable to the commonplace majority,—otherwise marketable products. -They trimmed, tempered, pruned, whittled and cut their literary wares, -to make them suit what they supposed to be the public’s wants, without -regard to conscience or convictions.</p> - -<p>Did all angle in these shallow waters? No! Here and there a worthy -few had boldly refused to write down to the low level of average -intelligence.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</span> They had penned their honest thought, and by so doing -had brought a respectable portion of the public up to their plane, fame -and money sometimes coming with it. Consciously or unconsciously they -had operated a great law of the universe, that of giving one’s best to -get the best.</p> - -<p>In other words they had faithfully followed their highest ideals, in -the face of possible ruin, under the pressure of poverty and the frowns -of public taste and opinion. To do this is to live a great principle, -to set the soul free. Whoever does this shall reap the reward of -principle; he shall find his measure full. The multitude whose slavish -bonds of ignorance he defies will cringe and fawn at his feet and pour -its gold into his coffers.</p> - -<p>The ideal is the real. If it be high its faithful followers are lifted -up.</p> - -<p>Workers who spend their lives in throwing sops to the mass of mediocre -minds pay the inevitable penalty at last. They fall into the contempt -of the very monster whose favor they have courted, who at heart -respects only its masters, not its slaves.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>One day Bardell, a straggler whose weapon was the pencil and whose -field was the dreadful one of the commonest newspaper art, stopped at -Mrs. Doring’s desk, as he often did, for a word or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</span> two. She regarded -him as an almost hopeless bungler, but liked his unassertive, dreamy -personality. Some of his drawings were altogether abominable, and in -none of them did he seem to have the slightest pride.</p> - -<p>He was undersized and queer-looking, with a big square head, a thin -stooping body, large hollow eyes, and a face that suggested a worn-out -spirit.</p> - -<p>Ordinarily he had almost no words about anything, yet seemed to derive -a silent pleasure from hanging near Cartice’s desk a few moments, -when he brought his drawings to the “art man” of the house. His -self-effacement was so refreshing to Cartice after much contact with -pushing ninth-letter people, that she showed him marked civility.</p> - -<p>To-day he seated himself and asked her opinion of the drawing he -carried. As usual, his manner was without animation, yet she instantly -felt that he expected a word of praise. This was extraordinary on -his part, as he invariably gave out the wordless impression that he -continued to live more from habit than anything else, but found life -wholly without interest.</p> - -<p>The picture, which was destined to illustrate a jingling little rhyme -and visualize it for such readers as have no imagination, represented -a short-skirted maid standing by a rustic fountain, pitcher in hand. -Cartice gave a little cry of delight,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</span> as her eyes fell upon it, though -a second glance showed her that something was wrong with it, but what, -she could not for a moment say. Presently the blunder stood revealed, -and was gross enough to mortify Bardell for all time, if she pointed it -out. Yet it would be his ruin to let him go to the “art man,” with the -drawing as it was. So she said, “It is charmingly done; but there is a -trifling error in it. The girl’s feet are put on wrong. Left and right -have changed places.”</p> - -<p>The pale, hollow face of the artist flushed red with shame. “I’m most -grateful to you, Mrs. Doring,” he said, as his astonished eyes saw the -hitherto unnoticed blunder. “Had I gone to Buskirk with that it would -have been the end of me in this shop. As it is he almost withers me -with his contempt. It doesn’t stop at my work, either, but includes all -there is of me, physically, mentally, artistically, and financially. -I sustain myself under it with the reflection that, however profound -his contempt for me, it is outdone again and again by my contempt for -myself.”</p> - -<p>Cartice understood well the awful wounds to self-respect men and -women are daily forced to endure for the sake of a chance to earn -a livelihood. She looked at Bardell with a vast, wordless sympathy -shining in her eyes, thinking of the courage necessary in the tragedy -of life, as displayed by the man before her and tens of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</span> thousands of -others. He understood and went on:</p> - -<p>“I don’t endure it for the mere sake of living, I assure you. The -experience called life, as I know it, isn’t worth it. But when I was -younger and considerably more of a fool than I am now, I married, -as a kind of business or because others did, or I don’t really know -why. Anyhow, I have a little family now, and I have to put up with -everything, no matter what, in order to support them. Besides, I have -other ties that hold me to life, and those are my ideals.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Doring looked up with a start. “Tell me about them,” she said.</p> - -<p>“Ever since I can remember they have been with me, and are my true -life,” he said. “They exist in the shape of simple rustic scenes, -old-time well-sweeps, tumble-down stone-houses and walls and things of -that sort, with people in them who are a part of their history. They -come into my mind and insist upon being painted. They are not satisfied -to be put in black and white. That is crucifixion for them and for me, -too. They beg, entreat and command me to put them in color.</p> - -<p>“This girl at the old-time fountain in this drawing is one of them. -That’s the reason the picture isn’t hard and lifeless like most of -the truck I bring in here. The blunder of putting her feet on wrong -occurred, because I drew the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</span> feet last, and about that time she found -out that she wasn’t being painted, but was to be a sacrifice to the -terrible monster of newspaper illustration, which is an easy way to -please children and uneducated people, and an offence to those of a -higher order of intelligence. In rage at the use I was going to make -of her she jumped up and down so fast that her feet got tangled in my -mind. I saw her, you understand. She was real—I saw her—not in flesh -and blood, but imagination, which to me is a kind of higher reality.”</p> - -<p>Astonished and delighted to find one worker with ideals above mere -keeping afloat, Cartice asked him if he worked on his ideals or merely -dreamed of them.</p> - -<p>“I reach after them all I can,” he said, “handicapped as I am. I give -my heart to them, though I haven’t been able to give them much of my -time. But I have not kicked them out of my way, or murdered them to -sell their flesh at the nearest market, as many of my associates have -done. Nor have I given up the belief that, if we work on our ideals, -devote ourselves to them, in the face of every obstacle, we shall be -lifted out of the dreadful mire of the commonplace, where the feet of -most of us stick fast all our lives. But they will have no half-hearted -devotion. They want whole-souled service only, and they are right. -Willing to give us all of themselves it is only fair they should ask -all from us.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</span></p> - -<p>“I have worked but little in oil, and am almost entirely uninstructed, -yet these pictures form, whenever I take up a brush; and it isn’t -putting it too strong to say that they beg to be painted. They come in -color exactly as they want to be put on canvas,—not simply in my mind, -but before my eyes, though thin and shadowy.</p> - -<p>“One Sunday when rambling in the country I passed an old well, and said -to myself, ‘I’ll paint that.’ Instantly I saw a man lying by the well, -though no man was there. I painted it that way and put it up in the den -I call my studio.</p> - -<p>“One day a stranger who came there with one of my friends saw it and -took a great fancy to it. He said it was a scene from his memory. -The old well was the one at his childhood’s home, and the man was -his father, as he had seen him lying in the shade many a time, long -ago. The upshot of it was, that he offered me two hundred and fifty -dollars for it—it was a little thing—which it is needless to say I -accepted. When he went away I thought I ought to faint or do something -extraordinary to work off my astonishment.”</p> - -<p>“But you didn’t rest on that?”</p> - -<p>“No; I went on with other ideals, in little spots of time squeezed out -of the odd-jobbery of my daily grind in black and white. I believe -that, when we work on our ideals, the very shape of our heads change. -My mother says mine is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</span> changing, for which I am most grateful, its -original shape being like unto an old-fashioned country horse-block.”</p> - -<p>“Have you had sympathy in the pursuit of your ideals?” Cartice asked.</p> - -<p>“Not always. That was a want I felt for ten years. All that time I -hunted for a companion, an artist, who, like myself, loved the country -and rural subjects, to paint with me. At last I found one and have him -yet. We inspire each other. Together we go to the country on Sundays -and make studies. The other artists I encounter in my humble path -are so woodeny, so coarse, so worldly that I need patience to suffer -them at all, and I never find them companionable. They chaff me and -call me a sentimentalist. I don’t care. I believe in sentiment. If I -didn’t idealize life and work, I should have to give both up. I would -willingly go and live in the humblest little old place in the country -and never see a city again, if I could but work on my ideals.”</p> - -<p>Cartice was seeing the square-headed little plodder from a new point -of view—an inner and spiritual one, and in its beautifying light the -square head became symmetrical, the stooping shoulders erect, the pale -face attractive, the eyes aflame with vital force, and the bearing that -of one conscious of being of value. It was then that she recognized him -as one of her own people, from her own planet, and blamed herself for -not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</span> sooner seeing through the transparent mask that hard environment -had made.</p> - -<p>She asked him what he thought is to be the fate of those, who, having -an ideal, stifle, ignore or slaughter it even, and give their time -and energy to the performance of some poor pitiful, paltry work which -demands but a tithe of their ability, for the sake of a little money -with which to keep out the unwelcome howls of the wolf.</p> - -<p>“Look about you and see,” he said, with a contemptuous gesture. “Look -at me, a creature slinking in and out of rich publishing houses, -hunting crumbs, like the dogs that hung round the rich man’s table, -with fear written in every movement, dejection in my spirit, indigence -in my garments and weariness in my heart.”</p> - -<p>He got up and walked to and fro nervously, and as he moved and talked -he became transformed. The timid, shrinking little figure vanished and -in its place strode one whose step was firm and eye fearless.</p> - -<p>“There are hundreds like me. The woods—the city’s accursed woods are -full of them. They run over each other in their eagerness to do the -bidding of some master who can drop a coin or so into their flabby -purses. Faust sold his soul to the devil for a good price; but we, -miserable wretches, sell it daily for a song. Why? Because we are such -pitiful cowards that we can’t face the scarecrow that goes by the name -of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</span> starvation. We live so far below our true selves that we don’t -know the law that would carry us through, which is, give the best to -get the best. Why not trust the soul? The ideal is the real; it is the -voice of the soul, otherwise the voice of God, and it <em>must</em> have -expression. If not here and now, then sometime, somewhere. Its account -is bound to be presented and <em>must</em> be paid. Death itself can’t -prevent the final settlement.</p> - -<p>“What do they do at school with the lazy boy who slights his lessons? -After a while they turn him back in his books and he has his road to -retrace. We shall have the same experience, if we have heard the voice -of the ideal and heeded it not. We shall be sent back to do it all over -again—yes, from beyond the grave, for what can there be on the other -side for him who has betrayed his trust, but contempt and a command to -go back and try again?”</p> - -<p>He stopped before Cartice, and with blazing eyes and uplifted finger -said, “In this moment I determine to outrage my ideals no more, come -what may. I have new light. We all have been acting on the assumption -that we knew what would happen if we didn’t do thus and so. In point -of fact nobody knows. With results we have nothing to do. We have only -to follow our highest leading and leave the rest to God. To ignore or -debase a noble gift that has been entrusted to us is a sin against our -souls, which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</span> many of us have stupidly committed day after day, and we -are daily paying the penalty. You shall see me here no more, bartering -work in which I have no heart for a few miserable dollars. Never again; -no, never again.”</p> - -<p>“You are right, <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Bardell, a thousand times right,” said Mrs. Doring, -with throbbing heart and glistening eyes. “I have long known that one -should never give less than the best, and that an outraged ideal will -be avenged. Yet I daily commit that sin. I used to feel that I had -something more than common to do in the world. I had ideals; but I put -them off, always waiting for a time when I could see my way clear to -devote myself entirely to them. I waited too long. Now they come less -frequently and are less urgent, and I have grown weary and indifferent. -I wasted my time hunting happiness.”</p> - -<p>“Happiness belongs to the ideal,” said Bardell. “It is a matter of -subjective appreciation, so is its opposite, misery. Perhaps it would -be clearer to say that happiness exists in the idea one forms of it, -hence it is purely ideal. We are happy, when we believe ourselves -happy. But for the most part all the world thinks happiness is to be -found in externals; that it can be secured in thick slices which we -can eat like bread, while comfortably seated in good houses. Money and -marriage are supposed to have a monopoly of it. What idiocy!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</span></p> - -<p>“Yes, idiocy,” Cartice echoed. “Thackeray says, ‘For my own part I know -of nothing more contemptible, unmanly or unwomanly and craven than the -everlasting sighing for happiness.’ When a child, I had a consciousness -or memory of a world in which I had once lived where there was no such -word as happiness, and yet none were unhappy. I understand that now. -It means that happiness only exists where it is not thought of, talked -about or pursued. I believe it is intended that we shall be happy; but -not in our own foolish way. Freedom is the destiny of the human race, -and that freedom holds for us a happiness infinitely greater and higher -than we now can imagine, because it contains our full development, -our perfected intellectual and spiritual growth. It is the freedom of -truth, long since prophesied. When we know the truth, we are free, and -happiness comes with freedom. Heaven is within one; it consists in the -soul’s unfolding or coming into a knowledge of itself. We reach that -through expression. In this way we grow, as every plant struggles to -do. So you see, if we strangle our ideals, we stunt our growth, and -shall be cut down like the bent, and imperfect tree,—cut down, to come -again perhaps, for another trial, and still another and another until -our destiny is accomplished. Therefore it is that doing our best should -be our religion, as it is nature’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</span> religion. It is the only road we -can take which leads to the goal at which we must arrive, sooner or -later. It is the price each soul must pay who would be saved. Instead -of that, most of us have gone about hunting happiness on a childish -plane, and making a great plaint, when we didn’t find it. ’Twould be -laughable, were it not so pitiful.”</p> - -<p>“Isn’t it plain enough,” said Bardell, “that if a wholesome civic and -social spirit prevailed, we should be sufficiently enlightened to find -our reward in doing our best, whether it were to raise potatoes, polish -door knobs or paint pictures. All great men and women who have helped -humankind have done so. They gave their best and nothing less, even -when the world did not want it, and stoned them for it. They had a far -greater reward than human appreciation. They grew to heroic, mental and -spiritual stature. If Jesus of Nazareth had not given the best that was -in Him, even at the cost of crucifixion, He could not have been the -light of the world.</p> - -<p>“How would it be with the world to-day, if all the great spirits that -make up the enlightened minority, had merely jogged on doing something -that secured the necessities of the body, rather than run any risk -of being short of bread by pointing to a new road? The soul must follow -its best light, taking no thought for the result. I shall do that -henceforth.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</span></p> - -<p>“I rejoice in your emancipation,” Cartice said, looking at him with -glowing eyes. “I begin to see what it means to be born again. May it -not be to awaken a knowledge of our own being, value and work?”</p> - -<p>Bardell bade her good-bye with the seriousness of one going on a long -journey. When he was gone a new sense of loneliness came over her. It -was because he already had started up the mountain, leaving her still -in the vale.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.<br><span class="small">THE JOYS.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Why went that young life out</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">On honor’s perilous road?</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The carping tongue and the jealous mind</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Stay here to wound and goad.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“A picture once I saw—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Three crosses against the sky!</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the heaviest cross was the highest one;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Perhaps that answers why.”</span><br> -</p> - - -<p>Mrs. Doring was surprised and delighted at receiving a visit from the -Joys one evening. Having parted with everything that goes by the name -of property, they had come to New York to seek fortune on the dramatic -stage, both having talent and taste for mimic art. As joyful as ever, -they met their changed fortunes with their old-time merry laugh. Their -two children were in an excellent school, and the business now in hand -was seeking a chance to earn the money necessary to keep the machinery -of life moving for them all.</p> - -<p>“Our time for looking about is somewhat limited,” said Burton, with -cheery humor, “as the cash box is not overflowing.”</p> - -<p>“We shall find something,” said Lilla, with calm assurance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</span></p> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">Must</span>,” said Mrs. Doring. “Must is a magnet. What we must -have, we always get.”</p> - -<p>The difficult search began at once in dead earnest. Thousands had -walked the rough road before them, some of whom had found foothold, but -others by scores and hundreds had gone down in the city’s remorseless -maelstrom. It was like being wrecked in mid-ocean. Some managed to -seize a plank and keep afloat. Some spent their strength and sank -early. Others buffeted the waves long and bravely, only to go down at -last, a pitiful, a woful, a heart-breaking spectacle.</p> - -<p>The animal known as the dramatic agent was an unknown quantity to -the Joys, hence they were not prepared for his peculiar antics. -Snubs, insults and sneers rained down upon them. Still they kept -on and still they wore cheerful faces, still the sunshine of their -hearts was unclouded—the heavenly sunshine that was rated as mere -empty-headedness by duller, coarser souls.</p> - -<p>Days and weeks rolled on, for “time carries no anchor,” until the money -that constituted their plank on the city’s rough ocean was gone.</p> - -<p>When talking with Cartice one evening, Lilla Joy said: “If we did not -<em>know</em> that we outlast death and have endless life before us, -Burton and I would end our troubles and our children’s too, perhaps. It -would require less courage than we need for one day of life now. But we -<em>know</em> that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</span> we can’t kill ourselves, however much we might try -because there is no death. In spite of bullets, knives, poisons and -rivers, we should still be alive, wondering, no doubt, why we were so -blind as to think we could destroy that which is indestructible. No; -our salvation must be worked out clear to the end, uncomplainingly. We -are here to learn, and must stay until we are ready to go higher. At -the longest, our probation is short, and it means so much to us. We -are building the edifice of character, which is to last for all time. -This little chapter of existence is but a day in the great cycle. No; I -shall not give up; I shall never despair, let come what may.”</p> - -<p>Day succeeded day, but no brighter outlook opened, yet never were they -seen with a cloud on their faces. Though their purses were empty, -friendship and compassion kept away bitter need, and their spirits were -sweet enough to accept the goods the gods sent without letting their -pride be wounded. It needs a sweeter spirit to receive than to give.</p> - -<p>At last a foothold on the stage was gained for both—an opportunity -more likely to increase humility than foster vanity, but they accepted -it thankfully, and it led on to better things.</p> - -<p>All went well for a time; but one day a telegram came announcing the -dangerous illness of their children, who had fallen victims to an -epidemic. They went at once. The children<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</span> died, and a few days later -their father also closed his eyes to this world.</p> - -<p>Lilla returned to New York to go on with the grim business of life. -Was the joy gone from her face? No; it was still there, softened, -heightened and illumined by a new and holy light.</p> - -<p>“Dear friend,” she said, as she and Cartice talked together on the -evening of her return, “there are three new graves in the old cemetery -at home, but they do not hold my husband and children. That which each -contains is an unreality, a thing never destined to endure,—a garment -which the real being wore to make itself seen by our dim eyes. Alice -Carey has described it well:</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though you wore something earthly about you</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which once we called you—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A robe all transparent and brightened</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With the soul shining through.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But when you had dropped it in going—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">’Twas but yours for a day—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Safe back in the bosom of Nature,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We laid it away.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Strewing over it odorous blossoms,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Their perfume to shed:</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But you never were buried beneath them,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And never were dead.</span><br> -</p> - -<p>“Friends say that I am left alone; but it is not true. I am never -alone. There is no separation for those whom love unites. We are one -in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</span> the universal spirit of love—God. Did not one friend beyond -the grave tell us that every death is a resurrection? Is not the -stone already rolled away from every sepulchre? Would I call my dear -ones back to face the cruel conditions of life here? No, a thousand -times no. When I looked at the dead face of my husband, so calm, and -profoundly at peace with everything, I said ‘My love, my dear love, -heart of my heart and soul of my soul, love of my youth and companion -of my spirit forevermore, I thank God that the hard things of the -world can hurt you no more.’ The cruelest pang poverty has given me -was seeing him bear humiliation and insult in silence, with heavenly -patience. Poverty for oneself is bad enough, but when we see those we -love suffer because of it, we know exquisite anguish. I can make the -fight alone, and it is better so. He is safe. That will sustain me.</p> - -<p>“And my children; they, too, are safe. It is well with them. They are -not lost. All things we call lost are in the angels’ keeping.</p> - -<p>“I shall go on with my work, thankful for the chance, disagreeable as -much of it is, because of unavoidable contact with shallow, inferior -people. But my true life is away from it all, sacred and safe. There is -a reason beyond my fathoming for my being what and where I am. It is -all right—all wisely directed, and I shall go on, not sullenly, but in -patience and hope. My faith is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</span> that all is well. I must live it and -not simply talk it.”</p> - -<p>Looking at Lilla’s beautiful face, brightened with the radiance of -belief, Cartice Doring knew that one by one she was finding her -people—the people whom she dimly remembered as having been a part -of her life in the remote past, and who were linked by the ties of -sympathy and love to the present and all the endless future.</p> - -<p>Her own people,—the faithful, the heroic, the aspiring, the -wide-minded, the loving, the true.</p> - -<p>Lilla was one of them—Lilla of the light heart and rippling laugh in -days gone by; and of the sturdy soul and dauntless faith in sorrow and -misfortune.</p> - -<p>Now Cartice saw that her own people all became acquainted with -suffering, sooner or later, and that this was the greatest of teachers -to the human race. Without suffering nothing is born, nothing grows.</p> - -<p>“Who are these in white garments?” asked the saint of the heavenly -visions.</p> - -<p>“They are those who have passed through great tribulation,” was the -answer.</p> - -<p>In fancy she saw again the long procession, made up of her people. Out -of the dim and far distant past they came, filing steadily on into -the unseen, endless future. In each spirit burned the quenchless fire -we name genius; on each face were signs of suffering; “but no voice -uttered<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</span> plaints.” Not all were victors. Many were of the baffled and -beaten, the disappointed and defeated, but they went to the wall with -unbent head and silent, smiling lips.</p> - -<p>“My people, my dear people,” she said, “with you I breathe the air -native to my soul. You sought the truth, you found it, you lived it, -and it made you free.”</p> - -<p>What is truth? Who can answer the Roman governor’s question? In the -Syriac tongue it is described as “the arrow which flies to the mark.” -Nothing else reaches the mark. Nothing else has a mark. Life has no -other aim and end than to free oneself from error, through a knowledge -of truth. This is the only power that can set us free, and only in -freedom is happiness.</p> - -<p>But with most people the search is not for truth but success—success -on the commonplace, external plane—which is the very negation of moral -growth and spiritual progress. High minds, dedicated to noble ideals -are few, but mediocres are numerous.</p> - -<p>“When we have escaped from the region of mediocrity we revel in a purer -atmosphere, where we may join hands with the elect and dance a round,” -said Marie Bashkirtseff, one of the youngest, bravest and brightest of -the elect.</p> - -<p>The mediocre mass is an aggregation of self-enslaved minds, against -whose self-satisfied stupidity the gods themselves are powerless.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.<br><span class="small">PEOPLE OF THE PAST.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Here sits he, shaping wings to fly:</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His heart forebodes a mystery;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He names the name eternity.”—<i>Tennyson.</i></span><br> -</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“What birth is, that also is death; it is the same line drawn in two -directions.”—<i>Schopenhauer.</i></p> -</div> - - -<p>One evening at the house of a famous orator Mrs. Doring saw a face with -which she had been familiar since childhood, yet never before had she -seen it outside of the enchanted realm of imagination.</p> - -<p>It was a woman’s face, strong, noble, beautiful, and the eyes, the -brown eyes of it, had in them a compassion that embraced the whole -human race.</p> - -<p>Cartice looked upon it with an all-compelling fascination, for it was -the face of one of her own people—the very dearest one—the Helen of -her young dreams, to whom she used to tell her hopes and yearnings, and -who always understood, and gave sympathy and cheer.</p> - -<p>How often had she pictured that face on paper, trying to make objective -what she saw clearly with her subjective sight, but how impossible it -had ever been to give the eyes the direct, comprehensive, compassionate -glow that distinguished<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</span> them,—the light of the soul itself, which -went straight to other souls!</p> - -<p>She would not ask the name lest it prove to be one below her ideal. She -hardly dared look away lest the precious vision vanish, while her eyes -were turned aside. No; it were better to hold the glad fancy as long as -possible. “Do you know Helen Gardener?” asked a voice at her side.</p> - -<p>She turned to the speaker, dazed and scarcely understanding.</p> - -<p>“Whom?”</p> - -<p>“Helen Gardener, the author,—that lady you were looking at just now. -Like Huxley and some of the more humble of us she believes that the -main thing is to have done with lying.”</p> - -<p>“Then she is my Helen,” thought Cartice. “How remarkable, too, that she -has the very same name I gave her.”</p> - -<p>“Come, Mrs. Doring,” said her friend, “I want to have you meet her. I -fancy you two will be pleased with each other.”</p> - -<p>When Cartice found herself talking with the incarnation of one of her -ideal people of long ago, she had a flash of knowledge of the oneness, -inseparableness and unchangeableness of all things past, present and -future.</p> - -<p>Did her new-found, old-time friend recognize her? It would seem so, for -she was strongly attracted to Cartice from the first moment.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</span></p> - -<p>The question under discussion in the little group of whom she was one, -was whether art, especially the art of fiction, should exist for art’s -sake only—that is to give pleasure—or should it also aim to instruct.</p> - -<p>“I believe,” said Helen Gardener, “and have lived up to my belief, that -fiction which merely entertains, and carefully steers clear of the deep -and often dark problems that face all thoughtful minds is pernicious -in its effect. The literature of the optimist is the literature of -shallowness and selfishness, a bid for surface appreciation, an appeal -to a light and superficial taste. Life is tragic. If it be represented -in fiction, let the picture be true to nature. The novel should be a -tonic, not an opiate. What think you, Mrs. Doring?”</p> - -<p>“Like Goethe and Schiller I think art ‘no luxury of leisure, no mere -amusement to charm the idle nor relax the care-worn; but a mighty -influence, serious in its aims, although pleasurable in its means.’ The -advocates of art for art’s sake, say that its object is the creation -of the beautiful. What is the beautiful? Is it that which pleases the -eye only, or has it power to thrill the soul? The great novels have all -carried great messages. They have shaken the hearts of men and aroused -them to new knowledge; they have broken the bonds of prejudice, and set -the bondsmen free. They have effected a movement of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</span> the thought-world -in the direction of ‘that far-off, divine event toward which the whole -creation moves.’ They have spoken the truth as their authors beheld it.”</p> - -<p>Helen Gardener’s brown eyes glowed and she smiled affectionately, -saying:</p> - -<p>“You and I belong to the same ethical family, Mrs. Doring.”</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>That night as she lay down to sleep, Cartice half persuaded herself -that she was again a child, day-dreaming under the elm tree, the world -unknown and still idealized, and the years that lay between that time -and the present obliterated.</p> - -<p>“Do I wish it were so?” she asked herself.</p> - -<p>“No. I am glad so much of the journey has been accomplished. The future -is always better than the past. It has in it that which we are to -become, for life is endless becoming.”</p> - -<p>Cartice and the new-found Helen became warm friends; but not till their -friendship had stood the test of time did Cartice tell her how the -creative power we call imagination had found her years before.</p> - -<p>Quite as unexpectedly did Mrs. Doring one day meet the stranger to whom -she had confided her ambitions and dreams under the elm tree long ago. -She recognized him instantly, though of course he did not know her.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</span></p> - -<p>The great world knew him well. The bauble fame, and the jewel of -success were his.</p> - -<p>It was he who had sung:</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“I’d rather fail in Bohemia, than win in another land.</span><br> -</p> -<hr class="tb"> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Its honors not garnered by thrift or trade,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But for beauty and truth men’s souls have made.”</span><br> -</p> - -<p>When she made herself known to him, his first question was, “Have you -found your own people?”</p> - -<p>“A few,” she answered, “a faithful few; but the search goes on forever.”</p> - -<p>In a little while he went away—went into the silence.</p> - -<p>Still another picture of the past came and blended with the present.</p> - -<p>In the parlors of a friend one evening, Mrs. Doring met a number of -the most eminent women from all parts of the country, who work for -the political liberty of their sex. There had been a convention in -Washington, and many of the delegates were “doing” New York before -returning home.</p> - -<p>A lady from what then was a territory, but is now a state, charmingly -told some of her experiences in laboring with members of her -legislature. She mentioned name after name, relating various incidents, -some humorous, and some exciting compassion on account of their -revelation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</span> of the depths of ignorance in certain legislative minds.</p> - -<p>“After several encounters with darkened minds of the class I have just -mentioned,” said the speaker, “it was a pleasure to have a chat with -Representative Kendall. We knew well where he stood, for throughout -his career, as editor and lawmaker, he has distinguished himself as -the staunch friend of every movement that promised to help women win a -greater freedom and therefore gain a greater usefulness.</p> - -<p>“Once I asked him how it was that he who had appreciated women -personally so little as never to have married one, was yet so loyal a -supporter of them in the aggregate that he cheerfully put his shoulder -to the wheel of every cart which carried their burdens.</p> - -<p>“‘Now that,’ said he, with a boyish laugh and sunny smile, ‘has its -root in a bit of sentiment; but I don’t deny that it has grown into a -principle. The only woman I found indispensable to me found me very -dispensable to her. Through that experience I learned that love, -if it be genuine, can rise higher than possession. She was of your -emancipated; that is, she made a place for herself in the world, and -leaned on no one. Her life showed me that woman could grow to heroic -mental stature, if she would think, work and act for herself. The one -of whom I speak requested me to do what I could<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</span> all my life to make it -easier for women to get out of their dependent condition. I have done -so and have found pleasure in it. She is in the world somewhere, still, -and I feel that everything I do for women helps her. That’s my story. -Take it and use it, if you wish, as an example of how the monster man -can be humanized and regenerated by a woman who neither loved him nor -married him.’</p> - -<p>“‘Whatever good I may have done, whatever I have achieved in any -praiseworthy direction, I owe to that woman. But for her wholesome -encouragement, if living at all, I should be still a clerk at some more -prosperous man’s desk, withered in spirit and wasted in body, and with -no brains at all. It used to be quite the correct thing, in stories, -for good women to marry rakish fellows, and ‘make men of them,’ as the -phrase had it. I am now convinced they achieve that result far quicker, -when they don’t marry them, whether rakish or otherwise, but make them -stand on their own feet entirely.’”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Doring listened to this story, feeling very much as might a ghost -who comes wandering back to its old haunts and hears some one talking -of its life when on earth, for this Kendall was her old lover whom -she loved not and she was the woman of whom he spoke. Turning to the -writing desk of her hostess, she wrote:</p> - -<p>“Cartice Hill Doring sends regards to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</span> Honorable Charles Kendall. -It is with grateful pleasure she learns that he has been faithful to -the promise made to her long ago, to do what he could to make life -broader and freer for womankind.”</p> - -<p>The response was prompt and full. He told the story of his life from -the day of their parting to the day of writing. Then came these -paragraphs:</p> - -<p>“I am more than glad to have found you again. Not that I ever really -lost you, for you have an eternal abiding-place in my mind and heart. -Though I have forgotten much and wish I could forget still more of -the rubbish of memory, neither you nor aught pertaining to you can -be forgotten. You are not forgettable. But I am glad to be able to -talk with you once more, although it be only on paper and across a -continent. For me the end of the drama is near. I am in the last act, -which has but few scenes. Life and death! what are they? We know as -much of one as of the other, for we understand neither. We drop the -question of whence because the imminent whither faces us and must be -met, and dark enough it looms before us as we confront it at short -range. Who can answer this cry of perplexed humanity?</p> - -<p>“I turn to you as I did in the past, and bade you decide whether I -should go or stay. Now I have no choice but to go; yet tell me, shall I -go<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</span> with peace and trust into light, or must I lie down to be wrapped -in darkness and silence forever? It is a time when my own strength is -insufficient, and I reach out for the clasp of an assuring hand.</p> - -<p>“Is it strange that I turn to you for the help I need on this journey, -which, though lonesome, is brief? It seems a natural thing to do. In -all the years since I saw you, and have known nothing of you, when -the way was uncertain, I always turned to you for guidance. I said to -myself: ‘Would Cartice Hill wish me to do this?’ And I did that which -I thought you would sanction. So you see you have been with me all the -time. We have never been separated.</p> - -<p>“To me you are always young—young and full of courage and hope. I -see you as I saw you last, a precious picture in my memory. The years -that have passed since then are blown like a breath away. I am sitting -beside you in the park again. I can almost touch your blue dress, and -I hear the scratching of your parasol as you wrote with its tip on the -ground.</p> - -<p>“The disease that was incipient in me in youth has been bravely baffled -by this climate. I sometimes think it is the insidious agent that will -ultimately destroy the human race. The end must come, however, even -here, and I see that it is coming.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</span></p> - -<p>“So tell me what life has taught you about death, if anything. No -matter how hard and grim and fearsome the knowledge may be, I want to -know it. Strange that although we devote our lives to learning, and -many become vain of their acquirements, of this, the most important of -all subjects, nobody knows anything, and nobody cares to learn till -about to open the dread door.”</p> - -<p>This appeal Cartice answered by telling the story of her communion with -friends called dead, and she told this with a directness and simplicity -that went straight to the mark. To her it was clear enough that, if a -man die, he shall live again,—and shall grow, his growth depending -upon his aspirations. Genius itself has been described as a “faculty -for growth.” Being a citizen of the universe, man is destined to know -the universe as his native village. The form only changes. Death is not.</p> - -<p>To this Kendall wrote:</p> - -<p>“You have destroyed the last enemy for me. ‘Only the form changes.’ -Need we dread that? We may even be said to be used to it. We haven’t -the same bodies we began life with. They have changed in every -particular, again and again.</p> - -<p>“How extraordinary have been your privileges of learning those things -to which most of us<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</span> have been so blind. Why not write the story out -more fully and publish it? Since it has helped me, might it not help -others? But don’t put it into a newspaper. There it would take no -higher rank than the traditional, blood-curdling ghost-story. Make a -book of it. That will place it on its own feet, to stand or fall by its -merits.</p> - -<p>“Yes, tell your experiences with those who dwell in what we call -another world; in fact, however, another condition.</p> - -<p>“I have had an instinctive, though not unwavering belief that this life -was not the end of us—perhaps not the beginning; but I had my hours of -gloomy doubt. The old twaddle of an eternity of happiness made up of -harps and golden streets did not appeal to either my intelligence or -taste. Perhaps, it was a shade less attractive than annihilation.</p> - -<p>“Learning to grow and to do, that is what makes an immortality worth -having.</p> - -<p>“I have lived on good terms with my conscience, which is of an -old-fashioned cut, not from fear of hell or hope of heaven, but because -I am that sort of man. I could not do otherwise. Yet I wish I might -have learned what you tell me, earlier. I think it would have made the -ills of life here of less moment and might have enhanced its joys and -beauties.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</span></p> - -<p>“Who, understanding the philosophy of continued life as it has been -revealed to you, could fail to try and acquire some of the capital, -thieves cannot steal, with which to begin the larger life that opens -to us, when we pass the gates of death? It is helping me to make my -remaining time of more value.</p> - -<p>“You have influenced me as no other person has done ever since I knew -you. Now you light the road out of the world for me. I begin to see -that there are no accidents.</p> - -<p>“Let who will write the shallow tales that reach no farther than the -wedding-day. Write you the wonderful story of the love of God, as ’twas -told you by those who have tasted death and found it not bitter—tell -how this love encompasses and pervades everything in the universe, -conserving all and destroying nothing. Tell of the happiness destined -for the soul of man, which consists in endless unfolding. Tell all this -as simply and directly as you have told it to me, and you will inspire -the doubting and cheer the despairing.”</p> - -<p>To which Cartice replied: “In an old book it is written, ‘Though one -returned from the dead, they would not believe.’”</p> - -<p>Kendall wrote: “In the same book it is written, ‘Let your light shine.’”</p> - -<p>That night she sat down to write the first chapter of the book, but -instead wrote this:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</span></p> - - -<h3>HIS MESSAGE.</h3> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He came, my dead love, at the close of the day,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Though the earth had long covered his garments of clay.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">His face glowed with light and with love as he smil’d</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And spoke in the voice that my heart had beguil’d—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The beautiful voice that my heart had beguil’d.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“You have wondered, my darling, what soul was the one</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">To first greet me with love when my dying was done—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">When I woke from the slumber that stretches between</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The flesh-and-blood world and the kingdom unseen—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The world that you see and the kingdom unseen.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Know then that the spirit, earth’s veil cast away,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sees only the true in that radiant day.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">He who first o’er my spirit, newborn, bent and smiled,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Was the foe who had gone from me unreconciled—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">My foe who had gone from me unreconciled.”</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">So spake my dead love and then vanished away,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Like the mist of the valley when riseth the day.</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">But I know, since that moment, that hate is a dream</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From which the soul wakes when it crosses Death’s stream—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Awakes to love only, across that dark stream.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I know, too, that Death cannot change, cannot kill</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">E’en the person. My lover, though dead, loves me still;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For he came, as of old, and upon me he smil’d,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And spoke in the voice that my heart had beguil’d—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The beautiful voice that my heart had beguil’d.</span><br> -</p> - -<p>The book was begun. The writing of it was not an easy task in spite of -the writer’s warm interest in her theme. Little snatches of time, after -the daily grind at her editorial desk was over, were all she could -devote to it. Often she was too tired to write a line until she had -rested<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</span> hours. Then, perhaps, to make up for such indulgence, she wrote -far into the night—wrote as though bayonets were pressing her—wrote -with no thought of publisher or public in mind. The truth, to write -the truth, as it was revealed to her, this was her inspiration, her -strength, her reward.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.<br><span class="small">THE BUTTERFLY’S FLIGHT.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“The Knight of the Pale Horse, he laid</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">His shadowy lance against the spell,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">That hid her Self: As if afraid,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">The cruel blackness shrank and fell.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Then, lifting slow her pleasant sleep,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">He took her with him through the night,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And swam a river cold and deep</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And vanished up an awful height.”</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">—<i>S. M. B. Piatt.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>Some time, it may be, before the world is very much older, we shall -know well what now we but dimly discern, that thought is the substance -and will the operating force of the universe, and that both are -electric.</p> - -<p>Then shall we understand the irresistible powers of attraction which -thought has for kindred thought; and we shall know why we seek -eternally our own kind of people, consciously or unconsciously, and -never know rest for the spirit until we find them, for only with them -is to be had the life-giving, soul-sustaining quality of sympathy, -through whose vibrations the universe was formed and is maintained.</p> - -<p>In obedience to this law of attraction Cartice Doring continued to -search for persons awake to the joyful fact that there is no death, so -she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</span> might learn more of the laws which govern communion between life -here and beyond. She found believers, but because of the various fads -and diversified foolishness with which they frequently garnished their -belief they were of slight help to her.</p> - -<p>Each gave his faith a name that revealed the fence he had built around -his mind, though he condemned all other fences. Some preached against -the phenomena of the spiritual philosophy and secretly reveled in it.</p> - -<p>And there were the theosophists, who, as <abbr title="mister">Mr.</abbr> Stead says, can always -explain everything. From the proud eminence of their omniscience many -of them looked down on plain spiritualists, and advised against showing -any civility to spirits. Yet they patronized mediums and astrologers on -the sly, and frequently produced a little of the phenomena themselves, -merely to show their occult power.</p> - -<p>Among these and sometimes outside the sacred pale, were -reincarnationists who make the plausible and beautiful theory of -progression through an eternity of existences distasteful and tiresome -by their “memories” of past human experiences. They had been princes of -high degree, invariably, never paupers or criminals. Napoleons, Cæsars, -Mahomets, Cleopatras and Sapphos were wearisomely plentiful; but -humbler types were rare. Many were so busy feeding their vanity with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</span> -these romantic hallucinations they had no time to learn anything useful.</p> - -<p>Hypnotists were numerous, many of them claiming that their particular -science accounted for everything under the sun.</p> - -<p>Then there were many who declared that in all the universe there is but -good; but they fell into factions represented by different leaders, and -fought many and many a bitter bout to prove it.</p> - -<p>It was enough to make one cry out in anguish, “Where can wisdom be -found? And where is the place of understanding?”</p> - -<p>Yet it had its hopeful side. It showed that many were thinking, and, -though thought took different trends, all roads eventually lead to the -truth.</p> - -<p>Letters came often from Chrissalyn, but they contained no messages -from friends invisible, for she never gave them an opportunity to say -anything, after Cartice went away. She was afraid. Sometimes a picture -or vision flashed before her, in spite of her avoidance of everything -of the kind. If it pertained to her friend she told her; but that was -all.</p> - -<p>Six years had passed with never a sight of the Butterfly’s beloved -face, and never a word from the dear people of the unseen world. -Cartice had felt their presence often, and knew that they were -faithful; but she was hungry for a word from them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[Pg 334]</span></p> - -<p>Now came a letter from Chrissalyn begging her to spend some weeks with -her. It was a particularly girlish and extravagant letter, almost a -photograph of the mind of the unregenerate Butterfly of old. She knew a -delightful little summer resort where they could go and be out of the -sight and sound of work and care of every hue. She had set her heart -upon it.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Arranging for a leave of absence Mrs. Doring soon was on her way. She -found her friend in extraordinarily good spirits, and their reunion was -of a school-girlish order of delight.</p> - -<p>After a few hours the years of their separation seemed never to have -been. We have all had this experience and wondered at it. After long -absence we come back to a familiar spot, and in a little while find it -difficult to persuade ourselves that we have ever been away. Perhaps -this is a proof that to the true self there is neither separation nor -distance, nor past nor future. All is near and all is now.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>The Butterfly had a new assortment of radiant wings—otherwise -garments—ready to spread gaily at the springs. One by one she -displayed them with childish pleasure, for personal adornment had ever -been her fetich.</p> - -<p>“As we get on a little in years,” she said, “all we can do to head off -the enemy, Age, is to make<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[Pg 335]</span> believe we ignore him. Extra paint and -feathers are necessary. I’ve had it flung in my face that I’m not so -young as I was, but I won’t admit it. Anyhow I’m still young enough to -excite envy and jealousy.”</p> - -<p>Here she laughed with diabolical pleasure.</p> - -<p>“I intend to make the best of this world and stay in it as long -as I can, notwithstanding it’s no paradise. But I have lost some -illusions in regard to it. For instance, that of my own irresistible -attractiveness. I can draw moths yet, but formerly I thought I could -attract men, providing I ever encountered such beings.”</p> - -<p>Again, night after night, Chrissalyn sat as of old, calling up for her -friend’s delight the unseen people who were always ready to respond.</p> - -<p>When Cartice spoke of the long time that had passed with never a word -from one of them, Moreau said:</p> - -<p>“No time has passed. There is no time. To the spirit a thousand years -are as one day.”</p> - -<p>The last evening in the city came. They were to start for the springs -early next day. The luggage was carefully packed and so their minds -were easy on that score. When they went upstairs the house was -perfectly still, all save themselves being asleep.</p> - -<p>They sat down in Chrissalyn’s room to chat. Cartice thought she never -had seen the Butterfly look so young, so beautiful, so hopeful, so -happy.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[Pg 336]</span></p> - -<p>Preparing the table for Planchette they eagerly awaited the messages -that would surely come over that inexplicable telephone.</p> - -<p>Now something passing strange occurred. From the empty air beside them -music burst forth—music the like of which they had never heard—music -made by instruments unknown to them, but of unearthly sweetness, with -power to thrill to the depths of their being.</p> - -<p>Awed and amazed the two friends looked at each other, in silence. Then, -as its heavenly sweet vibrations shook their souls, the tears ran from -their eyes, they knew not why.</p> - -<p>Again and again the unseen musicians made marvelous melody for the -two enchanted listeners. Sometimes the chords were plaintively sad, -sometimes joyous, but always penetrating the deepest recesses of -being, the inner sanctuary where poetry and dreams have their high and -heavenly dwelling-place.</p> - -<p>The two entranced listeners sat facing each other, lost in the -delicious spell of the melody.</p> - -<p>Suddenly an electric breeze enveloped Cartice, sending over her that -creepy thrill we are all familiar with, which resembles fear, but -is not fear. There, before her eyes, just back of Chrissalyn, stood -Prescott, looking exactly the same as when with them in material form. -Somehow she was made to understand that she must not cry out—nor tell -Chriss that he was there. Spellbound<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[Pg 337]</span> and silent she watched him. He -laid his hand on the Butterfly’s shining head, smiled and spoke. She -saw his lips move, and the glitter of his teeth, but heard no sound, -understood no word. Then, while her eyes were still upon him, he -vanished.</p> - -<p>“You look very pale, Cartice. Are you frightened?” Chrissalyn asked, as -the music ceased.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Doring shook her head, for her tongue, dry and powerless, was no -longer a willing servant.</p> - -<p>The music came back no more. After talking of the wonderful phenomenon -awhile, they bade each other good-night and parted.</p> - -<p>Cartice could not sleep. The strange events of the evening drove away -repose. Again and again she recalled the expression on Prescott’s face, -trying to translate it into words, but in vain. Only one thing was -plain. It was something pertaining to the Butterfly, and he didn’t want -her to know it.</p> - -<p>After hours of wakefulness she slept and dreamed. She and Chrissalyn -were dancing in a great and fantastic company. Everybody else wore -masks, but their faces were uncovered. Chrissalyn was the partner of a -graceful knight in black velvet who whirled her on and on, endlessly. -At last they rose into the air together, and Chriss became a veritable -butterfly, with beautiful silvery wings. The knight also developed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[Pg 338]</span> -wings, but they were black, like his garments.</p> - -<p>Cartice called to her friend to come down, but she only laughed and -rose higher, and finally flew out of sight. With a wildly beating heart -Cartice awoke.</p> - -<p>Rising, she dressed for the journey. Knocking on Chrissalyn’s door, she -received no answer. Then she called her, and with light and jesting -words bade her make haste.</p> - -<p>Still no answer. Opening the door she entered, but started back with a -cry whose thrill of horror went to the heart like a knife.</p> - -<p>The Butterfly had, indeed, spread silvery wings and flown, for there -lay her chrysalis, cold, white and pulseless. The black knight of death -had taken her out of sight. The delicate, long-ailing lungs had given -way, and the inevitable end had come. She who loved the world and its -foolish, fleeting pleasures had gone suddenly out of it. Whither?</p> - -<p>It was a sad heart that Mrs. Doring carried back to New York, in spite -of her knowledge that the Butterfly had but spread her wings.</p> - -<p>Sometimes in the darkness and silence of night she talked aloud to her -vanished, yet ever-present, friend.</p> - -<p>“Where are you, Butterfly? Can you hear me and see me? Do you know how -heavy is my heart sometimes? And are you happy in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[Pg 339]</span> your new world? Is -life more beautiful, more perfect there? And do you love me still?”</p> - -<p>No voice replied, but the light, caressing, electric touches came -sometimes, and the stricken heart was comforted.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[Pg 340]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.<br><span class="small">THE PROP THAT FAILED.</span></h2></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought,” he said, and the tale -is still to run.</p> - -<p>“By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer—what have ye -done?”—<i>Rudyard Kipling.</i></p> -</div> - - -<p>Two years passed, and Mrs. Doring still sat at her editorial desk. -Farnsworth had been the kindest and most considerate of employers. -The envious said no woman ever had an easier situation. They raised -their eyebrows, when they said this, implying the usual sentimental -insinuations; but they were mistaken. Farnsworth’s regard for Cartice -had no sentimental coloring whatever. He admired her ability and -delighted in giving her a chance, and making that chance as pleasant as -possible, having views on the unfair, industrial, political and social -rulings from which women suffer.</p> - -<p>He had come to New York, a talented struggler. Now he was a -millionaire, chief proprietor of a great publishing house, which had -become great under his management, and he loved to make the road a -little smoother for those less able and less fortunate.</p> - -<p>Cartice loved him, it is true; but not as the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[Pg 341]</span> common mind understands -the term. Sometimes her eyes grew moist, while she looked at him and -wished she might have a chance to prove her gratitude. He was to her -like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. In the weakness of -spirit ages have bred in her sex, she regarded him as a wall that stood -between her and possible calamity.</p> - -<p>“I need fear no financial disaster, while he lives,” she thought. “His -hand will be ever friendly; his heart ever kind.”</p> - -<p>Farnsworth was far above the average of men, but he had a serious -weakness of character that made curious comradeship with his better -attributes. Anybody, the least trustworthy, the most malicious, could -sow in him seeds of suspicion against his best friend, and in ten hours -they would be full-grown trees, loaded with bitter and baneful fruit. -When this happened his kindness vanished and he could be as cruel as -hate. His conscience fled the field, whenever his vanity was ruffled.</p> - -<p>Knowing this a woman poisoned his mind against Cartice Doring, by a few -lying words—a woman who believed it would be to her interest to get -Cartice out of her way. The seed sown sprouted, grew, blossomed and -bore fruit within twenty-four hours.</p> - -<p>The next day Cartice found a note of dismissal on her desk, the -curtness of which was incompatible<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[Pg 342]</span> with the pretensions of a -gentleman, if addressed to one merely in the capacity of employee. But -when the employee was a social equal, a faithful friend of years and a -lady, it showed a lack of self-control on the part of the writer seldom -surpassed.</p> - -<p>The tenor of it was that, as she was “not doing justice” to the work -entrusted to her care, her services were dispensed with. A check for -the whole of the unfinished week was enclosed.</p> - -<p>Cartice read the letter and sat like one frozen, and the -heart-breaking, unbearable look of long ago came again into her eyes.</p> - -<p>Every one who has received an unexpected, felling blow from the hand of -a friend can understand the blended astonishment and anguish of that -moment.</p> - -<p>She knew who had turned Farnsworth against her and why it had been -done, but that could not help the irremediableness of the situation. -She could not go to Farnsworth and mortify him by telling him this; and -she knew his implacable spirit too well to hope that he would so much -as allow her an audience. Serious as was the blow to her finances, its -worst effect was on her heart. Black and deep are the bruises made by -the hands we love.</p> - -<p>“I must not forget what I owe him for past kindness,” she said,—“must -not let this cruelty put hatred into my heart. I must forgive him,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[Pg 343]</span> for -he knows not what he does. Being a man, he cannot know how difficult -is life for a woman, under the existing order of things. Neither does -he know how often heretofore my heart has bled from cruelty; nor how I -have loved him; nor how weary and feeble I am much of the time.</p> - -<p>“No; he doesn’t know. Would any of us ever hurt another if we knew -all that other has to bear? Besides, it is better to be the victim of -injustice than the perpetrator of it. Ugly as is poverty, it is better -to endure it than to have the power which the possession of millions -confers and misuse it.</p> - -<p>“Poor Farnsworth,” she said. “Success has spoiled your naturally -beautiful soul.</p> - -<p>“The great destroyer of human conscience that goes by the name of -business permits you to put me out of your service in a summary and -humiliating manner, which puts me out of your life and friendship at -the same time, though moral right to treat another human being in this -way you have none. But the law of causality is ever operative, and you -cannot escape the consequences of your deeds. You will get back your -meed as you measure.</p> - -<p>“I accept your dismissal as part and parcel of the destiny I am working -out. Sooner or later every earthly prop on which I lean is taken from -me. Everything has a meaning and purpose. The lesson I have been slow -to learn is now plain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[Pg 344]</span> to me. It is that I must stand alone, and -so must every soul, somewhere, some time. Props are destroyers of -strength and character. In all the universe there is but one on which -we may lean without inviting weakness, and that is Eternal Being, the -background of all life.”</p> - -<p>Gathering up her little possessions from the place that had been -her official home for eight years, Mrs. Doring walked out of it -heavy-hearted and solitary. The rock from which she had expected -shelter had vanished from her horizon forever. More! It had never been -there, save in her imagination. It was an illusion from which now she -was free.</p> - -<p>Curiously enough we regret the loss of our illusions, yet we ought -to thank God fervently every time we get rid of one, for it means -that we are emerging from ignorance and darkness into light and -knowledge,—approaching nearer to the truth that shall make us free.</p> - -<p>On reaching home Mrs. Doring sat down to take a practical view of the -situation. For nearly twenty years had she worked faithfully, having -begun at seventeen. She had lived in modest comfort, and by dint of -self-denial had saved one thousand dollars. What man above mediocrity -would think that a fair recompense for half a lifetime’s work?</p> - -<p>A sudden cutting off like that is what any one may expect who has -given his or her time and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[Pg 345]</span> talents to the building up of another’s -business. It is the soul’s vengeance for not trusting it entirely, and -confidently following whithersoever it may lead.</p> - -<p>But there is something shamefully immoral in our business methods, when -an employee after years of faithful service can be flung out without -a chance for a word of defence. It is as though our father should -unexpectedly open the door of his home and bid us begone forever. And -is not our employer our business father, from whom we have a right to -expect consideration? Does he owe us nothing more than our weekly wage? -Must his relation to us be always measured only by dollars and cents?</p> - -<p>Among the letters Mrs. Doring took with her from the office unopened -was one from Bardell, now in Paris, famous and prosperous beyond his -dreams. Strange irony of fate that brought to her his glad story of -fresh successes on the day that carried defeat to her.</p> - -<p>With the superstition common to Bohemia Bardell considered Cartice his -mascot. His letters were always frank, friendly and charming. His last -words were: “Follow your ideals. They will lead you into freedom.”</p> - -<p>This reminded her of her book. It was finished long since; but the -writing was scarcely half the battle. It languished for want of a -publisher. Those to whom it had been submitted,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[Pg 346]</span> had returned it, one -and all, with the contempt, but thinly veiled with regrets, it had -excited in their infallible minds.</p> - -<p>One plainer spoken and less heavily veneered with the world’s polish -than the rest, said to her face:</p> - -<p>“Come now, Mrs. Doring, you mustn’t expect anybody to publish stuff -of that kind—digging into the meaning of life, higher methods of -evolution, ‘shall we live after we die?,’ ‘ultimate destiny of the -human race,’ and all such heavy timber. People take no interest in -these questions. What we want is a rattling good love-story, with -plenty of hugging and kissing in it. I like that in or out of a novel -myself. There must be some iron-clad obstructionists in it, too, cruel -parents or other able marplots, and the hero must get her in the last -chapter or sooner. Anything but a story that doesn’t end all right. The -public abhors it. Now, your book is loaded with high-up, mountain-peak -thought, and wouldn’t sell at all.”</p> - -<p>Another, with whom also, she had a personal interview, a young man -with extraordinary faith in his own wisdom, smiled as he returned her -manuscript, and made his smile so vocative it needed few accompanying -words. “It is, ah—you know, Mrs. Doring, so wide a departure from -the standard of art in fiction, that it might make even a publisher -ridiculous, to say nothing of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[Pg 347]</span> author. One must keep somewhere -within sight of the existing canons. This, if you will pardon me, flies -in the face of every one of them.”</p> - -<p>“I dare say,” answered Cartice. “I never troubled myself about the -existing canons. It is life as I know it that I have tried to portray; -not life as somebody else says it should be painted in books.”</p> - -<p>After a number of equally disheartening experiences, the book was -carefully laid aside to await the judgment day.</p> - -<p>Meantime these same publishing houses were exuding cart-loads of -marketable abominations, which were scattered in all directions, doing -their share in weakening the minds of their unfortunate readers. Life, -as depicted by them, was a mere sex-chase, more or less interrupted by -the usual difficulties, all of which was quite in accordance with the -“existing canons,” so much respected by the young man with the smile.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>Perhaps nothing gives us a lonelier feeling than to be cut off from -our field of daily activity, whatever it may have been. Cartice found -herself set back to the dreadful days of her beginning in New York. It -was as though she had gone steadily up a steep slope, to a respectable -height, only to be knocked violently to the bottom by the hand that was -helping her upward.</p> - -<p>“Had I developed the best that was in me—followed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[Pg 348]</span> my ideals”—she -said, “this could not have happened. In that case I should have stood -alone long since, leaning on no prop, depending on no person’s caprice. -Set-backs and knock-downs are our schoolmasters, and they are ever busy -with us until we learn our lessons.”</p> - -<p>A loneliness assailed her heart, poignant, sharp, deep. All her life -its resistless waves had at times rolled over her spirit,—a flood that -would not be stayed. It was that kind of loneliness that creates a -solitude which is not placed in a densely peopled universe.</p> - -<p>Then came the comforting reflection that we are never alone, never -solitary, however much we may seem to be, and never absolutely on our -own hands, in spite of appearances. About us are ever the spiritual -hosts, and back of us, within us and about us, the Supreme Self, to -which each is both inlet and outlet.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>On the evening of Mrs. Doring’s first day of idleness, Gabriel Norris -called to see her. For several years he had been a resident of New -York. In the worst of the thick mass of the miserables he had set up -his cobbler’s bench, and opened an adjoining reading-room; and there he -fished for the souls of men, in the great ocean of wretchedness whose -huge waves beat about his door.</p> - -<p>Cartice told him the story of her summary<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[Pg 349]</span> ejectment from the place -that she had so long occupied, and the various shifts that she had been -making in her mind for the future.</p> - -<p>“It’s a good thing,” he said, “when you don’t know just what to do, -not to do anything—to wait,—wait without worry or anxiety—wait and -trust. Unseen influences are ever at work on our destiny. We can hurry -nothing, change nothing. Rest for a time. You have been so busy most of -your life that you have had but little chance to get acquainted with -yourself. You have a little capital ahead; rest on that. New ideas come -in seasons of repose, for then the mind is receptive.”</p> - -<p>“That is what I had half-decided to do,” she answered, “though I am -still so much a slave to the old, erroneous belief that I carry myself -on my own shoulders, I scarcely could get my consent to it.”</p> - -<p>“And when you feel so disposed,” continued Gabriel, “come to my -reading-room and read a story or a poem to my sheep—‘my po’ los sheep -o’ de sheepfol,’ whom I try so hard to gather in. You may not know -it—you know yourself so little—but you have the most beautiful voice -I ever heard. Your reading, as well as your speech, is exquisite music. -‘The soul of man is audible, not visible,’ says Longfellow. ‘It reveals -itself in the voice. A sound alone betrays the flowing of the eternal -fountain.’”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[Pg 350]</span></p> - -<p>Anxiety and worry fell away from Cartice Doring soon as she determined -to rest and trust. A profound philosophic truth is here revealed. When -we trust, God Himself carries our burdens, and we are set free from -care. Trust is the essence, the vital principle of religion, which is -at heart a recognition of the divine intelligence within us, about us, -and is reflected by us,—the reality we call God.</p> - -<p>It was a joy to be the mistress of her own time, to know when she began -the day that she could do with it what she pleased. It was luxury to -sit at an open window and feel the air blow over her, and not be goaded -by any thought of duty undone. She went about the city and enjoyed its -treasures of art and beauty. She formed new friendships and cultivated -old ones. She read and, through sympathy, entered into, the lives and -feelings of authors and the people of their creation, as never before. -She became better acquainted with herself, and by that means with all -others. She went to Gabriel Norris’s unsectarian temple and helped him -feed his sheep. There the music of her beautiful voice called in many -a lost one. The bitter loneliness that shadowed her at times fled away -and troubled her no more. Her spirit came in sympathetic and loving -touch with others, with all that is, with the universal mind itself, -for this is the purpose of life, the union of the entire being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[Pg 351]</span> with -its original. This is the true freedom which is the destiny of the -human race. The individual self becomes one with the universal, and is -henceforth free from limitations, from restrictions, from bondage of -every kind. It exchanges its little circle of personal desires for the -great world-consciousness. Whosoever does this even in the most limited -degree puts care and trouble behind him.</p> - -<p>Thus it was that this truth which Cartice Doring had long theoretically -accepted, became a part of her being. She began to live it and be it, -for we only really accept truth when we are it. Her eyes lost the look -of suffering that lighted them at times with a moving and resistless -fire, and became trustful, hopeful, peaceful, like those of a happy -child.</p> - -<p>Difficulties and disappointments vanished and fear vexed her no more. -She was like those who have won all battles, put all troubles behind -them. She had the knowledge that within herself was power over all -temporal dragons; that her welfare depended on no man’s whim; that -there are no accidents; that He who slumbers not nor sleeps, is -“guiding each of His creatures in the current of an eternal purpose”; -that she was as indestructible as the universe, and as old, as young -and as deathless as its builder. She thought no more of happiness, -because blessedness had come into her life,—the blessedness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[Pg 352]</span> which -“consists in progress toward perfection.” In an undefined way she felt -herself approaching high summits, understanding that there is neither -high nor low, near nor far in the universe save in thought.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[Pg 353]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII.<br><span class="small">THE BOOK AND ITS CRITICS.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The tale is as old as the Eden Tree—and new as the new-cut tooth—</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For each man knows ere his lip-thatch grows he is master of Art and Truth;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And each man hears as the twilight nears, to the beat of his dying heart,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The Devil drum on the darkened pane: “You did it, but was it Art?”—<i>Rudyard Kipling.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>One day Mrs. Doring received a letter from a lawyer announcing -Kendall’s death, and advising her that by his will she was sole heir to -his property, which was valued at about twenty-five thousand dollars—a -fortune in Bohemia. A few lines from the testator were enclosed, the -last his hand penned. He had but one request to make in regard to the -disposition of it, and that was that she use part of it in bringing out -her book.</p> - -<p>“See,” she said to Lilla Joy, who had long lived with her in the little -flat, “how my trust is rewarded. Influences unseen were working for me -while I rested. Had I been a little wiser, I might have saved myself -much torment all my life. Worry hinders instead of helps, I believe it -is one of the forty deadly sins the Egyptians tried to avoid.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[Pg 354]</span></p> - -<p>With money to work with it was not difficult to find a publisher for -the book. It was a true tale, told in a simple, straightforward manner, -of life and its meaning, as its author understood them. The theme -of it was that life goes on after the change we call death, and is -inconceivably enlarged and ennobled for all who aspire.</p> - -<p>Such of the critics as worship plots and believe that the chief aim of -life in stories and out is to marry and be given in marriage, made it -the subject of very rough surgery.</p> - -<p>“It is a most unwholesome book,” said one. “Love and marriage are -scarcely mentioned in it. Some twaddle that pretends to come from -across the river of death is the only bait it has with which to angle -for the reader’s interest, a theme in which healthy minds will find no -attraction.”</p> - -<p>Death waits for every one that breathes, yet any light thereon is -“unwholesome and not attractive to healthy minds,” according to those -who tell us what we ought to read. Strange doctrine, but prevalent!</p> - -<p>Another said: “One more of those deplorable books that deal in the -supernatural and aim to make readers take a morbid interest in death. -Its author has no eyes for the thousand fresh themes of life, but must -needs delve into the darksome hereafter for material with which to -burden her absurd pages. Why should any one turn from the sweet theme -of love to wander in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[Pg 355]</span> paths so remote from taste and wholesome imagery -as this?”</p> - -<p>Some sneered at it, some ignored it and many abused it. Few had so -much as a tolerant word for it. Yet verily a mystery guideth the fate -of a book as well as the growing of a daisy, for “The Last Enemy” sold -astonishingly fast, and was read and talked about far and wide. In a -few months it was the best known book of the year, in spite of the -critics, and brought fame and money to its author, though too late, her -friends said.</p> - -<p>Is anything too late? Come not all things at their appointed time, -neither sooner nor later than they are due? In the divine drama of the -universe the curtain never falls until the play is finished. In our -short-sightedness we say our friend died too soon, or his good fortune -came too late; but we are in error. Everything is part of the eternal -plan, and to be out of time or place an impossibility.</p> - -<p>Never to Cartice Doring had life appeared so well worth living, nor -work so well worth doing. To Lilla Joy she said:</p> - -<p>“I am just beginning to live. I am learning what life means, what we -can make of it, and what I am. We are love.</p> - -<p>“We love because we cannot help it. It is our expression, and the -greater, wider and more all-inclusive our love, the fuller, larger, -more perfect<span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[Pg 356]</span> and more abundant is our life. How beautiful it all is! -How orderly and harmonious! How glorious!</p> - -<p>“Most of my life I have written down to the majority of readers. Now I -shall bring them up to me. I shall follow my ideals, as I did in ‘The -Last Enemy.’ Our ideals! What are they but our souls, trying to reveal -themselves to other souls. Here in this noble poem by Katherine Lee -Bates, the ideal speaks:</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“At the innermost core of thy being, I am a burning fire</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">From thine own altar-flame kindled, in the hour when souls aspire:</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For know that men’s prayers shall be answered, and guard thy spirit’s desire.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“That which thou wouldst be, thou must be; that which thou shalt be thou art;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">As the oak, astir in the acorn, the dull earth rendeth apart,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Lo, thou, the seed of thy longing, that breaketh, and waketh, the heart.</span><br> -</p> -<hr class="tb"> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">“Call me thy foe in thy passion; claim me in peace for thy friend:</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Yet bethink thee by lowland or upland, wherever thou willest to wend,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I am thine Angel of Judgment, mine eyes thou must meet in the end.”</span><br> -</p> - -<p>“I know that well, Lilla. Woe be to those who have outraged their ideal -on that day, when their souls shall meet it face to face. I have sinned -against mine, and have met its accusing eyes already. But now I have -begun my atonement, and am eager to go on with it. There is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[Pg 357]</span> joy in -creating what we wish to create—that means giving form to our ideals.”</p> - -<p>But Lilla was silent, wondering what ideals her friend would follow in -that country into which flesh and blood can never enter. In her eyes -Lilla saw the strange light that flames up only when the end of the -journey is near; and on her face, and in all that she said and did was -a hint of imminent change, plain to others, unseen by herself.</p> - -<p>In the Sanscrit is a story of one who asked what is the most wonderful -thing in the world. The answer is that every man should believe that -all shall die but himself. The reason of this is that he shall not die, -and his soul knows it.</p> - -<p>Remember this, you who see your beloved going down into what we call -Death’s Valley, serene, hopeful, unconscious of their doom. They are -wiser than you. They know they shall not die.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[Pg 358]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV.<br><span class="small">WHO ARE THEY?</span></h2></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“Who are they that are compelled to recommence the same existence?”</p> - -<p>“They who fail in the fulfilment of their mission, or in the endurance -of the trial appointed to them.”</p> - -<p class="poetry"> -—<i>Allan Kardec.</i><br> -</p> -</div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">If the red slayer think he slays,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Or if the slain think he is slain;</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">They little know the subtle ways</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 2em;">I keep and pass and turn again.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">—<i>Ralph Waldo Emerson.</i></span><br> -</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Personally I must confess to one small weakness. I cannot help -thinking that the souls toward whom we feel drawn in this life are -the very souls whom we knew and loved in a former life, and that -the souls who repel us here, we do not know why, are the souls that -earned our disapproval, the souls from whom we kept aloof in a former -life.<br>—<i>F. Max Müller.</i></p> -</div> - - -<p>Months on swift wing slipped away. Cartice’s pen was busy every day, -and every day she delighted more and more in her work, because she was -saying what she wished to say, was expressing herself fearlessly and -freely. New plans of action fairly rioted in her brain. Plans! When had -they ever worked for her?</p> - -<p>There are persons who mark out everything ahead, and Fate lets them -live their arrangements to the letter, but Cartice was not one of them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[Pg 359]</span></p> - -<p>The lamp of the spirit, which tells unutterable things, now burned in -her eyes, with an unearthly brightness, throwing its touching radiance -over all her words and deeds; but she did not understand. She alone saw -not the heavenly illumination.</p> - -<p>But one day the imminent change was made plain to her, though how she -never told. Coming to Lilla, with whitened face, and the old-time, -all-compelling appeal in her eyes, which neither man nor woman could -see without a bursting heart, she said:</p> - -<p>“I must soon leave you. It has been shown me and I understand.”</p> - -<p>Under the spell of the wordless pain in the glorious eyes, her heroic -friend flung her arms about her, crying, “Cartice! Cartice! My dear -one! I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it!” And together they wept tears -of such anguish as only the strong ever weep.</p> - -<p>For a few days the heart-breaking look continued in Cartice’s eyes; but -in the silence of the night help came from the great source, and she -got up one morning with peace shining in her face.</p> - -<p>“Often in the past,” she said to Lilla, “I have wished I could die -and be out of trouble. But now I want to live: now I know that dying -doesn’t put us out of trouble. We must grow out of it by evolving above -it, learning to master it.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[Pg 360]</span></p> - -<p>“Most of my life, as I look back upon it, seems to have been mere blind -groping. Now, when I think I have learned how to live, the business of -life is done. And I have learned how to work in a way that never would -meet failure; but that, too, is done.</p> - -<p>“And yet, in spite of the mystery and the grimness of it, something -tells me all is well; that nothing can be lost; that what I have -learned will be useful somewhere. Perhaps we are here for the purpose -of learning how to live and work. When that is accomplished, we must -go on and learn other things, and we can take no other road than the -one we have named Death, and painted black. But you and I know that it -leads into light, and, though we die, we shall continue to live, and -shall evolve, unfold and expand, even ‘it doth not yet appear what we -shall be.’</p> - -<p>“Yet knowing this—for we have knowledge, not simply belief—there -are moments when a childish terror seizes me. But why should I fear? -Millions have traveled the same road, the timid and faint-hearted as -well as the bold and brave, and all went forth alone. We say alone, -because we see no visible companions go with them; yet we know that no -one is ever alone, either here or on that inscrutable journey, or at -its end.</p> - -<p>“But notwithstanding all I have learned of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[Pg 361]</span> the life to follow this, I -cannot picture it—cannot form any clear idea of it. Nor can I realize -that life as I know it now must end. I try to think of the days to come -when I shall not be here, nor be anywhere as I am now, and when the -form through which I act will have vanished utterly from the face of -the earth, but I cannot! I cannot!</p> - -<p>“I am always I in consciousness, always existing, never dead, never -different. Is it not the mystery of mysteries?</p> - -<p>“I try to imagine a time when I may come here to our little home and -be unseen by you, unable to lift a book, flutter a curtain or speak -one word that you can hear; but I cannot. How inconceivable it is that -in a short time I shall be in a condition so different from this that -imagination itself cannot paint it!”</p> - -<p>Cartice awoke from sleep one day with a loud cry, a wail of terror that -went to the heart.</p> - -<p>“What is it, dear?” asked Lilla, bending over her.</p> - -<p>Her eyes wandered wildly around the room, and at last, reassured by a -sight of familiar objects, lost their look of affright.</p> - -<p>“It must have been a dream,” she said, “but so very real. I was lying -under the elm tree at home, as I so often did when a child; yet I was -as I am now. Close about me came a little company of people shining -like the sun. When they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[Pg 362]</span> were very near, I knew them to be people from -my planet—my own people, whom I remember well, and whom I saw in a -dream years ago. One, a woman, the most beautiful of all, had a face -so familiar I almost spoke her name; but I could not quite grasp it, -though she seemed very near and dear to me.</p> - -<p>“‘Your work is done,’ she said; and there was sadness in her voice, and -pity in her eyes.</p> - -<p>“‘Well done?’ I questioned, though with a sinking of the heart, for I -began to be afraid, I knew not why.</p> - -<p>“‘Did you always do your best?’ she asked.</p> - -<p>“‘No;’ I answered, conscience-smitten.</p> - -<p>“‘Then’—</p> - -<p>“I interrupted, for I could not bear to hear what I feared she would -say.</p> - -<p>“‘Who art thou, who look so pitiful and seem so dear, and whom I yet -fear?’ I asked.</p> - -<p>“‘I am thine Ideal—thine Angel of Judgment—who hath so often come to -thee and from whom thou hast almost as often turned away.’</p> - -<p>“‘But I serve you now,’ I cried. ‘I do my best. I have learned my -lesson.’</p> - -<p>“‘Yes, you have learned the lesson, and will do better next time,’ she -said, compassionately.</p> - -<p>“‘Next time?’ I echoed, trembling with fear.</p> - -<p>“‘Yes; next time, for you must come again and do it over and do it -right,’ she said, sternly.</p> - -<p>“Then I shrieked and awoke. O Lilla, now I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[Pg 363]</span> see, I know, I understand. -I must live my life again and live it better—must do my best all the -way through. I don’t want to—no; I don’t want to; but I must, and so -must all who fail to give their best—not as penalty, but because it is -the only way to learn, and to grow.</p> - -<p>“We have lived always; we shall live always. This is the foundation -rock upon which we build the indestructible temple, character. Victor -Hugo spoke of life as a fairy tale a thousand times written, and said -there was not an age in which he could not find his spirit. He believed -he would exist forever, inasmuch as he felt in his soul thousands of -songs, and dramas that never had found expression: He was sure he -should come again and give them life. I, too, feel within me numberless -tales untold which must be born somewhere. A great soul, like Hugo, may -voluntarily come again and again to help others; but a recreant dreamer -like me MUST come.</p> - -<p>“Years ago I had a dream that now I understand. It is my belief, as -you know, that every mortal has a soul-guardian—a being higher than -a spirit, a dweller in the land of souls, beyond the middle kingdom, -far away from the earth and its ties. This guardian gives us all the -experiences we have, because he sees their uses in our development. The -bitter cups we would fain have pass from us he resolutely holds to our<span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[Pg 364]</span> -lips, because he knows it is good for us to drink of them. Blessings -disguised as calamities and sorrows come from his hand, and all the -fires of anguish that scorch us are fanned by his breath.</p> - -<p>“I dreamed of this guardian angel. He was going with me through life, -or rather through a series of scenes or situations representing -different lives. I could talk to him, and hear him, but could not see -him. Of the many pictures that were shown to me I remembered only two -when morning came.</p> - -<p>“In the one which represented a life before this I was resting on -a rude couch, outdoors, near a blazing fire, in the midst of a -nauseating swamp. It was after night, and the light from the fire -played fantastically on dank little pools, rank tufts of grass, curious -plants, watery mosses and slimy roots.</p> - -<p>“Looking off into the swamp I saw a great mottled snake curled up in -a hollow, looking directly at me, malignity darting from his eyes. I -pointed him out to the people who were about me, and told them I would -kill him. But one and all urged me to let him alone, and predicted -serious trouble, if I disturbed him.</p> - -<p>“I answered that it was trouble to have him there, throwing hate upon -me with his eyes, and that, at least, I would give him a hint that his -presence was not desirable. So I got up and threw a stone at him. It -struck him straight on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[Pg 365]</span> his back, but rebounded as though it had met a -wall, without so much as bruising him, save in spirit. It enraged him -fearfully. He raised himself in the air perpendicularly till he stood -on his tail, and hatred flashed from his eyes in bright electric rays.</p> - -<p>“He did not stop at this, but hurled invective after invective at me in -plain English, and threatened me as a snake never threatened before. He -hissed, raved, cursed and glared at me, and swore that he would take it -out of me in slices scattered along a thousand years. In short, he made -me understand clearly enough that his principal business forever after -would be to make me wretched. So direful were his threats that I lay -down on my small bed quaking with terror, fearing either to sleep or -stay awake, and ‘none had power to protect me from mine enemy.’</p> - -<p>“To make it worse, the people about me said, ‘I told you so,’ and -sermonized on the matter. They said, ‘You can’t destroy hate with hate. -That increases it. That mottled fellow in the swamp is not the enemy -you have to dread. The cruelty you put out, when you threw a stone at -him, is your real enemy. It will come back to you through him, because -it is the law. He will trouble you far down the line. Your heart shall -bleed again and again, because of blows from hands you never injured; -but it will be but your own deed returning to you, and something of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[Pg 366]</span> -your mottled foe shall mark you, for many and many a day.’”</p> - -<p>(Lilla looked at the mottled eyes of her friend with a new interest, -wondering if the curious splashes of tawn had been flung there by her -ancient enemy.)</p> - -<p>“Now I understand why I have been treated cruelly often by the very -persons I loved and believed in. Somewhere I have earned it. Somewhere -I gave it forth, and it has come back a hundredfold, for good and bad -both multiply themselves on their return trips. Even Farnsworth’s -cruelty to me, which hurt me so much, was no doubt in accord with the -law of causality I had set in motion. But he, too, shall reap as he has -sown.</p> - -<p>“The other picture represented this life, I think. I was climbing a -hillside, accompanied by a little party of friends and attended by the -guardian of my soul, who beguiled the way by pleasant speech and cheery -good-will. At last we reached the top and found there an old-fashioned -inn, clean and comfortable, with bare white floors, big rooms, and -broad wooden sofas, that looked inviting to our tired bodies. Before -I entered, I looked to the west, and saw a scene of beauty never to -be forgotten. Sunlight, soft as moonlight, fell on fields of swaying -grain, on trees gay with blossoms and heavy with fruit at the same -time, on flowers whose perfume sweetened<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[Pg 367]</span> all the air, on birds whose -bright plumage dazzled the eye. I gazed spellbound. The very sky above -was new and strangely beautiful. Looking down, I saw what before I had -not noticed, that the hill was cut off close by my feet, and between me -and this lovely landscape yawned a bottomless ravine. Stretching forth -his hand and pointing to it, my guardian said, ‘Behold the promised -land! But you shall not enter in—not yet! No; you shall not enter in -until you come with the great seal in your hand.’ With one longing, -hungry glance at the paradise I was not yet ready to know, I turned and -went into the inn, longing for rest.</p> - -<p>“I have almost reached the inn. I have seen the promised land but have -not yet the great seal. After a rest in the inn—who knows,—perhaps I -can bridge the ravine.”</p> - -<p>Those last days—those precious last days, how beautiful they were!</p> - -<p>Northern forests put on a glory of gold and red after the frost has -touched them with its destroying hand, and the winter is near. Dying -suns diffuse a strange brightness, and the spirit of man, when passing -out of sight, often radiates a heavenly splendor.</p> - -<p>So it was that the soul of Cartice Doring never gave forth so much of -sweetness as in the last days of her stay here.</p> - -<p>“It is much to have learned one’s lesson,” she<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[Pg 368]</span> said. “Next time I -can begin in a higher class. So you see, after all, this life wasn’t -wasted. Yes, I have learned a little, and shall not find the road so -rough next time.</p> - -<p>“Would I could give others what I have learned.</p> - -<p>“I smile at my early idea of happiness, though it wasn’t unique at all, -but quite common—the ideal of all the undeveloped.</p> - -<p>“Now I know that happiness is a spiritual condition—spiritual -healthfulness—spiritual unfolding the heaven within one which comes -when self is forgotten and we see our oneness with all that is. It is -our unfolding, our growth or evolution into knowledge, truth and light.</p> - -<p>“It comes when we learn how to love,—when we see ourselves in every -other self, and the supreme self in everybody and everything.</p> - -<p>“What matter whether we call the great ocean in which we move and live -and have our being, God, soul, energy, force or thought, we are its -offspring or manifestation, and can never for one instant be separated -from it. We are because it is. And see how this divine principle ever -strives for our highest health and happiness. If I but cut my finger, -it miraculously heals the wound. Out of its boundless resources it -forms a new cuticle to cover the abrasion. If my spirit becomes sore -the same power brings to me from every side, the sympathy and love, the -spiritual sunshine and air which heal that too.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[Pg 369]</span></p> - -<p>“The hunt for happiness is a true instinct of the soul, a prophecy of -its divine destiny. We were intended for happiness, but a happiness far -beyond our usual ideals.</p> - -<p>“A great seer has said that ‘love is life, and love in us is the life -of God in the soul of man.’</p> - -<p>“My soul has always been homesick for its native land and its own -people—which are but other names for love and sympathy—infinite -love, changeless sympathy. Others, too, are familiar with this kind -of hunger. All feel it and give expression to it in the chase of one -phantom after another, and to each phantom they give the name of -Happiness.</p> - -<p>“Does it not prove that all souls are irresistibly drawn toward the -great source of love from which they sprang, but know not the way -thither? The bosom of infinite love is the happiness they long for, but -in their ignorance of their true being and destiny, they pursue every -will o’ the wisp that dances before their eyes.</p> - -<p>“It is the soul’s quest for its home, which is not place, but state. -We need not wait for death to let us in, for it is no more beyond the -grave than here. The pure in heart have reached it.</p> - -<p>“We can experience resurrection before death, if we will. When our -spiritual nature is awakened, and we are set free from thraldom to -material gods, we have been raised from the dead. We can take hold on -eternal life now, for it, too,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[Pg 370]</span> is a state of the soul. It is to know -and live and be the good.</p> - -<p>“The long, long sleep of ignorance must end. The soul shall awaken to -a knowledge of itself and be consciously one with Eternal Being from -which it was projected, and be free, full-grown and happy.</p> - -<p>“How shall this union be brought about? By our growth, our unfolding. -We are our own redeemers. The individual is the reflection or -manifestation of God. The higher man grows intellectually and -spiritually, the more of God does he reflect. When he becomes pure -in heart, high in mind, noble and unselfish in all his instincts and -desires, he is in union with God, working His Will.</p> - -<p>“A modern philosopher expresses it thus: ‘An individual is a subject -which unfolds itself as an object.’</p> - -<p>“‘Man, the progressively unfolding thinker, has descended from the -eternally perfect creative Thinker.’</p> - -<p>“‘Eternity for every man is but the unceasingly clear consciousness of -his own identity in nature with the primal Thinker, of whose thought -the whole universe is but the outer, organic form!’</p> - -<p>“‘An individual is an indivisible, immortal, self-completing, ideal -totality.’</p> - -<p>“Now I think I know why at any cost we<span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[Pg 371]</span> should give expression to -our ideals. They are streams from the central fountain of thought. -To ignore them is to put ourselves out of harmony with the truth and -essence of the universe. To give them expression is to vibrate in -harmony with the great heart of all that is. What is a genius but one -who is in touch with the central source of truth and transmits it to -others?</p> - -<p>“Now we begin to understand what the love of God is—a great ocean in -which we perpetually swim, the ‘infinite and eternal energy from which -all things proceed,’ an energy that science admits but cannot explain.</p> - -<p>“It is written, ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make ye -free!’ We shall know! WE SHALL KNOW.</p> - -<p>“Already you and I, Lilla, know a part of the truth. We know that -death is not the extinction of memory, conscience, love and all their -attendant emotions. These are manifestations of the soul and cannot be -destroyed. The body, a clay image projected by the soul to make itself -visible, shall pass, but ‘the soul lives on, and all space, all time, -all beatitude are its heritage and its domain.’</p> - -<p>“The great secret of what, whence and whither shall yet be known. The -dream of man’s perfection shall come true. You and I have read a few -pages in the sealed book. For us the last enemy has been destroyed, the -dark river<span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[Pg 372]</span> bridged. We know there is no separation; that the dead are -neither dead nor gone. This is the great secret of the universe.</p> - -<p>“I think I understand what it means to see God. The more we see of Him, -or It—the great principle of intelligence and love—in the atom, the -insect, the human being or the angel, the nobler and sweeter will be -our lives. All possible forms and modes of existence are expressions -of himself. As Whitman says, ‘A mouse is miracle enough to stagger -sextillions of infidels.’</p> - -<p>“My lifelong dream of finding my own people shall be realized.</p> - -<p>“My people, my own people—they who aspired, struggled and -suffered—who came to their own, and whom their own so often refused -to receive. They who first announced the truth in all ages, and were -stoned and crucified. They who brought their divine gifts of poesy and -prophecy, of art and science, of light in its thousand forms and laid -them on the world’s ungrateful altar. My dear people, I see you in -the far dim aisles of the past, and I see you toiling up the shining -heights of the future, and know you for my own, my spiritual kindred, -with whom I dwelt in pleasant and also difficult places ‘huge times -ago,’ and with whom I shall yet mount and mount great steeps now unseen.</p> - -<p>“Are not all, all our own people, each a manifestation of the great -soul or self that is imaged<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[Pg 373]</span> in all other selves? But they who know -how to love are more truly our own. They are farther on their upward -journey. ‘For as many as are led by the spirit of love, these are the -sons of God.’</p> - -<p>“All philosophies, all religions, all literature that fail to lead us -back to love, our central source—love, the essence and substance of -life, the energy of the world, the potential, moving force of all that -is or ever shall be, are vain and foolish.</p> - -<p>“Only to love one another. This is the whole law. This is what we are -always longing and hunting for, though we give it many names and see it -through many veils and in many shapes. But it is love, only love, the -greatest and simplest thing in the world.</p> - -<p>“Once I read a story of an Oriental magician who performed miraculous -cures. When one whom he had healed asked his name that he might mention -it in his prayers, he answered: ‘I have many names, but they all mean -the same—Love.’</p> - -<p>“Love is all there is. Everything else is only an appearance or -phantom. My search for my own people was but the search for love, yet -how many mirages I saw, into how many pits I stumbled before I came in -sight of its temple!</p> - -<p>“But the love that opens the kingdom of Heaven, like the love of God, -is ‘broader than<span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[Pg 374]</span> the measure of man’s mind.’ It <em>is</em> the love of -God—for it is the love of all that is. We know not love until we see -ourselves one with the whole, without division and without difference, -until we see every man as our brother and every woman as our sister and -every child as our own, or better, as ourselves.</p> - -<p>“Since I know that the law of sowing and reaping is inevitable in its -operation, I begin to believe I have not found love in satisfying -measure, because I have not given it out. My conception of it was the -usual narrow one, and that fills one with self and selfishness. Love -knows no self.</p> - -<p>“Am I about to leave this world? No; because the world is part of the -great Everywhere, which is the soul’s home. Yet it is a solemn time -with me. But I shall float out on trust. I <em>know</em> that all is -well, and never can be anything else.</p> - -<p>“The Hereafter, so much wondered about.—What is it? Just a -continuation of being—an eternal now, an endless is, an everlasting -present moment.</p> - -<p>“Shall our dead be as they were here, when we find them again? This is -the cry of the bereft. They forget that nothing is the same from day to -day. The child becomes a man. As a child the mother loses it whether -it live or die. Change, incessant change, is the law of external -nature.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[Pg 375]</span> But the soul of the man is the soul of the child awakened and -enlightened. Shall it be less, when it puts off its eternal form and -becomes clothed in finer matter?</p> - -<p>“‘Give us our dead, as they were, when they left us,’ wail the mourners -at the tomb. Does any one here go away for a year or years and come -back the same? Never.</p> - -<p>“Is the future beyond death a mystery? Yes; but not more so than the -future here. Does any man know what the next hour will bring upon him? -Every moment ahead of us is as completely wrapped in mystery as is all -that lies on the other side of the grave. In both cases we can only do -our best, trusting in the love that created us, and that shapes our -course.</p> - -<p>“But the loneliness of life! Who can fathom it or explain it? and what -can mitigate it? Mediocrity feels it not, for its sympathizers swarm. -But in the hearts of the highest it is densest and deepest. As the soul -grows upward, it feels itself isolated, and the isolation has in it a -poignant anguish.</p> - -<p>“Hours come upon us, when we feel that we touch no other soul. Even -the companions we take to our hearts never enter the most solemn -recesses of our nature. There the soul sits alone—always alone. And -this invisible place, this awful solitude is the soul’s real world, its -most fateful portion of existence. Yet into this secret<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[Pg 376]</span> place, this -hidden and lonely life, we take the ideas and feelings we cherish in -relation to our fellow-beings, so that though we seem to live alone in -the depths of ourselves, yet we are never severed from our kind, never -really solitary. The oneness of humanity asserts itself and its claims -upon us, and in spite of the soul’s solitude we understand that no man -liveth to himself.</p> - -<p>“But the ache that nothing cures is always with us. We turn to the -arms of human affection, it is there. We sit down to the feast of the -intellect; it is there, likewise. We wander in search of new scenes; -but, in the face of all that can delight the eye, it cries out from -within for the satisfaction it never finds.</p> - -<p>“Satisfied! Satisfied! Shall the yearning soul ever be satisfied? In -the hope that it would, mankind constructed its far-off heaven, and -said to the weary and the disappointed: ‘There ye shall be satisfied.’</p> - -<p>“But it is not true. Never, never shall we be satisfied. Though we -explore all the mysteries of all worlds and taste all the joys and -pleasures therein, we shall not be satisfied. ‘We but level that lift -to pass and continue beyond.’</p> - -<p>“When I walk in graveyards and see the childish twaddle about ‘Rest,’ -‘Heavenly Mansions,’ and ‘New Jerusalems,’ there carved upon the -stones, I am pained at the mental infancy they denote. Dying does not -mean rest, nor does it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[Pg 377]</span> open heavenly mansions or golden cities to us. -The striving and the climbing go on and never end.</p> - -<p>“It is the ache in the heart, the void in the soul that cries out to be -filled which lift us upward. Were we content, we should rise no higher. -Were we satisfied, we should be in a condition which would insure our -destruction. But the soul’s hunger for finer and better food is the -principle of eternal life which makes us indestructible and eternally -expansive. By means of it we grow. Thank God that neither here nor -elsewhere can we attain content!</p> - -<p>“And as we go higher we can reveal to lower souls their sorrows, and -show them how to overcome them—how to grow. This is the greatest -service one soul can render another.</p> - -<p>“But we must not be content with mouthing theories—we must live our -love, must give from the heart and look only to the heart, for ‘out -of the heart are the issues of life.’ ‘The sign of the mastery of the -divine life in us is the readiness to serve.’</p> - -<p>“And we must not dream of rest. There is none anywhere, neither here -nor on all the endless road that stretches before us. Life is action, -ceaseless action.</p> - -<p>“Nor is there any heavenly shore where we can wander free from -perplexities and obstacles. Always, always will there be something -to overcome.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[Pg 378]</span> We are building, building, ever building, we know not -clearly what. Every unfolding of the divine life within us opens the -way to still more unfolding. The heaven, the happiness, the joy we -dream of and search for, is in the unfolding, not in any fixed state at -which we shall arrive, for we pause nowhere.</p> - -<p>“‘This is not Death’s world: it is Life’s. Death has no empire -anywhere.’ In time to come its very signs shall pass away. There shall -be no more graves, nor marks to graves to say that the dust of any -lie there. All dust is the same and all places the same; and life -everlasting is the eternal heritage of all souls.”</p> - -<p>A few days later Cartice said she saw the Butterfly near her, and that -she now had most beautiful wings. Others thought her mind wandered, but -Lilla understood.</p> - -<p>Clasping the hand of her friend, she smiled and slept; but her waking -was on the other side of death, with her own people.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[Pg 379]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV.<br><span class="small">LAST WORDS.</span></h2></div> - -<p class="poetry"> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Come, lovely and soothing death,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In the day, in the night, to all, to each,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sooner or later, delicate death.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Prais’d be the fathomless universe,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!</span><br> -<span style="margin-left: 1em;">For the sure enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.</span><br> -<br> -<span style="margin-left: 10em;">—<i>Walt Whitman.</i></span><br> -</p> - - -<p>Gabriel Norris uttered the few reverent words that consigned the dust -of Cartice Doring to the purifying flames. This was his conclusion:</p> - -<p>“‘No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.’ We all -understand that better, when in the presence of the voiceless dead, -than at any other time. Then it is that we feel our oneness most; -then do we come into more solemn touch with the great heart of all; -then, even when our hearts are breaking, we better understand the -infinite love that manifests in every event of our lives, even the last -mysterious one which takes us out of the sight of our fellow-men.</p> - -<p>“Then it is that the problem of life confronts us with importunate -appeal, and demands from our bleeding hearts an answer.</p> - -<p>“She whose still white form lies here, lived,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[Pg 380]</span> aspired, suffered, joyed -a little perhaps, and learned a part of the great lesson whose book has -no end, worked side by side with us, and then passed out of our sight, -leaving only this perishable temple to return to its elements.</p> - -<p>“Has she but passed through a door to array herself in new garments -on the other side, in a larger chamber, or has the unit of her -individuality melted back into the Universal ocean, as a drop of water -falls again into the sea from which it has been dipped?</p> - -<p>“Does the heart that has groaned in anguish and throbbed with love find -the end of everything in dreamless oblivion? Or does it still throb on -somewhere out of our sight, but not out of the care of the divine love -that thought it into being?</p> - -<p>“For her this great question was answered long before the illusion we -call death transferred her to a larger chamber. She <em>knew</em> that -she should never die; that, as a unit, an individual, a soul, she was -indestructible, the heir of all the ages through all the ages.</p> - -<p>“Communion of spirit? Do you sneer at it as an unsatisfactory, even if -a possible thing? What else have we here? We are spirit now as much as -we shall ever be, and all our communion with each other is spiritual, -for every act of our lives has a spiritual quality, and is but the -expression of spirit.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[Pg 381]</span></p> - -<p>“The things we see are but fractions of that which we see not. We never -saw the soul to whose visible form we bid farewell for a time to-day. -We saw but its mask, its clay image. That which made its impress upon -us was the spirit. By means of what it said and did, by the flash of -kindness in the eye, by the pressure of the hand in sympathy, by all -the means great and small by which it expressed its good will and love -to others, it revealed itself. These are what we shall remember and -cherish.</p> - -<p>“Life is not all ‘a striving and a striving and an ending in nothing.’ -It is an endless becoming.</p> - -<p>“Let us work by every means in our power to educate the individual, to -develop the unit, the imperishable, never-dying unit, for this is the -secret of all improvement, all growth, all happiness. Only by growth -out of ignorance into knowledge can we come into our inheritance of -eternal good.</p> - -<p>“Nothing is great in this world and nothing is small. I cannot say of -the soul whose transition we celebrate to-day that it was either, for -there is no distinction. It aspired, and that means much. It strove to -go up higher; and that striving will lift it into the fulness of light.</p> - -<p>“That living, loving, truthful, beautiful spirit, has not gone back -to the sea of universal Being to lose its identity. There is no going -back. In that sea we live and move and have our being<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[Pg 382]</span> now, as well as -in the future, yet we remain individuals. The union with the one mind -toward which we are all moving is an harmonious ever-upward-tending -life, not an extinction of the individual. The school, the club, the -state are its prototypes here,—a blending of the many units in one -body, but the extinction of none.</p> - -<p>“We sorrow, but not without hope. Our friend still lives. We shall find -her again.”</p> - -<p>“I loved her,” said Gabriel Norris, as he sat with Lilla in the little -flat after all was over. “To be near her I came to New York. She never -knew; but now she knows. My love did not crave possession. I was happy -in loving. I am still happy in it. She lives and I love her. It is -enough.”</p> - - -<p class="center p2">THE END.</p> - - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter transnote"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">Transcriber’s Notes</h2> - - -<p>Errors in punctuation and spacing have been fixed.</p> - -<p><a href="#Page_138">Page 138</a>: “as much as as any” changed to “as much as any”</p> - -<p><a href="#Page_173">Page 173</a>: “defeat and humilation” changed to “defeat and humiliation”</p> - -<p><a href="#Page_194">Page 194</a>: “would is queer” changed to “world is queer”</p> - -<p><a href="#Page_302">Page 302</a>: “by the wall” changed to “by the well”</p> - -<p><a href="#Page_306">Page 306</a>: “have a monoply of it. What idocy!” changed to “have a -monopoly of it. 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