|
"'Is it not possible to push Betsey over the cliff,
_accidentally_, of
course, and thus rid myself of her and misery together,
and forever!'
Forever! Picture it! And thus they lay as the night wore on,
two
precious immortal souls, with rank Murder for a bed-fellow.
"At
the end of an hour's cogitation, both had reached the desperate
resolution to
carry their wishes into execution, and attempt the
fearful
crime.
"'Come down in thy profoundest
gloom--
Without one radiant firefly's light,
Beneath thine ebon
arch entomb
Earth from the gaze of Heaven, O Night.
A deed of
darkness must be done,
Put out the moon, roll back the
sun.'
"Betsey was to 'season' Tom's coffee; he was very fond of coffee.
Tom
was to treat Betsey to a ride in a one-horse shay, and topple the
shay,
horse, and Mrs. Thomas W.--all except his mother's only son--over a
most
convenient and inviting little precipice, a trifle over four
hundred
feet deep, with boulders at the bottom rather thicker than autumn
leaves
in Vallambrossa, and a good deal harder. All this was to be the
result
of 'accident,' and 'inscrutible Providence,' as a matter of
course.
Afterwards he was to buy a 'slashing suit' of mourning, bury what
was
left of her in grand style, erect a fine headstone of marble,
announcing
that--
"'The Lord gave, and the Lord took
away,
Blessed be the name of the Lord!'
an inscription many a
spouse would like to read in their own cases!
"The proposed locality of
the fall of woman 'luckily' lay right on the
road between their house and
Santa Blarneeo. Each thought, 'I may not be
able to achieve the exploit upon
which I am bent, but one thing is
certain, which is, that it shall not fail
for want of trying. Once
fairly accomplished, freedom comes, and then for a
high old time!' So
thought the woman; so thought the man.
"Night has
various and strange influences, which are altogether unknown
to the day. The
Magi, on the plains of Chaldea, the astrologers of early
Egypt, and the whole
ancient world duly acknowledged the power of the
astral bodies. The whole
interest of Bulwer's 'Zanoni' hinges on the
soul-expanding potentiality of a
star upon Clarence Glyndon, one of the
heroes of that Rosicrucian story.
Indeed, the whole august fraternity,
from the neophyte of last week to Ross
and Henri More, down to
Appolonius of Tyanæ, and away through the Ages to
Thothmes, and down
beyond all the Egyptian dynasties to Zytos, and still away
into the very
heart of the Pre-Adamite Eras, we know, held strange
doctrines
concerning stars; and if the historian of the Order, the
great
Mirandolo, be not mistaken, our Brotherhood possesses the key
that
reveals the nature of the starry influences, and how they may be
gained.
Of my own knowledge--for I am but in the fifth degree, therefore do
not
know all these mysteries--there are Destinies in the stars. Well,
on
this particular night, the star known as Hesper, she of the pale
mild
eye, was looking straight into the room where lay the precious pair,
and
it shone through the little window at the foot of the bed. The night
was
sultry--a little window--summer was in the ascendant--and the upper
sash
was down. Remember this, _the upper sash_ was down.
"And now a
strange thing occurred, a very strange and mysterious thing.
Just as Tom
Clark and his wife had been magnetized into a sort of
restless sleep from
gazing at the star--an uneasy, disturbed, nervous,
but dreamless sleep--as if
a heavy, thick and murky cloud just floated
off a stagnant marsh, there
descended upon the house a pestilent, slimy
mist, and it gathered over and
about the roof; and it entered, rolling
heavily, into the chamber, coming
through that little window at the foot
of the bed.
"It was a thick,
dense, iron-greyish mist, approaching blackness, only
that there was a sort
of turgid redness, not a positive color, but as if
it had floated over the
depths of hell, and caught a portion of its
infernal luminosity. And it was
thick and dark, and dense and very
heavy; and it swept and rolled, and poured
into the room in thick,
voluminous masses--into the very room, and about the
couch where tossed
in uneasy slumber the woman and the man. And it filled the
apartment,
and hung like a pall about their couch; and its fetor oppressed
their
senses; and it made their breath come thick, and difficult, and
wheezing
from their lungs. It was dreadful! And their breath mingled with
the
strange vapor, apparently endowing it with a kind of horrid life, a
sort
of semi-sentience; and gave it a very peculiar and
fearful
movement--orderly, systematic, gyratory, pulsing movement--the
quick,
sharp breath of the woman, the deep and heavy breath of the man. And
it
had come through the window at the foot of the bed, for the upper
sash
was down.
"Slowly, and with regular, spiracular, wavy motion,
with gentle
undulations, like the measured roll of the calm Pacific Sea, the
gentle
sea on which I am sailing toward the Pyramids and my Cora--six
years
old, and so pretty! Pyramids ten thousand years old, and so grand!
Like
the waves of that sea did the cloud begin to move gyrally around
the
chamber, hanging to the curtains, clinging to the walls, but as
if
dreading the moonlight, _carefully_ avoiding the window through which
it
had come, the little window at the foot of the bed--whose upper sash
was
down.
"Soon, very soon, the cloud commenced to change the axis of
its
movement, and to condense into a large globe of iron-hued nebulæ; and
it
began a contrary revolution; and it floated thus, and swam like
a
dreadful destiny over the unconscious sleepers on the bed, after
which
it moved to the western side of the room, and became nearly
stationary
in an angle of the wall, where for a while it stood or floated,
silent,
appalling, almost motionless, changeless, still.
"At the end
of about six minutes it moved again, and in a very short
time assumed the
gross but unmistakable outline of a gigantic human
form--an outline horrible,
black as night--a frowning human form--cut
not sharply from the vapor, but
still distinctly human in its
_shapeness_--but very imperfect, except the
head, which was too
frightfully complete to leave even a lingering doubt but
that some black
and hideous devilry was at work in that little chamber. And
the head was
infamous, horrible, gorgonic; and its glare was terrible,
infernal,
blasting, ghastly--perfectly withering in its expression,
proportions
and aspect.
"The THING, this pestilent thing was bearded
with the semblance of a
tangled mass of coarse, grey iron wire. Its hair was
as a serried coil
of thin, long, venom-laden, poison-distilling snakes. The
nose, mouth,
chin and brows were ghastly, and its sunken cheeks were those of
Famine
intensified. The face was flat and broad, its lips the lips of
incarnate
hate and lust combined. Its color was the greenish blue of corpses
on a
summer battle-field, suffused with the angry redness of a demon's
spite,
while its eyes--great God!--_its_ eye--for there was but one, and
that
one in the very centre of its forehead, between the nose and
brow--was
bloodshot and purple, gleaming with infernal light, and it glamored
down
with more than fiendish malignance upon the woman and the
man.
"Nothing about this Thing was clearly cut or defined, except
the
head--its hideous, horrible head. Otherwise it was incomplete--a sort
of
spectral Formlessness. It was unfinished, as was the awful
crime-thought
that had brought it into being. It was on one side apparently a
male, on
the other it looked like a female; but, taken as a whole, it was
neither
man nor woman, it was neither brute nor human, but it was a monster
and
a ghoul--born on earth of human parents. There are many such
things
stalking our streets, and invisibly presiding over festal scenes,
in
dark cellars, by the lamp, in the cabinet and camp; and many such
are
daily peering down upon the white paper on the desks where sit grave
and
solemn Ministers of State, who, for Ambition's sake and greed of
gold,
play with an Empire's destiny as children do with toys, and who,
with
the stroke of a pen, consign vast armies to bloody graves--brave
men,
glorious hosts, kept back while victory is possible--kept back till
the
foeman has dug their graves just in front of his own stone walls
and
impenetrable ramparts--and then sent forward to glut the ground
with
human blood. Do you hear me, Ministers of State? I mean you! you
who
practically regard men's lives as boys regard the minnows of a brook.
I
mean you who sit in high places, and do murder by the wholesale--you
who
treat the men as half foes, half friends, tenderly; men whose hands
are
gripped with the iron grip of death around the Nation's
throat--the
Nation's throat--do you hear?--and crushing out the life that God
and
our fathers gave it. Remember Milliken's Bend, Port Hudson, Fort
Wagner,
and the Black Heroes of the war--Noble men--Black, too, but the
bravest
of the brave--yet treated not as heroes ought to be. Forget
not
Fredericksburg! and bear in mind that this gorgon of your own
creation
will not quit you, day or night--not even on your dying day, when
it
will hiss into your ears, 'Father, behold, embrace me!'--and its
slime
will fall upon and choke you, as you have choked our country. And
the
sheeted ghosts of six hundred thousand heroes, slaughtered by a
whim,
will mournfully upbraid, and--perhaps--forgive you. Will the
weeping
widows and the countless orphans--pale, blue-cast women, pale
with
grief, blue with want; orphans, poor little shrivelled,
half-starved
orphans--will they forgive you? will your own conscience? will
the
Eternal God of Heaven? Why did you sacrifice these six hundred
thousand
men? Why did you not put your guns and swords in the hands of
six
hundred thousand men--men who had God's best gifts to fight for
and
maintain--Liberty and their wives? Black men, too--brawny,
brave,
strong-hearted, Freedom-nerved, God-inspired black men. _No black
man
yet ever sold his country!_ Why don't you first remove
their
disabilities here in the North? Why don't you bid them rise and be
men?
Why grudge freemen the pay of other free men; the bounty, the
pension,
of other heroes of the same rank? Do this, let the Negro understand
that
you concede his manhood, and appreciate his prowess; let him once
know
that you are grateful for all he does for the country, and proclaim
it
to the world, and Black men will flock to your standard, not only
from
your own soil, but from every spot on earth where civilized black
men
exist.
"See, yonder is a plain, miles in extent. In its centre
there stands an
obelisk. Go, Ministers of State, and plant on its top a
banner, upon
which shall be emblazoned this magic sentence:
'Freedom--Personal,
Political, and Social, to the Black man--and protection
of his Rights
forever,' and there will be more magnetic power in it than in
ten
thousand Ministers, with their little whims; ten thousand
'Fancy
Generals,' with their 'pretty little games,'--and such would
be
History's record when she handed you down the ages. If you would live
in
the sacred page, and have your names shine brightly, act, act at
once,
cut the cords that now bind the Black man. Say to him: 'Come as a
man,
not as a chattel! Come with me to Enfranchisement and Victory! Let
us
save the Nation!' and the swift-winged winds will bear the sound
from
pole to pole, from sea to sea, and from continent, island, and
floating
barks, from hills, valleys, and mountains, from hut, hovel, and
dismal
swamps, will come a vast and fearful host, in numbers like unto
the
leaves of the forest; and they will gather in that plain around
that
obelisk, rallying around that banner, and before their victorious
march
Rebellion will go down as brick walls before the storm of iron; and
if
France, or England, or Austria, or all, combine against them--they,
too,
will go out of the battle, nevermore to enter it again.
"This is
possible destiny! Think of it, O Ministers of State!
*
* * *
"And so the fearful spectre in Tom Clark's room had its
origin then and
there--had been created by the morning's wicked thought--a
creature
fashioned by their human wills, and drawing its vitality from their
life
and pulses--drawing its very soul from out those two beating
human
hearts. Tell me not that I am painting a picture, limning the
creature
of a distorted fancy. I know better, you know better, we all know
that
just such hideous creatures, just such monstrosities, move,
viewless,
daily, up and down the crowded streets of Santa Blarneeo, up and
down
the streets of the Empire City and Puritanic Boston; but there
are
crowds of them in Pennsylvania Avenue, and they wear phantom
epaulettes
upon their spectral shoulders! You and I know that just such and
other
"'Monstrous, horrid things that creep
From out a slimy
sea,'
exist all over the land--but principally in high places begotten
of
Treason and lust of Gold.
"Soon the lips began to move; it spoke:
'Father! mother! I am yet weak;
be quick; make me strong! feed me; I am
hungry; give me blood--hot
streams--great gouts of blood! It is well. Kill,
poison, die; it is
well! Ha! ha! It is well; ho! ho!' and then the Thing
began to dissolve
into a filmy mist, until at last only the weight of its
presence was
felt, for it floated invisibly but heavily through the room,
and, except
the gleam--the fiery gleam of its solitary eye--nothing else of
it was
discernible.
"Ten minutes elapsed after it had found voice, and
faded away, when
suddenly a fleecy cloud that had for some time past obscured
the sky in
the direction of Hesper, shutting out her silvery smiles, broke
away,
and permitted her beams and those of the moon to once more enter
the
chamber and flood it with a sheeted silver glory--the room where
still
lingered the hateful Thing, and where still slept the woman and the
man.
"Simultaneously with this auspicious event there came sighing over
the
landscape, the musical notes of such a song as only seraphs
sing--came
over the wastes like the mystical bells that I have heard at
sunset
often while sailing on the Nile--mystical bells which thousands
have
heard and marvelled at--soft bells, silvery bells, church
bells--bells,
however, not rung by human hands. I have often heard them
chiming over
Egypt's yellow, arid sands, and I believe they are rung by angel
hands
on the other side of Time. And such a sound, only sweeter,
came
floating o'er the lea, and through the still air into the
little
chamber. Was it a call to the angels to join in prayer--midnight
prayer,
for the sinful souls of men? But it came. Low it was, and clear; pure
it
was, and full of saintly pity, like unto the dying cadence of the
prayer
that was prayed by the Sufferer on the stony heights of Calvary;
that
same Calvary where I have stood within a year, 'midst devout lovers
of
their Lord, and the jeering scoffs of Mussulmans! And the music
came--so
sweetly, as if 'twould melt the stony heart of Crime itself. And
it
proclaimed itself the overture of another act of the eventful drama
then
and there performing. And see! look there! the curtain rises.
Woman,
Man, behold! Alas! they slumber insensibly on. Gaze steadily at
that
upper sash--above it--for it is down; see, the clear space is
again
obscured by a cloud; but this time it is one of silver, lined
with
burnished gold, and flecked and edged with amethyst and purple.
Look
again! What is that at the window? It is a visible music--a
glorious
sheet of silvery vapor, bright, clear, and glittering as an
angel's
conscience! It is a broad and glowing mantle of woven gossamer,
suffused
with rose-blushes, and sprinkled with star-beams; and it flows
through
the space, and streams into the chamber, bathing all things in
holy
tremulous light, soft, sweet, balmy, and pure as the tears of
virgin
innocence weeping for the early dead! That light! It was just such
a
light as beamed from your eyes, Woman--beamed from out your soul,
when,
after your agony, your eye first fell upon the angel you had
borne--the
man-child whom God gave to your heart a little while ago; just
such a
light as flashed fitfully from your soul, and fell upon the cradle,
O
father of the strong and hopeful heart, wherein the little stranger
lay;
just such light as beamed from your eyes, in pride, and hope,
and
strange, deep prophecies, as you bent over her languishing
form,
heartfully pressing her first-born to her dear woman's bosom, when
you
looked so tenderly, kindly, lovingly down through her eyes into
her
spirit--the true heart beating for you and it, beneath
folded--contentedly
folded, arms--contented, too, through all the deep
anguish, such, O man, as
only a woman and a mother can undergo. That
light! It was like that which
fell upon the babe she had given you, and
the great Man-wanting world--given
first for its coming uses, and then
to Him who doeth all things very
well--well, even when He taketh the
best part of our souls away, and
transplants the slips in His eternal
and infinite gardens, across the deep
dark gulfs that hide the dead;
just such a light as gleamed from her eyes and
thine own, when your
hearts felt calm and trustful once more, after the
great, deep grief
billows had rolled over them--grief for the loss of one who
stayed but a
little while on earth--all too coarse and rough for her--some
little,
cooing Winnie--like mine--whose soul nestles afar off, on His breast,
in
the blue sky, and whose body they laid in the cold grave, there
in
Utica, after they--_he_--had let her starve, perish sadly for want
of
proper food and medicine, while I was on the deep--winsome Winnie!
child
of my soul, gone, lost, but not forever!--just such a light played
in
that little room as streams from angel eyes when God takes back at
the
hands of Azrael and Sandalphon, the beautiful angels of Death and
of
Prayer, the things you had learned to love too well--to forgetfulness
of
God and all true human duty. But they will give back what they
took:
they will give back all, more in the clear sunshine of a brighter and
a
purer day, than these earthly ones of ours!
"And the light streamed
through and into the chamber where lay the woman
and the man; and it radiated
around, and bathed every object in a
crystalline luminescence; and it carried
a sadness with it--just such a
sadness as we feel when parting from those who
love us very well; as I
felt on the day I parted from ----, Brother of my
soul! when we parted
at the proud ship's side--the ocean courser, destined to
bear me over
the steaming seas to Egypt's hoary shrines. It bore a sadness
with it
like unto that which welled up from my soul, tapping the fountains
of
friendship--and tears upon its way, in the memorable hour wherein I
left
the Golden Gate, and began my perilous journey to the
distant
Orient--across the bounding seas. What an hour!--that wherein our
bodies
move away, but leave our sorrowing souls behind!
"Well, a holy
light, sadness-bearing light, like this now rested on the
bodies of the
sleeping pair. At first, this silvery radiance filled the
room, and then the
fleecy vapor began to condense slowly. Presently it
formed into a rich and
opalescent cloud-column, which speedily changed
into a large globe, winged,
radiant and beautiful. Gradually there
appeared in the centre of this globe a
luminous spot, momentarily
intensifying its brilliance, until it became like
unto a tiny sun, or as
the scintillæ of a rare diamond when all the lamps are
brightly shining.
Slowly, steadily, the change went on in this magic crystal
globe, until
there appeared within it the diminutive figure of a female,
whose
outlines became more clear as time passed on, until, at the end of a
few
minutes, the figure was perfect, and stood fully revealed
and
complete--about eighteen inches high, and lovely--ah, how
lovely!--that
figure; it was more than woman is--was all she may
become--_petite_, but
absolutely perfect in form, feature and expression; and
there was a
love-glow radiating from her presence sufficiently melting to
subdue the
heart of Sin itself, though robed in Nova Zembla's icy shroud.
Her
eyes!--ah, her eyes!--they were softer than the down upon a
ring-dove's
breast!--not electric, not magnetic--such are human eyes; and she
was
not of this earth--they were something more, and higher--they
were
tearful, anxious, solicitous, hopeful, tender, beaming with that
snowy
love which blessed immortals feel. Her hair was loose, and hung
in
flowing waves adown her pearly neck and shoulders. Such a neck
and
shoulders!--polished alabaster, dashed with orange blossoms, is a
very
poor comparison; it would be better to say that they resembled
petrified
light, tinted with the morning blush of roses! Around her brow was
a
coronet of burnished, rainbow hues; or rather the resplendent tints
of
polarized light. In its centre was the insignia of the Supreme Temple
of
the Rosie Cross--a circle inclosing a triangle--a censer on one side,
an
anchor fouled on the other, the centre-piece being a winged
globe,
surmounted by the sacred trine, and based by the watchword of the
Order,
'TRY,' the whole being arched with the blazon, 'ROSICRUCIA.' To
attempt
a minute description of this peerless fay, on my part, would
be
madness:--her chin, her mouth, her bust, her lips! No! I am not so
vain
as to make the essay. I may be equal to such a task a century or
two
from this, but am not equal to it now.
"There, then, and thus
stood the crowned beauty of the Night, gazing
down with looks of pity upon
the restless occupants of that humble
couch; for during all these
transactions they had been asleep. She stood
there, the realization and
embodiment of Light; and there, directly
facing her, glowered, and floated
the eye of that hateful, scowling,
frowning Thing--scowling with malignant
joy upon the woman and the man.
Thus stood the Shadow: thus stood the Light.
But soon there came a
change o'er the spirit of the scene; for now an
occurrence took place of
a character quite as remarkable as either of those
already recounted;
for in a very short time after the two Mysteries had
assumed their
relative positions, there came through the window--the same
little
window at the foot of the bed--the tall and stately figure of a
man--a
tall and regal figure, but it was light and airy--buoyant as a
summer
cloud pillowed on the air--the figure of a man, but not solid, for
it
was translucent as the pearly dew, radiant as the noontide sun,
majestic
as a lofty mountain when it wears a snowy crown!--the royal form of
a
man, but evidently not a ghost, or wraith, or a man of these days, or
of
this earth, or of the ages now elapsing. He was something more than
man; he
was supramortal; a bright and glorious citizen of a starry land
of glory,
whose gates I beheld, once upon a time, when Lara bade me
wait; he was of a
lineage we Rosicrucians wot of, and only we!--a
dweller in a wondrous city,
afar off, real, actual--whose gates are as
the finest pearl--so bright and
beautiful are they.... The stately
figure advanced midway of the room until
he occupied the centre of a
triangle formed by the shadowy Thing, the female
figure, and the bed;
and then he waved his hand, in which was a staff or
truncheon--winged at
top and bottom; and he spake, saying:
"'I,
Otanethi, the Genius of the Temple, Lord of the Hour, and
servant of the
Dome, am sent hither to thee, O Hesperina,
Preserver of the falling; and
to thee, dark Shadow, and to
these poor blind gropers in the Night and
gloom. I am sent to
proclaim that man ever reacheth Ruin or Redemption
through
himself alone--strengthened by Love of
Him--self-sought--reacheth either Pole of Possibility as he,
fairly
warned, and therefore fully armed, may elect! Poor, weak
man!--a giant,
knowing not his own tremendous power!--Master
both of Circumstance and
the World--yet the veriest slave to
either!--weak, but only through
ignorance of himself!--forever
and forever failing in life's great race
through slenderness of
Purpose!--through feebleness of Will! Virtue is
not virtue
which comes not of Principle within--that comes not of
will
and aspiration. That abstinence from wrong is not virtue
which
results from external pressure--fear of what the speech of
people may effect! It is false!--that virtue which requires
bolstering
or propping up, and falls when left to try its
strength alone! Vice is
not vice, but weakness, that springs
not from within--which is the
effect of applied force. Real
vice is that which leaves sad marks upon
the soul's escutcheon,
which the waters of an eternity may not lave away
or wash out;
and it comes of settled purpose--from within, and is the
thing
of Will. The virtue that has never known temptation--and
withstood it, counts but little in the great Ledger of the Yet
to Be!
True virtue is good resolve, better thinking, and action
best of all!
That man is but half completed whom the world has
wholly made. They are
never truly made who fail to make
themselves! Mankind are not of the
kingdom of the Shadow, nor
of the glorious realm of Light, but are born,
move along, and
find their highest development in the path which is
bounded on
either side by those two eternal Diversities--the Light
upon
this side--the Shadow upon that:
"'The road to man and
womanhood lies in the mean:
Discontent on either side--happiness
between.'
"'Life is a triangle, and it may be composed of Sorrow,
Crime,
Misery; or Aspiration, Wisdom, Happiness. These, O
peerless
Hesperina, are the lessons I am sent to teach. Thou art here
to
save two souls, not from loss, assailings or assoilings from
without, but from the things engendered of morbid
thought--monstrous
things bred in the cellars of the soul--the
cesspools of the
spirit--crime-caverns where moral newts and
toads, unsightly things and
hungry, are ever devouring the
flowers that spring up in the
heart-gardens of man--pretty
flowers, wild--but which double and enhance
in beauty and aroma
from cultivation and care. We are present--I to
waken the wills
of yonder pair; thou to arouse a healthy purpose and a
normal
action; and the Shadow is here to drag them to Perdition.
Man
cannot reach Heaven save by fearlessly breasting the waves
of
Hell! Listen! Thou mayest not act directly upon the woman or
the man, but are at liberty to effect thy purpose through the
instrumentality of DREAM! And thou,' addressing the Thing,
'thou grim
Shadow--Angel of Crime--monstrous offspring of man's
begetting--thou who
art permitted to exist, art also allowed to
flourish and batten on human
hearts. I may not prevent
thee--dare not openly frustrate thee--for thus
it is decreed.
Thou must do thy work. Go; thou art free and unfettered.
Do thy
worst; but I forbid thee to appear as thou really
art--before
their waking senses, lest thy horrible presence should
strike
them dumb and blind, or hurl Will and Reason from their
thrones. Begone! To thy labor, foul Thing, and do thy work also
through
the powerful instrumentality of DREAM!'
"Thus spoke the genius of
the Order and the Hour; and then,
turning him toward the couch, he said,
yearningly, with tearful
mien and outstretched arms: 'Mortals, hear me
in thy
slumber--let thy souls, but not thy senses, hear and
understand. Behold, I touch thee with this magic wand of
Rosicrucia, and
with it wake thy sleeping wills--thus do I
endow thee with the elements,
Attention, Aspiration,
Persistence--the seeds of Power--of resistless
Might, which,
will--if such be thy choice, enable thee to realize a
moral
fortress, capable of defying the combined assaults of all
the
enginery Circumstance can bring to bear against thee. The
citadel is Will. Intrenched within it, thou art safe. But
beware of
turning thy assaulting power against thyselves. Will,
normal, ever
produceth Good: Abnormal, it hurls thee to the
Bad! Remember! Wake not
to the external life, but in thy
slumber seize on the word I whisper in
thine ears; it is a
magic word--a mighty talisman, more potent than the
seal of
Solomon--more powerful than the Chaldean's wand--but it
is
potential for ill as for Good. See to it, therefore, that it
is
wisely used. The word is,
"TRY!" As thou shalt avail
thyselves of its power, so be it
unto thee. I now leave thee to thy
fate, and the fortunes that
may befall thee. TWO dreams each shalt thou
have this night;
one of them shall be overruled by thy good, the other
by thy
evil genius. God help thee! Farewell!' and in another
instant,
the tall and stately figure passed through the moonlight,
out
upon the deep bosom of the Night; and he floated,
accompanied
by the same soft music heard before, away off into the
blue
empyrean; and he passed through the window--the little
window
at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was
down.
PART III.
THE MAGIC SPELL.
"In the
Kingdom of Dream strange things are seen,
And the Fate of the Nations are
there, I ween."
_From_ "_The Rosie Cross_," _an unpublished Poem
by_
P. B.
RANDOLPH.
"The regal being was scarcely gone from the chamber ere
Hesperina and
the Shadow--which had once more become visible, approached the
sleeping
pair--drew nigh unto the woman and the man; and the Fay gently
breathed
upon their heads, as if to establish a magnetic _rapport_
between
herself and them. She then calmly took her stand near the bedside,
and
folded her beautiful arms across her still more beautiful bosom,
and
awaited the action of the tempter. She had not long to wait,
for
straightway the Black Presence advanced, and hovered over
the
bed--hovered scowlingly over them, glaring down into their souls,
as
doth the vampire upon the man she would destroy--the spirit of
Wrong
peering wistfully at all beautiful things, and true! Such was
the
posture of affairs; and thus they remained until the Thing had
also
established some sort of connection with the sleepers. It soon
became
evident, from their nervous, uneasy movements and postures, that
the
twain were rapidly crossing the mystic boundaries that divide our
own
from Dream-land--that they were just entering the misty
mid-region--the
Shadow, the Thing, the monstrous IT, ruling the hour, and
guiding them
through the strange realm--
"'That lieth sublime, out
of Space and out of Time.'
"The man who says that dreams are figments is
a fool. Half of our
nightly experiences are, in their subsequent effects upon
us, far more
real and positive than our daily life of wakefulness. Dreams
are, as a
general thing, save in rare instances, sneered at by the wise ones
of
this sapient age. Events, we of Rosicrucia hold, are pre-acted in
other
spheres of being. Prophetic dreaming is no new thing. Circumstances
are
constantly occurring in the outer life that have been pre-viewed
in
Dream-land. Recently, while in Constantinople, I became acquainted
with
a famous Dongolese negro, near the Grand Mosque of St. Sophia, in one
of
the narrow streets on the left, as you enter the square from toward
the
first bridge, and this man had reduced the interpretation of dreams to
a
science almost; and many a long hour have I rapidly driven the pen,
in
the work of recording what was translated to me from Dongolese
and
Arabic into Turkish and English, from his lips, obtaining in this
way
not merely the principles upon which his art was founded, but
also
explicit interpretations of about twenty-nine hundred different
dreams.
"THE DREAM OF THOMAS W.
"Tom Clark was dreaming; and,
lo! great changes had taken place in the
fortunes of the sleeping man. No
longer a toiler at the anvil or the
plow, he had become a rich and, as times
go, therefore an honored
man--honored by the crowd which, as a general thing,
sees the most
virtue in the heaviest sack of dollars.
"The wealth of
Mr. Thomas W. had come to him in a very singular and
mysterious manner, all
since he had become a widower; for Mrs. Thomas
was dead, poor woman, having
some time previously met her fate through a
very melancholy accident. An
extract from the 'Daily Truth-Teller,' of
Santa Blarneeo, a copy of which
paper Tom Clark carried in his pocket
all the time, and which pocket I shall
take the liberty of picking of
the journal aforesaid, and of quoting, will
tell the story--sad
story--but not the whole of it, quite:
"'FEARFUL AND FATAL CATASTROPHE!--We learn with deep, sincere,
and very
profound regret, that another of those fearful
calamities, which no
human prudence can guard against, no
foresight prevent, has just
occurred, and by means of which a
most estimable woman, an exemplary and
loving wife, an
excellent Christian, firm friend, and esteemed person,
has been
suddenly cut off in her prime, and sent prematurely to
her
final account. It appears that the late heavy rains have
rendered all the roads leading from Santa Blarneeo nearly
impassable, by
reason of the rifts, rocks, boulders, and
slides of clay--very dangerous
and slippery clay--which they
have occasioned.
"'Especially
is this the case along the cliff road, and more
particularly where it
skirts the side of the Bayliss Gulch. Of
late it has been exceedingly
unsafe to pass that way in broad
daylight, and much more so after
dark.
"'At about ten o'clock yesterday morning, as Mr. Ellet,
the
Ranchero, was passing that road, along the brink of what is
known as the Scott ravine, his horse shied at some objects in
the path,
which proved to be a man's hat and woman's shawl, on
the very edge of
the precipice--a clear fall of something like
four hundred feet. It
immediately occurred to Farmer Ellet,
that if anybody had tumbled over
the cliff, that there was a
great probability that whoever it was must
have been
considerably hurt, if nothing more, by the time they
reached
the bottom, as he well remembered had been the case with a
yoke
of steers of his that had run off at the same spot some
years
before, and both of which were killed, very dead, indeed,
by
the accident. So, at least, he informed our reporter, who
took
down the statement phonographically. Mr. Ellet discovered
the
remains of a horse and buggy at the bottom of the ravine,
and
at a little to the left, about ten feet down the bank, where
he
had, by a miracle, been thrown when the horse went over, Mr.
Ellet found the insensible body of a man, desperately hurt, but
still
breathing. His fall had been broken by some stout young
trees and
bushes, amidst the roots of which he now lay. Mr. E.
soon rescued the
sufferer, who proved to be Mr. Thomas W.
Clark, a well-known, honest,
sober man, and a neighbor as well.
Mr. Clark's injuries are altogether
internal, from the shock of
falling, otherwise he is almost unscathed.
His pains inwardly
are very great, besides which he is nearly distracted
and
insane from the loss of his wife and horse, but mainly for
the
former. It seems that they had been riding out on a visit to
a
sick friend, and the horse had slipped on the wet clay, had
taken fright, and leaped the bank, just as Clark was hurled
from the
buggy, and landed where Ellet found him. The horse,
carriage, and the
precious freight, instantly plunged headlong
down through four hundred
feet of empty air.
"'We learn that the couple were most devotedly
attached to each
other, as is notorious from the fact, among others,
that
whenever they met, after a day's absence, and no matter
where,
nor in what company, they invariably embraced and kissed
each
other, in the rich, deep fullness of their impassioned and
exhaustless conjugal love. Poor Clark's loss is irreparable.
His wife
had been twice married, but her affection for her
first husband was but
as a shallow brook compared to the deep,
broad ocean of love for him who
now mourns, most bitterly
mourns, her untimely fate!'
"There!
What d'ye think o' that, my lady?--what d'ye think o' that, my
man? That's a
newspaper report, the same that Tom Clark carried in his
pocket, and read so
often in his dream. Singular, isn't it, that the
ruling passion triumphs,
especially Reporters'--even in Death or
Dream-land.
"At the end of two
days Mr. Clark recovered sufficiently to go to the
foot of the cliff, and
when there his first work was to carefully bury
what was left of his
wife--and her first husband's portrait at the same
time--for he had placed
that canvas across the backs of two chairs, and
amused himself by jumping
through it--like a sensible man.
"There is--do you know it?--an almost
uncontrollable fascination in
Danger. Have you never been seized with the
desire to throw yourself
down some yawning chasm, into some abyss, over into
the ready jaws of a
shark, to handle a tiger, play with a rattlesnake, jump
into a foundery
furnace, write a book, edit a paper, or some other such
equally wise and
sensible thing? Well, I know many who have thus been
tempted--and to
their ruin. Human nature always has a morbid streak, and that
is one of
them, as is also the horrible attraction to an execution--to visit
the
scene of a homicide or a conflagration--especially if a few people
have
been burnt up--and the more the stronger the curiosity; or to look
at
the spot where a score or two of Pat-landers have been mumified by
the
weakness of walls--and contractors' consciences. With what
strange
interest we read how the monarch of some distant lovely isle dined
with
his cabinet, off _Potage aux têet de missionaire_--how they banqueted
on
delicate slices of boiled evangelist, all of which _viandes_
were
unwillingly supplied by the Rev. Jonadab Convert-'em-all, who had a
call
that way to supply the bread of life, not slices of cold
missionary--and
did both! So with Tom Clark. One would have thought that the
last scene
he would willingly have looked upon, would have been the bottom of
the
ravine. Not a bit of it. An uncontrollable desire seized him, and
for
his life he could not keep away from the foot of the cliff. He
went
there, and day by day searched for every vestige of the poor
woman,
whose heart, and head likewise, he at last had succeeded in
breaking
into very small fragments. These relics he buried as he found them,
yet
still could not forsake his daily haunt. Of course, for a time
the
people observed his action, attributed it to grief and love, forbore
to
watch or disturb, and finally cared nothing about the matter
whatever.
Such things are nothing in California. Well was it for Clark that
it was
so--that they regarded him as mildly insane, and let his vagaries
have
full swing, for it gave him ample time and opportunity to fully
improve
one of the most astounding pieces of good luck that ever befell a
human
being since the year One.
"It fell out upon a certain day, that,
after attending to other duties,
Tom Clark, as usual, wound his way, by a
zig-zag and circuitous path, to
the foot of the hill, and took his accustomed
seat near by the rock
where it was evident Mrs. C. had landed--the precise
spot where her
flight had been so rudely checked. There he sat for a while,
like
Volney, in deep speculative reverie and meditation--not upon the
ruins
of Empires, but upon those of his horse, his buggy, and his
wife.
Suddenly he started to his feet, for a very strange fancy had
struck
upon his brain. I cannot tell the precise spot of its impingement,
but
it hit him hard. He acted on the idea instantly, and forthwith
resolved
to dig up all the soil thereabouts, that had perchance drank a
single
drop of her blood. It was not conscience that was at work, it
was
destiny. This soil, that had been imbrued with the blood of the
horse
and buggy--no, the woman, I mean--he resolved to bury out of sight
of
man and brute, and sun and moon, and little peeping stars; for
an
instinct told him that the gore-stained soil could not be an
acceptable
spectacle to anything on earth, upon the velvet air, or in the
blue
heaven above it; and so he scratched up the mould and buried it out
of
sight, in a rift hard by, between two mighty rocks, that the
earthquake
had split asunder a million years before.
"And so he threw
it in, and then tried to screen it from the sun with
leaves and grass, great
stones and logs of wood; after which he again
sat down upon the rock to
rest.
"Presently he arose to go, when, as he did so, a gleam of
sunshine
flashed back upon his eyes from a minute spiculæ of, he knew not
what.
He stooped; picked up the object, and found, to his utter
astonishment,
that he held in his hand a lump of gold, solid gold--an
abraded,
glittering lump of actual, shining gold.
"Tom Clark nearly
fainted! The lump weighed not less than a pound. Its
sides had been scratched
by him as he dug away the earth at the foot of
the cliff where his wife had
landed, after a brief flight through four
hundred feet of empty air--a
profitable journey for him--but not for
her, nor the horse, nor
buggy!
"For a minute Clark stood still, utterly bewildered, and wiping
the
great round beads of sweat from off his brow. He wept at every pore.
But
it was for a minute only: in the next he was madly, wildly digging
with
the trowel he always carried with him, for Tom was Herb-Doctor
in
general for the region roundabout, and was great at the root and
herb
business, therefore went prepared to dig them wherever chance
disclosed
them.
"Five long hours did he labor like a Hercules, in the
soft mould, in the
crevices of the rocks--everywhere--and with mad energy,
with frantic
zeal. Five long hours did he ply that trowel with all the force
that the
hope of sudden wealth inspired, and then, exhausted, spent, he
sank
prostrate on the ground, his head resting on a mass of yellow
gold--gold
not in dust, or flecks, or scales, but in great and massy lumps
and
wedges, each one large enough for a poor man's making.
"That
morning Thomas Clark's worldly wealth, all told, could have been
bought
thrice over for any five of the pieces then beneath his head, and
there were
scores of them. His brain reeled with the tremendous
excitement. He had
struck the richest 'Lead' ever struck by mortal man
on the surface of the
planet, for he had already collected more than he
could lift, and he was a
very strong and powerful man. There was enough
to fill a two-peck measure,
packed and piled as close and high as it
could be; and yet he had just begun.
Ah, Heaven, it was too much!
"Alas, poor Tom! poor, doubly poor, with all
thy sudden, boundless
wealth! Thou art even poorer than Valmondi, who, the
legends say, gave
his soul to the service of the foul fiend--for he, like
thee, had riches
inexhaustible; but, unlike Valmondi, and the higher Brethren
of the
Rosie Cross, thou hast not the priceless secret of Perpetual youth.
Thou
wilt grow old, Tom Clark--grow old, and sick, and grey hairs
and
wrinkles will overtake thee. And see! yonder is an open grave, and
it
yearns for thee, Tom Clark, it yearns for thee! And there's Blood
upon
thy hands, Tom Clark, red gouts of Blood--and gold cannot wash it
off.
"Valmondi repented, and died a beggar, but thy heart is cased in
golden
armor, and the shafts of Mercy may not reach its case, and wake thee
up
to better deeds, and high and lofty daring for the world and for
thy
fellow-men. Gold! Ah, Tom, Tom, thou hadst better have been a
humble
Rosicrucian--better than I, for weakness has been mine. It is better
to
labor hard with brain and tongue and hands, for mere food and
raiment,
than be loaded down with riches, that bear many a man earthward,
and
fill untimely graves! It is better to live on bread, and earn it,
than
to be a millionaire. Better to have heaped up wealth of Goodness,
than
many bars of Gold. Poor Tom! Rich you are in what self-seeking men
call
wealth; but poor, ah, how poor! in the better having, which whetteth
the
appetite for knowledge, and its fruitage, Wisdom, and which sendeth
man,
at night, to Happy Dream land, upon the viewless pinions of sweet
and
balmy Sleep! Every dollar _above_ labor brings ten thousand evils in
its
train.
"Well, night was close at hand, and Tom buried his God, and
went home.
Home, did I say? Not so. He went to his bed, to sleep, and in that
sleep
he dreamed that it was raining double eagles, while he held his
hat
beneath the spout. But he was not home, for home is where the heart
is,
and we have seen the locality of Clark's.
"For days, weeks,
months, he still worked at his 'Lead,' studiously
keeping his own counsel,
and managing the affair, from first to last,
with the most consummate tact;
so that no one even suspected that the
richest man in California, and on the
entire continent, was Mr. Thomas
W. By degrees he conveyed to, and had vast
sums coined at the mint, as
agent for some mining companies. A few hogsheads
he buried here and
there, and sprinkled some dozens of barrels elsewhere
about the ground.
This he continued to do until at last even _his_ appetite
for gold was
doubly, _triply_ glutted; and then he sprung the secret, sold
his claim
for three millions, cash in hand, and forthwith moved, and set up
an
establishment close under Telegraph Hill, in the best locality in
all
Santa Blarneeo.
"And now everybody and his wife bowed to Mr.
Thomas W., and did homage
to--his money. Curious, isn't it, how long some
gods _will_ live? About
three thousand years ago a man of Israel fashioned
one out of borrowed
jewelry, fashioned it in the form of a _veal_, after
which he proclaimed
it, and all the human calves fell down straightway, and a
good many are
still bent on worshipping at the self-same shrine. That calf
has
retained to this day '_eleven-tenths_' of earth's most
zealous
adoration! So now did men reverence Clark's money. Women smiled
upon
him, ambitious spinsters ogled, and hopeful maidens set their caps
to
enthrall him. He could carry any election, gave tone to the
Money
Market, reigned supreme and undisputed king on ''Change,' and
people
took him for a happy man; and so he was, as long as daylight lasted,
and
he was steadily employed; but, somehow or other, his nights
were
devilishly unpleasant! He could not rest well, for in the silence of
the
night, when deep sleep falleth upon man, an unsheeted ghost
passed
before his face, bearing a most damnably correct similitude to a
former
female acquaintance of his, now, alas! deceased; and not
unfrequently,
as he hurried along the streets, did he encounter persons who
bore
surprising and unmistakable resemblances to the 'dear
departed.'
"'Black clouds come up, like sinful visions,
To
distract the souls of solitary men.'
"Was Tom Clark mistaken? Was it
Fancy? Was it Fear?... One night he went
to a theatre, but left it in a
hurry, when the actor, who was playing
Macbeth, looked straight into his
private box and said:
"'The times have been that, when the brains
were out
The man would die--and there an end;
But _now_ they rise
again, with twenty mortal murders
On their crowns, to push us from our
seats!'
And the words pushed Clark out of the house, deadly
sick--fearfully
pale; for the avenging furies, roused at last, were at that
very moment
lashing his guilty soul to madness--and Shakspeare's lines,
like
double-edged daggers, went plunging, cutting, leaping, flying
through
every vault and cavern of his spirit. He rushed from the place,
reached
his house, and now: 'The bowl, the bowl! Wine, give me wine, ruby
wine.'
They gave it, and it failed! Stronger drink, much stronger, now
became
his refuge, and in stupefying his brain he stultified his
conscience.
His torture was not to last forever, for by dint of debauchery
his
sensitive soul went to sleep, and the brute man took the
ascendant.
Conscience slept profoundly. His heart grew case-hardened, cold
and
callous as an ice-berg. He married a Voice, and a Figure, as
heartless
as himself; became a politician--which completely finished him;
but
still, several handsome donations to a fashionable church--just think
of
it!--had the effect of procuring him the reputation of sanctity,
which
lie he, by dint of repetition, at last prevailed upon himself
to
believe. Thus we leave him for awhile, and return to the chamber
in
which was the little window whose upper sash was
down. |
|
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