WHAT BECAME OF THOMAS CLARK.
Our entertainer ceased to speak, for the evening meal was nearly ready,
and the golden sun was setting in the West, and he rose to his feet to
enjoy the glowing scene. Never shall I forget the intense interest taken
by those who listened to the tale--and doubtless these pages will fall
in the hands of many who heard it reported from his own lips, on the
quarter-deck of the steamer "Uncle Sam," during the voyage begun from
San Francisco to Panama, on the twenty-first day of November, 1861. At
first his auditors were about ten in number, but when he rose to look at
the crimson glories of the sky, fifty people were raptly listening. We
adjourned till the next day, when, as agreed upon the night before, we
convened, and for some time awaited his appearance. At last he came,
looking somewhat ill, for we were crossing the Gulf of California, and
Boreas and Neptune had been elevating Robert, or in plainer English,
"Kicking up a bobbery," all night long. We had at least a thousand
passengers aboard, consisting of all sorts of people--sailors, soldiers,
and divers trades and callings, and yet not one of us appreciated the
blessing of the epigastrial disturbances--caused by the "bobbery"
aforesaid. Many could successfully withstand any amount of qualms of
conscience--but those of the stomach were quite a different thing
altogether! and not a few of us experienced strong yearnings toward "New
York," and many "reachings forth" went in that direction. Indeed the
weather was so rough, that scarce one of us in the cabin fully enjoyed
our breakfasts. As for me, I'm very fond of mush and molasses, but I
really _couldn't_ partake thereof on that occasion. No, _sir_! The
gentleman from Africa who stood behind us at table to minister to our
gustatory wants, found his office a perfect sinecure that morning; and
both I and the Rosicrucian, in whose welfare that official took an
especial interest--because, in a fit of enthusiasm, we had each given
him four bits (ten dimes)--seemed to challenge his blandest pity and
commiseration, for we both sat there, looking as if we had been
specially sent for and couldn't go. The waiter--kind waiter!--discerned,
by a wonderful instinct, that we didn't feel exactly "O fat," and he
therefore, in dulcet tones, tried to persuade us to take a little
coffee. Coffee! Only think of it! Just after Mrs. Thomas W. had poisoned
her husband through that delectable medium. He suggested pork! "Pork,
avaunt! We're sea-sick." "Beef." Just then I had a splendid proof of
Psychological infiltration and transmission of thought; for my friend
and I instantaneously received a strong impression--which we directly
followed--to arise from our seats, go on deck, and look over the lee
rail. Toward the trysting time, however, the sea smoothed its wrinkles,
and the waters smiled again. Presently the expected one came, took his
accustomed seat, and began the conclusion of
TOM CLARK'S DREAM
"There's a tide in the affairs of men, which,
Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."
SHAKSPEARE.
"There's a tide in the affairs of women, which,
Taken at the flood, leads--God knows where."
BYRON.
"Neither do I! Last night, my friends, we left poor Tom in a desperate
situation, from which it seems necessary that I should relieve him, but
really without exactly knowing how--not feeling particularly well from
the motion of the ship last night, it is not easy to think under such
circumstances; still, believing as I do, in the sterling motto, Try,
why, I will endeavor to gratify your curiosity, especially as I perceive
we are honored with the presence of the ladies, and, for their sakes, if
not for our own, I feel it incumbent to do something for him.
"Tom Clark had, by the waves, been already taken in, and by this time
was nearly done for, so far as easy breathing was concerned. Slowly, but
surely, his vision was fading away, and he felt that he was fast sinking
into Night.
"'Deep the gulf that hides the dead--
Long and dark the road they tread.'
That road he felt that he was rapidly going; for his senses were
becoming numb, and a nauseant sensation proved that if he was not
sea-sick, he was remarkably sick of the sea, even to the point of
dissolution.
"All dying persons hear musical sounds: all dying persons see strange,
fitful gleams of marvellous light, and so did Thomas Clark--low, sweet
music and soft and pearly light it was, but while he drank it in, and
under its influence was being reconciled to Death, there suddenly rose
high and shrill above the midnight tempest, a loud and agonizing
shriek--the wild, despairing, woeful shriek of a woman--and it was more
shrill and piercing than the ziraleet of Egyptian dame or Persian houri;
and it broke upon the ear of the perishing man, like a summons back to
life and hope. Well and instantly did he recognize its tones. 'It must
be--yet no!--still it can be no other than _her_ v-voice! It cannot
be--and I am dy-ing!' and an angry wave dashed over him, drowning his
utterance, and hurling his body, like a wisp of straw, high upon the
ledge of rocks, whence the recoil, or undertow, was about to whirl it
out again into the foaming waters, when it was prevented by a most
wonderful piece of good fortune, which at that instant, intervened to
save him, at what certainly was the most interesting and critical
juncture of his entire earthly existence. Again that sharp voice rang
out upon the storm, and a hand, small, soft, yet nerved with all a
woman's desperate energy--desperate in Love! clutched him by the hair,
and dragged--triumphantly dragged him to the hard and solid land, just
over the ledge, on a winding path at the foot of the overhanging cliff.
It was Betsey Clark's voice; it was Betsey Clark's hand; it was she who
saved him; and thus he received a new lease of life at the hands of the
very woman whom, in a former dream, he had sent so gaily sailing down
the empty air--down through four hundred feet of unobstructed
space--with boulders at the bottom--solid boulders of granite and
quartz--gold-bearing quartz at that, and very rich, too, but still quite
solid and considerably harder than was agreeable to either the woman,
the buggy, or the horse, for not one of them was
'Soft as downy pillows are'--
not even Governor Downie's of California.
"It was, indeed, his wife's voice that he heard; it was she that rescued
him from what, in very truth, was a most unfortunate pickle--or
_brine_--as you choose, or _both_--but at all events one into which he
would never have got had he not been far greener than a cucumber.
"In a dream strange things come to pass. And in strict accordance with
the proprieties of that weird life and Realm--a life and Realm no less
real than weird--Tom was speedily cared for, and emptied of the overplus
of salt water he had involuntarily imbibed, while Mrs. Clark carefully
attended upon him, and a score or two of good people busied themselves
in saving all they could from the wreck. After this they all retreated
to a comfortable mansion, situated on the summit of this cliff, in the
regions of Dream, and there the following explanations took place: It
appeared that Betsey had been on a visit to her uncle, who kept the
light-house, and had for several days been on the look-out for the
arrival of the vessel--the wrecked one--in which, some time previous,
Tom had sailed on a voyage to Honey-Lu-Lu, the Bay of Fun-dee, or some
other such place that vessels trade to. The ship had at last been
descried, laboring in the midst of a violent storm, just before dark,
and under such circumstances as rendered it positively certain that she
would drive headlong upon the rocks at the foot of the very cliff on
which the light-house stood.
"But by a singular coincidence, perfectly unaccountable anywhere else,
save in Dream-land, Betsey Clark had learned to love Tom dearly, at the
precise instant that he had discovered, and repented his own great
error. At the instant that Tom had declared that, could he be spared, he
would be a better man, she saw his deadly peril; the icicles began to
melt around her heart--melt very fast--so that by the time she reached
him her soul was in a glow of pure affection for the man she had until
that moment hated. She now saw, with unmitigated astonishment, that,
with all his faults, there was a mine of excellent goodness; that God
had not made anything either perfect or imperfect; and that, after all
was said or done, he was of priceless consequence and value to her.
"Human nature and woman nature are very remarkable institutions,
especially the latter. We seldom value either a man or woman, until they
are either dead or a long way off, and then--'Who'd a'thought it?'
"When Clark awoke from the gentle sleep into which he had fallen after
the kind people had made him comfortable, he found his head pillowed on
a bosom a great deal softer than down or Downie's--that of his loving
and tender wife--for she was so now, and no mistake, in the full, true
sense--A Wife!
* * * *
"Tom Clark got well. He never grew rich, and never wanted to. He went to
Santa Blarneeo, and had both their pictures taken in a single frame, on
one canvas, and he hung it over the window in the little room--the
little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down.
* * * *
"Years rolled by. Long did they live in the enjoyment of a domestic
bliss too great for expression or description--a happiness unsullied by
an unworthy thought, unstained by any blot; for it was full, pure,
husbandly, wifely; and daily, hourly, did they bless and learn to love
each other more.
* * * *
"'Cease dreaming,' said Hesperina--the beautiful Hesperina, the Genius
of the Garden and the Star--'cease thy _dream_ of Perpetual Peace, and
live to actualize it on thy way through the World! Cease dreaming, but
awaken not. Remember the counsel of Otanethi, the radiant, Lord of the
Temple, the Spirit of the Hour; and when thou wakest, TRY to be a nobler
and a better man. Waken not yet, O frail and weak! but still
sleep--sweetly, soundly sleep, yet awhile, and only wake to be a full,
true, loving man, forgiving and forgiven!' And then the peerless being
waved her hand over the prostrate woman, and, lo! her movements gave
token that the strange and mighty magic was felt, and that she was
swiftly passing the mystic Threshold of that sphere of new and
marvellous activities where the Dream Fay reigns supreme."
At this point of the story, a lady, Mrs. V., invoked the narrator's
attention, saying: "Thus far, sir, your story is an excellent one, and
its moral is all that could be desired; yet how comes it that you, who
so strongly deprecate all human hatreds and unkindness, are yet, in a
measure, amenable to the very thing you decry? In the proem to the
remarkable story you have been reciting, you have admitted that there
was one man toward whom your soul felt bitter. Is this right? Is it just
to yourself, your foe, the world, or God? Answer me!"
The Rosicrucian studied awhile, and then replied: "It is _not_ right or
just, and yet it is very hard to forgive, much less to forget, a cool,
deliberate injury, such as I suffered at the pen, and hand, and tongue
of the man alluded to. It is hard to forget"----
"And still harder to forgive," said one of our company, a rather
young-looking man, who had been one of the speaker's most attentive
auditors. He spoke with much passion.
Said the Stranger: "It is hard to forgive or forget. Few people in the
world are capable of long-continued love in a single direction, unless
self-trained; fewer still of deliberate, long-continued hatred, and
fewer still are competent to full, free, unqualified forgiveness. _I am
not._ In all my experience, I never knew but one man in whom unqualified
Hatred was a paramount King-passion, over-riding and surviving all
others whatsoever. I will tell you that man's story as he told it to me,
for he was a friend of mine whom I dearly loved, and who loved me in
return. One day I asked him to open his heart to me, which, after a
while, he did as follows, saying: 'Listen, while I briefly sketch the
story of my life. There was a man who, because I differed with him on
questions of Philosophy--for he claimed to be Nature's private
secretary, which claim all sensible people laughed at, and only
weaklings listened to and believed--he, this man, for this cause, called
in question, not only my own, but the fair fame of the mother who bore
me--that mother being already dead; and for this I hate him, as roses
hate the foul malarious swamps of earth. The blazoned motto of that man
was--Let no man call God his Father, who calls not man his brother. I
rose in the world, and he hated me for the talent God gave me. Envy! I
was in a sense his rival, and as such, this man, snake-like, used his
very utmost influence and power, by tongue and pen, to injure me--and
did--for he took the bread from my children by depriving me of
employment. I wrote a pamphlet, under a _nom de plume_, and he joyfully
exposed my secret. Jealousy! He attacked me personally, grossly in his
paper, misrepresented well known facts--LIED! Robbing me of fair fame,
as he had my dead mother before me. It is impossible for A to forgive B
for a crime against C. I hated him for the dead one's sake; that hate I
once thought would survive my death, and be the thing next my heart
through all the Eternities. Perhaps it will not. He crushed me for a
time, but "_Je renais de mes cendres!_" We two are yet in the World. He
will not forget it! Will I? Never!--for the sake of my dead mother. I
can overlook his crimes toward me, but before the Bar I hold him ever
accountable for the injury to her--and to my little ones, who nearly
starved, while this fiend of hell, in the garb of heaven, triumphed in
_my_ misery, and gloated over _their_ wrongs. I am the watchful
proxy--the rightful Nemesis, of the living and the Dead! I put forth
books to the world. This demon in saint's garb, and his minions, howled
them down as blood-hounds do the panting slave. More bread lost to my
hungry ones, more stern calling for reprisals. All men have foes. I had;
and this man--this impostor, this conscienceless outrager of the dead
and starver of little children, listened gladly, and covertly published
their statements--and that when he morally knew them to be as false as
his own black, polygamous, scoundrel heart. More wrong done, more little
pale hands reaching vainly forth for bread; and more hatred laid up for
him and his minions at the bottom of my heart of hearts, the core and
centre of my soul!'
"Thus he spake, and the man's eyes flashed fire as the words escaped
him, proving that they were not the impulsive utterances of temper, but
the deep and cherished results of long and bitter years of feeling. Said
I: 'And does this feeling demand a physical atonement?' With a look of
ineffable scorn, he replied: 'Not for an empire's sceptre would I harm
a single hair of that man's head. Were his wife in a burning building, I
would rescue her, or perish in the trial; were his children--but, thank
God, he cannot propagate his species--Monsters never do!--but had he
such, and they were hungry, I would work till I fell from exhaustion, in
the effort to procure them bread: were the man himself in want or
danger, I would joyously risk my life to save or serve him. Why? Because
my revenge is one that could not be appeased by blood. It is too
vast--too deep--and I will wreak it in other worlds, a myriad ages from
now. To this I pledge my very soul; and when hereafter I point him to
what I am, and what he has brought me to, I will thunder, in the ears of
his spirit, in the very presence of the Judge, "THOU ART THE MAN!"
Wherever he may be, in the Vault, or in the Space, there will I be also.
Nor can this feeling die before he shall undo his doing, and--no matter
what. At length this feeling of mine grew strong. I loved. It drowned
all love. I was ambitious, and ambition paled before it. I had wealth
within my reach, and turned from the shining gold to the superior
brilliance of the pole star of my passion against the soul of this man,
not against his body. And then I said:--I will rise from my ashes. I
will win fame and name. I, the Angular Character, will rise, and in my
dealings with this fiend will be as remorseless and bitter as the
quintessence of Hate; I will suffer patiently, and mount the steeps of
fame, and I will ring the bells at the door of the world till all the
peoples wake, and then, _then_ will I launch him down the tide of time
in his own true colors--stripped to the centre, and show him to the
Ages for the monster that he is. This is a revenge worthy of an immortal
being; one that merely extends to the physical person is such as brutes
enjoy, but is not full, broad, deep and enduring enough for a man. As
for his minions they are too contemptible to engage my attention for a
moment; but in their master's soul will I fix my talons so deep, that an
eternity shall not witness their extraction; and henceforth I dedicate
all my life to the one purpose of _avenging the dead_!'
"Five years rolled by after this recital, when again, in a foreign land,
we met each other. In the meantime he had grown grey. His foe still
attacked him; he had never once replied, but his hatred had crystallized
in the centre of his soul, and, said he, 'I can wait a million years;
but revenged I will be yet, by the Life of God!' That is my story; I
believe my friend will keep his oath," said the young man as he turned
from the company on the quarter-deck, and slowly walked toward the bow
of the steamer.
The words he had spoken were bitter ones, and they were expressed with
such a _verve_--such a vehemence of vigor, intensity and passion, that
not one man or woman on the quarter-deck of the steamer doubted for an
instant that himself was the injured one, himself the vehement hater,
notwithstanding his implied disclaimer. We saw that he fully, deeply,
felt all he gave utterance to; and never, until that moment, did I
comprehend the awful depths and capacity of the human soul for either
love or hatred; nor had any of us, even the Rosicrucian, the faintest
idea but that every word of his awful threat came from his heart; nor
the slightest doubt that if there were a possibility of wreaking his
revenge in the World to come, that he would find that possibility, and
remorselessly execute it. Said the Rosicrucian, as the man finished his
terrible recital: "This episode comes in quite _apropos_ to my own
story's moral. It is well to beware, lest we, by some act or word of
ours, so deeply plant the germ of hatred, that in after years it spring
up to annoy us, and mar our peace of mind. Now, I have some knowledge of
the soul, and am firmly convinced that the man who has just left us
means all that he says; nor would I incur so dreadful a penalty as that
man's hatred, for all the diadems on the terraqueous globe. His passion
is not merely external, else he would, by an assault, or by slander,
seek its satisfaction. But his feeling is the offspring of a sense of
outraged justice. I have not the least doubt that the object of his
spleen laughs at the man. But Revenge will outlive laughter, wealth,
position, influence--all things, when of the nature of the present case.
Thus, Madame, your question, I hope, has been answered to your
satisfaction. Of course, I deprecate hatred, but demand justice.
"But see, the sun is setting again, and the conclusion of our story must
be deferred until after supper, when, if you will again assemble here
upon the quarter-deck, you shall learn what befell Mr. Thomas W., and
what other events transpired in the little chamber with a window at the
foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down."