BETSEY CLARK IN DREAM-LAND.
Could I with ink the ocean fill,
Were all the earth of parchment made;
Were every blade of grass a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade--
To tell the love of God above
Would drain the briny oceans dry:
Nor would a scroll contain the whole,
Though covering all the arching sky.
"I believe just as did the writer of these lines," said the Rosicrucian,
as he began his recital in the cabin of the "Uncle Sam," after partaking
of what the purveyors of that steamship line, in the rich exuberance of
their facetious imaginations were pleased to call a supper.
* * * *
"Betsey Clark was dreaming: It was morning, and the glorious face of the
sun shone in unclouded splendor over the world--this world, which, to
the good man and woman, is ever a world of Good and Beauty, viewed from
the God-side, whatever it may be from the human. All things were
praising Him--at least all dumb things were, for men so intently adore
their Lares and Penates--Dollars and Dimes--that they have scarcely
time to devote a worshipful thought to Him who is King of kings, and
regnant God of gods.
"Nature was arrayed in gala robes; she had put aside her frowns, and now
smiled sweetly on the world, decked gaily in pearls and light; she was
on her way to attend the weddings of the flowers and the birds. Betsey
Clark was a blythe young girl again. In her dream she was gaily tripping
o'er the lea, her happy heart swelling and palpitating with strange
emotions--she was a budding virgin now, and her heart overflowed with
innocence and love, accompanied with that pure, but strange, wild
discontent, and longing for, she knew not what, but something, which all
young women feel, and are conscious of, as they pass the golden barrier
that divides their youth from womanhood. It is, and was, the holy and
chaste desire to love, and be loved in return--from the heart, sir,
right straight from the heart! Ah, how I sometimes wish I had been
created a girl instead of a boy. Bah! What's the use of wishing?
especially when all the girls desire an opposite transmigration.
"Betsey's bloom outrivalled the blushes of the newly-wedded roses--roses
just married to sunlight, in the morning dew, with all the trees for
witnesses, and all the birds to swell the sounding chorus! And she was
happy; ah, how full of happiness! and yet it was slightly dashed with
bitterness--just a taste of gall in her cup of honey--for she imagined a
more perfect state, had vague dreamings of something still higher. So
have we all. We have it! and that is a certain sign that that higher
something is attainable, if we only try. Some one said he wanted to eat
his friend. Good! but I want to lose myself in another self--to make of
them twain a unit, which is better! or to thus blend, and then lose
_ourself_ in the great God-life, which is Best!
"And she gaily tripped over the lea. She was going with a pitcher of
cream, and a basket of fresh eggs, toward a hole in the rock, not a
great way off, to present them to the strange 'Hermit of the Silver
Girdle,' who dwelt within a little grotto just upon the edge of a forest
wild, hard by her girlhood's home.
"Now, be it henceforth known to everybody, and to everybody's son and
daughter--if the fact is not already patent unto them--that every female
between the ages of fifteen and twenty-three, is naturally,
spontaneously, and inevitably, in love; and all that is then wanting, is
a suitable, and worthy object to lavish it upon. If she finds such, well
and good; but whether she does, or not, still she must, and will pour it
out--either healthily, or otherwise--on a cat or a man; a poodle or
politics; marriage or a mirror. Between those ages the female heart is
just as full of love as an egg is full of meat; nor can she help it; it
is the birth of affection, love, romance--the endeared and endearing
spring-tide of life and emotion. Alas! that the tide too often ebbs,
never, never to rise again this side of the grave! Then, in the rich
exuberance of her innocence and purity, woman, unlike man at the same
age, thinks no wrong, fears no harm. Gentle, trustful, noble girl!
Blessed is he who then calls her to himself--who, in the morning of his
life, and her own, shall win, and worthily wear, her heart; and abased
indeed is he who then shall gaze upon her with unhallowed eyes, and seek
to lure her from the path of honorable womanhood!
"Presently the girl reached the hermit's abode, saluted the reverend
man, presented her welcome gift, and received on bended knee his
blessing in return.
"They conversed awhile, did that fair girl and that strange recluse; the
hermit stood on this side, the maiden stood on that. 'Daughter,' said
he, as he placed his white palms upon her beaming forehead, 'the world
and all it contains amounts to but little, if it, and they, be not
improved to the utmost--the attainment of the soul's aliment, knowledge,
which it assimilates and digests into Wisdom. I have partaken of that
food for fourscore years and ten--have converted it into wisdom, and
expect to be thus engaged during long centuries to come. Thou seest me
living here alone, dependent upon the charities of such as thou: poor in
California, where even the rocks are retained by golden wedges in their
places, and where diamonds sparkle in a hundred valleys. Thou seest me
shut out from the busy world, and drawing life from Charity--and Heaven.
Such an existence is suitable for me, but not for such as thee. I am a
student and professor of a strange and mighty magic, for I possess the
marvellous Mirror, and the still more wondrous Crystal Globe--both of
which are heirlooms of the early foretime, handed down the ages to me,
as I in turn shall bequeath them to the ages yet to be. But thou! thou
art a woman, and cannot afford to shut thyself out from life, society,
and pleasure, as Rosicrucians do, and must, if they would obtain the
kingdom, the password--that uplifts the sable curtains that hide a dozen
worlds--and the key, by which the doors of Mystery are opened. Child,
for thee there are more fitting things in store than the upper
knowing--better than solitude; higher charms than study, and abstruse
pondering over recondite lore, and subtle laws of Being and of Power.
Thou in thy way, I in mine, are, and must be, soldiers in the strife for
holy peace; toilers for the millions yet unborn; mechanics for
redemption of the world; active bees in the busy hive--thou of active
human life, I that of human destiny; together, marchers in the grand
army whose movement is ever onward, and which never looks behind. I
strive for the True; thy destiny tends toward the Beautiful; together,
we shall reach the goal of Good, moving over thorny roads, albeit, on
the way; for there are many dangerous pit-falls, deep morasses, dismal
swamps, gloomy forest-solitudes, and stony mountains, steep and
slippery, that bar man's path to happiness. "Prepare ye the way.... Make
His paths straight!" Such is thy business--and mine. To accomplish this
duty I am here; but a different field is thine to labor in. To achieve
thy destiny thou must place thine affections upon a son of man--thy
soul's great love on God alone. You must wed, bear children in great
agony, yet gloriously, to your husband, your country, and to Him.
"'I will now, by means of the higher magic, which I am able to use in
thy behalf, show the figure of a man whom you will hereafter marry. You
shall behold him _as he is; as he will be_, and _and as he may
become_--provided you choose to make him so; for a husband is _ever and
always just what a woman makes him_! I am now about to display a
phantarama of the future before you. Observe, and note well all thou
mayest behold. Speak not thereof to vain worldlings, who cannot
comprehend deep mysteries, such as these; above all, utter not one
single word while thou sittest at yonder table, gazing into the
Future-revealing Crystal Globe.'
"And so saying, the grey-clad hermit of the Silver Girdle, who dwelt in
a forest wild, led the way to a recess of the grotto, where the light
was very subdued, very dim, and exceedingly religious. There he seated
her before a tripod, supporting a triangular shelf or table, himself
taking a seat directly opposite. Upon this table he then placed a small,
square, dark-leathern box, opening on brass hinges across the sides and
top. He opened it, while reiterating his caution, and disclosed to the
enraptured gaze of the doubly-delighted girl--all girls are delighted
before they get their husbands--and many of them are considerably
delighted, if not more so, to get rid of them afterwards!--a magnificent
globe of pure crystal, clear as a dew-drop, radiant as a sunbeam. It was
not over four inches in diameter, was a perfect sphere, and was
altogether beautiful--in this respect, infinitely transcending that of a
soap-bubble of the same size--a humble comparison, but a just one--for
there are few things more beautiful than these self-same soap-bubbles!
"The first impulse of the girl was to handle this beautiful trinue--as
it was called; and she made a movement with that intent, but was
instantly prevented by the hermit in grey, who said: 'Not for a hundred
husbands, should mortal fingers touch that sphere; for such contact
would instantly rob it of its virtues, perhaps never to be regained!
Look, my daughter, look, but touch not!'
"She obeyed, and withdrew her hand, but reluctantly; for her fingers
itched severely--as what young woman's would not, under similar
circumstances. _Vide_ the Apple and Eve--by means of which, man
fell--but fell _up-hill_ nevertheless! A great trait is this curiosity.
It is woman's nature; it is her great prerogative! Eve looked into
matters and things generally, induced Adam to follow her example, and
thus was the main lever that lifted the race out of Barbarism, and into
civilization and decency. So much for this much-abused 'Female
curiosity.' But for it, man had remained a brute. With it, he has risen
to a position a long way below the angels, to be sure, but then he is
'Coming Up.'
"The twain now began to gaze steadily at the magic globe, maintaining
perfect silence for the space of ten minutes. All was still, hushed,
silent as the grave, and only the wild throbbings of the young girl's
heart could be heard. Presently the crystal began to change, and to emit
faint streams of pale light, which gradually became more pronounced and
distinct, until finally there was a most magnificent play of colors all
over its surface. Presently the rich, effulgent scintillas, the
concentric, iridescent flashings previously observed, ceased entirely,
and in their stead the girl began to notice two very strange and
extraordinary appearances, which, to her and to all save those who are
familiar with such mysteries (and which, although nearly unknown in this
country, are still quite common in the farther East), are totally
unaccountable. In the first place, she became conscious that she was
breathing an atmosphere highly charged with a subtle aura that
manifestly emanated from the body of the crystal itself. This air was
entirely different from that which floated in the grotto an hour before,
when she entered with her offering, because it was unmistakably charged,
and that, too, very heavily, with a powerful magnetic aura. I said
'magnetic;' I should have said 'magnetoid,' for whereas the former
induces drowsy feeling and somnolence, the latter had a purely opposite
effect, for it provoked wakefulness, and promoted greater and
intensified vigilance on the part of both the woman and the man.
"In the second place, there came a remarkable change in the crystal
itself; for, having lost its brilliant, diamond-like colors and
interchanging rainbow spray, it now became decidedly opalescent,
speedily passing into the similitude of a ball of clear glass, with a
disk of pearly opal transversely through its centre. Very soon even this
changed, until it became like a dead-white wall, upon the surface of
which the eye rested, without the power of penetration as before. Gazing
steadily upon this opaque frame, the girl in a short time distinctly and
perfectly beheld, slowly moving across that pearly shield, as if
instinct with life, numerous petite, but unmistakable _human
figures_!--figures of men and women, tiny to the last degree, but
absolutely perfect in outline and movement. And they moved hither and
thither across the field of vision; she saw them moving through the
streets of a city. A little closer!--'as I live, they are going up and
down Bush street!'--an aristocratic thoroughfare in the great city known
in this story as Santa Blarneeo. This fact she instantly recognized,
with that strange and inexplicable anachronism peculiar to Dreams, and
the still stranger inconsistency peculiar to dreamers and voyagers to
the 'Summer Land.'
"Gradually these tiny figures appeared to enlarge, or rather, she saw
them in such a perspective, that they looked like full-sized persons
some little distance off. Even while she gazed, the crystal changed
again, or rather, vanished from her perceptions altogether, the figures
enlarged--approached, as it were--and she became a passive spectator of
a scene at that moment transpiring--but where? Certainly not in this
world of ours, nor in Dream-land, nor in fancy's realms, nor in the home
of souls you read about in the 'very funny' descriptions of 'Starnos and
'Cor,' nor in 'Guptarion,' nor around the 'Lakes of Mornia,' nor among
the 'Pyramidalia,' nor in 'Saturn,' nor in any of the gloriously
ridiculous localities imagined by A. J. Davis, and put forth by him in
the delusive hope that any sane man or woman could be found green or
fool enough to swallow. Few men better deserve the name of impostor than
the author of 'Guptarion,' 'Mornia,' 'Foli,' 'Starnos,' 'Galen,' 'Magic
Staffs,' 'Harm _only_--Man,' and ''Cor,'--not one of which has the least
existence on the earth, under, or above or around it; but the true and
exact location of which is on an extensive and very soft spot just above
their author's ears, and the soft spots of his followers, for it is
morally certain that no one with even an ordinary modicum of--not
sanity, but common sense, can, would or could accept his funny
'Philosophy?' as true.
"'Where, then, was the true locality of the scene that Betsey saw taking
place?' you ask. And I answer, and I tell you, in nearly the words of
the strange Hermit of the Silver Girdle, when explaining it to Betsey
Clark: All these strange things are occurring, not in any sort of
phantom-world, but in another material earth, quite as solid as this.
This crystal is a magic telescope through which we may view whatever we
desire to, whether on this earth or off it.
"Listen! Space is by no means limitless, but is a globular or
elliptical, definite region--the play-ground of the Powers--and is
bounded on all sides by a thick amorphous Wall, of the materials of
which new worlds and starry systems from time to time are fashioned.
This Wall is thicker, a million-fold, than the diameter of the entire
menstruum wherein this universe is floating. Surrounding this universe,
on all sides of this wall, are seven other universes, separated as is
this, from all the others; and they all differ from our own and the
rest, as differs a volcano from a sprig of rosemary--that is to say,
utterly--totally. The material worlds of each of these other universes
outnumber the sands of the desert, yet their number is precisely that of
the one in which we live; but they are larger, for the earth that
corresponds to, and bears the name of this of ours, is, in the smallest
of the other universes, quite as bulky as the sun which gives us light,
and the other solar bodies in proportion. The universe next higher is
immeasurably larger than the one just alluded to. It has the same number
of material worlds, and the earth corresponding to this of ours is as
large as the solar system in which we are. That of the third is as large
as the solar system of the second, and so on to the last of the series
of seven; but not the last in fact, for outside of, and surrounding the
entire seven, is another Wall, separating them from forty-nine other
systems, in ascending grade. I cannot now give you any information
respecting the sublime realities of these forty-nine, nor of the regions
and realms STILL BEYOND; therefore I recall your attention to this world
and sphere of being.
"On earth there are seven distinct classes or orders of men: the
INSTINCTUAL, AFFECTIONAL, INTELLECTUAL, INTUITIONAL, ASPIRING,
INDIFFERENT, and WISE, to all of whom a different destiny is decreed.
Organizations determine destinies! Every nebulae seen in the far-off
heaven is a system of worlds. That wonderful family of stars to which
our sun belongs is, with all its overflowing measure of star-dust, but a
single cosmos; and there are myriads of such within the confines of this
present universe, and before we cross the vast ocean of Ethylle, and
reach the Wall alluded to. All things are in halves; male,
female--negative, positive--light, dark, and so on. So is the nebulae of
worlds to which we belong. Now, remember what I have said of the
resemblances between this earth and universe and the seven others
beyond the Wall. Precisely such likenesses exist between the worlds of
the respective halves of our own system.
"At various distances, flecking the vault, we behold suns and systems
innumerable. These all belong to this, the female half of our system.
Beyond them lies a vast ocean of Ether, separating the Continents.
Across that Ocean, at a distance incomputable by the human intellect, is
the male half of our system. There--there is a sun precisely as large,
as brilliant, and as hot as ours--and no more so. Around that sun fiery
comets whirl, planets revolve, and meteors flash, just as they do
hitherward. There is a Venus, Mercury, Asteroids, Mars, Jupiter, and all
the other planetary bodies, just as here, and of the same dimensions. A
globe there is called Earth; it has a moon, an Atlantic, Pacific,
Mediterranean, and other seas, exactly equivalent to ours. It has a
California, a San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Boston, New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg, just as here; and their names, as
are those of its trees, countries, counties, town, people, capitals, are
exactly as on this earth. There is a President Lincoln, and General
Fremont; a Thurlow Weed, and Cullen Bryant; an Agassiz, and Horace
Greeley; Atlantic Monthly, and Harper's Magazine; a New York Mercury, an
Independent, edited by Beecher, Tilton and Leavitt--and they deal the
same as do their similitudes here. The streets and omnibuses are
precisely as here; Wall street is as full of thieves, and contractors
get fat off their country's gore as they do here. There is a Rebellion
there, and Union Generals sell themselves to Treason just as here--while
the men who could and would save the nation are left out in the cold, in
spite of the Tribunes, Posts, and Times--all of which long since pointed
out the road to Richmond and to victory--and were laughed at just as in
our planet.
"In that far-distant world there is at this moment a steamer, 'Uncle
Sam,' sailing across the Gulf of California, as at this moment we are,
and on board of her there are just as many men and women as on this one,
and their persons, names, habits, features, motives, hopes, fears,
characters, secrets, and intellectual and moral natures, are precisely
the same as our own, on board this ship. Our namesakes there are at this
instant doing, thinking, acting, reading, as are we; and some of them
are listening to a very strange story, and its still stranger episodes,
told by a Rosicrucian--just such a personage as myself--indeed my Very
Self--in the self-same form and feature. And I say, and I tell you, that
the _alter ego_--the living portrait of each man and woman in this
circle, is thinking of him or herself, and of me and my revelations, at
this moment, with the same stupid levity, with the same deep and awful
impression of their truth, in the same manner, whatever it be, as are
all of you at this moment. And some there, as here, set me and my story
at naught--stigmatize me as an enthusiast or dreaming poet, as do some
of you. Others believe my truths. You have heard that coming events cast
their shadows before them, and that Prophecy has been demonstrated true.
Behold the solution of the world-enigma. Events transpire in that other
world a trifle sooner than they do here; yet you must remember that
there is a vast interval of space, and therefore time, that must be
bridged by even that swift courier, Sympathy. According as a man there,
and his counterpart here, are fine, aspiring, and spiritual-minded, so
is their _rapport_ across the awful gulf; and the male half, the more
perfect portion of each man or woman's self, very frequently telegraphs
the other, often a long time before the event becomes actualized on this
earth. You have heard of Fays and Fairies. Listen, and learn the truth
concerning them: Remembering that no human soul can by any possibility
quit the confines of this universe until it has exhausted the whole of
its, the universe's, resources, and has attained _all_ of Love, Will,
Majesty, Power, Wisdom and Dignity, that this vast cosmos can give it;
after which it sleeps awhile, but will awake again to the exercise of
Creative Energy, on the thither side of the Wall--both duplicates sleep
at once; for, after their deaths on the material earths, they exist
apart, but sustain the same relations, in certain aromal worlds attached
to their respective primary homes. At the final deaths, they blend
forever, their stature is increased, and they enter, through the Wall,
that earth resembling the one whereon the double unit had its birth
_originally_.
"You have heard of Metempsychosis, Transmigration, of Reincarnation, and
of Progress. Listen, and learn more: Not only the inhabitants of the
countless myriads of worlds in this material _and aromal_ universe, but
also the material and aromal worlds themselves, are in a constant state
of progressive movement. By aromal worlds I mean the aerial globes that
attend each planet. They are places where souls rest awhile after death,
before they commence in earnest the second stage of their career; and
this state is an intermediate one, just like sleep, only that they are
conscious and active while there; but it is an activity and
consciousness, not like, but analogous to that of Dream. Every world,
and assemblage of worlds, is periodically reduced, by exhaustion, but at
enormously long intervals, into Chaos, and is then reformed, or created
anew, still, however, being the same world. After this passage, each
system and world becomes vastly more perfect than before; but, owing to
the diminished quantity of Spirit or essence which has been consumed in
giving birth to hosts of immortal armies, each system and world is
vastly smaller than before. This is for two reasons, one of which I have
just stated; the other is, in order to make room for new cosmi, and new
worlds, both of which are being constantly created from the material of
the Wall; and the Wall itself is the condensed effluence of the
Maker--in short, it is God-Od, and therefore inexhaustible. The majority
of those who have lived on any world are re-born in it after its
restitution, they, in the meantime, having grown correspondingly clean
and perfect. The same relative proportions between a world and its
occupants is still preserved, and never varies; and, consequently, the
six-foot man and the five-foot woman of one career, find themselves, in
their next state, occupying five and four-foot bodies respectively. The
present is our thirty-fourth Incarnation. Originally we were taller
than many of our present trees, and coarser than our mountains. We are
smaller and better than ever before, and our worst man is better than
the best of the preceding state. The worst, in the next change, will be
better than our best.[2] To illustrate, let me say, that the following
persons, viz.: Thurlow W----, Abraham L----, Russel L----, J. Gordon
B----, Henry J. R----, Wm. Cullen B----, Jefferson D----, John G.
Fre----, James Buch----, Wigfall, Charles Sum----, Horace G----,
Fernando W----, George B. Mc----, Gen. J. H--k--r, Dr. H. F. G--d--r,
Charles T--n--s, Lizzie D---- and myself, respectively, were, previously
to the last change: the first, a feudal lord; the second, an editor; the
third, a Danish prince; the fourth, a court-jester; the fifth, a
missionary; the sixth, a _generalissimo_; the seventh, a harpist; the
eighth, a theatrical manager; the ninth, a knife-grinder; the tenth, a
privateer; the eleventh, a preacher; the twelfth, a schoolmaster; the
thirteenth, a trumpeter; the fourteenth, a politician; the fifteenth, a
hunter; the sixteenth, a very little boy, died exceedingly young; the
seventeenth, an emperor; the eighteenth, a born queen; and the last, a
barber's clerk; so that it is evident, that though our progress is slow,
still that we are 'Coming up.' Little as our actual worth may be, still
we are better now, generally speaking, than in the former stage. Thus,
we will grow smaller at every change. Some worlds, and their dwellers,
in this universe have thus decreased, and being sometimes seen by people
here, have been called Fays or Fairies. The world has yet to undergo
some thousands of these changes, until at last we become very small
indeed, which will occur when conception is no longer possible in the
universe, either in the vegetable or animal worlds; and then will occur
the change and transference beyond the Wall.
[Footnote 2: Extremes meet. The sublime impinges on the ridiculous. The
substance of the text--save only that I have changed the names--was put
forth seriously as truth, by a recent British author. Here, of course,
it is given for what it is worth, which may be _more than some imagine_.
Viewed in one light, these notions are almost as absurd as are the
desperately-funny lucubrations of Andrew Jackson Davis, concerning what
he calls the "Summer Land," which many people regard as true revelations
of Man's _post-mortem_ life, when, in fact, they are monstrous
abortions, devoid of even common sense, and are without one particle of
truth from beginning to end.]
"Betsey Clark was beholding persons and events of that other world-half
of this, our little staying-house, beholding things through that fairy
lense--that beautiful magic crystal, through which the human eye can
see, the human brain _sense_, things that have occurred, are occurring,
or are to occur, upon the world-stage of this our life's theatre.
"It is an established fact that fools never dream! Wise people often do!
And those belonging to the latter category cannot have failed to notice
that things, dates, persons, circumstances, and probabilities, are
considerably mixed up, as a general thing, in dreams. Their anachronisms
are especially remarkable and provoking, and indicate that time is of
but little, if any, account, so far as the soul, _per se_, is concerned.
A dream of a minute often embraces the multifarious experience of a
century. This instant you are hob-nobbing with one of the pre-Adamite
kings on the plateaus of eastern Asia, and in the next are taking wine
with Pharaoh and Moses on the banks of the Nile; now you are delivering
an oration before Alexander the Great, and in a jiffy find yourself
stuffing ballots on Cornhill in an election for ward-constable; now you
are contemporary with Sardanapalus or Thothmes III., and in half a
second you are delivering a 'Spiritual Lecture' in Lamartine Hall,
having paid fifty cents for the privilege of listening to your own
'Splendid and Overpowering Eloquence.' Taken together, dreams, like
Complimentary Benefits, are queer concerns. Such was that of Betsey
Clark; for at one moment of time she was a virgin girl, a wife, a widow,
and a wife again. She recognized at once the facts of her girlhood, that
she had carefully deposited one husband in a hole in the ground, and was
in high hopes of performing the same kind office for a second--Mr.
Thomas W.
"Presently the view in the crystal faded away, and in its stead there
came the appearance of a large and splendid atelier, containing
numberless statues, in a more or less finished condition, standing on
pedestals or in niches round the wall-sides. The sculptor was absent. It
was evident at a glance that his images were not hewn of marble, but of
some other material, which needed but a touch of fire to make them start
up into life, liberty, and light. It was a man-factory--a place where
people were carved out to order by a wonderful Artist, who had just
opened business thereabouts and who, judging from appearances, was
already in a fair line of patronage, and quite likely to do well, if not
better.
"Standing near the centre of the apartment, propped up with bits of
wood, Betsey saw the exact likeness, in all respects, of Mr. Thomas
Clark--but the figure was unfinished--soft, puttyish, and doughy as a
Northern Politician.
"This statue stood semi-erect, and strongly suggested an invalid kitten,
leaning on a hot brick; or, a modern philosopher of the spread-eagle and
Progressive school, when the contributions are small. The figure was
labelled 'Tom Clark, as he was;' that is to say, soft, ductile, capable
of being moulded into the Ruffian or the Man. Directly beside it was
another statue, closely resembling the other in many points, but yet
different. It was labelled 'Tom Clark, as he is!' that is to say, it
looked as if abundantly capable of feeding on tenpenny nails, dining on
files, and supping upon pigs of iron. It looked, for all the world, as
if the greatest possible favor that could be done for it, would be to
tread on the tail of its coat, or knock a chip off its shoulder, or as
if its supreme delight would be to be permitted to wrap itself in a
star-spangled banner; move across the room in three strides and a
straddle; fire off two horse-pistols, and die like a son of a--gun,
after having exercised a special penchant for divorced women--separating
wives from their husbands, for the sake of position, wealth, beauty and
passion. It looked as if it was troubled about stealing rain-producing
theories--not for stealing, but for being caught at it. It looked as if
its heart was breaking, because it had not brains enough to be a
Pantarch--or the tenth-part of one. It looked as if its heart would
burst with envy, because other men had friends, and power, and
applause, and merit, in spite of _its_ little, perked-up, seven-by-nine,
skull-cracked soul--poor cambric, needle-eyed soul, twelve hundred and
eighty trillions to the half ounce. It looked, for all the world, as Tom
really did the very last time he came home, just before they lay down
upon their couch, in the little chamber in which was the little window,
whose upper sash was down--that is to say, short, crusty, crisp, and
meaner than 'git;' as he felt before they both lay down, and dreamed
such 'very funny' dreams--mean, despicable, iron-hearted Tom Clark, the
plague of her life, bane of her existence, and source of all her
troubles. So at least it seemed to the lady in her curious vision.
Presently both these figures slowly faded from her sight, and in their
stead there arose through the floor a third figure, labelled, '_Tom
Clark, as he may be_.' While she was admiring the vast superiority, in
all respects, of this new statue, a fourth human figure entered the
atelier; this figure was alive, and, _mirabile dictu!_ the woman beheld
the exact counterpart of--_herself!_--clad as a working artist--a
sculptor, with apron, paper-cap, and dusty clothing, all complete, as if
she had just left chiselling the dead marble. This lemur of herself
appeared deeply gratified at the appearance of the statue; for, after
surveying it awhile, she proceeded to arm herself with a flame-tipped
baton, wherewith she touched the figure in various places, but mainly on
the head, and over the region of the heart. The effect of these touches
of flame was to make the figure move; and, in five minutes the dead mass
was warm with life, vitality and genius--for the phantom-artiste
appeared to endow the figure with a portion of her own life; and a
closer inspection revealed the curious fact that the flame at the end of
the staff--which was hollow--was fed from a deep well of subtle, fine
and inflammable ether in her own heart.
"The statue lived. It was Tom Clark, and no mistake; but Heaven! what a
change!--what a difference between the actual and the ideal man! His
features fairly blazed with the fires of Genius and Ambition; and they
beamed like a sun, with Friendship, Intelligence, Truth and
Manhood--they all held high court in his soul, and radiated from his
inspired features; his very presence charged the air with Mind, though
his lips spoke never a word, breathed never a syllable. And now Betsey
heard her _alter ego_ speak; and it said to the living statue: 'Rise,
Tom Clark; rise, and be a Man--be yourself. Rise!' And it rose; stepped
from the pedestal, erected its head--and such a head!--while she, the
phantom artiste, with careful tread, and anxiously holding her nether
lip between her teeth, slowly retreated backward from the room, quitting
it through the door by which she had entered a little while before. She
was followed majestically by the statue, which moved with power and
grace, as if charged to the brim by God's Galvanic Batteries.
"Scarcely had the two phantoms left the room, than the woman on the
stool--the real Betsey Clark--followed their example with a sudden
bound, exclaiming, as she did so, despite the warning of the Hermit of
the Silver Girdle (for whom at that moment she didn't care;--not even a
piece of a fig), 'My _husband_! _my_ husband!' Human nature, especially
woman nature, could stand the pressure no longer. She felt and acted
_as_ she felt--as every woman has, since the year ONE--and will, until
Time and Eternity both grow grey. '_My husband!_' there spake the woman.
In an instant the Hermit of the Silver Girdle was in a very great and
unprecedented fluster.
"'Silly girl! didn't I tell you not to speak? Only look! see how you
have gone and done it!--done _me_! Oh, dear! if I warn't a Rosicrucian,
I'd get excessively angry, Dorg on it, if I wouldn't!' and in his
trouble, he pronounced 'dog,' with an _r_. Commend me to a female for
upsetting the best calculation of the wisest Rosicrucian that ever
lived. I speak from experience.
"'I told you not to open your lips, and here you've gone and spoken
right out! What's the consequence?' exclaimed the venerable grey-beard.
'Why, the spell is broken--the charm fled--nor can either be recalled
before the sun has set and rose again, and once more declined toward the
western sea. Familiar as I am with the secrets of Galae and the mysteries
of magic crystals, I know that you have done very wrong; for no one is
fit to consult Destiny by their aid who is not competent to keep silence
for an hour, no matter what the temptation or provocation to break it
may be. Now hie thee homeward. To-morrow thou mayest return again,
provided thou wilt obey me, and speak not a syllable while the
phantasmal game of Fate is being played before thine eyes.'
"The Hermit of the Silver Girdle had spoken truly; for at the very
first movement of her lips, the whole scene of enchantment vanished into
thin air, leaving only a three-cornered table and a little
glossy-looking ball behind.
"To depict her chagrin and disappointment at this abrupt termination of
a very strange affair, is a task totally beyond my capacities. She
bounced out of the grotto in a miff, tossing her pretty head in a manner
peculiarly adapted to play the very Old Scratch with the soft and
susceptible heads and hearts of the male 'sect'--especially their heads;
but she had no idea of abandoning the adventure at that point--not she;
but was fully resolved to see it out next day, even if she bit her
tongue in two, in the endeavor to keep still. Warriors, statesmen,
philosophers, and well-read men can comprehend the sublimity of her
resolution, because they know that of all earthly tasks, the one
assigned herself was the greatest, most heroic, and one compared to
which the twelve labors of the Greek god were mere child's pastime. At
all events, to keep perfectly silent she would certainly--'Try,' said a
voice, right beside her ear! She started, attributing the circumstance
to mere fancy; but again the magic word was, by unseen lips, gently,
softly whispered in her ear. 'Try,' it said--and the word went echoing
through her very soul. Whence came the voice? Who was it--what was it
that spoke? Certainly not herself, nor the Hermit. When was it, where
was it, that she had heard that voice and word before? When, how, where
had it made so deep an impression on her mind? Was it in a dream? Who
can tell? she could not. My hearers, can you?
"Next morning, bright and early, the young girl returned once more to
the grotto of the Hermit of the Silver Girdle, who dwelt on the shady
borders of a forest wild. An hour or two elapsed in friendly converse
and admonition; and now again behold the dissimilar twain once more
seated silently before the little table, on which glittered, as before,
the rare, pearl-disked, magic, wonder-working crystal globe. Again, as
before, the glorious play of colors came and went. Again it faded, and
she saw the atelier, the artiste, and the artiste's living statue; but
this time Betsey could look right through its body, as if it were made
of finely-polished glass. Tom Clark stood before her. She saw and
comprehended him on all sides--soul, spirit, body; and though she was
neither a strong-minded woman, a lecturess on philosophy, 'The good time
coming,' nor 'Woman's sacred and delicate work,'--and though she knew
but little of the human organism, beyond a few familiar
commonplaces--yet she comprehended enough of the glorious mystery before
her to be aware that the red, pulsing lump just beneath its throat was
technically known and considered as the heart; and she couldn't help
admiring its wonderful and mighty mechanism; its curious movements,
mystical arrangements of parts, and adaptation of means to ends; its
auricles, valves, and veins; its ventricles, and its pump--tapping the
well of life, and forcing its water through a million yards of hose,
plentifully irrigating the loftiest gardens of man's body, and hence, of
his imperishable soul. The inspection was almost too much for the girl,
who had liked to have screamed out her wonderment and delight; but
having made up her mind to keep still this time, she, by dint of much
handkerchief and tongue-biting, succeeded, to the eternal credit of
herself--or any other woman!
"'That which you see,' said the Hermit, who of course had the privilege
of talking as he pleased, 'is a man's heart, in full play. It is, as you
perceive, filled with blood, whose office is to give life to the body
and vigor to the mind. But the heart has other chambers than those
containing the venous and arterial fluids; for all its walls and valves
contain innumerable small cells; and these cells secrete and contain
certain aeriform fluids far more potential than blood, and which
subserve the ends of a higher and far more wonderful economy. There are
two kinds of blood; so also are there two kinds of the subtle fluid I
have mentioned: one sort is born with us, and we come into the world
with exactly one half of these cells full, while the other half are
entirely empty; and so they must remain until they are filled from the
heart of some one else. Males are born with the cells of the left side
empty, females with those of the right unfilled, while the other cells
of each are always full. These fluids are real, actual, perceptible, but
imponderable. Their name is Love; and when things take their proper and
natural course, the fluid flows out from the cells of a woman's heart
into the empty ones of a man's; and the full cells of a man's heart fill
the empty ones of a woman's, in which case they are said to "love each
other." Two men cannot thus love; nor can two females. Many of either
sex travel from the cradle to the grave without either filling, or
being filled in turn; for it is a law that love cannot flow unless it be
tapped by the opposite party; and it can only be tapped by KINDNESS,
GENTLENESS, RESPECT--these three! The unloved and unloving are only half
men and half women--and, believe me, my child, there's a mighty sight of
Halfness in this world of ours! Much of it comes of not Trying to have
it otherwise. People--married people, especially--devote half their days
to growling because they have not got somebody else's wife or husband,
when the fact is that their own partners are quite good enough--as they
would find out with a little proper endeavor. Men expect a woman's love
to bubble up all the time. Fools! why don't they sound its depth, and
_bring it to the surface_? There are altogether too many divorces--a
divorce first, and the next step--is dangerous. I knew a wife of three
divorces; I knew a man the husband of two consecutive divorcees. Good
intentions! Bah! Hell is paved with such. I know of fifty broken-hearted
women whose husbands, after wearing them out, sneaked off to Indiana and
robbed them of name, fame, life, and hope;--the demons! Out upon the
wretches! The woman who has wasted her youth and bloom upon a man who
then wants a divorce, and permits him to obtain it, is a fool. He
promised for life. Make him keep it, even if you invoke the law's strong
arm. If both agree, that alters the case. I have a legal acquaintance in
New York who drives a large trade in the divorce line, at twenty-five
dollars a head. I feel called upon to expose the infernal methods by
means of which it is done, and I call upon the Legislature to see to it
that the thing is not suffered to go on. A. is a lawyer; B. and C. are
husband and wife. B. wants a "divorce without publicity;" goes to A. and
pays a fee to secure it, but has no legal quibble by means of which to
obtain it. A. gives him the following counsel: "Go to a brothel, take up
with an inmate thereof; call her D.; make three or four male and female
acquaintances (E., F., G., and H.), introduce them to D. as your wife;
leave town a day or two, but take care that D. is well watched in the
interim. Of course she will avail herself of your absence to ply her
vocation. E., F., G., and H. furnish the most incontestable and damning
proof of her supposed guilt. The witnesses may or may not know your
precious scheme. You prosecute the leman under your wife's name--she, of
course, knowing nothing about the proceedings--poor thing! The court
takes the evidence, hands it over to a referee, who passes on it;
returns it, affirmed, to the court, which forthwith enters a decree of
perpetual divorce. A scoundrel goes unwhipped of justice, and an honest
woman's reputation is forever damned!
"'Legislators, I tell you that these things are done every day! I was
told it--could not believe it--and assuming to be desirous of such a
decree, received the above counsel, word for word, from a practitioner
at the New York bar. Legislators, here is a crime worse than murder!
Will you sanction it longer? How prevent it? Summon the witnesses and
performer of this marriage; or at least _prove the identity of the woman
or the man_, as the case may be--for women practice in that court also!
"'There would be far less of this sort of iniquity, if there were fewer
blatant philosophy-mongers afloat on the tide of the times, inculcating
their morbid, detestable, blasphemous, brothel-filling, "Harmonial"
theories, all of which directly pander to the worst vice a man can
have--Meanness.
"'People insanely look for and expect perfection in others--not only
without the slightest claim thereto themselves, but without the least
attempt in that direction--which is a very suicidal policy to pursue.
Such soon come to be vampires, consuming themselves and destroying
others--ravening tigers at their own fold's side! Sometimes one person's
affection--which is akin to love--goes out toward and clings round
another; but Death ever flaps his wings by the side of such, when that
other fails to give it back. The unloving loved one, if such a thing be
possible, is a born thief, from the cradle to the clouds; and there are
a great many such robbers in the world.'
"'But how is one to love when one don't feel like it, or has attractions
in another direction?' asked Betsey.
"'Where duty and honor point, there should the attraction lie! Whosoever
shall render themselves lovable and lovely, can no more help being loved
than smoke can help ascending through the air. Make yourself agreeable
to the partner of your lot in life, and that partner can no more help
loving you than mirrors can help reflecting.
"'The heart of yonder statue, which is that of the man who is destined
to be a future husband of yours,' said the old man--pointing to the
first figure of the previous day, which had, together with the second,
re-appeared upon the scene, 'will be only half full by reason of your
withholding and refusing all tender wifeliness; you will rob him and
yourself of the better meat of life; your years will be gloomy ones; you
will make him wretched, and be the same yourself--cheat your bodies of
health, your souls of happiness and vigor! Take heed; correct the fault.
You "can't?" There's no such word. TRY!'
"Turning now to the second figure of the previous day, he observed:
'See! Tom Clark's heart is empty. All its cells are _filled with a
void_--hollow as the apples of Persia's arid wastes. Have mercy, Heaven,
on him whose heart throbs not with the rapturous burden of a woman's
love! Pity him whose soul groweth not tender with the love-light beaming
from a baby's eyes! Ah, what a world of nameless glory flashes from an
infant's eyes! They are telescopes through which my soul sees
Heaven--through which I watch the mazy dance of starry worlds, and
behold the joys of seraphim. We Rosicrucians love babies--seed of the
ages--and their mothers, too--because they are such; for we believe that
after death the maids fair worst--the wives fare better; but no tongue
or pen can express the rapture that awaits those who have borne sons and
daughters to the world and heaven! Bachelors! Bah! I will pass by such
cattle, merely remarking that their place is not to be found in heaven,
or the other place. They repair in a body to Fiddler's Green--and ought
to stay there, if they do not!'
"And Betsey gazed on the forlorn figure of poor Tom--who was all
one-sided, crooked, lean; his hopes and joys were flown, because no one
loved him, not even his wife; and who else should, if not she? And so he
was wretched, like full many another whom I have seen as I journeyed
down life's glades. His soul was driven back upon, and forced to eat
itself, day by day, and year after year. 'And this great wrong you will
do,' said the hermit; and 'This great wrong I have already done,'
thought the girl--wife--widow--wife--four in one, with that strange,
anomalous inconsistency, peculiar to Dream-Life. 'I have done badly; but
this I will do no more--not another second longer!'
"Bravely, royally thought and said! Better, if more gloriously
done!--and that's just the difference--saying and doing. The first is
common; the last is very rare. 'Better still, if truly said, and still
more nobly done!'--was whispered in the woman's ear, in the same low,
silvery voice, she had heard the day before. Who was it that spoke these
melodious words? Not the hermit in grey. Was it the invisible Hesperina,
telegraphing Betsey's soul across the vast expanse of the Continent of
Dream? Who shall answer me these questions?
"Said the silver-girdled hermit, as he smiled a smile of more than human
gladness--more than human meaning--'It is Well.' She looked again toward
the magic globe, and lo! within a moment, its disk had changed. The
first two figures had disappeared; the third had once more come upon the
scene--a conspicuous actor in such a terrific drama, as neither earth
nor starry eyes ever saw before, may they never see again!
"The Gorgon, WAR, had glutted himself on Europe's bloody fields, and had
flown across the salt sea, alighting on our shores. The demon landed
with a howl, midway between Moultrie and Sumter. He had seized the reins
of government, proclaimed himself sole Lord and King; strangled Reason
in his dreadful gripe, until she lay bleeding on the gory earth, and
meek-eyed Peace fled tearfully away from his grim presence, and hid
herself upon a distant mountain-top, whence she could survey the shock
of armies on the plains beneath, and sigh, and long for Liberty and
rule.
"War and Carnage, side by side, with gory banners flying, marched from
one end of the nation to the other, until their footsteps rested on the
graves of eight hundred thousand men. God's precious word was
disregarded, and His blessed soil dyed red with human blood--the rich,
fat blood of the noblest race that ever trod His earth--the blood of
your brother, and of mine, O my countrymen!
"And now, the loud-lunged trumpets brayed their fierce alarums, and
summoned Columbia's sons to deeds at which our grandsons shall turn
pale--deeds of heroic daring such as Greece, nor Rome, nor Carthage ever
dreamed of, nor storied page has chronicled: summoned them to Sumter's
stony ramparts, and Potomac's grassy banks--summoned them to do,
and--die. Eight hundred thousand Men! And they went--going as tornadoes
go--to strike for a Nation's life--to strike the foul usurper low, and
fling his carcass to the dogs. They would have struck--struck hard and
home; but they were stayed. _That_ was not the 'little game' of
Generals and Statesmen, and of high contract-ing parties. Oh, no!
Victory would never do! 'Let us fight the foe with gloves on!' said the
Minister. They fought. The foe wore gloves, also; but the palms were
brass, the fingers iron, and the knuckles polished steel! But the
Minister had his whim, and unborn generations will feel its
consequences! Eight hundred thousand graves!
"And the Union legions went, from decreed Fate toward a consummated
Destiny, in spite of Ministers, their minions, or the 'little game;' and
Tom Clark went, too.
"And loud the trumpets brayed; and the heavy drums did sound; and they
woke strange and fearful energies in the slumbering Nation's heart. What
a magic transmutation! Plowmen transformed to heroes, such as shall
forever put Cincinnatus in the shade; day laborers, carriers of the hod,
claiming--and rightfully, too--high places in the Pantheon of heroic
demi-gods. Look at Fredericksburg! Forget not the Black Brigade! Bear in
mind the deeds of a hundred regiments on a hundred fields--fields, too,
that might, and would have finally decided the carnage and the quarrel,
but for the Minister, his gloves, his 'little game,' his great whim--and
lo! its consequences!
* * * *
"Tom Clark, quickened into life by the subtle, flame-tipped staff in the
hands of the phantom-artiste--the proprietress of the wonderful atelier
and Man-factory, now stepped forth through the door of the room, and
forthwith the scene expanded to such vast dimensions, that Betsey found
it impossible to realize the magic mimicry, for the whole thing was too
real, and on too grand a scale. She stood on the hill of the world,
surveying its valleys at leisure. Tom Clark, apparently heard--deeply
heard, his Country's wail of agony--for unchecked Treason was then
griping her tightly by the throat. That cry called him to a field of
glory, such as God's green earth never before afforded, nor His sun ever
saw; nor His moon; nor His myriad, twinkling, starry eyes!
"Clark's soul was in arms, as his offended ears drank in the hoarse,
deep thunders of Treason's cannonry, pouring iron hail upon a prostrate
Nation's head; and his eyes beheld the flashing of the guns, as they
vomited a hell of iron and fire upon Sumter, upon Anderson, and the
peerless EIGHTY-THREE! Tom Clark saw the storm, and his heart indignant
swelled, at the insult to the Star-gemmed Flag of Human Rights and
Liberty--an insult, long since wiped out in traitor's blood, but for the
Minister, and the gloves, and the 'little game,' and the whim, whose
consequences are--eight hundred thousand skeletons!
"Like a true man, Clark, inspired by a true woman--the phantom-wife, and
artiste--ran, leapt, flew to arms and deathless glory. Ah, God! to arms,
and fadeless glory! He had no time to grieve, or grumble; or to
criticise this general, or that battle. He looked over the heads of
cowards and traitors in his own camp, at the noble men in arms, and who
bravely fought, and nobly died, for the Country. He saw, and gloriously
emulated such men as Lyon, Saxton, Hunter, Fremont--and Baker! Baker!--O
Oregon! my tears fall with thine, for him! He was mine, yours--ours!
Ours, in his life; in his nobleness; in his soul-arousing eloquence; in
the valor, and the effulgent glory of his death--the result of another
whim, and lo! the consequences!
"And now, see! Behold the smoke of yonder battle! Death rides on
cannon-balls, to-day! And, to-night, there will be much mourning in the
land; for strong men in thousands are giving up the ghost. Weep not, O
widow, for God accepts such sacrifices; mourn not, O orphans, He who
tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, will hold thee in His keeping; thy
grateful country will not let thee want for bread; and, by-and-by, it
will be a proud boast of thine, 'My father died to redeem the land from
treason!'
"Death rides on cannon-balls, to-day, in the fight that we are seeing.
Tom Clark is a hero. See! he leads the van. God spare him! What a
presence! What blows he deals for Liberty and the Union! Lo! the
thundering battalions of the brave and bold, but insane, misguided, and
revengeful foe, sweep down the embattled plain, their war-cry ringing
out above the belching roar of artillery; and, with such might and valor
do they charge, that Freedom's cohorts reel and stagger beneath the
dreadful shock of arms. Another such a charge, and all is lost. But,
see, there comes a man from the ranks--a common soldier--his voice rings
clearly out upon the sulphur-laden air: 'Follow me!' The inspiring words
and action kindle new fire in the wavering breasts of hundreds. They
rise; they throw themselves upon the foe--they hush his battle-cry in
death. He is repulsed! 'Who did that?' demands an aide-de-camp.
'Private Thomas W.,' is the response. 'Hero! greet him in my name, as
Color Sergeant,' says the General; and Tom Clark is promoted on the
field.
"The first day's fight is over. It is renewed next day, and, when the
tired guns give over with the sun, a group of soldiers are gathered
round a man. 'Who is it?' 'Who is it?' 'I thought you knew--why, it is
the man who saved the Tenth Brigade--and was rewarded on the
spot--Captain Thomas W.!'
"With the sunrise, came the foe! 'Pass the word along the line,
there--Captain Clark is wanted at the tent of the General-in-Command!'
He goes.
"' Captain Clark, do you see yonder battery of the enemy? It must be
taken, or we are lost. If I give you command of a regiment whose colonel
was killed yesterday, can you take it?' 'I will try.' ... 'General, the
battery on the left is ours,' says an aide-de-camp an hour afterwards.
'It is taken, and all its men are either dead or prisoners!' 'Indeed! So
soon? Greet the commander in my name, and salute him as Colonel Thomas
W.'
"Another day dawns on the ensanguined field--a field where privates were
heroes and generals poltroons! Hard fighting is before us. Up, up the
soldiers spring; and on, on to death or victory they rush. Oh, it was a
splendid sight--those death-defying demi-gods, who, had they in previous
battles had but a Man to lead them, would have taken fifty rebel
strongholds in as many hours. But such was not the drift of the 'pretty
little game.' More men must die, more ditches must be dug, and more
human bones must fill them, else how can Ministers carry out their
whims; how else can the enemy be fought and placated at the same time?
It isn't Constitutional! besides which it hurts the prospect for the
Presidency of the re-United States--which prospect would be forever
marred, and the 'little game' played out, if we fought without gloves,
and violated our Constitutional obligations by kicking the wind out of
the foe, who is trying might and main to strangle the Nation. He might
hereafter say: '_You_, sir, fought without gloves on!' which wouldn't
do, you know.
"'Damn that Colonel Thomas W. If the fellow keeps on at that rate, we'll
surely whip somebody--badly. Curse the fellow, he don't believe in the
glove business, or in the "Erring Sisters' theory,"' soliloquized
somebody on a certain day. 'This'll never do! Aid, come here; go tell
Colonel Clark take possession of the Valley down yonder, and hold it at
all hazards till nightfall!' 'But, General, he has only seven hundred
men--the foe is thirteen thousand strong!' 'So much the worse for'--he
meant Clark, but said, 'the enemy--they will fight like tigers.' And the
aid transmitted the order--shaking hands with the Colonel as he rode
away, muttering, 'Poor fellow! His goose is cooked for a certainty! What
a pity he stands in somebody's light--somebody who is jealous of even a
private's fame. Ah me!' and he rode back to headquarters, wondering
whose turn next it would be to face the forlorn hope--such a singular
number of which this Rebellion has developed.
"But there was no flinch in Colonel Thomas W.--no flinch in his men.
They all saw the hazard; but _they_ were Men and Soldiers. _They_ knew
how to obey orders, when their superiors did not. But then again, they
had no hopes of success in a general election; they had no 'little
game.'
"'Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do or die.'
And they done it!
"On, on, like more than Spartan heroes, on they dashed, literally, as
absolutely as anything earthly can be, 'into the jaws of death--into the
mouth of hell.' I have a minnie bullet on my table that plowed a furrow
through a brother's heart of mine in that same dreadful valley! Away
they went--that gallant band, that gallant man; and many a bullet went
crashing through skulls and bones as they went; and many a soul sped its
way to God ere the cohort reached the knoll in the valley. Once there,
they were no longer men--they were as sublime exemplar gods. But a man
fell--fell before the resistless force of a hundred horses charging with
all of Treason's vehement strength, and the gallant man went down, and
the thunder of iron hoofs exploded in his ear, and then the cloud passed
on.
"And Thomas Clark went down--down, as Truth, and Justice and I went
down; but he rose again--so ever does Truth and Justice; and as for me,
_Je renais de mes cendres_--let those beware by whom I fell.... Down to
the gory soil he went; but even while the woman sat there in the grotto,
gazing till her eyeballs fairly ached with intensity--sat gazing with
suppressed breath, so still was she--sat gazing, her blood on fire, her
pulse beating three hundred to the minute, beating with a deep, fierce,
tumultuous fire; sat gazing stilly, while her heart bounded and thumped
within its bony citadel as if impatient of its duress, and longing to
burst its tabernacle, and let the imprisoned soul go free; sat gazing,
while her eyes, large grey eyes, all the while gleamed with a light that
proved her capable of giving birth to heroes--even while thus she gazed
on the wheeling squadrons, the charging hosts, and the great guns, as
they gave forth their fiery vomit, charged with sudden deaths--the man,
Tom Clark, sprung to his feet again, and, as he staunched his blood with
one hand, he pointed with the other at the foe. 'Follow me!' he cried.
'See! we are reinforced! On to victory--on!' And his voice rose above
the tempest, and it flew over the spaces, and it fell upon the ears of a
'great man,' and the 'great man' wrung his hands, and he thought: 'Not
dead yet! Damn the fellow! He will make us win a victory--and that'll
never do! Dear me! that cursed fool will spoil my little game! Oh, for
night, or a fresh division of--the enemy! I must reinforce him, though,
else it'll get into that infernal _Tribune_--or into that cursed George
Wilkes' paper--and that'll spoil my little game! Ho, there! Aid, go tell
General Trueman to reinforce Colonel Thomas W. _My little game_!' and he
arranged his epaulettes and gave his moustache an additional killing
twist. In the meantime, Tom Clark had charged the enemy with bayonets
with the remnant of his own force, followed by hundreds whom his
example had transformed into something more sublime than fighting
soldiers.
"And now occurred one of those conflicts which make or mar the fortunes
of a nation: one of those terrible multi-personal combats which mark a
century's history, and strike the ages dumb with awe; one of those
terrific scenes in the world's great drama, that mark historic epochs,
and enshrine men's names in fiery letters upon the scrolls of Fame.
"The charge and the action were short, sharp, swift, desperate; but at
its close the
"'Flag of the Planet gems,
With saphire-circled diadems,'
floated proudly over the scene of Treason's battle lost--a Nation's
battle won!
"Day closes again; and the wounded hero in an ambulance was borne
fainting--almost dying, from the field. 'Colonel Clark, can I do
anything for you?' said one of the fighting generals to the stricken
man--a bullet had gone through him. 'You are a noble fellow, and I speak
for myself, your comrades in arms, and for our country. Can I--can they,
can we, can she--do anything for you, in this sad hour of your destiny?
If so, I beg you to speak.'
"'Alas! no, my friend,' replied he, reviving, only to swoon again. A
little cold water on his temples partially dissipated the coma, but not
all the fog from his perceptions; for his general's words, 'Can _she_,'
considerably obfuscated his intellect, and he thought: 'He means
Betsey--that's the only _she_ I know of.' And then he strengthened up
for a last dying effort; strove to collect his thoughts, partly
succeeded, and said: 'Nothing more, dear general. Yes. No.
I'm--dy--ing--going--home. Tell Betsey--_dear_ Betsey--I did not--find
her out till--it was--too--late. Tell her that I loved--her from
my--soul--at last. Tell her--that'----
"She can't stand the pressure any longer--globe or no globe, hermit or
no hermit--not another minute. _You_ Bet! It's a pretty how de do, me a
settin' here, and poor Tom laying there, killed a'most to death!'
shrieked the fair girl in the grotto of the hermit of the silver girdle,
waked up beyond endurance by the skillful magic of the weird recluse.
And repeating the Californian, 'You _Bet_!' with vehement emphasis on
the last word, she sprung to her feet, in spite of the warnings of the
man who dealt in magic crystal globes in the precincts of a forest
wild--upsetting table, tripod, stool and hermit, in her eagerness to
reach Tom's side and give him wifely ministry.
"What luck she might have had in bridging Phantom River I know not,
having omitted to remain long enough for inquiry, not having had time to
thus devote; but this I do know, namely, that she nearly kicked the
veritable Mr. Thomas W. Clark completely out of bed--the bed at whose
foot was a window, whose upper sash was down--the identical window
through which came all the 'funny things' of this most veracious
history, which, of course, is all true. Betsey woke from excitement, Tom
from being kicked, and both had finished their double dreams.
"'What'n thunder's up now, Bet--no, Lizzie, I mean?' said he, checking
the less respectful utterance, and modulating his voice to what he
doubtless intended to be a 'velvet-dulcet cadence,' but which wouldn't
pass for that in Italian opera. 'Not nothing, Tommy, dear.' 'Not
nothing, Lizzie?' 'Not nothing.' 'That ain't grammar, sweet.' 'I was
paragorically speaking, my turkle dove! Only I've been having two very
funny dreams.' 'You! _Two_ dreams? That _is_ queer!' 'You Bet!' 'What
about, Lizzie?' 'Oh, all about how we didn't love each other as we ought
to, husband.' 'And, dorg on my buttons, wife, if I haven't had two just
such dreams myself--all about a precipice, and a pile--Oh, wasn't it a
pile, though?' 'You Bet!' 'And my dreams were all about how I ought to
love you, and didn't--and then, again, I did.' 'That's a dear!' 'You
Bet!' 'Let's love each other this time out, will _you_?' 'I will; will
_you_?' 'You _Bet_!' 'Let's profit by our dreams. I mean to; won't you?'
'I'll _try_!' '_I'll_ try!' 'We'll both try!' 'You BET!' And they tried
to forgive and forget.
"Will you do the same?" asked the Rosicrucian of the "Angular
Character," who had told his own story in disguise. The latter saw that
his secret was out; yet his heart was touched, for, as a great tear-drop
rolled down his cheek, he said, with smothered breath, the holy
words--"I'll try!" "Amen!" said the Rosicrucian. "Amen!" said we all;
and then, turning to his auditors again, the story-teller said:
"Friends, go thou and do likewise; and so long as you live, I charge you
never to forget the Rosicrucian nor his story; nor IT, the Shadow; nor
Hesperina, the Light; nor Otanethi, the Genius of the Hour; nor the
silver-girdled Hermit, and his Crystal Globe in a forest wild; nor,
above all, the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash
was down."
* * * *
A day or two afterwards we reached Panama, and after that we saw but
little of our entertainer; but before I finally lost sight of him he
told me that he was about writing some Rosicrucian stories, the MSS. of
which he would send to me when ready. I have received some, and they
will be published by me as soon as I can spare time to attend to it,
which will be--
"When this cruel war is over"
P. B. R.
UTICA, _November, 1863_.
From SINCLAIR TOUSEY
NEWSVENDERS' AND BOOKSELLERS' AGENCY.
I INVITE THE ATTENTION OF DEALERS IN _Cheap Publications, Periodicals,
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BY DR. P. B. RANDOLPH,
THE DUMAS OF AMERICA.
New, Original and Thrilling Works!!
It is sufficient to say of the following seven Works, that they are from
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I.
"THE WONDERFUL STORY OF RAVALETTE,"
A ROSICRUCIAN ROMANCE, AND THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY AND THRILLING WORK
EVER PUBLISHED IN THIS COUNTRY.
Contents:--The Strange Man.--The Legend.--Preexistence.--Double
Life.--The Haunted House.--The Mysterious Guest.--A very Strange
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III. and the Rosicrucian.--An extraordinary Seance in
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II.
TOM CLARK AND HIS WIFE; THEIR DOUBLE DREAMS, AND THE CURIOUS THINGS THAT
BEFELL THEM THEREIN.
_Being the Third Thousand of the celebrated_
ROSICRUCIAN'S STORY.
III.
PRE-ADAMITE MAN:
Demonstrating Human Existence 100,000 years ago, and that Adam was not
the First Man.
"When the gude Laird was making Adam, even then the clan Grant was as
thick and numerous as the heather on yon hills."--Bailey Grant.
Universally conceded by the Press of two countries, to be--
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IV.
"DEALINGS WITH THE DEAD."
The Human Soul--What it is; whence it came; its location in the body;
its passage through death; whither it goes after death; what it does;
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AN INSIDE VIEW OF SPIRITUALISM.
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VI.
THE ROSICRUCIAN'S STORY.
The great Sensation Tale. Embracing the celebrated and quite
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By Dr. P. B. Randolph.
N.B. The above two books are especially valuable by reason of the flood
of light thrown on the modern phenomena usually attributed to "spirits."
VII.
IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT;
Being an Answer to, and refutation of, the modern doctrine that
"Whatever is is right." The book is an eloquent defence of Marriage, and
embraces an appeal for the poor prostitute against the villainous wiles
of those who make her what she is. Nothing in the language speaks more
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* * * *
It is doubtful if any List of Modern Works by a single author can
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volumes are well worth perusal. All orders for them, or any books
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SINCLAIR TOUSEY.
_In addition to the above, will be for sale_,
THE CELEBRATED
"RODREY" DREAM-BOOK,
RE-TRANSLATED, CONDENSED, AND ADAPTED TO MODERN USAGE.
This, the largest and most perfect book of the kind in the world, in any
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Three Thousand Solutions of Three Thousand Dreams! It is utterly
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End of Project Gutenberg's Tom Clark and His Wife, by Paschal Beverly Randolph