"I believe," said my old patient, "I believe that was the highest
moment of your life."
A man of my sort seldom comprehends a woman of hers. I did not
understand her, and I told her so, looking at her across the clinging
child.
"There was no self in it!" she answered eagerly.
"Oh," I said indifferently, "is that all?"
"It is everything," replied the wiser spirit, "in the place that we
have come to. It is like a birth. Such a moment has to go on living.
One is never the same after as one was before it. Changes follow. May
the Lord be in them!"
"But stay!" I cried, as she made a signal of farewell, "are you not
going to help me--is nobody going to help me take care of this child?"
She shook her head, smiling; then laughed outright at my perplexity;
and with a merry air of enjoyment in my extraordinary position, she
went her ways and left me.
There now began for me a singular life. Changes followed, as Mrs.
Faith had said. The pains and the privileges of isolation were
possible to me no longer. Action of some sort, communion of some kind
with the world in which I lived, became one of the imperative
necessities about which men do not philosophize. For there was the
boy! Whatever my views about a spiritual state of existence, there
always was the boy. No matter how I had demonstrated the
unreasonableness of living after death, the child was alive. However I
might personally object to my own share of immortality, I was a living
father, with my motherless baby in my arms.
Up to this time I had lived in an indifferent fashion; in the old
world, we should have called it "anyhow." Food I scarcely took, or if
at all, it was to snatch at such wild fruits as grew directly before
me, without regard to their fitness or palatableness; paying, in short,
as little attention to the subject as possible. Home I had none. I
wandered till I was weary of wandering, and rested till I could rest no
more; seeking such shelter as the country afforded me in lonely and
beautiful spots; discontented with what I had, but desiring nothing
further; with my own miserable thoughts for housemates and for
neighbours, and the absence of hope forbidding the presence of energy.
Nothing that I could see interested me. Much or most that I took the
trouble to observe, I should have been frankly obliged to admit that I
did not understand.
The customs of the people bewildered me. Their evident happiness
irritated me. Their activity produced in me only the desire to get out
of sight of it. Their personal health and beauty--for they were a very
comely people--gave me something the kind of nervous shrinking that I
had so often witnessed in the sick, when some buoyant, inconsiderate,
bubbling young creature burst into the room of pain. I felt in the
presence of the universal blessedness about me like some hurt animal,
who cares only to crawl in somewhere and be forgotten. If I drew near,
as I had on several occasions done, to give some attention to the
occupations of the inhabitants, all these feelings were accentuated so
much that I was fain to withdraw before I had studied the subject.
Study there was in that country, and art and industry; even traffic, if
traffic it might be called; it seemed to be an interchange of
possessions, conducted upon principles of the purest consideration for
the public, as opposed to personal welfare.
Homes there were, and the construction of them, and the happiest
natural absorption in their arrangement and management. There were
families and household devotion; parents, children, lovers, neighbours,
friends. I saw schools and other resorts of learning, and what seemed
to be institutions of benevolence and places of worship, a series of
familiar and yet wholly unfamiliar sights. In them all existed a
spirit, even as the spirit of man exists in his earthly body, which was
and willed and acted as that does, and which, like that, defied
analysis. I could perceive at the hastiest glance that these people
conducted themselves upon a set of motives entirely strange to me.
What they were doing--what they were doing it _for_--I simply did not
know. A great central purpose controlled them, such as controls masses
of men in battle or at public prayer; a powerful and universal Law had
hold of them; they treated it as if they loved it. They seemed to feel
affectionately toward the whole system of things. They loved, and
thought, and wrought straight onward with it; no one put the impediment
of a criticism against it,--no one that I could see or suspect, in all
the place, except my isolated self. They had the air of those engaged
in some sweet and solemn object, common to them all; an object,
evidently set above rather than upon the general level. Their faces
shone with pleasure and with peace. Often they wore a high, devout
look. They never showed an irritated expression, never an anxious nor
that I could see a sad one. It was impossible to deny the marked
nobility of their appearance.
"If this," I thought, "be what is called a spiritual life, I was not
ready to become a spirit."
Now, when my child awaited and called me, as he had begun, in the dear
old days on earth, to learn to do, and like any live human baby
proceeded to give vent to a series of incoherent remarks bearing upon
the fact that Boy would like his supper, I was fain to perceive that
being a spirit did not materially change the relation of a man to the
plainer human duties; and that, whether personally agreeable or no, I
must needs bring myself into some sort of connection with the
civilization about me. I might be a homesick fellow, but the baby was
hungry. I might be at odds with the whole scheme of things, but the
child must have a shelter. I might be a spiritual outcast, but what
was to become of Boy? The heart of the father arose in me; and,
gathering the little fellow to my breast, I set forth quickly to the
nearest town.
Here, after some hesitation, I accosted a stranger, whose appearance
pleased me, and besought his assistance in my perplexity. He was a man
of lofty bearing; his countenance was strong and benign as the western
wind; he had a gentle smile, but eyes which piercingly regarded me. He
was of superior beauty, and conducted himself as one having authority.
He was much occupied, and hastening upon some evidently important
errand; but he stopped at once, and gave his attention to me with the
hearty interest in others characteristic of the people.
"Are you a stranger in the country--but newly come to us?"
"A stranger, sir, but not newly arrived."
"And the child?"
"The child ran into my arms about an hour ago."
"Is the boy yours?"
"He is my only child."
"What do you desire for him?"
"I would fain provide for him those things which a father must desire.
I seek food and shelter. I wish a home, and means of subsistence, and
neighbourhood, and the matters which are necessary to the care and
comfort of an infant. Pray, counsel me. I do not understand the
conditions of life in this remarkable place."
"I do not know that it is of consequence that I should," I added, less
courteously, "but I cannot see the boy deprived. He must be made
comfortable as speedily as possible. I shall be obliged to you for
some suggestion in the matter."
"Come hither," replied the stranger, laconically. Forthwith, he led
me, saying nothing further, and I followed, asking nothing more.
This embarrassed me somewhat, and it was with some discomfort that I
entered the house of entertainment to which I was directed, and asked
for those things which were needful for my child. These were at once
and lavishly provided. It soon proved that I had come to a luxurious
and hospitable place. The people were most sympathetic in their
manner. Boy especially excited the kindest of attention; some women
fondled him, and all the inmates of the house interested themselves in
the little motherless spirit.
In spite of myself this touched me, and my heart warmed toward my
entertainers.
"Tell me," I said, turning toward him who had brought me thither, "how
shall I make compensation for my entertainment? What is the custom of
the country? I--what we used to call property--you will understand
that I necessarily left behind me. I am accustomed to the use of it.
I hardly know what to do without it. I am accustomed to--some
abundance. I wish to remunerate the people of this house."
"What _did_ you bring with you?" asked my new acquaintance, with a
half-sorrowful look, as if he would have helped me out of an unpleasant
position if he could.
"Nothing," I replied, after some thought, "nothing but my misery. That
does not seem to be a marketable commodity in this happy place. I
could spare some, if it were."
"What had you?" pursued my questioner, without noticing my ill-timed
satire. "What were your possessions in the life yonder?"
"Health. Love. Happiness. Home. Prosperity. Work. Fame. Wealth.
Ambition." I numbered these things slowly and bitterly. "None of them
did I bring with me. I have lost them all upon the way. They do not
serve me in this differing civilization."
"Was there by chance nothing more?"
"Nothing more. Unless you count a little incidental usefulness."
"And that?" he queried eagerly.
I therefore explained to him that I had been a very busy doctor; that I
used to think I took pleasure in relieving the misery of the sick, but
that it seemed a mixed matter now, as I looked back upon it,--so much
love of fame, love of power, love of love itself,--and that I did not
put forth my life's work as of importance in his scale of value.
"That would not lessen its value," replied my friend. "I myself was a
healer of the sick. Your case appeals to me. I was known as"--
He whispered a name which gave me a start of pleasure. It was a name
famous in its day, and that a day long before my own; a name immortal
in medical history. Few men in the world had done as much as this one
to lessen the sum of human suffering. It excited me greatly to meet
him.
"But you," I cried, "you were not like the rest of us or the most of
us. _You_ believed in these--invisible things. You were a man of what
is called faith. I have often thought of that. I never laid down a
biography of you without wondering that a man of your intelligence
should retain that superstitious element of character. I ought to beg
your pardon for the adjective. I speak as I have been in the habit of
speaking."
"Do you wonder now?" asked the great surgeon, smiling benignly. I
shook my head. I wondered at nothing now.
But I felt myself incapable of discussing a set of subjects upon which,
for the first time in my life, I now knew myself to be really
uninformed.
I took the pains to explain to my new friend that in matters of what he
would call spiritual import I was, for aught I knew to the contrary,
the most ignorant person in the community. I added that I supposed he
would expect me to feel humiliated by this.
"Do you?" he asked, abruptly.
"It makes me uncomfortable," I replied, candidly. "I don't know that I
can say more than that. I find it embarrassing."
"That is straightforward," said the great physician. "There is at
least no diseased casuistry about you. I do not regard the indications
as unfavourable."
He said this with something of the professional manner; it amused me,
and I smiled. "Take the case, Doctor, if you will," I humbly said. "I
could not have happened on any person to whom I would have been so
willing to intrust it."
"We will consider the question," he said gravely.
In this remarkable community, and under the guidance of this remarkable
man, I now began a difficult and to me astonishing life. The first
thing which happened was not calculated to soothe my personal feeling:
this was no less than the discovery that I really had nothing wherewith
to compensate the citizens who had provided for the comfort of my child
and of myself; in short, that I was no more nor less than an object of
charity at their hands. I writhed under this, as may be well imagined;
and with more impatience than humility urged that I be permitted to
perform some service which at least would bring me into relation with
the commercial system of the country. I was silenced by being gently
asked: What could I do?
"But have you no sick here?" I pleaded, "no hospitals or places of
need? I am not without experience, I may say that I am even not
without attainment, in my profession. Is there no use for it all, in
this state of being which I have come to?"
"Sick we have," replied the surgeon, "and hospitals. I myself am much
occupied in one of these. But the diseases that men bring here are not
of the body. Our patients are chiefly from among the newly arrived,
like yourself; they are those who are at odds with the spirit of the
place; hence they suffer discomfort."
"They do not harmonize with the environment, I suppose," I interrupted
eagerly. I was conscious of a wish to turn the great man's thought
from a personal to a scientific direction. It occurred to me with
dismay that I might be selected yet to become a patient under this
extraordinary system of things. That would be horrible. I could think
of nothing worse.
I proceeded to suggest that if anything could be found for me to do, in
this superior art of healing, or if, indeed, I could study and perfect
myself in it, I was more than willing to learn, or to perform.
"Canst thou heal a sick spirit?" inquired my friend, solemnly. "Canst
thou administer holiness to a sinful soul?"
I bowed my head before him; for I had naught to say. Alas, what art
had I, in that high science so far above me, that my earth-bound gaze
had never reached unto it?
I was not like my friend, who seemed to have carried on the whole range
of his great earthly attainments, by force of what I supposed would
have to be called his spiritual education. Here in this world of
spirits I was an unscientific, uninstructed fellow.
"Give me," I said brokenly, "but the lowliest chance to make an
honourable provision for the comfort of my child in your community. I
ask no more."
The boy ran chattering to me as I said these words, he sprang and
clasped my knees, and clasped my neck, and put his little lips to mine,
and rubbed his warm, moist curls across my cheek, and asked me where
his mother was. And then he crooned my own name over and over again,
and kissed and kissed me, and did stroke me with such pretty excesses
of his little tenderness that I took heart and held him fast, and loved
him and blessed fate for him, as much as if I had not been a spirit;
more than any but a lonely and remorseful spirit could.