CHAPTER I.

THE

WONDERFUL

STORY OF RAVALETTE.

ALSO,

TOM CLARK AND HIS WIFE,

THEIR DOUBLE DREAMS AND THE CURIOUS THINGS THAT BEFELL THEM THEREIN;

OR,

THE ROSICRUCIAN’S STORY.

BY DR. P. B. RANDOLPH,

“THE DUMAS OF AMERICA,”

AUTHOR OF “WAA, GU-MAH,” “PRE-ADAMITE MAN,” “DEALINGS WITH THE DEAD,”

“IT ISN’T ALL RIGHT,” “THE UNVEILING OF SPIRITISM,” “THE GRAND

SECRET,” “HUMAN LOVE--A PHYSICAL SUBSTANCE,”

ETC., ETC., ETC.

“The fictions of genius are often the vehicles of the sublimest

verities, and its flashes often open new regions of thought, and throw

new light on the mysteries of our being.”--

CHANNING.

NEW YORK:

SINCLAIR TOUSEY, 121 NASSAU STREET.

1863.

ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by

P. B. RANDOLPH,

In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for

the Southern District of New York.

INTRODUCTORY.

In giving what follows to the world, no one can be more alive to the

fact that this is the latter half of the nineteenth century, and that

the present is emphatically the era of the grandest Utilitarianism,

Revolution, Matter of Fact, and Doubt that the world ever knew, than is

the editor of the following extraordinary tale. He has no apologies to

make for offering it--no excuses, even as a novelist, for departing from

the beaten track of “War, Love, Murder, and Revenge,” “Politics,

Passion, and Prussic acid,” which constitute the staple of the modern

novel.

Disliking all long exordia, we propose to enter at once upon the work

before us, by inquiring: Is there such a thing as real magic--not the

ordinary, chemical, ambidextral jugglery, that passes current among the

vulgar as magic--but the real old mysterious thing, whereof we read in

old black-letter tomes?

Utterly repudiating the pretensions of modern charlatans, and

conscienceless impostors, who deal in “spirit photographs,” and utter

misty phrases about “Life in the Spheres,” “Gloria,” and “Jubilo,”

together with schemes to reform the world--namely, by means of Indiana

divorces, improved “Lieceums,” “Air-lying dispatches,” via _Caput

Assinorum_, and much other.

“Canting, radical jabber and jaw,

’Bout Mornia and Hornia, and Starnos and ’Cor,

Hocus and pocus, and nong-tong-paw;

All stupid crams, not worth a straw.”

Not because there are no spirits, for one case in a million of reported

spectral phenomena, may be true, but _all_ are totally unreliable--that

is, they lie--and the person who places the least confidence in them in

one thousand instances, is sure to be deceived nine hundred and

ninety-nine times, and only reach approximate truth and fact in the

thousandth.

Spiritualism is yet the great _non sequitur_ of the age, so far as the

vast majority of mankind is concerned--for while one portion of its

phenomena may be really spiritual, the remaining nine hundred and

ninety-nine portions are referable to something else than human ghosts.

Spiritualism has done no good whatever, save in that it has called

attention to new directions, thereby stimulating the spirit of inquiry;

but in itself it is yet far from being among the certainties.

I here disavow all intention to deride true spirit phenomena, if such

there be; nor do I question the transmundane life of man--for the belief

in immortality is a part of my very being--but, while ignoring the

claims, and deriding the absurd pretensions of the vast majority of

modern Eolists and self-styled mediums, I repeat the question: Is there

any positive means or ways whereby even a favored few can penetrate the

mysterious veil that hangs like an iron pall between the great human

multitude and the infinitely greater BEYOND? Is it possible to break

through the awful barrier--to glimpse through the Night-Curtain that

screens and shrouds us from the Phantom-World?--if such there be.

“Deep the gulph that hides the dead--

Long and dark the way they tread.”

Can we know it? Can we by any possibility scan its secrets? Nor are we

alone in propounding questions such as these; for every intelligent

person, at some period or other, puts them to himself and neighbor, but,

in the majority of cases, vainly. The writer hereof, like the great mass

of people, has often propounded these queries, the result being a

confirmed and indurated scepticism--which scepticism was, almost

ruthlessly, swept away by the extraordinary series of events about to be

recorded in these pages.

THE WONDERFUL STORY OF RAVALETTE.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

THE STRANGE MAN.

“In the most high and palmy days of Rome,

A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.”

And he sat him down wearily by the side of the road. Wearily, for he had

journeyed far that day. He was footsore, and his bodily powers were

nearly exhausted by reason of the want and privation he had undergone.

His looks were haggard, and a _pathetic_ pall, gloomy and tearful, hung

and floated around him, invisible to, but sensibly felt by, all who

lingered near, or gazed upon him. A sorrowful man was he.

And as he sat there by the roadside, he leaned his head upon the staff

which he held in his hand; and as he bowed him down, the great salt

tears gushed from between his fingers, and watered the ground at his

feet. In other days the cypress, plant of sorrow, sprung up there, and

throve in sad and mournful beauty, as if to mark and guard the spot

whereon the strong man had lifted up his voice and wept aloud--once upon

a time.

This was many years ago; and this was the occasion on which I became

acquainted with the personage who figures so remarkably in this

volume.[1] At that time the writer practically accepted, but mentally

disbelieved, all the religious and psychologic faiths of Christendom;

and, had any man even hinted at certain mysterious possibilities that

have since then been verified and demonstrated, I should most certainly

have laughed in his face, and have reckoned him up as a first-class fool

or idiot. Things have changed since then.

[1] The same personage is the principal character in the romance of

“Dhoula Bel, or the Magic Globe,” which will ere long be published.

He was a man of middle height, was neither stout nor slender, but, when

in full flesh, was a happy medium between the two. His head and brain

were large, and, from certain peculiarities of form, really much more

massive than they appeared. The skull was long and narrow at the base,

especially about the ears; but above that line the brain was deep, broad

and high, indicating great powers of _endurance_, with but moderate

physical force, it being clearly apparent that the mental structure

sustained itself to a great degree at the expense of the muscles, his

nervous system, as in all such organizations, being morbidly acute and

sensitive. There was, naturally or organically, nothing about him

either coarse, brutal, low or vulgar, and if, in the race of life, he

exhibited any of those bad qualities, it was attributable to the rough

circumstances attendant upon him, and the treatment he received from the

world. By nature he was open, frank, benevolent and generous to a fault,

and of these traits men availed themselves to his sorrow. With abundant

capacity to successfully grapple with the most profound and abstruse

questions of philosophy or metaphysics, yet this man was totally

incompetent to conduct matters of the least business, requiring even a

very moderate financial ability. Such are nature’s contradictions, such

her law of compensation.

As a consequence, this man, with abilities universally conceded to be

good, was the ready victim of the first plausible knave that came along,

from the “friend” who borrowed half his cash, and undertook to invest

the balance--and kept the whole, to the printer of his books, who

swindled him of both time and money.

His complexion was tawny, resembling that of the Arab children of

Beyroot and Damascus. The shape and set of the chin, jaws and lips, were

indicative rather of power than force. The mouth, in its slightly

protruding upper lip, and two small ridges at the corners, betokened

executive ability, passion, courage, affection, humor, firmness and

decision. The cheeks were slightly sunken, indicating care and trouble,

while the cheek-bones, being somewhat high and broad, betrayed his

aboriginal ancestry, as did also his general beardlessness, for, save a

tuft beneath the chin of jet black silky hair, and a thin and light

mustache, he could lay no claim to hirsute distinction. His nose, which

had been broken by a fall when a child, was neither large nor small, and

as a simple feature, was in no respect remarkable; but taken with the

other features, was most decidedly so, for when under the influence of

passion, excitement or emotion, there was an indescribable something

about the alæ and nostrils that told you that a volcano slumbered in

that man’s brain and heart, only it required a touch, a vent, in the

right direction, to wake its fires and cause it to blaze forth

vehemently, transforming him in an instant from a passive, uncomplaining

man, into the embodiment of virtuous championship of the cause that was

true, or into a demon of hatred and vindictive fury. The good prevailed;

for the evil spasm was ever a spasm only--save in a very few marked

cases, where he had suffered wrongs, deep and grievous, at the hands of

men whose meanness and duplicity toward himself he only discovered when

they had gained their points and ruined him. These men he hated--and yet

that word does not convey the true idea. His feeling was not vindictive,

but was a craving for, and determination to exact justice for his

wrongs. This satisfied, his ill will died on the instant. His eyes, or

rather eye--for one was nearly lost from an accident--was a deep, dark

hazel, and such as people are in the habit of describing as jet black.

It shone with a lustre peculiar, and strangely magnetic when he let his

soul go forth upon winged words from the rostrum, for he had been a

public speaker in his time, and had won no small degree of fame on that

field.

Once seen and heard, this man was one whom it was impossible ever to

forget, so different was he from all other men, and so marked and

peculiar were his characteristics.

Such, in brief, were the externals of the person to whom the reader is

here introduced.

A very singular man was he--the Rosicrucian--I knew him well. Many an

hour, subsequent to that in which he is here introduced, have we sat

together beneath the grateful shade of some glorious old elm on the

green, flowery banks of Connecticut’s silver stream, and under some

towering dome palm beside the bosom of still older Nilus, in the hoary

land of the Pharaohs, of magic and of myth, he all the while pouring

into my ear strange, very strange legends indeed--legends of Time and

the other side of Time--all of which my thirsty soul drank in as the

sun-parched earth drinks in the grateful showers, or the sands of Zin

the tears of weeping clouds. And these tales, these legends put to shame

the wildest fictions of Germany and the terror-haunted Hartz.

Particularly was I struck with a half hint that once escaped his lips,

to the effect that some men on the earth, himself among the number, had

preëxisted on this sphere, and that at times he distinctly remembered

localities, persons and events that were cotemporary with him before he

occupied his present form, and consequently that his real age exceeded

that even of Ahasuerus, the Jew, who, in the dolorous road, mocked the

Man of Calvary, as he bore his cross up the steep and stony way, for

which _leze majeste_ he was doomed to walk the earth, an outcast and

vagabond, from that hour till Shiloh comes, according to the legends of

Jewry.

My friend, during our intimacy, often spoke concerning white magic, and

incidentally insisted on his curious doctrine of transmigration. Nor was

this all: He taught that the souls of people sometimes vacated their

bodies for weeks together, during which they were occupied by other

souls, sometimes that of a permanently disembodied man of earth; at

others, that of an inhabitant of the aëreal spaces, who, thus embodied,

roamed the earth at will. He, when closely questioned, declared his firm

belief that he had lived down through many ages, and that for reasons

known to himself, he was doomed to live on, like the great

Artefius--that other Rosicrucian--until a certain consummated act

(wherein he was to be involuntarily an active party) should release him

from it and permit him to share the lot of other men.

As a consequence of his dissimilarity from others he appeared to have

been endowed with certain hyper-mental powers, among which was a strange

intro-vision, not the fraudulent clairvoyance claimed and palmed off

upon the world by the arch impostor of Poughkeepsie, and others of the

same kidney, but something analogous to that attributed to the

oracle-priestesses of Delphos and Delos. This power, which was not

always present, enabled him to behold and describe things, persons and

events, even across the widest gulfs of ocean; and to read the secret

history and thoughts of the most secretive, self-possessed and

subtle-minded man as easily as if it were a printed scroll. When this

ecstasy was on him he looked as if, at that moment, he beheld things

forever sealed from the majority of eyes, and that too both with and

without his wonderful magic mirror. At first I doubted his pretensions,

mentally referred them to an abnormal state of mind, and, until they

were abundantly demonstrated, laughed at the preposterous idea, as I

considered it, of any one seriously claiming such extraordinary powers

in the middle of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. As

previously remarked, his complexion told that he was a _sang mêlée_--not

a direct cross--but one in which at least seven distinct strains of

blood intermingled, if they did not perfectly blend. Save when in high

health and spirits, and weather extremely cold--at which times he was

pale--his color was a rich, light bronze, like that of the youngsters

one sees in such profusion, scampering like mad through the narrow and

tortuous streets of Syrio-Arabic cities, demanding “Bucksheesh” from

every Frank they see. With his large, broad, high brain, arched and open

brow, his massive, elliptical and angular top-head, he was a marked man,

and when his soul was at high tide, and his deep and mystic inspirations

thrilled and filled him to the brim, his eye beamed with unearthly fire,

glowed like the orbs of a Pythoness, and scintillated a light peculiarly

its own. Whoever saw him then never forgot the sight, for he seemed to

have the power of glancing instantaneously through the world--Time,

space--everything and everywhere. Judging by his speech alone, one would

have thought his education might not have been altogether neglected, but

that it certainly was of a kind and quality entirely different from

that usually received in Christian lands. There was very little, if any,

polish about him--not that he lacked urbanity, courteousness or

smoothness--not that he was rude or rough in any way, but his placidity

was that of the river, forest or lake, not that of the boudoir or the

schools of _politesse_. He was extremely enigmatical, and the most so

when he appeared most frank in all that pertained to his inner life and

world; and was more sphynx-like to me at the end of ten years’ intimacy

than on the first day of our acquaintance. He had, though poor,

travelled extensively. Oriental in personal appearance and physical

tastes, he was still more so in disposition and mind, and in all that

pertained to dreamery, philosophy and the affections.

With this description of the principal personage of this narrative, I

now proceed to sketch another part of the man.

CHAPTER II.

HIS EARLY DAYS--THE STRANGE LEGEND.

And there sat the man at the side of the road--sat there mournfully,

silently weeping--the strange man!--as if his heart would break, and not

from slight cause was he sorrowing. Not from present want of food,

shelter, or raiment, but because his heart was full, and its fountains

overflowing. The world had called him a genius, and as such had petted,

praised, admired, and starved him all at once; but not one grain of true

sympathy all the while; not a single spark of true disinterested

friendship. The great multitude had gathered about him as city

sight-seers gather round the last new novelty in the museum--a child

with two heads, a dog with two tails, or the Japanese mermaid--duly

compounded of codfish and monkey--and then, satisfied with their

inspection, they turned from, and left him in all his deep loneliness

and misery, all the more bitter for the transient light of sympathy

thrown momentarily upon him. Genius must be sympathetically treated,

else it eats its own heart, and daily dies a painful, lingering death.

Throwing aside all his theories about preëxistence, and triple life, as

being too recondite for either my readers or myself, we come at once to

his natural, matter-of-fact history. At eight years of age he had been

christened in the Roman Catholic Church, by the name of Beverly. From

his father our hero inherited little save a lofty spirit, an ambitious,

restless nature, and a susceptibility to passional emotions, so great

that it was a permanent and positive influence during his entire life.

His fifth year began and completed the only school education the boy

ever had, and for all his subsequent attainments in that direction he

was indebted to his own unaided exertions. His father loved him little;

his mother loved him as the apple of her eye--and all the more because

being born with a full and complete set of teeth, old gossips and

venerable grey-beards augured a strange and eventful career; beside

which, certain singular spectral visitations and experiences of his

mother, ere, and shortly after the young eyes opened on the world,

convinced her that he was born to no common destiny--much of which has

already been detailed at length in “Dhoula Bel: or the Magic Globe.” Two

or three and twenty years prior to the opening of this tale, there lived

at what then was No. 70 Canal street, New York city, a woman whose

complexion was that of a Mississippi octoroon. She was a native of

Vermont, had the reputation of being the most beautiful woman in the

State, if indeed she was surpassed anywhere. Her mind was as rich in its

stores and resources as her person was in feminine graces. Her life up

to that time had been a checkered, and in the main, a very unhappy one,

for her refinement, nature, education, character and acquirements, were

such as to demand a broader, higher, better social sphere than what,

from pecuniary want, she now occupied and moved in. Another cause of

unrest was that she was maritally mismatched altogether, for her

husband, after years of absence, during which she had deemed him dead,

and contracted a second alliance with the father of her boy, had

suddenly returned, and never from that moment did she receive one

particle of what her heart yearned for--that domestic love and sympathy,

ever the matron’s due, and which alone can render life a blessing, and

smooth the rugged, thorny pathway to the tomb.

Flora Beverly claimed immediate kindred with the red-skinned sons of the

northern wilderness, but that blood in her veins mingled with the finer

current derived from her ancestor, the Cid--a strain of royal blood that

in the foretime had nerved noble-souled men to deeds of valor, and fired

the souls of Spanish poets to lofty achievements in the rosy fields of

immortal song. She had been tenderly reared--perhaps too much so--for

her strange and wonderful beauty, flashing out upon the world from her

large and lustrous eyes, and beaming forth from every feature and

movement, had been such that she had become marked in community from

early childhood, and her parents, looking upon her as a special

providence to them, had unwisely cultured qualities in her that had

better have been held in abeyance. By over-care and morbid solicitude

they had nearly spoiled God’s handiwork, and she grew up an imperious,

self-willed, exacting, and sensitive queen. She married, and expected to

find herself the centre of a realm of unalloyed joy and delight, wherein

her reign would be undisputed. The man she wedded took her for her

beauty, expecting to realize a perfect heaven in its possession. Both

were bitterly disappointed. The man could appreciate only the external

and superficial qualities and excellences of his wife, while her inner,

higher, better self--her soul, was a _terra incognita_ to him, which,

like so many other husbands, he never even once dreamed of exploring; he

had no idea whatever of the inestimable qualities of her heart,

intellect, or spirit, and he had never found out that her body is the

least a woman gives away--that she has gifts so regal for the man she

loves, that glittering diamonds are sparkless, insipid, valueless in

comparison.

And so, the first delirious joy-month over, they both began to

awaken--the man to the fact that to him his wife was a “very pretty

doll,” the woman that her husband was--a brute, whose soul slept soundly

beneath the coverlets of sense, and herself its victim and minister. It

was horrible; she lost heart, she despised this surface man, and sunk

and lost bloom beneath the terrible weight of the discovery and its

fearful results. Married, she had expected to move in a sphere very far

above that which, by the laws of moral and mental gravity, she was

compelled to occupy. Her horizon was henceforth to be bounded by that of

her master and his associates. Her husband was vain of his conquest, and

one of his greatest joys was found in parading and showing off her

beauty to the best advantage, like a jockey does a fine horse--and

feeling, jockey-like the while, “all this is _mine_!” Neither himself nor

his associates in life could appreciate that more than royal loveliness

which dwells within the breasts of educated and refined women--a beauty

which eye hath never seen, which eye can never see, but which, like soft

and delicate perfume, radiates from such to all who are fine enough to

perceive it.

As a matter of course, she soon grew weary and disgusted with this

surface-life. Feeling that she was unappreciated by the living thousands

around her, she, with the true instinct of the Indian, spurned their

contact, fell back upon herself, and then, with every tendril of her

soul, turned and yearned toward the teeming millions of the dead. She

invoked them to her aid, and religiously believed her prayers

answered--as I do--and delivering herself up wholly to their weird care

and guidance, thenceforward lived a double life--a shadow-life in the

world, a real life in the phantom land. True to the natural instinct of

the human heart, just in proportion as she withdrew from the world, so

did she approach that awful veil which is only uplifted for the sons and

daughters of sorrow and the starbeam. She became a seeress, a dreamer,

and, in what to her was an actual, positive communion with the lordly

ghosts of the dead nations, whereof, in both lines, her forefathers had

been chiefs, she sought that sympathy in her sorrows, and in her strange

internal joys--that mysterious balm of healing, which the red man in his

religion--or superstition, if you will--believes can only thus and there

be had. And she found what she sought, or what to the spontaneous and

impulsive soul amounts to the same thing, believed that she had found

it. At first she had some difficulty in correctly translating into her

human language of heart and word that which she took to be the low

whisperings of the aërial dwellers of the viewless kingdom of MANATOU.

She ardently longed for a more open intercourse with the dead, and, as

herein stated, as well as in “Dhoula Bel,” was gratified.

Poor Flora! half-child of Nature and of Art, was destined to bear a

child, and that child the man of these volumes--in the very midst of the

conditions here sketched, under these conditions he was born.

As already stated, beneath this woman’s heart there slumbered the fires

of a volcano, intense, fervent, quenchless, the result alike of her

peculiar ancestry and peculiar training. Her full soul became

re-incarnate in the son she bore; and with it she endowed the child with

her own intense desire to love and be loved; all her mystic spirit, her

love of mystery; all her unearthly aspiration toward unearthly

association; all her resolute, yet half-desponding, quick, impulsive,

passionate, generous nature; all, all, found in him a local habitation

and a name, and that name was Genius.

Thus moulded came he into the world, doomed from birth to strange and

bitter experiences--to face alone and unfriended the bitter blasts of

wintry storms, and the burning heats of summer suns; to cling to the

hope of speedy death, all the while grasping existence with ten-fold the

tenacity of others, yet daily pleading for life--strange

contradiction!--dear life, at the world’s stern bar; pleading daily, yet

as often losing his suit, and being by that world sentenced to be

utterly cast adrift on the fickle tide of Fate and Chance, and that too

with a mind and body acutely sensitive, and constantly at war with each

other.

Compensation is a universal principle. While so alive to pain, he was

equally so to the jouissant emotions, and his delights, when they came,

were keen, fine, exquisite, to a remarkable degree. As throwing some

light on the character of this man--who is not a myth, but an actual

existence--I will here repeat the substance of an account himself gave

of his early life and weird and ghostly experiences. He had been

questioned in regard to certain powers of an unusual kind attributed to

him, and the following reply was elicited:

“When I was a very young child, my mother dwelt in a large, sombre and

gloomy old stone house on Manhattan Island. At that time New York was

about one quarter as large as at present, and that house was a long way

out of town. It still stands in the same place, but the city has grown

miles beyond it. The building, in times of pestilence, fever, smallpox,

and cholera, had been used as a pest-house, or lazaretto, and in it

thousands have died of those diseases, and from there, in my fifth year,

the soul of my mother took its everlasting flight.

“Scores of people there were ready to testify on oath that the old house

was haunted by ghosts, who strode grimly and silently through the

solemn, stately halls of that massive island castle. But it generally

happened that the witnesses of these spectral visitants had neither

time nor inclination to cultivate their acquaintance--save one, an

apothecary named Banker, who cursed and swore at one of them on a

certain occasion, whereupon the ghost slapped his face, and completely

turned and withered his lower jaw by way of punishment for the _leze

majeste_. With this exception, those who met one of these ghosts,

invariably had urgent business in an opposite direction, and it was

quite surprising with what wonderful speed lame persons got over the

ground whenever a ghost was declared to be around, by those who being

born with a ‘caul’ over the face, were thereby endowed with the

spectre-seeing faculty; and as such gifted ones could see, I used often

to wish I could meet some who had been born with _two_ cauls, so that

they might speak to as well as see them.

“Some people do not believe in ghosts. I do, ghosts of various kinds. I.

It is possible to project an image of one’s self, which image may be

seen by another however distant. II. The phantasmal projections of

heated fancy--spectral illusion--the results of cerebral fever, as in

drunken delirium, opium and other fantasies. III. The spirits of dead

men. IV. Spiritual beings from other planets. V. Beings from original

worlds, who have not died, but who, nevertheless, are of so fine texture

as to defy the material laws which we are compelled to obey, and who,

coming under the operation of those that govern disembodied men, are

enabled to do all that they do. VI. I believe that human beings, by the

action of desperate, wicked wills, frequently call into being spectral

harpies--the horrible embodiment of their evil thoughts. These are

demons, subsisting so long as their creators are under the domination of

the evil. VII. I believe in a similar creation emanating from good

thoughts of good people, lovely out-creations of aspiring souls.

Remember these seven. This is a clear statement of the Rosicrucian

doctrine of the higher order of their temple. In the lower, these seven

pass under the names of Gnomes, Dwarfs, Sylphs, Salamanders, Nereiads,

Driads and Fays.

“One day, when I was about five years old, I returned from school, and

found the clayey vestment--the fleshly form of the only friend I ever

had, my mother, cold and prone in the arms of icy cold, unrelenting

Death. Ah! what a shock was that to my poor little childish heart! She

had that morning grown weary of earth, had serenely, trustingly closed

her darling eyes, and I was left alone to battle single-handed against

four mighty and powerful enemies--Prejudice, Poverty and Organization

were three of them. The fourth is almost too terrible, too wild and

fanciful to be credited, yet I will state it:

THE LEGEND.

“Many, very many centuries ago, there lived on the soil where in

subsequent ages stood Babylon and Nineveh the first, a mighty king,

whose power was great and undisputed. He was wise, well-learned and

eccentric. He had a daughter lovely beyond all description. She was as

learned as she was beautiful. Kings and princes sought her hand in

vain; for her father had sworn to give her to no man save him who should

solve a riddle which the king himself would propound, and solve it at

the first trial, under penalty of decapitation on failure. The riddle

was this, ‘What are the three most desirable things beneath the sun,

that are not the sun, yet which dwell within the sun?’ Thousands of the

gay, the grave, the sage and ambitious who essayed the solution, and

failed, left the presence to mount the horse of death.

“In the meantime, proclamation was made far and wide, declaring that

robes of crimson, chains of gold, the first place in the kingdom and the

princess should be the reward of the lucky man.

“One day there came to the court a very rich and royal embassy from the

King of the South, seeking an alliance, and propounding new treaties;

and among the suite was a young Basinge poet, who acted as interpreter

to the embassy. This youth heard of the singular state of things,

learned the conditions, and got the riddle by heart. For four long

months did he ponder upon and study it, revolving in his mind all sorts

of answers, but without finding any that fulfilled the three requisites.

“In order to study more at his ease, the youth was in the habit of

retiring to a grotto behind the palace, and there repeating to himself

the riddle and all sorts of possible responses thereto. The princess

hearing of this, determined to watch him, and did so. Now, poets must

sing, and this one was particularly addicted to that sort of exercise;

and he made it a point to imagine all sorts of perfections as residing

in the princess, and he sung his songs daily in the grotto--sung himself

desperately in love with his ideal, and so inflamed the girl herself,

who had managed to both see and hear him, herself unseen, that she loved

him dearer than life. Here, then, were two people made wretched by a

whim.

“Love and song are very good in their places, but, for a steady diet,

are not comparable to many other things; and, as this couple fed on

little else, they both pined sadly and rapidly away.

“At length, one day, the youth fell asleep in the grotto, and his head

rested directly over a fissure in the rock through which there issued a

very fine and subtle vapor, which had the effect of throwing the young

man in a trance, during which he fancied he saw the princess herself,

unveiled, and more lovely than the flowers that bloomed in the king’s

garden. He also thought he saw an inscription, which bade him despair

not, but TRY! and, at the same time, there flowed into his mind this

sentence, which subsequently became the watchword of the mystic

fraternity which, for some centuries, has been known as that of the

Rosie Cross--‘There is no difficulty to him who truly wills.’ Along with

this there came a solution of the king’s riddle, which he remembered

when he awoke, and instantly proclaimed his readiness to attempt that

which had cost so many adventurers their lives.

“Accordingly, the grandest preparations--including a man with a drawn

blade ready to make the poet shorter by the head if he failed--were

made, and, at an appointed hour, all the court, the princess included,

convened in the largest hall of the palace. The poet advanced to the

foot of the throne, and there knelt, saying, ‘O king, live for ever!

What three things are more desirable than Life, Light and Love? What

three are more inseparable? and what better cometh from the sun, yet is

not the sun? O king! is thy riddle answered?’ ‘True!’ said the king;

‘you have solved it, and my word shall be kept!’ And he straightway gave

commands to have the marriage celebrated in royal style, albeit, through

the influence of a high court official, he hated poets in general, and

this one particularly so, because he thought the young man had foiled

him in one of the treaties just made. Now, it so happened that the grand

vizier had hoped by some means to get a solution of the riddle, and

secure the great prizes for a young son of his own; and, as soon as the

divan was closed, that very day, he hastened to the closet of the king,

and there still further poisoned the mind of his master against the

victor, by charging him with having succeeded through the aid of

sorcery, which so enraged the king that he readily agreed to remove the

claimant by means of a speedy, secret, and cruel death that very night,

to which end the poet was drugged in his wine at the evening banquet,

conveyed to a couch openly, and almost immediately thereafter removed to

the chamber allotted to the refractory servants of the court. This

apartment was under ground, and the youth, being thrown violently on the

floor, revived, and was astonished to find himself bound hand and foot

in presence of the king, his vizier, a few soldiers, and--death; for he

saw at a glance that his days were numbered. He defended himself from

the charge of sorcery, but in vain. He was doomed to die, and the order

given, when, just as the blow was about to fall, there appeared the

semblance of a gigantic hand, moving as if to stay the uplifted blade;

but too late. The sword fell, and, as it reached the neck of the victim,

he uttered the awful words, ‘I curse ye all who--’ the rest of the

sentence was spoken in eternity; but there came a clamor and a clangor

as of a thousand protesting spectral voices, and one of them said, in

tones of thunder, ‘This youth, by persistence of will, had unbarred the

gates between this world and that of mystery. He was the first of his

and thy race that ever achieved so great an honor. And ye have slain

him, and he hath cursed thee, by reason of which thou, O king! and thou,

O vizier! and the dead man, have all changed the human for another

nature. The first shall go down the ages, transmigrating from form to

form. Thou, O vizier! shall also exist till thou art forgiven;--DHOULA

BEL shall be thy name; and thou shalt tempt the king through long ages,

and be foiled whenever the youth--who shall be called the

STRANGER--shall so will, for the sake of the love he bore thy daughter.

This drama shall last and be until a son of Adam shall wed with a

daughter of Ish, or thou, king, in one of the phases of thy being, shall

love, and be truly, fully loved again, and for thyself alone. An

eternity may elapse ere then!’”

* * * * *

“Ask me not,” said the young Beverly, “_why_, but believe me when I say

that I _know_ that ages ago I was that king; that the Stranger has been

seen by my mother; that Dhoula Bel still haunts and tempts me for the

sin of ages. I know the fate impending over me, and that in this my

present form I am a neutral being, for whom there is no hope save

through the union of myself, a son of Adam’s race, with a daughter of

Ish, one not of Adam’s race.... This, then, is the dreadful fate to

which I was left so pitilessly exposed on the morning that my mother

died on Manhattan Island--left to pay the penalty of a crime committed

thousands of years ago.”

CHAPTER III.

A SPECTRAL VISITANT.

It must be confessed that this was a singular story, and smelled very

strongly of either Hartz-mountainism or its equivalent, imagination. He

continued his story thus:

“I did not know all this at five years old, of course. The only thing I

did fully comprehend was the loss of my mother--her strange silence--the

woeful look of those who hugged my little head and said ‘Poor child!’ I

tried hard to be manly and not cry, as they bade me, but it was useless,

and the tears welled up in floods from my poor little childish heart.

Have you ever lost a mother?

“As I nestled on the bed where she lay so very still, I asked the

bystanding mourners where the talking part of my mother had gone to? If

she would never talk to, love and pet me any more? and they said ‘Never

more,’ and they repeated that dreadful but untrue refrain till my poor

heart was full almost to bursting, with its load and pressure of grief;

and then I threw myself upon her dear body, and cried till tears refused

to flow, for I had lost my mother, sirs--I had lost my mother! Would

that I could weep _now_ as I did _then_; it would relieve my

over-burdened heart. But I cannot, for the tear fountain seldom thaws.

The floods still gather and well up, but they freeze ere they reach the

surface, and the heart strings snap and crack, but they will not break.

I wish they would, so that I might join, even for a while, that dear

mother whom I loved so well.

“Childhood’s griefs are written with a feather, upon warm parchment,

with stainless ink; but the heart’s greater woes are burned into the

memory with a fiery iron stylus; the first lines speedily wear away; the

last are ineffaceable. As I lay upon the cold breast of my darling

mother, a woman said to me, ‘Do not cry, poor child! She is happy now!

She has just gone up, on her way to heaven!’ And I believed what that

woman said; and I looked out through the deep foliage of the trees hard

by; looked eagerly up into the sky, expecting to see her ascending soul;

and as my eye caught the shadowy fleece of a melting silvery cloud, I

thought and believed it to be my mother’s sainted soul. I half believe

so still; for as the cloud vanished into nothingness on the breast of

the blue, I distinctly heard a voice, gentle, soft, and sweetly

mournful, like unto the dying notes of a wind-harp, lightly touched by

the zephyr’s breath, whisper in my ear these words--which at that time I

could not fully comprehend--‘Lonely one of the ages! there may be rest

for thee in the life thou’rt now commencing. Let thy motto be--TRY!

Despond not, but ever remember that how bitter soever our lot may be,

that despite it all, WE MAY BE HAPPY YET! Peace, poor child! Thou’rt

watched and guarded by thy mother!’ ‘and the stranger,’ added another,

and more silvery voice from out the deep stillness of that noon-tide

heaven. I knew that mystic voice--the first one--and felt that it was

from beyond Time’s threshold. I trusted it’s sacred words of promise,

for I had, child as I was, an unshaken faith, an intuition, if you will,

that instant flowing to me, that my blessed mother still lived.

“From that hour commenced a strange, double existence to and in me. Two

instances, perfectly true in all respects, I will relate, either of

which forever settled in my mind that some human beings consciously

survive the ordeal of death. Not long after my irreparable loss, I,

along with several other children, went to bed in the roof chamber of

that dark old house. Something had occurred of a merry turn, and we were

all brimful of joy and glee, and our mirth was as loud as it dared be

for fear of the ogres down stairs, who had a bad habit of enforcing

silence through the medium of sundry straps and birch twigs. In the very

midst of the uproar the bed-clothes were slowly, carefully lifted from

off us by agencies totally invisible. We pulled them back; but again and

again they were removed, and the movement was accompanied by a din and

clatter, as if fifty cannon balls were rolling on the floor; and it

immediately brought the ogres and their straps from down stairs to see

what was the matter. So far as terror permitted we explained, whereupon

the ogres looked scaredly wise, readjusted the quilts and retreated. No

sooner had they left than the cannon balls began again to roll over the

floor, and mustering courage to rise and grapple for the coverlet,

which had again been pulled from us, I clearly and distinctly saw a

female figure calmly standing at the foot of the bed, but not upon the

floor, for she floated like a vapor on the air. There was but little, if

any, light in the room, save that which surrounded, and appeared to

emanate from the spectral figure. She stood in the midst of a silvery or

phosphoric haze. It was by no means phantasmal in appearance, but so

clear, sharp, well defined did the apparition seem, that to this day I

remember distinctly the figures on what appeared to be the dress she

wore, which fact involves a mystery no psychologist has yet been able to

fathom satisfactorily. The children who also saw this sight were

terrified; I was not, for I felt she would not harm me, for the reason

that mothers love their offspring, and that figure was my mother.

“Some considerable time elapsed after this. I had grown into a stout and

active boy, having already drifted for some years up and down the world,

and once found myself registered as cabin boy on board the brig Phœbe,

of New Bedford, whereof one Alonzo Baker was captain--not of New

Bedford--but the brig.

“In this vessel I served for several months, to the satisfaction of no

one, myself included, being too small, weak and delicate for the arduous

duties required of me, and consequently had to pay the usual penalty.

“Sailors, to a man, are superstitious, though less so now than in the

days whereof I am speaking. Still, at present, it is not hard, in spite

of the march of intellect, to find sailors who, between the dog-watch

and eight bells, will spin you a yarn under the weather rail that will

make a man’s hair stand on end like hairs on an enraged kitten.

“On board the Phœbe there were several old salts, and many were the

tales they told of the ghosts of murdered sailors, appearing in the

midst of dreadful storms, to encourage foremast Jacks, and frighten the

souls of guilty mates and captains; and of course all this tended to

deepen the vein of superstition and mysticism running through me. Often

have I been apprized of the presence and power of the dead or of those

who never die, and, when tempted to share the dangerous pleasures of my

older comrades, been mysteriously saved.

“Sailors, like everybody else, are fond of power, and delight in lording

it over those whom chance or accident places in their power; and on

every vessel there is one man who is sure to be the butt and target for

petty tyranny and abuse. On board the Phœbe this fell to my lot; and not

being able to forcibly resist, I took care to hide in my chest about a

gallon of rum, into which about half an ounce of croton oil, from the

medicine chest had previously been poured. I labelled the jug ‘Poison.’

Croton oil is the most infamously active purgative known. The sailors

found the jug, read the label--didn’t believe it--drank the liquor, and

were actively engaged for several hours thereafter, as a consequence. A

more earnest, swift-moving set of men were never seen. They had no

relish for supper that night. They beat me unmercifully, but I was

revenged. Still they abused me, until one day a sailor tweaked my nose

in the galley, and for his pains received half a gallon of hot lard in

the waist-band, which troubled him wonderfully.... At last I meditated

suicide as a relief, and, in a paroxysm of rage and despair, such as

boys only are subject to, actually ran aft to accomplish it by leaping

over the taffrail into the surging sea, when I was arrested by a narrow

blast of warm--almost hot air, which thrilled me to the very centre of

my being, and almost pinned me to the deck, while at the same time there

flowed into my soul an eloquent and indignant protest against my supreme

folly, accompanied by the spoken words, ‘Be patient! TRY!’

“It is impossible to attribute all these things to imagination.

“One evening, a long time after the occurrence just related, a company

of ladies and gentlemen, in a house situated near the observatory,

Portland, Maine, were conversing upon the general subject of ghosts, and

rewards and punishments after death. When we sat down there were

thirteen persons in the room, and thirteen persons only. We became

deeply absorbed in the discussion, indeed so much so, that the host gave

the servant strict orders not to disturb us, and to refuse admission to

any person whatever. And thus we all talked freely, the servant seated

in the hall, close by the door. No one was admitted. Presently one

person, by reason of his eloquence and venerable appearance, engrossed

all our attention by the thrilling things he told, although he did not

join the conversation till over an hour after we had begun it; nor did

his conversation appear at all intrusive. He was the _fourteenth_

person, although we did not realize the fact till we were separating,

and he had disappeared. Upon inquiry no one knew him, had ever seen him

before, or observed his departure--not even the servant, who declared

that for two hours no one had passed him either way. It was voted ‘very

strange,’ and that for our own credit sake the matter should be ‘hushed

up;’ but we agreed to meet again at the same house, that day-week, to

discuss the matter, and compare opinions arrived at in the interim.”

CHAPTER IV.

A VERY STRANGE STORY--ETTELAVAR!

“On the appointed evening a select party of us met pursuant to

agreement; but not one had reached a solution of the mystery. In those

days the impostor Davis had not foisted his blasphemous absurdities on

the world; nor had his peculiar system of morals made rogues of the one

half of his deluded followers, or shameless harlots of the other; nor

had lunatic asylums then been packed, as they have since, with sufferers

ruined by his teachings; nor were graveyards dotted with the mounds

raised by weeping friends over loved ones driven to suicide by his

doctrines. In those days a man’s wife was comparatively safe, nor were

divorces half so common as they have since become. In those days

husbands did not sneak off to Indiana, and by blank perjury procure

divorce in order that they might revel in barefaced, shameless, open

lust with their worthy paramours. In those days spiritualism had not

broken in on the world, nor had the goblin philosophy made millions of

fools and idiot fanatics out of material that God created for better

purposes. In those days Joe Smith had not convinced thousands that

harlotry is the straightest road to heaven; nor had Noyes founded his

huge religious brothel in the centre of the State, contaminating the

country for leagues around; and the handy system of ghostology, with its

hundred truths and thousand falsehoods, had not then afforded a ready

explanation of mysteries such as those I have recounted; nor had any man

dared claim to be the confidential secretary of Almighty God.

“On the night in question our conversation became, if possible, more

interesting and absorbing than on the first occasion, owing to the novel

_fillip_ it had then received. So absorbed did I become during the

evening, that on one or two occasions I partially lost myself in a sort

of semi-mesmeric coma, which gradually deepened as the discussion waxed

warmer, until my lower limbs grew cold, and a chilling numbness crept

upon me, creating such a terror that I resolved to make my condition

known, even at the risk of interrupting the discussion.

“I made the trial, and found, to my consternation, that I could not

utter a syllable--I could not move an inch. Horror! The company were so

engrossed with the matter before them, that no notice was taken of any

change that might have been perceptible in me; nor did one person there

suspect that I was not attentively drinking in the discourse.

“With inexpressible alarm, I felt that life itself was fast ebbing from

me, and that death was slowly and surely grasping, clutching, freezing

my vitals. I was dying. Presently--it appeared as if a long interregnum

had occurred between the last previous conscious moment, and the present

instantaneous, but positive agony--a sudden, sharp, tingling pang, like

that of hot needles thrust in the flesh, shot through my brain. This was

followed by a sinking sensation, as if the body had resigned itself to

passive dissolution, and then came, with electric rapidity, a succession

of the most cruel agonies ever endured by mortal man. When it ceased

consciousness had ceased also, and I fell to the floor as one suddenly

dead, to the amazement of the company, as was afterwards declared.

“How long this physical inanition lasted, I cannot now say, but during

it the spiritual part of me was roused to a tenfold degree of activity,

consciousness and power; for it saw things in a new and cryptic light,

and far more distinctly than it ever had through the bodily eyes. An

increase of hearing power accompanied this accretion of sight, and I

heard a voice, precisely like that heard when my mother died, and when

about to throw myself into the sea, which said, ‘Awake! a lesson awaits

you;’ and with this there came a partial rousing from the lethargy, and

I was led upstairs and threw myself upon a sofa, mechanically, at the

same time fixing my eyes upon the bald white face of a rare old Flemish

clock that occupied the entire southern angle of the room. Here I was

left alone by my friends, who again resumed their conversation in the

parlor below.

“Gradually the old clock-face seemed to clarify and expand, until, no

longer obstructed by substance, I gazed out, and down, and up, through

an avenue of the most astonishing light I had ever beheld. It seemed to

me that I no longer occupied my body, but that, freed from flesh and

time, I had become a denizen of Eternity; and on a fleecy vapor I was

sustained in mid-air by the potent arm of a strange-looking old man--the

veritable and precise image of him who, ten days before, had occasioned

us such a fright by his mysterious conversations and evanishment. He

told me not to fear, but to repose implicit confidence in myself and

him; that he would not injure me, but do me good; that his name was

Ettelavar; that his years were ages long; that he was the companion of

those who die--who die, and live again--and of those who never taste of

death. All this, and more, he told me; and he said that his design was

to serve both himself and me; that he was familiar with certain mighty

secrets, that had been claimed to be possessed, through many ages, by

the wise and learned of earth--the Narek El Gebel, the Hermetists, the

Pythagoreans, the three temples of the Rosie Cross, the mediæval and

modern Rosicrucians, and the scattering delvers after mystery in all

ages, times, and places. He said that among the things that I might

learn from him, were the priceless secret of compounding the Elixir of

Life, the drinking of which, by mortals, would confer perpetual youth

and surprising beauty. Then there was the Lethean Draught, and

whomsoever drank thereof, forthwith forgot all care, was oblivious to

all that concerned the Future, and lived intensely in the Present. Then

there was the Water of Love, and whoever drank thereof became

irresistibly magnetic to the opposite sex, and could kindle affection in

the heart of ice by mere personal presence. Then there was the Wondrous

Stone of the Philosophers, not capable of transmuting, by a touch,

whole tons of grossest substance into solid, shining gold, but of making

it chemically. Then there was the Magic Crystal Ball, in which the gazer

could behold whatever he wished to, that was then transpiring on this

earth, or any of the planets. ‘All this knowledge,’ said he, ‘I will

expound to you, on certain conditions to be hereafter mentioned.’

“I relate these things in the briefest possible manner, and make no

allusions to my feelings during the time I listened to the strange

being, Ettelavar, further than to remark, that during the--temptation,

shall it be called?--I seemed to be hovering in the aërial expanse, and

realized a fullness and activity of life never realized before, and knew

for the first time what it was to be a human being. My freed spirit

soared away into the superincumbent ether, and far, very far, beneath us

rolled the great revolving globe; while far away in the black inane,

twinkled myriads of fiery sparks--the starry eyes of God, looking

through the tremendous vault of Heaven. Picture to yourself a soul,

quitting earth, perhaps forever, and hovering over it like a

gold-crested cloud, at set of sun, when all the winds are hushed to

sleep on the still and loving bosom of its protecting God, and thine!

“By the exercise of a power to me unknown, Ettelavar arrested our

motion, and the cloud on which we seemed to float stood still in

mid-air, and he said to me, ‘Look and learn!’

“Like busy insects in the summer sun, afar off in the distance I beheld

large masses of human beings toiling wearily up a steep ascent, over

the summit of which there floated heavily, thick, dense, murky,

gloom-laden clouds. Crimson and red on their edges were they, as if

crowned with thunder, and their bowels overcharged with lightnings; and

their sombre shadows fell upon the plains below, heavy and pall-like,

even as shrouds on the limbs of beauty, or the harsh critic’s sentence

upon the first fruits of budding and aspiring genius. ‘It is nothing but

a crowd,’ said I; and the being at my side repeated, as if in

astonishment, ‘_Nothing_ but a crowd? Boy, the destinies of nations

centre in a crowd. Witness Paris. Look again!’ Obeying mechanically, I

did so, and soon beheld a strange commotion among the people; and I

heard a wail go up--a cry of deep anguish--a sound heavily freighted

with human woe and agony. I shuddered.

“On the extreme apex of the mountain stood a colossal monument, not an

obelisk, but a sort of temple, perfect in its proportions, and

magnificent to the view. This edifice was surmounted by a large and

highly polished golden pyramid in miniature. On all of the faces of this

pyramid was inscribed the Latin word FELICITAS; I asked for an

explanation from my guide, but instead of giving it, he placed his

air-like hand upon my head, and drawing it gently over my brow and eyes,

said, ‘Look!’

“Was there magic in his touch? It really seemed so, for it increased my

visual capacity fifty-fold, and on again turning to the earth beneath

me, I found my interest almost painfully excited by a real drama there

and then enacting. It was clearly apparent that the great majority of

the people were partially, if not wholly blind; and I observed that one

group, near the centre of the plain below the mountain, appeared to be

under much greater excitement than most of the others, and their

turbulence appeared to result from the desire of each individual to

reach a certain golden ball and staff which lay on a cushion of crimson

velvet within the splendid open-sided monument on the mountain. In the

midst of this lesser crowd, energetically striving to reach the

ascending path, was one man who seemed to be endowed with far more

strength and resolution--not of body, but of purpose--than those

immediately around him. Bravely he urged his way toward the mountain’s

top, and, after almost incredible efforts, succeeded. Exultingly he

approached the temple, by his side were hundreds more; he outran them,

entered, reached forth to seize the ball and sceptre--it seemed that the

courageous man must certainly succeed--his fingers touched the prize, a

smile of triumph illumined his countenance, and then suddenly went out

in the blight of death, for he fell to the earth from a deadly blow,

dealt by one treacherous hand from behind, while others seized and

hurled him down the steep abyss upon which the temple abutted, and he

was first dashed to pieces and then trampled out of existence by the

iron heels of advancing thousands--men who saw but pitied not, rather

rejoicing that one rival less was in existence.

“‘Is it possible,’ cried I, internally, ‘that such hell-broth of

vindictiveness boils in human veins?’

“‘Alas, thou seest!’ replied Ettelavar, by my side. ‘Learn a lesson,’

said he, ‘from what you have seen. Fame is a folly, not worth the having

when obtained. ‘Felicitas’ is ever ahead, never reached, therefore not

to be looked for. Friendship is an empty name, or convenient cloak which

men put on to enable them to rob with greater facility. No man is

content to see another rise, except when such rising will assist his own

elevation; and the man behind will stab the man in front, if he stands

in his way. Human nature is infantile, childish, weak, passionate and

desperately depraved, and as a rule, they are the greater villains who

assume the most sanctity; they the most selfish who prate loudest of

charity, faith and love. I begin my tutelage by warning, therefore

arming you, against the world and those who constitute it. If you wish

to truly rise, you must first learn to put the world and what it

contains at its proper value. Remember, I who speak am Ettelavar.

Awake!’

“Like the sudden black cloud in eastern seas, there came a darkness

before me; my eyes opened, and fell upon the old clock face. Its hands

told me that it was exactly thirteen minutes since I had marked the hour

on the dial. Since that hour I have had much similar experience, and it

is this that affords ground for the unusual powers in certain respects,

not claimed by, but attributed to me.” ...

Such was the substance of the young man’s narrative, in answer to

questions propounded to him long before the date at which he is

introduced to the reader.

CHAPTER V.

LOVE. EULAMPÉA[2]--THE BEAUTIFUL.

[2] Romaic--Ευλαμπια--Eulampía--Evlambéah. “Bright-shining.”--Lovely,

mystically beautiful.

The golden sun was setting, and day was sinking beneath his crimson

coverlets in the glowing west. The birds, on thousand green boughs, were

singing the final chorus of the summer opera; the lambs were skipping

homeward in the very excess of joy; while the cattle on the hills lowed

and bellowed forth their thanksgiving to the viewless Lord of Glory. Man

alone seemed unconscious of his duty and the blessings he enjoyed.

Toil-weary farmers were slowly plodding their way supper and bed-ward,

and all nature seemed to be preparing to enjoy her bath of rest. Still

sat the wanderer by the highway side; still fell his tears upon the

grateful soil; and as the journeyers home and tavern-ward passed him by,

many were the remarks they made upon him, careless whether he heard them

or not. Some in cruel, heartless mockery and derision, some few in pity,

and all in something akin to surprise, for men of his appearance were

rarely seen in that neighborhood. At last there came along three

persons, two of whom were unmistakably Indians, and the third, a girl of

such singular complexion, grace, form, and extraordinary facial beauty,

it was extremely difficult to ethnologically define what she was. This

girl was about fourteen; the boy who accompanied her and the grey-haired

old Indian by her side, was apparently about twelve years old. This last

was the first to notice the stranger.

“Oh, Evlambéa,” said he, “see! there’s a man crying, and I’m going to

help him!” The boy spoke in his own vernacular, for he was a full blood

of the Oneida branch of the Mohawks, fearless, honorable, quick,

impulsive, and generous as sunlight itself. To see distress and fly to

its relief was but a single thing for him, and used to be with his

people until improved and “civilized” with bad morals and worse

protection. The Indian was Ki-ah-wah-nah (The Lenient and Brave) chief

of the Stockbridge section of the Mohawks. The girl, Evlambéa, nominally

passed for his grandchild, but such was not the case, for although she

might well be taken for a fourth blood, she really had not a trace of

Indian about her, further than the costume, language, and general

education and habit. Her name was modern Greek, or Romaic, but her

features and complexion no more resembled that of the pretty dwellers on

Prinkipo or the shores of the Bosphorus, than that of the Indians or

Anglo Saxon. Many years previous to that day, this girl, then a child of

three or four months age, had been brought to the chief and left in his

care for a week, by a woman clad in the garb of, and belonging to a

wandering band of gipsies, who, attracted by the universal reputation of

the New World, had left Bohemia and crossed the seas to reap a golden

harvest. This band had held its headquarters for nearly a year on

Cornhill, Utica, whence they had deployed about the country in a circle

whose radius averaged one hundred and twenty miles. The woman never came

back to claim the child, for the members of the band suddenly decamped

after having financiered a gullible old farmer out of several thousands

of dollars in gold, which they had persuaded him it was necessary that

he should put in a bag and bury in the ground at a certain hour of a

certain night, in order to the speedy discovery of a large mine of

diamonds that was certainly upon his farm, and would as surely be

brought to light when the gold was exhumed after a certain time, which

time was quite long enough for the band to dig up the gold and disperse

in all directions, to meet again three thousand miles away. This bit of

Cornhill swindling was considered rather sharp practice, even for that

locality, and ended by shrouding the girl in an impenetrable mystery,

and giving to the old chief a child, who, as she expanded and grew up

became quite as dear to his heart as any one of his own offspring; and

in fact, by reason of her superior intelligence, she became far more so,

for mind ever makes itself felt and admired. Not one of the

ethnological, physical, moral, or mental characteristics which mark the

Romany tribes was to be noticed in this girl, and wise people concluded

that she had somewhere been stolen by the woman, who from fear or policy

had left her to her fate and the good old Indian’s care.

Esthetics is not my _forte_, hence I shall not attempt to describe the

young girl. The name she bore was marked on her clothing in Greek

letters, which were afterwards rendered into English by a professor of a

college whose assistance had been asked by the Indian.

Besides being known far and near as the most beautiful girl of her age,

she was also distinguished as by far the most intelligent. She was

undisputed queen on the Reservation, not by right, but by quiet

usurpation. She looked and acted the born Empress, and her triplicate

sceptre consisted of kindness, intelligence, and that nameless dignity

and presence inherent in truly noble souls.

Such was the bright-shining maiden, who, attracted by the boy’s cry and

actions, now crossed over to the side of young Beverly. Observing his

sorrowful appearance, she placed her soft hand tenderly upon his head,

and said in tones heart-felt and deeply sympathetic, “Man of the heavy

heart, why weep you here? Is your mother just dead?”

The young man raised his head, saw the radiant girl before him, and,

after a moment’s hesitation, during which he shuddered as if at some

painful memory, murmuring, “No; it cannot be possible!--cannot be--in

this part of the world, too! no!” he replied to her, saying, “Girl, I am

lonely, and that is why I weep. I am but a boy, yet the weight of years

of grief rest on and bear me down. To-day is the anniversary of my

mother’s death, and, when it comes, I always pass it in tears and

prayer. Since she went home to heaven, I have had no true friend, and my

lot and life are miserable indeed. Men call themselves my friends, and

prove it by robbing me. Not long ago, there came a man to me--he was

very rich--and said, ‘People tell me that you are very skillful with the

sick. Come; I have a sister whom the physicians say must die. I love

her. You are poor; I am rich. Save her; gold shall be yours.’ I went.

She was beyond the reach of medicine, and it was possible to prolong her

life only in one of two ways--either by the transfusion of blood from my

veins to her own, or by the transfusion of life itself. I was young and

strong, and we resolved to adopt the latter alternative, as being the

only possibly effective one; and for months, during three years, I sat

beside that poor sick girl, and freely let her wasted frame draw its

very life by magnetically sapping my own. Finally, I began to sink with

exhaustion and disease similar to her own, and, to save my life, was

forced to break the magnetic cord, and go to Europe. As soon as it was

severed she sunk into the grave, and then I returned, and received a

considerable sum of money in the nature of a loan. This favor was

granted me as a reward for my pains, time, and ruined health. I was to

return it from the proceeds of a business to be immediately established.

At that time I resolved to purchase a little home for those who depended

on my efforts for the bread they ate, and so wrote to a man who called

himself my friend, but who is the direct cause of most of the evil I

have for ten years experienced. This fellow pretended to deal in lands.

I put nine hundred dollars--half I had in the world--in this man’s

hands, to purchase a fine little place of a few acres, which place he

took me to see. I was pleased with it, and saw a home for those who

would be left behind me when I was dead. A few days thereafter this

ghoul came to me again, and represented that gold bullion being down he

could make considerable profit for me in three days, would I make the

investment. I handed over the remainder of my money. The three days

lengthened into years. Instead of being a capitalist he was a

bankrupt--was not in the gold business, and had no more control of the

land he showed me than he had of Victoria’s crown. Meantime, my

furniture was seized; I lost my name with the friend who advanced the

sum; I became ill, and, in my agony, called this man a swindler. To

silence me, he gave me a check on a bank. I presented it. ‘No funds!’

And yet he dared call himself an honest man. ‘You have but to unsay the

harsh things said about me,’ said this semblance of a man to me one day,

‘and I am ready to pay you everything I owe.’ My mind was unsettled; I

listened to him, and the result was that, by duplicity and fraud, more

mean and despicable than the first, if there be a depth of villainy more

profound, he obtained my signature to an acknowledgment that the money

of which he had openly swindled me, then in his hands, was ‘a friendly

loan.’ And then he laughed, ‘Ha! ha!’ and he laughed, ‘Ho! ho!’ at me

and my misery, and actually suffered a child in our family to perish and

wretchedly die for the want of food and medicine. But then he told me

that he had buried it properly, respectably, up there in the cemetery,

and it was the only truth I ever heard from his lips. But then he sent

the funeral bills for me to pay--all the while laughing at my

misery--while the lordly house he occupied was redeemed from forced

sale with my money, and himself and his feasted luxuriously every day on

what was the price of _my heart’s blood_! Still, they all laughed, ‘Ha!

ha!’ and grew fat on my blood. I still have the memory of a dead child,

up there in the cemetery. Poor starved child! It is no satisfaction to

me to know that this man will die a disgraced pauper, dependent on

charity for bread. Still less is it to realize, as I do, that the

brothel and the gibbet, the gambling hell and massive prisons, are

shadowed in the foreground of his line, and that it will utterly perish

from off the earth in ignominy and horror. I would not have it so, but

fate is fate; and I see, at least, one dangling form of his race

swinging in the air! My prophetic eye beholds----”

As the man uttered these terrible sentences, he shuddered as if

horror-stricken at the impending fate of this wronger of the living and

the dead, and it was clear to the girl that he would have freely averted

the doom, had such a thing been possible.

“Men and cliques,” said he, “have used me for their purposes--have, like

this ghoul, wormed themselves into my confidence, and then, when their

ends were served, have ever abandoned me to wretchedness and misery.

“Rosicrucians, and all other delvers in the mines of mystery, all

dealers with the dead, all whose idiosyncracies are toward the ideal,

the mystic and the sublime, are debtors to nature, and the price they

pay for power is groans, tears, breaking hearts, and a misery that none

but such doomed ones can either appreciate or understand. Compensation

is an inexorable law of being, nor can there, by any possibility, be

any evasion of it. The possession of genius is a certificate of

perpetual suffering.

“You now know why I am sad, O girl of the good heart. I am weak

to-night; to-morrow will bring strength again. But, see! the golden sun

is setting in the west. Alas! I fear that my sun is setting also for a

long, long night of wretchedness.”

“You speak well, man of the sore spirit,” replied the girl. “You speak

well when you say the sun is setting; but you seem to forget that it

will rise again, and shine as brightly as he does to-day! He will shine

even though dark clouds hide him from us; and though you and I may not

behold his glories, some one else will see his face, and feel his

blessed heat. Old men tell us that the darkest hour is just before the

break of day. I bid you take heart. _You may be happy yet!_”

“The precise formula of the Mysterious Brotherhood!--the very words

uttered by the dead mother who bore me! How did this girl obtain it?

When? Where? From whom?”

Beverly started, gazed into the mighty depths of her eye, was about to

ask the questions suggested, but forbore.

“We may all be happy yet,” said she; “for the Great Spirit tells me so!”

And she crossed her hands upon her virgin breast--breast glowing with

immortal fervor and inspiration; and she threw, by a toss of the head,

her long, black sea of hair behind her, and stood revealed the perfect

incarnation of faith and hope, as if her upturned eyes met God’s glance

from Heaven. The old chief and the boy at his side said nothing, but

each instinctively folded his hands in the attitude of confidence and

prayer. The combined effect of all this upon the young man was electric.

The singular incident struck him so forcibly that he rose to his feet,

placed his hand upon the girl’s head, uplifted his eyes and voice to

heaven, and, from the depths of his soul, responded “Amen, and Amen.”

It was at this critical instant that I, the editor of these papers,

chanced to come up to where this scene was being enacted. A few words

sufficed for an introduction, and on that spot begun a friendship

between us all that death himself is powerless to break.

Two hours thereafter, the chief, his son, the girl, the youth, were,

with myself, partaking of a friendly meal at the old man’s house. After

the repast was over, the conversation took a philosophic turn, in which

the chief, who was a really splendid specimen of the cultivated Indian,

took an active and interested part.

Presently the old people took their pipes, the younger ones went to bed,

and Beverly and ’Levambea, as she was almost universally called, walked

out, and sat them down beneath an old sycamore that stretched its giant

limbs like the genius of protection over the cottage. There they talked

gaily enough at first, but presently in a tender and pathetic strain;

and it was clear that there had sprung up between them already something

much warmer than friendship, yet which was not love. When they rose to

enter the house, the last words uttered by the girl--uttered in the

same singularly inspired strain observed on their first meeting--were,

“Yes! I _will_ love you; but not _here_, not _now_, perhaps not on

_this_ earth. Yet I will be your prop, your stay, though deep seas

between us roll. Listen! When I am in danger you will know it, wherever

you may be. When you are in danger you will see me. Forget not what I

say. Ask me no questions. Your fate is a singular one, but not more so

than my own. Good night! Good-bye! We will see each other no more at

present--_it is not permitted_!” And without another word she abruptly

left him, darted into the house, passed up the stairs, and was gone like

a spirit.

Next day, at the solicitation of the chief and others who took an

interest in young Beverly, he consented to go with me to my home, many

leagues from that spot; and, accordingly, in due time we arrived there,

and for several months he was an inmate of my house; and, while under

the shadow of ill health and its consequent sympathetic state, I became

intimate with many of the loftier and profound secrets of the celebrated

Rosicrucian fraternity, with which he was familiar, and which he gave me

liberty to divulge to a certain extent, conditioned that I forbore to

reveal the locality of the lodges of the Dome, or indicate the persons

or names of its chief officers, albeit, no such restriction was exacted

in reference to the lesser temples of the order--covering the first

three degrees in this country--to the acolytes of which the higher

lodges are totally unknown. Oh! how often have I sat beside him, on the

green banks of a creek that ran through my little farm, and raptly

listened to the profoundest wisdom, the most exalted conceptions and

descriptions of the soul, its origin, nature, powers, and its

destinies--listened to metaphysical speculations that fairly racked my

brain to comprehend, and all this from the lips of a man totally

incapable of grappling successfully with the money-griping world of

barter and of trade. Here was the most tremendous contradiction, in one

man, that I had ever known or heard of. One who revelled in mental

luxuries fit for an angel, yet had not forecast enough to foil a common

trickster;--who blindly, and for years, reposed his whole trust in one

whose sole aim was to rob him not only of his little competence, but of

his character as a man--who suffered one near and dear to him to starve,

literally starve to death, and then be buried, at the very moment that

himself and his were luxuriating on the very money for which that man

had bartered health, and almost life itself! Was it not very singular? I

have wondered, time and again, how such things could be, and intensely

so when he has been revealing to me some of the loftier mysteries of the

Order; when talking of Apollonius of Tyanæ, the Platonists, the elder

Pythagoreans; of the Sylphs, Salamanders and Glendoveers; of Cardan, and

Yung-tse-Soh, and the Cabalistic Light; of Hermes Trismegistus, and the

Smaragdine Tables; of sorcery and magic, white and black; of the

Labyrinth, and Divine policy; of the God, and the republic of gods; of

the truths and absurdities of the gold-seeking Hermetists and

pseudo-Rosicrucians; of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius,

and the Alexandrine Clement; of Origen and Macrobius, Josephus and

Philo; of Enoch and the pre-Adamite races; of Dambuk and Cekus, Psellus,

Jamblichus, Plotinus and Porphyrius, Paracelsus, and over seven hundred

other mystical authors.

Said he to me one day, “Do you remember laughing at me when I first

began to talk about the Rosicrucians? and you asserted that, if such a

fraternity existed, it must be composed either of knaves or fools,

laughing heartily when informed that the order ramified extensively on

both sides of the grave, and, on the other shore of time, was known in

its lower degrees as the Royal Order of the Foli, and, towering

infinitely beyond and above that, was the great Order of the Neridii;

and that whoever, actuated by proper motives, joined the fraternity on

this side of the grave, was not only assured of protection, and a vast

amount of essential knowledge imparted to him here, but also of sharing

a lot on the farther side of life, compared to which all other destinies

were insignificant and crude. I repeat this assertion now.”

CHAPTER VI.

NAPOLEON III. AND THE ROSICRUCIANS--AN EXTRAORDINARY MAN AND AN

EXTRAORDINARY THEORY.

Beverly continued his very singular narrative, saying:--“You have

already been informed of the singular doom that hangs over me--that I am

condemned to perpetual transmigrations, unless relieved by a marriage

with a woman in whom not one drop of the blood of Adam circulates--and

even then, the love must be perfect and mutual. Thus my chance is about

as one in three hundred and ninety-six billions against, to a single one

for me. This doom has brought around me, as it did around others before

me, certain beings, powers, influences, and at length I became a

voluntary adept in the Rosicrucian mysteries and brotherhood. How, when,

or where I was found worthy of initiation, of course I am not at liberty

to tell; suffice it that I belong to the Order, and have been--by

renouncing certain things--admitted to the companionship of the living,

the dead, and those who never die; have been admitted to the famous

Derishavi-Laneh, and am familiar with the profoundest secrets of the

Fakie-Deeva Records; and through life have had ever three great

possibilities before me: one of these--I being a neutral soul--is that

of becoming after death a chief of a supreme order, called the Light;

or of its opposite, called the Shadow--to which I am tempted by

invisible, but potent agencies; and the third of which is the one I

dread most--the perpetuation of the doom to wander the earth for ages,

in various bodies, as the result of the curse pronounced by a dying man

ages ago, as you already have been told, unless I be redeemed by a true

marriage with a woman in whom not one drop of the blood of Adam

circulates. I desire to avoid all three if possible, and to share the

lot of other men.

“I have another mysterious thing to relate to you. Doubtless you

recollect that the curse was uttered by the young poet--and that the

mysterious voice heard in the dungeon where he was slain, declared that

thenceforth, until the doom was fully accomplished, this youth during

all his ages should be known as the Stranger. Well, in the course of the

centuries that rolled away, this Stranger became a member of an august

Fraternity in the Heavens, known as the Power of the Light. You know,

also, that I, who was the king, incurred the penalty of wandering till

relieved; and you are also aware that him who was the Vizier was

sentenced to a singular destiny under the name of Dhoula Bel. Well, he

also became an active member of a vast Association in the Spaces, known

as the Power of the Shadow. This is but one half of the mystery, for it

became the object of both Dhoula Bel and the Stranger--who both knew

that in my birth from the woman Flora--years before I underwent my

present incarnation--that I would be in every respect a Neutral man; one

having no tendencies whatever, naturally, to either good or evil, but

only toward ATTAINMENT; and as such neutral man, it became possible to

forego my doom, and to become supreme chief of either of the Orders

named; hence both Dhoula Bel and the Stranger, beside their original,

have the strong additional motive of making me subservient to their

loftier views; and to achieve it, they frequently attend me in visible

and invisible shapes--tempting, nearly ruining, and as often saving me

from dangers worse than death itself--in what way has already been

partly told, and will be hereafter seen.

“In one of my frequent sojourns in Paris, I became acquainted with a few

reputed Rosicrucians, and after sounding their depths, found the water

very shallow, and very muddy--as had been the case with those I met in

London--Bulwer, Jennings, Wilson, Belfedt, Archer, Socher, Corvaja, and

other pretended adepts--like the Hitchcocks, Kings, Scotts, and others

of that ilk, on American soil. At length, there came an invitation from

Baron D----t, for me to attend, and take part in, a Mesmeric Séance. I

attended; and from the reputation I gained on that occasion, but a few

days elapsed ere I was summoned to the Tuilleriés, by command of his

majesty, Napoleon III.,[3] who for thirty-four years had been a True

Rosicrucian, and whom I had before met at the same place, but on a

different errand than the present. What then and there transpired, so

far as myself was an actor, it is not for me to say, further than that

certain experiments in clairvoyance were regarded as very successful,

even for Paris, which is the centre of the Mesmeric world, and where

there are hundreds who will read you a book blindfold; and two--Alexis,

and Adolph Didiér--who will do the same, though the page be inclosed in

the centre of a dozen boxes of metal or wood, one within the other.

[3] This is a fact--as is also the whole succeeding account of what took

place at this extraordinary séance. The anachronism observable is

purposely made.--ED.

“On this occasion I had played and conquered at both chess and écarte,

no word being spoken, the games simultaneous, and the players in three

separate rooms. There was present, also, an Italian gentleman with an

unpronounceable name; a Russian Count Tsovinski, and a Madame Dablin--a

mesmerist and operatic singer. After awhile his majesty asked the

empress, and the general (Pellisier), who afterwards became the Duke de

Malakoff, if they would submit to a trial of mesmerism by either of the

three professors of the art, named. They declined; whereupon the

Emperor, speaking aloud, asked ‘if any of the company were willing to

test, in their own persons, the vaunted powers of his excellency, the

Italian Count?’ whose methods of inducing his magnetic marvels differed

altogether from those usually adopted; inasmuch as he, like Boucicault,

the actor, in his famous play--‘The Phantom’--makes no passes, scarcely

glances for an instant at his subjects, and invariably looks _away_

from, not toward, them. Now, it is a well-known fact that everybody

believes everybody else, save themselves, subject to mesmeric influence,

as is often demonstrated at the weekly séances of the Magnetic Society,

held in the Rue Grenelle St. Honore.

“At the date of this Imperial Séance, spiritualism had not yet made

public pretensions in France, and although the Scotch trickster, Daniel

Hume, had crossed the Atlantic, and was at that time living at Cox’s, in

Jermyn street, Picadilly, London--yet he had not then obtained the

notoriety that subsequently became his, nor had half Europe ran after

those in whose presence tables tipped by heel, toe, and genuine spirit

power. Of course, then, spiritual phenomena, so called, being then under

bann, it could not be, and was not depended on as a means of explaining

what there and then took place.

“‘With great pleasure,’ said the Count, in reply to a request to exhibit

his power. ‘With great pleasure, your majesty,’ and forthwith he turned

and looked straight into a massive mirror that occupied the entire space

between two windows of the saloon. As he spoke it struck me that,

somewhere, at some time, I had met this Italian Rosicrucian, but where,

for the life of me, I could not tell; yet I was certain that I had heard

that voice, and still more certain that I had beheld that strange, sweet

smile.

“The Count’s position before the mirror was such that, supposing his eye

had been a flame, the reflected rays would strike the forehead of one of

the company fairly in the centre. The person upon whom it struck had not

the least suspicion of what was being done. He did not make the

discovery until it was too late, for no sooner did the operator get him

fairly in focus, then he clenched his hands, looked with ten-fold

earnestness at the mirror, muttered to himself a few unintelligible

words, and the gentleman fell to the floor as if his heart had been

perforated by a bullet, or as if he had been struck down with a club. In

an instant all was confusion, everybody thinking it a fit of apoplexy,

except the Emperor, the operator, myself and the Russian.

“Several went to raise him, but before they could do so he sprung to his

feet, began to sing and dance--the truth, at the same time, flashed upon

the company, that the phenomenon was mesmeric--and in another minute to

plead for his life, as if before his judges, with the prison and the axe

before him. The scene was solemn to the last degree.

“Suddenly, and without a word from the Count, the pleading changed to a

musical scena; and although, at other times totally incapable of singing

or playing in the least degree, he performed several difficult pieces in

magnificent style, on the harp and piano, accompanying the performances

vocally, and in a manner that drew involuntary plaudits from every

person present.

“This part of the performance was suddenly terminated; for the sleeping

subject placed himself in the exact spot in which the Italian had stood,

and, like him, gazed steadily at the mirror, and in twenty seconds the

man who stood in the line of reflection fell to the floor, and a lady

who, in going to his assistance, chanced to strike that line, instantly

seized, raised him as easily as if he had been a doll, and with him

commenced a dance unique, wild and perfectly indescribable. It was

infectious, for in less than half a minute seventeen persons, high lords

and stately dames, were wheeling, whirling, leaping, flying about the

room in wilder measures than were ever performed by mad Bachantes. They

had all been magnetized by proxy.

“Astonished beyond measure at this extraordinary display, I retired, the

better to watch the progress of the strange scene, to the opposite side

of the saloon, and leaned carelessly against one of two colossal

Japanese josses that stood there. No person was anywhere near me, and in

my surprise I murmured below my breath: ‘What astonishing power!’ and am

certain that a person standing close at my side could not have discerned

what I said, yet nevertheless the thought was scarcely framed before the

Count turned square upon his heel, advanced straight toward me, smiled

sweetly, strangely, as he did so, and said: ‘All this power is

yours--and much that is still more mysterious--if you but say the word!’

“‘What word?’ asked I, surprised that a man should so readily read my

thought--for it is impossible that he could have heard my exclamation.

“‘That you will voluntarily join the most august fraternity that ever

earth contained! Think of it! We shall meet again.’

“‘When? where?’ I asked hurriedly, for the august company were observing

us, especially the Emperor, who, beneath his heavy brows, was evidently

paying quite as much attention to us as to the wonderful things then

occurring across the room.

“He did not reply directly, but, by a continuation of his breach of

etiquette resumed, saying: ‘By the exercise of the power I possess, and

will impart to you, conditionally; you shall be capable of depriving any

man of speech, and make man, woman or child perfectly subservient to

your _silent_ command, as the people yonder are to mine. There is Jean

Boyard, in this Paris, who merely looks at any small object, and makes

it dance toward him. You shall exceed him fifty-fold! On the Boulevart

du Temple M. Hector produces a full-blown rose from a green bud, in

seven minutes; you shall be able to do it in one.

“‘In the Rue de Bruxelles lives a girl--Julie Vimart--who exceeds Alexis

and all the other sleepers, for she beats you at chess, tells you all

you know, and much that you have forgotten; you shall do all that and

more. In the street _Grand Père_, lives a boy who brings messages from

the living, in their sleep; meets and converses with your friends--when

_they_ slumber, and describes them as perfectly as the sun paint their

portraits in the cameras of Talbot and Dagguerre; you shall have that

power.

“‘In the Rue du Jour, is a _Sage Femme_, who cures all diseases that are

curable, by a simple touch and prayer: you shall have that power greater

than she can ever hope to. It is only necessary to say ‘I will have

these powers!’ and they shall be yours. They all are well worth having.

I learned my secret among the magi of the East--men not half so

civilized as are we of the West; but who, nevertheless, _know_ a great

deal more than the sapient men of Christendom--that is, less of

machinery, politics, and finance; but a great deal more of the human

soul, its nature, its powers, and the methods of their developement.

Instead of being surprised at modern scientific revelations, we of the

True Temple----’ ‘_What_ Temple?’ I interrupted him to ask. ‘Of the

_Supreme Dome_ of the Rosie Cross,’ said he.

“The Emperor must have heard this question and its answer, for he

directly crossed over to us, and actually joined this curious

_tête-à-tête_. The Count bowed; did not seem at all embarrassed by the

presence of the son of Admiral Verhuiel, the great Dutch founder of the

Second Empire--or Emperor ----.

“‘As I was saying,’ the Count resumed, ‘instead of being elated at what

Western science has done, _we_ are ashamed of the tardy steps of

“Progress”--Progress indeed! Where is it, save in wretchedness, poverty,

crime, selfishness, and in the accrement of misery. Progress is more

fancied than real. Civilization is a misnomer, utilitarianism a

desecration of man’s soul, Philosophy an imposture, and learning

altogether false!’

“I was pleased to see the Emperor join the conversation at this point,

for two reasons: first, to hear what he had to say; and secondly, to

observe whether the subjects on the floor could be kept under the

Count’s influence while his mind was abstracted from them and centered

on matters entirely different.

“‘Do not be disturbed at what he says,’ said his majesty, ‘for these

Mesmerists are all slightly mad.’ And he smiled, while the Count

shrugged his shoulders, and exclaimed:

“‘With a method, however!’

“Then turning his attention toward the company, by some inscrutable

power he stopped the dance, restored the subjects to their normal state,

and almost instantly thereafter exercised it upon Madame Dablin, who

straightway, with closed eyes, approached a grand piano, swept its keys

with matchless skill, as a prelude, and then launched forth into one of

the strangest, most brilliant, yet wild and weird fantasias, that genius

ever dreamed of. I cannot now stop to describe its effect upon the

company, nor upon myself, for my whole being was absorbed at that moment

in matters far more important to me than a mesmeric experiment, however

interesting and successful it might be; for at best, its effect and

memory would be transient and ephemeral, while, on the contrary, the

things I might learn from the Italian might last so long as my conscious

soul endured. I was not, therefore, disappointed when he resumed his

talk. I cannot now repeat the _ipsissima verba_ of what he said, but the

substance, in reply to questions by the Emperor and myself, was in

effect this:

“‘The soul and its qualities, passions and volume are all clearly marked

upon the physique, and are apparent to all who possess the proper key;

to all others, the difficulty lies in correctly reading these signs, and

a still greater in assigning to each faculty its actual, its possible,

and its relative strength and value. Every act that a man does has an

effect upon both his body and soul, and the imprints thereof are

indelibly stamped upon his features; therefore his past--even his most

secret act or thought--can be read by the adept with as much ease as if

his face were a printed page, the type being large, smooth and clear.

Every man is susceptible of being controlled mesmerically by another,

because no man is collectively stronger than his weakest faculty; a

chain is no stronger than its most defective link. Now I control men

because I know at a glance which is the most vulnerable portion of their

nature. Self-love, Emulation and Will are the trinity in unity around

which the Psychal Republic revolves. One of these is always vulnerable;

subdue that, and you subdue the man. Now, when I perform such

experiments as those now being exhibited, I first mesmerize, not the

entire brain, but a single faculty, which in turn speedily subdues all

the rest. The mind of man is a mirror! Conceded. Well, then, I

forthwith, by an effort of will, entirely vacate my own mind, thinking

of nothing but a revolving wheel. The subject reflects my action; then

in fancy I sing, dance, play, and the subject reflects my thought by

appropriate action.’

“‘But,’ said one, ‘suppose your subject understands nothing about these

accomplishments. How then?’

“‘All souls understand them. Bodies may not; and I bring the soul under

subjection, not the body merely.’

“‘This is a dangerous power to possess,’ said the Emperor, ‘and none but

a good man ought to have it.’

“‘A bad man cannot become a true Rosicrucian, although men have turned

their arms against the race, and the secrets of the fraternity, like all

things else, have been trifled with and abused. Thus it is possible for

an expert to cure a diseased man by the exercise of the power alluded

to. But the rule is dual: it is also possible to kill a healthy man by

the same mysterious means; and indeed it has often been done, especially

by the natives of Africa.

“‘I persuade my soul that you are sick and will die, and if I keep up

the will and wish, nothing is more certain than that both will be

accomplished. Some men naturally possess enormous powers of will, and

are able to project visible images, like those of a phantasmagoria--

images of whatever they choose to fancy--a flower, a hand, arm, or a

human form--and these spectra will be visible to scores of startled

observers, who, in their utter ignorance of the human mind and body, and

their respective and conjoined powers, believe them to be the veritable

ghosts of dead men, and objects produced by them. I learned recently

that in London is at this moment a young Scotchman, named Hume, who

possesses this power to a remarkable degree, and also that of

levitation, and who is coining fame and fortune by pretending that the

psychical phenomenon is really and truly spiritual--which is not the

case. I learned this great secret in the Punjaub, of Naumsavi Chitty,

the chief of the Rosicrucians of India, and the greatest reformer since

Budha.’

“At this point the Emperor asked the Count to exhibit a specimen of his

spectre-producing power, to which the latter assented. First he walked

rapidly several times up and down the saloon, gave directions to lower

the lights, which was done, and then, as before, he stood still

directly in front of the mirror for a minute or two, and then, in a

sharp, cracked tone, repeated thrice the word ‘Look!’ We did so, and as

I live, there flashed the semblance of a thousand chains of vivid

lightning across the face of the mirror, along the floor, over the

ceiling, up and down the walls; now like forks, then as chains of

electric fluid; anon changing to fiery acorns, which gradually formed

themselves into a fiery crown, rose gently, floated over the company for

a few seconds, and then rested in the air about five inches above the

head of Napoleon III.--a crown of fire!

“‘Mind,’ said he, after this splendid proof of his weird ability, ‘I do

not aver that all the phenomena exhibited in these days as spiritual are

produced as I have these; but I do say that not one-tenth part is

attributable to spiritual agencies. That which is indeed spiritual is

not all the product of dead men, but much of it proceeds from the Larvæ

and inhabitants of the spaces between the rolling globes.’

“Then turning to me, he repeated his invitation to become an acolyte of

the Temple; said we should meet again; and shortly thereafter the séance

broke up, and I left the palace, greatly wiser than when I entered it

five hours before.

“Calling a _voiture de remise_, I entered it and rode home to my hotel.

Arrived there, I dismounted beneath the glare of a street lamp, and drew

forth my pocket-book to pay my fare. On opening it, what was my surprise

at finding a letter, closely sealed, within it, directed to myself. I

paid the coachman, hastened to my chamber, and then, eagerly tearing

the envelope, I read the following very singular letter, written in a

female hand, and in the English language:

“‘MONSIEUR,

“‘Remember that you have met one human soul who knows and

_thoroughly_ understands your strange, mysterious and inexplicable

nature--your heaven’s heights, your hell’s depths, your spacic

breadth, your volcanic eruptions, your ocean of god-like calmness,

and all-pervading, all-sustaining, holy stillness and quiet, wherein

the soul in its magnificent grandeur sweeps over all space and all

time, and lives an infinity of lives in its own self-created world!

As such I see and know you. Yet in all this I see still other and a

greater character to arise in your being than now exists there; I see

a character is to arise, if you will allow the grander, diviner

elements of your being, and also the heavenly elements that surround

you, to blend into one united force of harmonic intelligence, that

will mould your _entire self_ into a man such as I cannot now

describe. Two ways, my friend, are now before you. One so grand, so

sublime, that I would (in order to explain it) demand the eloquence

of a Patrick Henry, the strength of a Cæsar, the love of a _greater_

still, the wisdom of a god; the other, not all these combined could

give me power to depict.

“‘In the name of _Him_ and humanity, choose the right.

“‘Such are the feelings of one who knows you.

“‘Listen--be quiet! your time is precious.

“‘Adieu!’

“This was Greek, Hebrew, Sanscrit, all combined, to me; and it continued

so for a long, long time. It was evidently written by some one who,

while fully aware of one of my weaknesses--a susceptibility to

flattery--yet knew not the man himself. Still, the allusions to my awful

secret were too palpable to admit a doubt that the writer knew far more

than that strange letter said or hinted at. Was it the mysterious Count?

If so, why did he take so great an interest in a stranger? I could not

understand it.

“Of course I thought much of the Italian Count, and ardently longed to

know more of, if I did not join, the mystic Fraternity whereof he was a

member; but to no human being had I ever opened my mind upon the

subject, either in Paris, or Naples, whither I repaired on my way to the

Orient. Indeed, in the latter city the subject lay _perdu_ in the

cellars of my mind, for I sought to banish all care while in Italy, in

order to drink full draughts of music--that balm for fevered souls.

“While there, I one night went to San Carlos to hear the opera of the

‘Barber of Seville,’ and to listen to the glorious strains of Mario,

Grisi and Gassier. I had been charmed out of all my griefs by the

celebrated ‘Music Lesson’ of the latter cantatrice, and as I walked

homeward I hummed its notes as I passed along, and it rung in my ears

long after I had lain down to sleep. With the peculiar caution of

Americans generally, but of Californians especially--whose habits I had

imbibed during my short residence within the Golden Gate--before

retiring I had carefully examined the room, for Italians, especially

Neapolitans, bear watching, to see that all was safe and right. It was

so. Then securely fastening both doors and windows, I was soon drifting

up and down the Dream Sea. Beneath my pillow was my money belt, in which

was about two thousand dollars in gold, which, together with a revolver,

loaded to the muzzle, was the property of my friend T----s.

“In the morning the room was as when I slept; but the charges were drawn

from the pistol, and the gold lay on the table arranged in the form of a

triangle, surmounted by the letter ‘R,’ while, pinned to the bosom of my

sleeping robe, was a note in English, in a bold, clear handwriting, but

in red ink. That note was not there the night before; it could not have

been placed there by human hands! ‘Do not fail,’ it read, ‘to remember

the purpose for which you crossed the seas, for your enterprise concerns

the future ages of the world! It is not yet accomplished. Achieve it. I

will yet serve and save you.--E.’

“I was thunder-struck. Again some mysterious being was crossing my path;

that being whose strange domain lay on either side of Time, and whose

will seemed ever to hedge me about like a wall of fire, so that escape

from the strange destiny that hung over me seemed almost impossible. I

was in despair, for already had grey hairs shown themselves; I felt that

I was growing prematurely old, and that the chances were greatly against

me, a son of Adam, ever wedding with a daughter of Ish.”

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

ABOUT THE ROSICRUCIANS.

It is no part of my (the editor’s) design to recount all the adventures

of Beverly, nor to trace his paths through Egypt, Syria, Turkey, nor

Europe. Suffice it, that I became so interested in his story that I

accompanied him on more than one long journey. Occasionally I would lose

sight of him for months together, but by the strangest seeming accident

we would meet again, now on the top of Ghizeh’s great pyramid, now in

the deserts of Dongola and Nubia; then in a French café, anon in the

columned groves of Karnak and of Thebes. We often parted, and as often

met again; and in the interim I had not failed to investigate certain

grave secrets which he had confided to me. I did not fully believe his

strange doctrines; but I am sure that he did, and therefore he commanded

my sympathy and respect. As previously indicated, on my first

acquaintance with him I was exceedingly sceptical in regard to the

existence, in these days, of the Brotherhood of the Rosie Cross, and

derided his assertions respecting their powers. True I had heard much,

and read more, concerning the celebrated fraternity--an association

that has proved a veritable God-send to scores of paper-stainers in all

parts of the globe where letters reign, as witness Charles Mackay,

Kingsley, Robert Southey, and fifty others, not omitting Bulwer Lytton,

his “Zanoni,” and “Strange Story,” nor Hargrave Jennings and his

“Curious Things” about “Fire” and the “Outside World.”

In my varied travels through Europe and the East, as well as in this, my

native land, I have met with scores, not to say hundreds, who boasted

themselves Rosicrucians; and it is but a little while since there

appeared, in a “spiritual” sheet in Boston, first a learned lecture, by

a female “medium,” on the Rosicrucians, and a long communication,

purporting to come from a deceased adept of the Order, both of which

were quite laughable by reason of the total and utter ignorance

displayed. Probably both of these “enlighteners” had heard or read of

Dr. Everard’s “Compte de Gabalis,” and took that humorous bit of

badinage as the real, simon-pure explanation of Rosicrucianism as,

indeed, was natural, seeing that hundreds have fallen into the same

comical error; for, upon applying the touch-stone to all these pretended

adepts in the secrets, sublime and mighty, of the Order, it is found

that, exceptionless, they are woefully deficient in even the rudiments

of the genuine fraternity; nor have these modern pretenders any more

real claims to the truth than the hordes of fanatics which swarmed all

over Europe an age or two ago, and who brought ineffable disgrace both

upon themselves and the sublime name which they stole.

A good gold coin passes very quietly through the world, but your

counterfeit makes a great noise wherever it may chance to be; so with

the pseudo-Rosicrucians. The latter created a sensation, and then

disappeared, only occasionally jingling their bells to let the world

know that the fools were not all defunct; while the true Brotherhood

went on, and still goes on, quietly performing its mission.

Every student of history is, or ought to be, aware that the pretended

“adepts” in past times laid claim to enormous amounts of the most

wonderful knowledge, but when put to the proof, invariably failed to

substantiate their claims. Such were the men who sought, and, in some

instances, pretended to have succeeded, in accomplishing the composition

of the Philosopher’s Stone and the great Elixir.

Vaughan, in his “Hours with the Mystics,” laughs at the idea that there

ever was really such a society as that of the Brethren of the Rosie

Cross, and alleges that they were but the “Mrs. Harris” of certain

romancers of the past two centuries; in other words, that they are

altogether mistaken who suppose such a society ever had existence. Baron

Fischer, now of San Francisco, declares that there really was such an

order, but that it was composed of Fools, Fanatics, and Moon-struck

Madmen, who in time became the laughing-stock of all Europe. On the

other hand, Lydde, the traveller, asserts positively, in his great work,

“The Asian Mystery,” that he has traced the Order, under one or more of

its names, back into the very night-time of the world’s history. And

Abdul Rahman, the Arabian author, boldly declares that _he_ has proved

the existence of this Brotherhood in ages so remote that Christian and

Jewish history is modern in comparison.

Hein, Hun--Tse-Foh, the Chinese annalist, asserts, that the Order

originated in Tartary thousands of years before the foundation of the

Chinese empire, itself claiming an age of over thirty thousand solar

years! From Tartary it went to Japan, thence to China, thence to Persia,

thence to Arabia, thence to India, and, by stages, to Europe, having

passed through Egypt, Jewry, and Phœnicia on its way down the ages.

So much for Vaughan; now for another “authority.” Under the letter “R,”

in the American Encyclopedia, occurs the word “Rosicrucians,” followed

by--“Members of a society, the existence of which became unexpectedly

known at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Its object was

ostensibly the reformation of Church, State, and individuals, but closer

examination showed that the discovery of the Philosophers’ Stone was the

true object of the fully initiated. A certain Christian, Rosenkrauze,

who was said to have lived long among the Brahmins in Egypt, etc., was

pretended to have founded the Order in the fourteenth century; but the

real founder is believed to have been one Andrea, a German scholar, of

the beginning of the sixteenth century, whose object, as is thought, was

to purify Religion, which had been degraded by Scholastic Philosophy.

Others think that he only gave a new character to a society founded

before him by Cornelius Agrippa, of Nettesheim. Krause, the author,

says, that Andrea occupied his time from early youth with the plan of a

secret society for the improvement of mankind. In 1614 he published his

famous “Reformation of the Whole Wide World,” and his “Fama

Fraternitas.” Christian enthusiasts and alchemists considered the

poetical society, partially described in these books, as having a real

existence, and thus Andrea became the author of the later Rosicrucian

fraternities which extended over Europe. After a number of books had

been written on the Rosicrucian system, and the whole exploded, the

interest in it was revived in the latter half of the eighteenth century,

in consequence of the abolition of the Order of Jesuits, and the story

of their machinations, as well as of the frauds of Cagliostro and other

notorious impostors.”

So much for the wiseacre who wrote this account at so much a line for

the “American Encyclopedia.”

In juxta-position to the above, I quote part of pages 132-3-4 and 5,

_verbatim_, of the autobiography of Heinrich Jung Stilling, late Aulic

Counsellor to the Grand Duke of Baden. London: 1858. James Nisbet,

Berners street. 3d Edition. Says this incomparable man:

“One morning in the spring of 1796, a handsome young man, in a green

silk-plush coat, and otherwise well dressed, came to Stilling’s house at

Ockershaussen. This gentleman introduced himself in such a manner as

betrayed a polished and genteel education. Stilling inquired who he was,

and learnt that he was the remarkable ----. Stilling was astonished at

the visit, and his astonishment was increased by the expectation of

what this extremely enigmatical individual might have to communicate.

After both had sat down, the stranger began by saying that he wished to

consult Stilling relative to a person diseased in the eyes. However, the

real object of his visit pressed him in such a manner that he began to

weep; kissed, first, Stilling’s hand, then his arm, and said: ‘Sir, are

not you the author of the “Nostolgia?”’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘You are, therefore,

one of my secret superiors’ (in the Grand Lodge of the R. C.) Here he

again kissed Stilling’s hand and arm, and wept almost aloud. Stilling

answered: ‘No, dear sir; I am neither your nor any one else’s secret

superior. I am not in any secret connection whatever.’ The stranger

looked at Stilling with a fixed eye, and inward emotion, and replied:

‘Dearest friend, cease to conceal yourself! I _have been long tried_,

and severely enough. I thought you knew me already!’ Stilling: ‘No, Mr.

----, I assure you solemnly that I stand in no secret connection, and in

reality understand nothing of all that you require of me!’

“This speech was too strong and too serious to leave the stranger in

uncertainty. It was now his turn to be astonished and amazed. He

therefore continued: ‘But tell me, then, how is it that you know

anything of the great and venerable connection in the East which you

have so circumstantially described in the “Nostolgia,” and have even

pointed out their rendezvous in Egypt, on Mount Sinai, in the Monastery

of Canobin, and under the Temple at Jerusalem?’ ‘I know nothing of all

this,’ replied Stilling. ‘But these ideas presented themselves in a

very lively manner to my imagination. It was, therefore, mere fable and

fiction.

“‘Pardon me, the matter is the truth and reality as you have described

it. It is astonishing that you have hit it in such a manner--this cannot

have come by chance!’ The gentleman now related the real particulars of

the association in the East. Stilling was amazed and astonished beyond

measure; for he heard remarkable and extraordinary things, which are

not, however, of such a nature as can be made public. I only affirm that

what Stilling learnt from the gentleman had not the most remote

reference to political matters.

“About the same time a certain great prince wrote to Stilling, and asked

him ‘How it was that he knew anything about the association in the East,

for the thing was as he had described it in the “Nostolgia.”’ The answer

was naturally the same as that given verbally to the above-mentioned

stranger. Stilling has experienced several things of this kind, in which

his imagination exactly accorded with the real fact without previously

having the least knowledge or presentiment of it. How it is, and why it

is, God knows. Stilling makes no reflections upon the matter, but lets

it stand upon its own value, and looks upon it as a direction of

Providence, which purposes leading him in a distinguished manner. The

development of the Eastern mystery is, however, a most important matter

to him, because it has relation to the Kingdom of God. Much, indeed,

remains in obscurity; for Stilling afterwards heard from another person

of great consequence, something of an Oriental Alliance which was of a

very different kind. It remains to be developed whether the two are

distinct or identical.”

Thus far Jung Stilling. Quite recently I became aware of the existence

of Rosicrucian Lodges in this country, obtained much information

concerning the Fraternity, and have been privileged to publish the

following Seven Paragraphs, concerning the exoteric practice of the

Temple:

THE ROSICRUCIANS,

WHO AND WHAT THEY ARE.

_Honor, Manhood, Goodness._

TRY.

I. The Rosicrucians are a body of good men, and true, working under a

Grand Lodge Charter, deriving its power and authority from the Imperial

Dome of the Third Supreme Temple of the Order, and the last (claiming

justly to be the oldest association of men on earth, dating from the

sinking of the New Atlantis Isle, nearly ten thousand years anterior to

the days of Plato), and as a Grand Lodge, having jurisdiction over the

entire continent of North America, and the Islands of the Sea. The Grand

Lodge, and Temple, grant charters and dispensations to found or organize

subsidiary lodges and temples, anywhere within the limits of its

jurisdiction.

II. All Rosicrucians are practical men, who believe in Progress, Law and

Order, and in Self-development. They believe firmly that God helps those

that help themselves; and they consequently adopt as the motto of the

Order, the word TRY, and they believe that this little word of three

letters may become a magnificent bridge over which a man may travel from

Bad to Better, and from Better to Best--from ignorance to knowledge,

from poverty to wealth, and from weakness to power.

III. We constitute a large society in the world, and our ranks bid fair

to largely swell in this land of Practical Men. There are hundreds of

men of large culture, deep intuitions and liberal minds, who actually

languish because they do not know each other--there being no organized

body, save our own, which invites such men to join its ranks and find

the fellowship which such men of such minds need. In our Lodges such men

find all they seek, and more; in our weekly reunions the rarest and best

intellects are brought in contact, the best thoughts are elicited, and

the truest human pleasure experienced; forasmuch, as nothing impure,

ignoble, mean or unmanly, is for an instant tolerated under any

circumstance whatever; while, on the contrary, every inducement is held

out to encourage all that is noble, good, true, beautiful, charitable

and manly--and that, too, in a way totally unknown and unpractised in

any other order, or association of men.

IV. Every Rosicrucian is known, and is the sworn brother of every other

Rosicrucian the wide world over, and as such is bound to render all

possible aid and comfort (except when such aid would sanction crime or

wrong doing, or interfere with the demands of public justice, social

order, decency, sound morals or National prosperity and unity). In all

things else, every Rosicrucian is bound to help another, so long as he

can do it with a clear conscience, and not violate his honor, derogate

from his personal dignity, or sully his own manhood. In all things

worthy, one assists the other; in sickness, sorrow, life, death, and the

troubles and trials of the world and society. Each man is eligible to

one, two, or three degrees; and after once becoming a true Rosicrucian,

it is next to impossible that he can ever afterward come to want, either

for protection in all that is just, counsel in difficulty, food,

raiment, shelter, and all true human sympathy;--all of which is freely

rendered so long as the man remains a worthy DWELLER IN THE TEMPLE!

Thus the Temple ensures its acolytes against want, mitigates their

sorrow, enhances their usefulness to themselves and the world, braces

and sharpens their intellects, fires their emulation, encourages all

manly effort, assuages their grief, cultivates their hope, strengthens

their self-reliance, self-respect, self-effort; it frowns on all wrong

doing, seeks to elevate man in his own esteem, teaches due and loyal

respect to woman, the laws, society and the world; it promotes stability

of character, makes its votaries strive for MANHOOD in the full, true

sense; adopts “Try” and “Excelsior” as living, practical mottoes; and

thus, both directly and indirectly, does the Temple of Rosicrucia seek

to increase the sum total of human happiness in the world, within and

without its walls.

V. Every man pays an initiation fee, and a monthly tax of one dollar.

In return for which, the member has the advantage of all information the

Lodge may be able to procure in the shape of lectures, debates, books,

scientific papers, models, experiments in all the physical sciences,

essays on philosophy, etc.; in addition to which he is allowed a sum,

varying from four to fourteen dollars a week when sick, provided he

needs such aid; he is visited, comforted, nursed, doctored, and, should

he die, the Temple buries him--as a man and a Rosicrucian should be

buried. If he dies an officer (and every man is eligible), his widow and

children are properly cared for by the Order.[4]

[4] The Grand Lodge contemplates the enactment of laws looking to the

providing for the families of members when sick, and to their burial

when dead, which will be secured by the payment of additional fees from

time to time. It also contemplates a system of life insurance of its

members, who, by the payment of certain fees, may secure a certain sum

to their families at death sufficient to maintain them in comfort, but

not in luxury or idleness. The system will probably be one of graduated

annuities.

VI. This Order is a school of the highest and best knowledge the earth

affords. It is unlike any and all others, for, in addition to being a

Mutual Protection Society, it reaches out in far higher and nobler

aims--only a few, very few, of which are alluded to in this hand-book,

which is merely printed to save much explanatory talk on the part of

Rosicrucians who are being continually importuned for information

respecting the said Order. One of its main objects is to be a School of

Men; to make men more useful by rendering them stronger, more knowing,

therefore wiser--therefore happier. As Rosicrucians we recognize the

immense value of Sympathy, Encouragement, Emulation and Persistency--

_Nil mortalibus, ardum est._

THERE IS NO DIFFICULTY TO HIM WHO TRULY WILLS!

Whatever of good or great man has ever done, may still be accomplished

by you and I, my brother, if we only think so, and set about in right

good earnest, and no mistake. TRY! We proclaim the OMNIPOTENCE OF WILL!

and we declare practically, and by our own achievements demonstrate, the

will of man to be a supreme and all-conquering force when once fairly

brought into play, but this power is only negatively strong when exerted

for merely selfish or personal ends; when or wherever it is called into

action for good ends, nothing can withstand its force. Goodness is

Power; wherefore we take the best of care to cultivate the normal will,

and thus render it a mighty and powerful engine for Positive Good. You

cannot deceive a true Rosicrucian, for he soon learns how to read you

through and through, as if you were a man of glass; and he attains this

power by becoming a Rosicrucian only, nor can it be had through any

other means whatever. The Temple teaches its acolytes how to rebuild

this regal faculty of the human soul--the will; how to strengthen,

purify, expand, and intensify it; and one of the first results

observable after a man has become a true Rosicrucian, is that his vanity

grows smaller by degrees, and beautifully less; for the first thing he

fully realizes is that all he knows would probably make quite a large

book, but that all he does not know would make a book considerably

larger, and he therefore sets himself to learn. Where there’s a will

there’s a way; and after getting rid of self-conceit, the man finds

himself increasing in mental stature by imperceptible gradations, and

finds himself a learned man by a process which he cannot fairly

comprehend, and one which is neither appreciated or known outside of the

Temple.

As a consequence of travelling on this royal road to knowledge, the

Rosicrucian soon learns to despise the weakness of wickedness, not by

reason of any long-faced cant being poured into his ear, but because he

finds out practically that manhood and virtue are safe investments,

while badness or meanness won’t pay. It is the universal testimony of

all who have become true Rosicrucians, that within its symbolic walls

there is a deeply mysterious influence for good pervading its

atmosphere, under which every man of the Order becomes rapidly but

normally individualized and intensified in character, manhood, and

influence.

VII. The doors of our Lodges are never closed against the honest,

honorable or aspiring man; nor can any earthly potentate, no wielder of

an empire’s sceptre, no wearer of a kingly crown, gain admission by

reason of his eminence; for though he be a king, he may not be a MAN, a

title far above all others on the earth--a title nobler than any other

ever earned by mortals! We Rosicrucians are proud of our eminence--and

justly so--for we are a BROTHERHOOD OF MEN! and recognize MANHOOD as the

true kingship; hence we honor that man highest who knows the most, and

puts his knowledge to the highest and noblest uses, not only toward his

brothers, but in any field in the world’s great garden, for are not we

all brethren? Does not the one great God rule over and love us? Even so!

No man can enter our doors by reason of his wealth, for riches, unless

put to manly uses, are detrimental;--bad--positively injurious! No man

can enter our doors by reason of his fame, politics, or religion. The

Order has nothing to do with a man’s politics or religion, and it

matters not what a man’s creed is, so long as he IS A MAN. The Baptist

is welcome, but not _as_ a Baptist; and so with men of all other faiths.

No religion, no faith, no politics can be discussed from our platform,

nor will their introduction be tolerated one moment. We accept men of

all creeds, except such as outrage decency, manhood, sound morals, and

public order, such as Free Lovers, Mormons, and birds of that feather;

nor can any such person enter our ranks, no matter who he may be, or how

high in fame or social place. No man is barred out of our Temple by

reason of his poverty, for physical beggars are often kings in mind. All

we ask or seek for in a man is HONOR, HONESTY, and ambition to KNOW MORE

AND BE BETTER.

Usually the Lodges of Rosicrucia meet once a week to hear lectures,

exchange courtesies, thoughts, news; to listen to invited guests, debate

questions in art, science, and philosophy; to mutually inform and

strengthen each other; to investigate any and all subjects of a proper

nature, and to cultivate that manly spirit and chivalric bearing which

so well entitles their possessor to be called A MAN. These are a few of

the good things of Rosicrucia. We seek no man--men seek us. Our

facilities for obtaining knowledge and information on all subjects are,

as may well be conceived, unsurpassed--unequalled. Financially we are

satisfied. A Temple of Rosicrucia never yet felt the pressure of an

exhausted exchequer, and probably never will. But this last is the least

commendable thing about the Institution; yet it uses money for good

purposes, and therefore has its chest supplied. All other essential

information respecting the Order can be obtained BY TRYING!

. . . . .

It will be seen that there is nothing magical here, yet I do not doubt

but the members could tell strange stories if they chose.

Many, but by no means all, the Alchemists and Hermetic Philosophers were

acolytes of that vast secret Brotherhood, which has thrived from the

earliest ages, and, under different names in different lands, has

performed, is still performing its mission. The members of this mystic

union were the Magi of old, who flourished in Chaldea (Mesopotamia) ages

before one of their number (Heber) left his native plains, and on

foreign soil founded the Hebraic confederation. They were the original

Sabi and Sabeans, who for long ages preceded the Sages of Chaldea. They

were the men who founded that Semitic civilization, the faint shade of

which we find, having leaped long avenues of centuries, in the mouldy

records of early China, itself numbering its years by the thousand. Of

this great Brotherhood sprung Brahma, Buddha, La-otze, Zoroaster, Plato,

the Gnostics, the Essenes, and therefore Christ himself--who was an

Essene, and who preached the sacred doctrines of the Mountain of Light.

They were the Dreamers of the ages--the sun of the epochs--eclipsed

occasionally, but anon bursting forth in glory again. They were the men

who first discovered the significance of Fire; and that there was

something deeper than Life in man; profounder than Intellect in the

universe. Whatever of transcendant light now illumes the world, comes

from the torches which they lit at the Fountain whence all light

streameth upon that mystic mountain which they alone had courage and

endurance to climb, and climbed, too, over a ladder whose rungs were

centuries apart. Hermes Trismegistus, Egypt’s mighty king, and that

other Hermes (Asclepius IX.), was an adept, a brother, and a Priest--as

was Malki Zadek before him--that famous Pre-Adamite monarch, that

Melchisedek, who was reputed to have been born of a Thought, and to have

lived for countless ages. And so with the Greek Mercurius. Theirs, too,

was that wondrous learning wherein Moses was skilled; and at their

fountain the Hebrew Joseph drank. Nothing original in Thaumaturgy,

Theology, Philosophy, Psychology, Entology, and Ontology, but they gave

it to the world; and when Philosophers thought they had gained new

thoughts and truths, the records of the Order prove them to have been

old ages before the Adamic era of Chronology, and to have been the

common property of the adepts.

I have been led into these remarks and explanations, first, for the

purpose of finally and authoritatively settling the vexed question

concerning the Rosicrucians, and to throw light on that which is to

follow.

CHAPTER II.

WHO WAS HE?--WHAT WAS IT?

“I made,” said Beverly to me one day, “my projected tour, and had

returned much wiser than I went, but no nearer the consummation of my

chief hope. I had begun the practice of medicine in the city of Boston,

and occupied an office reputed to have been haunted by the troubled

ghosts of sundry persons who were there attracted by some strange

influence. I laughed at, and ridiculed the pretensions of scores of so

called seers, who claimed to behold these flitting gentry.

“There came to my office one day--it was a very stormy day in the latter

part of the winter of the year in the spring of which I was so neatly

swindled--there came, I repeat, on a stormy day, when the snow fell

thick and fast; when the fierce wind blew, and the Frost-king was busily

engaged in putting icy manacles upon all that he could reach--a lady to

consult me upon a case of scrofula in her child. At that time my

reputation in that specialty was great and constantly increasing; for I

had but a few months before introduced and practised the method of

treating that order of diseases, taught me in Constantinople by the

famous negro sage of that metropolis. I prepared the materials required,

and stood waiting for her to leave the office, as I was anxious to

continue the perusal of some Hieratic manuscripts lent me that day by a

lettered friend in Dedham. She made no movement indicative of leaving;

but instead, challenged me to a discussion of some spiritual subject or

other, which challenge I, from an innate horror of all strong-minded

male-feminines, respectfully declined. She called herself my friend, and

was, if sticking to one is a title to the name. She possessed all the

qualities of the best adhesive plaster--it was impossible to get rid of

her presence. She declared that she constantly saw, and held

conversations with the dead, and she would then and there give a proof

of her qualifications in that direction; whereupon she was instantly

seized with an exceedingly violent trembling, accompanied with any

amount of spasmodic jerks and twitchings. I had witnessed such things

before, and consequently did not feel alarmed at Mrs. Graham’s

condition, but going into the rear office I procured a chair and sat

down to wait for demonstrations; which, when they came, were but so many

pretty word-paintings--commonplace counsel and advice addressed to me by

what purported to be my mother--which latter, however, appeared to have

forgotten her name, my own, and when and where she departed this life. I

was perfectly certain that it was not my mother, and equally so that

Mrs. Graham was not consciously acting the part of an impostor, and I

accounted for the phenomenon on the Rosicrucian theory, then quite new

to me, that she was obsessed, or possessed, by and with a distinct

individuality entirely foreign to her own. To my mind the thing was

certain that she, like scores of thousands of others are, was for the

time being under the absolute control and dominion of a Will a myriad

times stronger than that of any living human being that ever tenanted a

body on this terraqueous globe of ours--beings perfectly intelligent,

powerful, invisible, and totally conscienceless, wherein is a great

difference from human beings.

“The lady came around in a few minutes, and I frankly stated my opinion

to her. It was new and startling. ‘Not human spirits--yet intelligent?

An intelligent thing--and guileful? It is dreadful! Horrible! What,

then, is that Thing? Angels? No! Devils? If so, whence come they? Why?

For what end?’

“These were terrible questions; and we talked about the matter, the lady

and I, as we sat in the back office, near the fire, for it was very

cold; and she sat leaning on the desk near the window, and I sat near

the door between the offices, my back nearly touching it. The outer

door, which opened on the stair-landing, was closed, and a wire was so

attached to it that it could not be opened, or even the latch be raised,

without touching a spring that instantly rung a bell that was suspended

directly over my head in the rear office. I used this rear office as a

reading-room and laboratory, and I frequently became so absorbed in my

reading or chemistry, that nothing less than the ringing of that bell

would suffice to divert my attention.

“And there and thus we sat and talked for more than three long hours.

The strong-minded woman’s soul had at last really been aroused; while I

once more brought to the surface my Rosicrucian lore. In thought and

speech we traversed a score of conjectural worlds and labyrinths of

Being; until, at last: ‘Are there, really, any intelligent, but viewless

beings, other than man, in all the broad universe--I mean other than man

as he is here, and disembodied likewise?--that’s the question,’ said the

lady by the desk.

“‘_Of course there are!_ MYRIADS!’ said a clear, manly voice in the

room, right straight from the centre of the triangle formed by the desk,

the door and the southern wall of the office! It was not the lady who

thus replied to her own question! It was not I who spoke; nor, strange

as it afterwards appeared, did the circumstance strike me as being at

all out of the common. And, therefore, without an instant’s hesitation,

I rejoined to the observation of the speaker, whom I subsequently

remember to have observed was a thin, strange-looking, scrawny,

shrivelled little old man, with the queerest possible little sharp grey

eyes. He looked half frozen, and acted so, for he advanced toward some

shelves and proceeded very leisurely to warm his hands over my

laboratory furnace, between the door and wall. The lady appeared no more

surprised than myself at the inexplicable presence of this singular

intruder.

“‘I am not so sure of that,’ I replied, in answer to the words uttered

by the strange old man--‘I am not so sure that there _are_ such beings

in existence.’

“‘Then you’re a greater fool than I took you for! Good evening!’ And he

moved slightly toward the door, against which my chair firmly stood.

“‘Don’t go yet, for I want you to explain,’ said the lady. ‘Don’t you

think he ought to?’ turning to me with a very peculiar earnestness

expressed in her countenance, especially in her eyes--very peculiar eyes

at all times, but lit up in the most extraordinary manner at that

moment. ‘I think he ought to prove his statement, and not leave us in

this state of uncertainty. It is positively cruel!’ And, as she spoke,

her eye met mine, and fastened it as if the encountering glances were

riveted together.

“There must be some magic in the soul that is only flashed forth on very

rare occasions, else why did her glance so fix my gaze for ten seconds

that I could not stir? At the end of that space of time the fascination

ended, and, raising my eyes, I answered--

“‘Certainly! he ought to explain; and, of course,’ said I, turning

toward the man--‘of course, you will explain yourself, and----’

“_There was no man there!_ Not even a sign that he had been. He had

disappeared, gone, utterly vanished--not through the window, for that

was a clear fall of seventy feet to the ground, besides which it had

been securely nailed down for over four months--not through the door,

for my chair and back were against it!

“Mrs. Graham fainted, and fell prone upon the floor!

* * * * *

“I lived in Charlestown, and reached home rather early that evening. Not

that I was frightened. Oh, no! but because home seemed cheerier than the

office; for the weather was bitterly cold, and the storm-spirits were

holding high, tempestuous revels in the common and the bay; and, ever

and anon, as the shivering pedestrian jogged along, and turned the sharp

corners of what is literally and emphatically, and in more senses than

one, the most angular city in the world, the blast would meet him square

in the face, side-ways, and all around him in the same blessed moment of

time, no matter which way he headed; for a Boston snow-storm blows every

way at once--here it is due north, around the corner it is south-east,

behind you it is north-west; over the way it blows straight up, and in

the middle of the street it blows straight down.

“It was hard work travelling the four miles to my home that night, for

every step had to be wearily footed. True, there were street cars, but

no man in Boston ever remembers one going the right way when most it was

wanted; but everybody can find scores _coming_, when everybody is bent

upon _going_.

“Well, after a perilous walk, I at last reached home, and gladly sat

down to my comfortable supper of toast and tea in my snug little

parlor--the same little parlor where I wrote my book and received the

loan of money to publish it, which money I was afterwards deprived of by

the financial acumen of as great a scoundrel as ever went loose upon the

world.

“Oh, how it stormed outside! and oh, how warm and cosy was the little

snug harbor into which I had just moored myself!

“It was the second cup of tea--orange pekoe it was, for I had bought it

of a Chinaman in Boston, who knew all about tea--and the second slice of

toast that I was discussing, along with my daily paper, when suddenly

there came a loud, imperative double knock at the door, similar to that

of an English postman when in a hurry to deliver his letters. The door

was immediately opened by a servant, who thought some one had been taken

suddenly ill, and that I had been sent for professionally. But what was

my astonishment when in stalked, with as much ease and _nonchalance_ as

if he belonged there, no less a personage than the mysterious little old

man of the afternoon. I was thunderstruck. It was the same person who

had treated me so rudely, and who had first come and then gone again so

unaccountably, and who had induced an illness in Mrs. Graham that

resulted in causing her to forever abandon her mediumatic practices--the

same that has sent so many scores of people to premature graves, and

will send thousands more. The strange man advanced toward the fire, and

exclaimed--

“‘What a fright I caused you and your guest this afternoon! Ha! ha! It

was capital--was it not?’

“And again he laughed, but this time in a manner and with a voice which,

had it not been for the immense physical disparity apparent, I could

have sworn was that of the Italian Count in Paris. But this supposition

was hardly possible. The man before me was so decidedly _human_, that,

by a rapid and comprehensive induction, I concluded that Mrs. Graham and

myself had been victimized for sport by one who was perfect master of

the mesmeric art. This hypothesis was quite plausible, only I could not

account for the non-ringing of the office bell; and the idea seemed at

that time quite preposterous that any one could successfully magnetize

the clapper of a bell into silence. I learned more afterwards. Neither

did it seem quite reasonable that this man had, before entering the

office at all, exerted his power upon our sense of hearing, rendering us

deaf.

“To his remark I replied, rather sententiously, with ‘Very!’ and said no

more, for I did not fancy his joke, if such it was, nor his

_brusquerie_, nor his decided lack of good manners, nor his rude speech;

in fact, I did not fancy the man at all, nor anything about him. Not

that he was hated or despised, but because there was a something about

him that made my very flesh creep again, and caused me to instinctively

shrink from his contact.

“It is well known that one of the cardinal points of the Rosicrucian

belief is that bodily life can be prolonged through whole ages in two

different ways; first, by means of the Elixir of Life; secondly, by

means of mere will alone. In the first case beauty and youth accompany

age; but in the second, age is apparent all along the centuries. This

latter secret and the processes were revealed by a degenerate

Rosicrucian in 1605; and all students of medicine are aware that great

capital was made of it in later times by a French physician named

Asgill. This writer undertook to publicly demonstrate and teach the art

of life-prolonging, laying it down positively, that man is literally

immortal, or rather that any given man alive could, if he choose,

utterly laugh at and defy death; that he need not, if so disposed, ever

die, if he used sufficient prudence, and forcibly and constantly exerted

his will in that direction. Asgill used to complain of the _cowardly

practice_ of dying, considering it a mere trick, and unnecessary habit.

The records tell us that several men have used both these means to

perpetuate existence, and I have not the slightest doubt that it has

been attempted and proved measurably successful; and now, on this stormy

night, as I gazed on the withered wreck before me, it struck me that he

was one of those wretches who had attained indefinite length of years by

the second method, and, as a necessary consequence, had lost all fire,

all feeling, all love, and all conscience. I shuddered as the

possibility flashed upon me. He saw the motion, and a smile of ineffable

scorn curled his lip as he did so. I abandoned my notion.

“People who observe things as they plod their way through the world, and

who have at all made the human soul a study, have often been made aware

that there is a certain nameless something that comes over a man, that

with resistless eloquence persuades his inner soul that some danger

approaches, some peril besets, some disaster impends over him. There are

times, when calm reigns all around him, and peace blossoms in his heart,

that he suddenly is apprised that Calamity is flapping her way toward

him through the terrible nebulous gloom of the Future. Many a man and

woman has felt this; and some such feeling, some such horror-form, now

seemed hovering, cowering, crawling near me, and preparing to seize upon

and fang my very soul, in the presence of the queer little man at my

side. It was a mixed feeling of guilt and dread, and yet no guilt was

mine. I had not cheated, robbed, lied, to my best friend. I had not

fared sumptuously every day on the proceeds of villainy; _my_ wife and

daughters did not dress in purple and fine linen, bought with the money

wronged from a poor man, or any man at all. I had not a fine piano, and

parlors full of guests enjoying funds thus gotten; nor had I driven fast

and fine horses of my own, fed and fattened on the money of a man whose

child was at that very moment struggling, gasping, choking in the

clutches of grim death for want of bread and medicine. True, there were

those who did all this--and the corpse of a pretty little girl attests

it--but I did not; why then should I be afraid? There is no answer to

that, and yet I was in dread.

“After saying ‘Very!’ I spoke no more, but striving to repress the

horror creeping over me, I tried to look as indignant as possible, which

he was not slow to observe; for he approached, slapped me familiarly on

the back, poured out and drank a cup of tea and ate a rusk, which

settled the question as to his being no ghost; then he dropped

carelessly into my easy-chair, rubbed his little perked-up nose with his

thin, little, bluish-pale fingers, and throwing himself forward, so as

to look right up into my face, he laughed heartily, and then bawled out,

rather than sung, at the top of his voice:

“‘The storm howls drearily,

Let you and I live cheerily;

And we’ll study things that never were known.

I’ve come from the West,

To see the man that I like best.

Don’t think I’m all depravity--

_I’m_ in search of the centre of gravity--

And _you’ll_ find out the Philosophers’ Stone.’

And then he again burst out into one of the wildest, most _outré_, and

ridiculous laughs that ever fell on mortal hearing.

“The wretched doggerel that I had just heard was beneath my notice; and

little did I know of the singer, and still less did I imagine that those

lines were to me the most important I had ever heard.

“Gradually, and by imperceptible degrees, my prejudices began to wane; I

conversed with him upon a variety of subjects, and the conference was

maintained during four long hours, perhaps more; for if my memory serves

me, it was nearly eleven o’clock when he arose from his seat, shook me

cordially by the hand, said he was going, promised to call again ‘when

he wanted to serve me,’ and then, opening the doors, passed out into the

midst of one of the most fierce and vindictive tempests that ever

desolated the shores of Boston Bay. A singular thing was this: in the

depth of winter, this man, who refused steadily to speak concerning

himself, was clad in the very thinnest summer raiment, not having enough

even for a northern June, much less for such fearful weather as

prevailed on the night of that 4th of February--a night when the glass

in Boston told of cold twenty degrees below zero, and in New Hampshire

nineteen lower still--a night so bitter that many and many a man went to

eternity, borne thither on the frosty pinions of the Ice-king.

“‘After all it is a man, and mesmerism furnishes a key to all this

seeming mystery,’ thought I; and with this consoling supposition I went

to bed, and there reproduced all that he had said or done. Now,

although little was said in regard to himself, yet, from that little, I

gathered that he was an Armenian by birth, that his name was MIAKUS,

which is the ancient Chaldaic for Priest of Fire. He told me this as he

bent down to kiss a sweet little prattling Cora, and said that he was

very fond of children, and felt particularly so toward the little fairy,

who, seated in her chair, was busily engaged in laying down the law to a

culprit kitten, who, it appeared, had been guilty of _leze majeste_ to

her Christmas doll. After the child had been sent to bed, Miakus

produced from his bosom a little square, flat case, apparently of rose

or olive wood, and about seven inches across by two and a half deep.[5]

It was locked, and the key, a silver one, hung by a golden clasp to an

ordinary steel watch-chain round his neck. The little man laid this case

upon the bureau, where it lay undisturbed, although it became clear to

me that his business there was in some way associated with that box and

myself. It was equally clear that his air was more than half assumed,

and that, in spite of his _nonchalance_ and _brusque_ surface, great

trouble reigned beneath; for, occasionally, as he spoke, there was a

melancholy cadence and plaintive modulation in his tones, that, to

practised ears, spoke, if not of a breaking heart, at least of one most

deeply injured and bereaved. This circumstance affected me much, for,

through life, I have been one who grieved with those in grief, and joyed

with those in joy. Then, after a little, he told me that one of his

objects was to initiate me into certain mysteries of white magic, to

teach me how to construct the magic mirror in which the majority of

persons could glance through space, see and talk with the dead, and in

all things, save a few, have an unerring guide through life. Said he--‘I

have such a curious looking-glass in yonder box, and perhaps--and

perhaps not--you may test its qualities before I leave you. The fact is,

I feel down-hearted, have been so all day, and all the more because I

hurt your _amour propré_ by calling you a fool, which, of course, I do

not apologize for. It struck me that I would take advantage of the

weather to chat with you, without infringing upon your business, and

that, possibly, you might learn something and I find relief in teaching

you, and thus withdraw us both for a time from the great Failure’--by

which he meant the world. ‘I am weary of myself, the world, philosophers

and philosophy. There’s nothing good but magic! You have been a fool

while striving to be wise; and are ambitious to _know_ what you have

hitherto merely imagined.’

[5] Both the incidents of the magic mirror are actual, literal facts, as

is also its curious construction and effects as herein related. I have

witnessed many astonishing experiments with mirrors constructed as was

that treated of in the text. I have seen several exactly similar--one in

Zagazik, Lower Egypt, in the hands of a Hindoo magician, two in Cairo,

one in Thebes, two in Constantinople, and one in London. In the East,

owing to the scarcity of the peculiar material wherewith the space

between the glasses is filled, they cost enormous prices, and then can

only be had by a Christian through favor. In this country, or England,

they might cheaply be made. I have one in my possession that I would not

part with for three thousand dollars, so wonderful, so astonishing are

the effects witnessed in and through it.--EDITOR.

“He rose, took the case, laid it on the table between us, and, while

playing with the key, continued--‘If you really desire to pierce through

the gloom that palls the human senses, you must abandon all human loves

and passions, most especially all that relates to woman; for woman’s

love destroys--in the very moment of man’s victory over her, she

triumphs--he yields his life, and offers up existence itself on her

altars, and then she laughs! Is it not so? Does not every man’s

experience corroborate this? Strong as iron alone, no sooner does he

reach the goal of love than he is lost in a sea of weakness, lethargy,

deadness! Bah! avoid woman. You want high knowledge, and must pay high

prices. God gives nothing--he sells all; and he who would have must

purchase, and the price is suffering. So with love. Its life is bought

with the coin of death. Woman is like the ivy vine mantling round some

hoary tower, and the more you are ruined the closer she clings, and the

closer she clings the more you are ruined! Listen. No one acts without a

motive. I have one with regard to yourself, and it is a selfish one. It

so happens that the possessor of the magic mirror can in it behold all

other horoscopes but his own, beyond a certain point; and, if he would

know it, he must consult other seers. Now, there are certain beings in

existence whose future cannot be read except by certain persons

specially constituted. You are one of the latter, I am one of the

former; and such as we only meet at the beginning and the end of epochs

and eras. The present is one of these. I will present you with the

mirror when you have done me this favor; I will teach you the art of

their construction; and I will give you a verbatim copy of the answers

you shall make to the questions I shall ask you while gazing in its

awful depths. To this I pledge a word that never yet was broken, and an

oath that never will be. For this purpose I have followed you for years,

patiently waiting for the hour that dawns at last. To successfully do

the thing I ask, two things are essential. 1st, That, in a perfectly

pure state of body, health, mind, intent, and morals, you gaze into the

glass. 2d, That, while doing so, you make no resistance against certain

sleepful influences that may assail you, which influences will not be

mesmeric, nor assisted by myself in any way, but is the sacred slumber

of _Sialam Boaghiee_, which can only be enjoyed once in a hundred years,

and then only by persons who are singularly constituted as you

are--whose veins are filled with the mingled blood of all the nations

that sprung from the loins of the Edenic protoplast, the Biblical Adam,

and who, temperamentally, and in all other respects, save sex, are

perfectly neutral. Certain great advantages will accrue to you from this

concession that are unattainable without. From this slumber you will

awaken doubly; first, to the old life without; and, second, to another

and a fuller though stranger life within, and to the power of

comprehending innumerable mysteries that lie enshrouded in dim regions

far beyond the ken of ordinary man. Dreamer! you shall comprehend your

dreams. Rosicrucian! you shall comprehend the Light, the Tower, and the

Flame, and where Artefius and Zimati failed you shall find success! It

is difficult, if not impossible, to either over-rate the advantages to

be derived by the possession of the power I allude to, or to define and

characterize it in words, mainly for the reason that, although the idea

stands out well marked and distinct before the mind, yet the language

which you speak has no terms of symbols adequate to its naming or

expression; for, at best, words are coarse raiment for thought, and no

more show the beauty of what they cover, than the preposterous costumes

of Christendom display the superlative glories of the human form. The

soul that sleeps this slumber passes through a gate which even the

privileged dead cannot enter, save once in a century, and then only by

reason of neutrality, for positive people are to be counted by the

billion on either side the grave, negative people outnumber them ten

million to one, while neutrals are, like cold heat, very rare indeed. I

trust we shall yet assist each other.’

“Now, I had, two hours before, on seeing him eat and drink, hastily

abandoned my ghostly hypothesis regarding the little queer old man. But

now, as he talked so strangely, and so grandly indicated the Door of the

Dome of all possible human knowledge and attainment, the mystery that

wrapped him changed its character, but enveloped him in a ten-fold gloom

and shadow, that continually grew more thick and dense, so much so,

indeed, that, but for his eating, and the fact that several persons in

the house beside myself had seen and exchanged speech with and touched

him, I certainly should have doubted the evidence of my senses, and set

the whole thing down, from the scene in the office till his departure,

to the account of a disturbed imagination. There was a something

unearthly about his voice and manner; and once, when he turned his

chair, the upper part of his right thigh came in direct contact with

the red-hot stove, and I watched it there until the chair was ruined by

the fire, and the smoke of its varnish and seat fairly filled the room,

and yet he was not burned, but coolly rose and opened the door for the

smoke to escape, and then resumed his seat as if nothing whatever had

happened; and, two or three times in the course of the evening, I not

only felt a chilly atmosphere proceed from him, but distinctly saw his

skeleton beneath his thin, parchment-like skin, as if but the thinnest

integument had been loosely thrown over it to hide its naked deformity

by some mouldy tenant of the grave, doomed to expiate its offences by

again walking the earth with embodied human beings. Could it be that I

had struck the truth, and that this mysterious Miakus was in reality

such a vampire as we read of in German story?”

CHAPTER III.

PHOSPHORUS AND THE ELIXIR OF LIFE.

“Marvelling,” said Beverly, continuing his wonderful story--“Marvelling

on the strange events of the day and night, as said before, I retired to

my chamber, but not to rest, for ere the morning dawned upon the world

again, there came to me an experience that in some respects totally

changed the current and character of my life. These incidents are

already recorded in my narrative concerning ‘Cynthia and Thotmor,’ long

since given to the world.[6]

[6] See the book called “Dealings with the Dead,” second series.

“On the morning following this eventful night, I repaired to the office

of a reputed to be Philosophic tooth-doctor, whose brain is a far more

curious museum than the one near his office. With him I conversed

awhile, and by him was introduced to a real thinker, whose name, I

think, was Blood. After smoking a segar--_and each other_--in his

laboratory, I repaired to Nichols’, the chemist, made a few purchases,

and forthwith went to my office.

“Now, it so happened that sometime previously I had purchased a chemical

apparatus, conducting my experiments secretly, and mainly after twelve

at night--for the purpose of repeating La Brière’s great experiment for

the removal of the poisonous and igneous properties of Phosphorus

without decreasing its revivifying and medicinal qualities. I had

experimented untiringly for five months, at a cost almost ruinous to me,

but still with an invincible conviction that I should succeed, and give

my secret to the world, instead of perishing like the poor Frenchman,

who burst an artery from excitement at his success, having made about

eleven ounces that fulfilled his entire expectations. Part of his

process only survived him, and many a man, like myself, had attempted to

fathom the secret and gain the enormous fortune that must result from

complete success, but hitherto in vain.

“The experiment was a most important one. Churchill had produced his

hypophosphites, and they had lamentably failed of the intention; hence,

in working at this mine, I had avoided his and others’ formulæ. Success,

I felt, would not only benefit my own private practice, but would be of

incalculable service to the medical profession, and still more to that

large class of persons who by over mental exertion, severe intellectual

and sedentary occupations, and by passional and other imprudent

excesses, had deprived themselves of the wine of life, by draining

themselves of nervous force; and become spiritless, semi-insane, gloomy,

and despondent. Such a discovery I knew would place in the hands of the

profession a true, positive, but perfectly harmless aphrodision nervous

stimulant, invigorant and tonic. It was, therefore, worth all the time,

trouble, and expense I devoted to it, for it would be one of the best

things medical science had yet given to the world.

“It had long been demonstrated: 1st. That Phosphorus abounded in the

bones, nerves, and tissues of the human body, but especially in the

human brain. 2d. That Phosphorus was invariably present in large

quantities in the brains of healthy men who had been killed, and

analysis thereafter made; and invariably as the brain thus analyzed was

that of an intellectual, fine-strung, high-toned, ambitious, executive,

or spiritual person, just in proportion was the volume of phosphorus

found in their remains; while the low, the ignorant, coarse and brutal

had comparatively little phosphorus in them. 3d. It had been proved that

in the administration of phosphorus to old people; to the class of

patients who seek private advice; to those exhausted by mental labor or

excess, it invariably acted as a revivifier, and seemed not only to

restore health, strength, and fire to the body, but to rejuvenate and

tone up the mind to its pristine strength, power, and activity; while

insanity, idiotcy, brain-softening, and causeless terror, disappeared in

the ratio of its exhibition, for one half of the diseases of

civilization result from the waste of phosphorus from the system, and

for thirty years medical chemistry had sought to so prepare the article

that it would at once assimilate with the tissues and fluids. It had not

succeeded. True, La Brière _had_, but then his secret was dead. I

resolved to restore it; and after a hundred failures, produced what he

had named Phymyle.

“I tried its effects upon myself; then several physicians on themselves;

and finally, it was tried upon patients at their own request, and the

result left not a nail to hang a doubt on, that I was perfectly

justified in crying ‘Eureka!’ This preface is essential to the

understanding of what follows.

“Now, it so happened that a few days before I saw Mrs. Graham, that I

had placed about four pounds of phosphorus, together with about five

times that weight of other materials, in a strong glass vessel, in a

sand-bath, ready for the production of, perhaps, one quart of the

precious medicine; and the first thing I did on entering my office from

the dentist’s, was to light the gas beneath it. For a few minutes I

stood watching the rich and beautiful scarlet and purple vapor as it

rose and curled through the neck of the retort, and the long glass pipes

leading to the condensing apparatus.

“While thus intently engaged, I was suddenly startled by the

exclamations, ‘Careless fool! Look out! Run!’ Mechanically I obeyed,

leaped into the outer office, and had scarcely done so, than there

occurred a loud explosion. The retort had burst into a million

fragments, shattering the windows and apparatus into fine pieces, and

scattering some pounds of ignited phosphorus upon the floor. Here was

trouble. But not to the speaker--for, quick as light, he tore the carpet

off the office floor, and hurled it, phosphorus and all, into the

snow-drifts in the yard below, which soon melted under the intense blaze

of that almost quenchless fire, until, having consumed itself, nothing

but a white smoke was left to tell the danger I and the house had been

in.

“The fire out, and my fright subsided, I turned to see who it was that

had so opportunely saved me, and found the little old man smiling and

smirking before me.

“‘What! is it you, then?’ I asked, at the same time cordially extending

my hand toward him.

“‘I rather think it is!’ said he, grasping it, ‘and very lucky for you

it was that I chanced to happen along

“‘So early in the morning,

Just after break of day,’

said and sung the Enigma, continuing: ‘You are not an overwise chemist,

my dear doctor, else you would never expect, either that Phosphorus gas

could reach the condenser, with the stop-cock shut, or that a glass

retort, already cracked, would long resist the immense pressure of the

accumulating and continually heating vapor. I see you have turned

Hermetist and Alchemist--Rosicrucian like! and that you are determined

to blow yourself up, or else

“‘Find out the ’lixir Vitæ,

Or stumble across the Philosophers’ Stone,’

and the little old man clapped his hands and danced about the room in

the most exuberant glee.

“‘But, my friend,’ said he, ‘as constant trying means eventual success,

I have not the slightest doubt but that you will yet become a very rich

man, as well as a long-lived one; for, to tell you the truth, you have

come nearer this morning to compounding the Elixir of Life--that very

Elixir for which Philosophers have toiled during thousands of years, in

vain--than any man that ever lived. For instance: had you placed a less

quantity of phosphorus in the retort; more of the first and third, and

less of the second, fourth, and fifth ingredients, with a slower heat,

and the addition of two ounces of ----, and ----, and one of ----,’

mentioning the articles, ‘you would have, indeed, made the water of

perpetual youth and health--that wonderful chemic which purifies the

juices, removes obstructions, clarifies the fluids, and renders man

physically invulnerable to miasmas and disease--to all things

destructive to life, except, of course, material injury. What d’ye think

of that? Ha! ha!’ and again he burst out in a roaring squeak:

“‘I’ll discover the centre of gravity,

You’ll find out the Philosophers’ stone.’

“It has been the habit of the wiseacres of this world to deride the idea

that it is possible to make gold; to laugh in face of the notorious fact

that nature is constantly making it, and that, too, of gasses in the

earth, as all things else, save souls, are made. It has been fashionable

to laugh at the idea of compounding a material capable of freeing the

system of all its gross and clogging impurities--the only friction to

the wheels of life; a mixture which would exhilarate, purify,

strengthen, and supply to the body the chemical and dynamic forces of

which it is constantly being robbed. But these wise people will have

done laughing by-and-by; not by any means must it be thought that I, for

a moment, entertained the silly notion of the alchemists and false

Rosicrucians--of finding a material which when brought into contact

with metals would change them into gold. We of this century are too

knowing for that; nor that I hoped to discover, from the application of

the old man’s suggestions, that wonderful fluid alluded to awhile since;

but I did believe it possible that I could compound a draught that when

quaffed would repair the waste of nature, and believed until that

moment, that in Phymyle I had found it. What, then, was my astonishment

when the weird old man whispered in my ear that I stood upon the brink

of the grandest success conceivable, that the grand Secret of secrets

was all but in my grasp? To describe my sensations at that moment is

impossible, and the more so because the old man told me the whole

process and constituents.

“What cared I even if it _was_ necessary for me to go to Jerusalem, and

gather the precious seeds of a fruit that grows upon its walls,

wherewith to prepare the water? In other years I did go, and the

treasured seeds are mine.... In that awful moment of success I blessed

the old man and internally vowed that in return I would read his

horoscope, and sleep the sleep of Sialam; for was not the desire of my

soul gratified? Why then should I not return the favor?

“Such, in that tumultuous moment, were my thoughts. Soon I became

calmer, and then, ‘How came the old man to know the materials that were

being used?’ ‘Perhaps he saw the fumes, and thus knew them!’ But how of

the contents of the condensing-chest through which the vapor was forced

for the purpose of nullifying its injurious qualities? for no living

human being had seen me compound or place them there. How came he to

know the purpose for which this compound was being brewed? How had he

become aware of the dream, the hope of my soul, the fixed purpose of my

life during long and wearisome years?

“All these queries served but to envelop their subject in a deeper robe

of mystery; and while they were passing he stood at my side gazing

curiously at the now white vapor, as it writhed and curled upward, and

out upon the air, through the broken panes.

“It was very, very singular!

“In a little while the wreck was cleared; the old man left me, promising

to call again that day, and I went out to order new apparatus, some

glazing, another carpet, and to visit a number of patients; after which

I returned. It was about three o’clock, and I had not been long in

before Miakus, true to his word, came also.”

CHAPTER IV.

THE MAGIC MIRROR.

“‘Let me give you a piece of advice,’ said Miakus, ‘for you need it.

First, never intrust any secret to a friend, which, if revealed, would

bring trouble or disgrace. Never interfere in a brawl or quarrel, no

matter who is right or who wrong; but always let the world do its own

fighting, while you stand by to avail yourself of any advantage that

chance may disclose; and lastly, keep what you know until there shall be

a market for it. Now we will test our magic glass,’ and forthwith we

went into the rear office, which by that time had been refitted, so far

as glass and carpet were concerned.

“In his hands he bore the rose-wood box, which he laid upon the table,

while, by the aid of four gimlets, he fixed a silken screen, or curtain,

entirely across the room, having previously closed the shutters to

exclude every ray of daylight from the apartment.

“‘That,’ said he ‘is a magic screen. You have seen a magic-lantern

exhibition. Well, this is to be a similar one, _without the lantern_. I

now open this box, as you see, and take from it this mirror, which is,

as you observe, merely two plates of French glass, with strips of wood

around their edges to keep them half an inch apart, and so that a fluid

poured between them shall not escape. Nothing depends for success upon

either the box, the curtain, or the glasses, but all depends upon the

peculiar fluid between them, which is, as you perceive, of a dark brown

color, but at a distance, quite inky to the eye.

“‘I now hang this mirror by this hook, to the ring sewed to the upper

central edge of the screen. Then closing and locking both the doors,

thus, I place these two chairs for you and I to sit upon. Then I take

this reflector and place it near the gas jet in such a manner as to

throw a strong light--a perfectly circular and brilliant disk upon the

very centre of the glass tablet, thus,--and he suited his actions to his

words; after which we took our seats before the curtain, and I observed

that the liquid between the glasses was of such a nature as to reflect a

sort of semi-opalescent hue.

“‘Before proceeding to demonstrate the truth of Hamlet’s remark to

Horatio,’ said the experimenter at my side, ‘I find it essential to give

you a why and wherefore. Know, then, that not only is there a mysterious

and powerful sympathy between man’s body and all things outside of it,

but it is still more true that a greater one exists between these

outside things and his soul within, as is proved by the astonishing

power over it exerted by various substances, most of which, especially

the last eight, ought to be banished from the earth and be accursed for

ever--for instance, Belladonna, Cantharadin, Beng, Opium, Hasheesh,

Dewammeskh, Hyndee, Tartooroh, Hab-zafereen, Mah-rubah, Gunjah, and many

other vegetable preparations that might be named, and every one of

which will not merely affect the body, but the tremendous mystery that

lies concealed within it. They expand the soul, but they also damn it!

Let us ascend from gross matter to the volatile--Light, for instance. By

concave mirrors we can throw an image in open space that shall be seen

by thousands. We chain a shadow, and whoever has a photograph possesses

one such prisoner. We make a few passes over a glass of water, and

charge it thus with any specific quality we choose, nauseous or

pleasant, and it produces corresponding effects upon the patient who

takes it. Here you have mind and matter united by an act of mere

volition. But we go still farther: for we select materials, and with

them render the water still more highly sensitive. We then charge it

with our souls, to such an extent that it shall comatize a man’s body,

and illuminate his soul to the sublimest degree of clairvoyance. Still

higher: it is possible to compound a liquid that shall seize on, and for

a time retain, by its subtle power, any mental image thrown upon it.

Still higher: there are direct and positive affinities and co-relations

between every thing and person on this earth and off it. By certain

knowledge, certain persons are able to select those things that possess

certain affinities to and for the inhabitants of the upper worlds, and

the dwellers in the Spaces. Now that glass disk before you contains such

a liquid, thus compounded--’

“Here he gave me the most minute explanations of the process of

constructing such curious mirrors, and how to charge them with a liquid

which I at once saw must of necessity be electrical, magnetic, highly

odyllic and ethereal. Then he told me how to charge it differently for

different uses--as a toy, a means of medical diagnosis, for the purpose

of interpreting dreams, seeing earthly things, discovering lost

treasures, reading the past or the future, and for many other purposes,

as no one mirror would serve more than one end, or work in more than a

single direction, unless specially constructed for such general use,

which would render them too costly.

“‘Properly prepared,’ he continued, ‘your mirror becomes so amazingly

sensitive as to not only receive and retain images of things too subtle

for solar light, but to bring out and render them visible. Nor is this

all. There is light within light, atmosphere within atmosphere, and

intelligent beings who dwell within them, and who can commune with man

only through such mirrors, upon which they can photograph the

information they wish to convey, either by scenes depicted therein, or

by words projected thereon. Now, observe. Thoughts are things--they are

real, substantial actualities, if not actual matter. They are things

that have shadows, shape, form, outline, bulk. Some are flat, others are

sharp, cutting, pointed, and go on boring their way through the world

from age to age. Others are solid, round, bulky, and stagger when they

strike you or impinge upon the world. Thoughts live, die, and grow. Now,

attend. Gaze steadily and firmly; desire to see something, no matter

what.’

“I smiled incredulously, and observed that one could see one’s face in

any bit of glass.

“‘True,’ replied he, ‘but you have never seen your soul; and this

bauble will show you that. It will reveal events already past, that are

now occurring, or that will transpire in the future, on the earth or off

it.’

“Much doubting what he said, I told him that, just then, the sceptical

mood was on me, and my belief must be forced. He well knew the singular

constitution of my mind, and that, in spite of much contrary seeming, I

was one of the most obdurate sceptics concerning the supernatural that

ever lived. To most of those who have known me, or read what I have

written in past years, it may appear strange that I, who have been the

accepted champion of all things spectral, should now make such a seeming

confession. But human nature is a very strange compound! My heart, my

loves, desires, and emotional nature were all on the side of the

ghostly, and eagerly grasped and nursed the occult and weird; and when

these reigned in my soul I bravely defended the spiritual theory against

all comers. I rose to sublime heights of inspiration and speculation,

and being thereby rendered morbidly sensitive to affectional influences,

readily yielded to the specious social sophistry of the hour, and, for a

while, pursued a course from which, had not reason been utterly blinded,

I would have shrunk with ineffable horror; but, being surrounded by

scores of thousands similarly deluded, it was impossible for a while to

break through the accursed meshes of this devil’s net into the clear,

cool light of truth beyond.

“This was one side of the life-web I was weaving. But there came moments

wherein enthusiasm was exchanged for something like sober-mindedness;

and then intellect rejected most of what heart had drank in, and

challenged the conclusions of my own and others’ in regard to the

Phantom-Philosophy. People cried, ‘Inconsistent!’ ‘Variable!’ mistaking

honesty for whim--and just as if anything or person was ever consistent!

“In the present _séance_, logic held the reigns of mind, and I laughed,

which Miakus observing, said: ‘Laugh on, laugh on; but you must be

careful or the laugh will be against you. Truth is a dainty and a

jealous dame, and never relishes practical jokes at her expense. But,

look! the mirror begins to operate.’ And, instantly bending down, he

veiled his face in both his hands, and remained thus for perhaps a

minute, when he spoke, saying, ‘What see you in the glass?’

“‘Nothing,’ I replied, ‘but the images of ourselves.’

“‘Have patience! Look again! Try!’

“A short silence then followed, when--

“‘Do you see anything yet?’

“‘Yes; but nothing extraordinary. Only a clear spot--an

atmospheric-looking aperture in the centre of the glass. Yes! now there

comes a change--faint, misty, dusky shadows flit across; but nothing

positive or distinct.’

“‘Is that all?’

“‘It is.’

“‘Look again.’

“‘Clearly and distinctly I see the fore-quarters of a large

greyish-white dog. It grows! Now it is complete! The image stands out,

bold and clear, _from the mirror_!’

“So perfect was this appearance, that I could not realize that it was a

phantasm. The thing was impossible. It looked like the reflection of a

dog in a looking-glass, and I actually turned my head, not to look for

the dog, but for the picture of one upon the wall, that might have

caused the image in the mirror. There was no such picture. The old man

enjoyed my surprise, and muttered--

“‘Nothing supernatural, ha? Remember that idiots, bigots, and fools only

dispute the existence of that which others do, but they do not

understand. True, many pin their faith in a hereafter upon the curious

phenomena attributed to disembodied souls, but they err in so doing. The

demonstration can never be afforded through any process of either

phenomena or intellection. Of that, be assured. Immortality can never be

thought; it must be felt. Your philosopher cannot possibly grasp the

idea, because it is not an idea at all. It is a reality, and comes to

man never through the intellect, but ever and always through other

channels of the spirit--comes over roads that begin on earth and

terminate directly at the foot of God’s throne. Thus, when storms fall

on the philosophic soul it shrinks and plays the coward. Not so the

truly intuitional man. He feels, and, feeling, sees God through the

gloom; and that, to him, is an insurance against loss or annihilation.

He rides triumphant over circumstances that bar themselves effectually

against all philosophers. Even when the shadow rests heaviest on the sky

of life, such a soul beholds God enthroned in auroral splendor

everywhere; he catches the sound of his voice from every echoing hill

and dell, and it speaks to him of life everlasting, and its tones carry

a thrilling demonstration of an hereafter that all the spiritualism of

the earth could never impart.’

“Now while I looked upon the mirror I silently marvelled whether it were

possible, through that glass, to solve the grand secret of the ages, and

the old man’s speech could not possibly have been more apropos than it

was. But in a moment afterward I felt indignant at having beheld such a

figure, when he had promised I should see my soul, and told him so. ‘Let

not that offend you,’ he replied, ‘that figure is not spectral, it is

correspondential. What is the type of enduring fidelity, perfect trust

and confidence, unbounded love and faith, if its symbol be not a dog?

Such is the quality of your soul, nor is it very bad.’

“There now came a broad clean space on the glass, and the whole of it

became clear and pellucid as the finest crystal; and in its very centre

appeared a tiny, but very brilliant speck of white light, and its lustre

increased till it became painful to gaze upon it. Gradually this

expanded, and there came a space in its middle clearer than the

brightest noon-day, into which I gazed with rapture, for the intense

light faded away into a sort of hazy-vapor surrounding this spot.

“‘Into such, and through such do I wish you to look for me. But not now.

The time is not propitious. That which you behold is the lense of a

mystical telescope, wherewith you may scan and sweep the fields where

revolve a myriad worlds like this, and of other millions whereof man is

yet profoundly ignorant. Through it you can and may witness not only

the worlds of which I speak, but also their tenants and all that they

are doing.’

“‘What! Do you mean to tell me that through that telescope, as you call

it, a living man can behold all that is going on in Mars and Jupiter?’

“‘Aye!’ said he, ‘and half a million planets, suns and systems more. It

will reveal the fate or fortune of any one, alive or dead. But to the

proof.’ As he spoke, it seemed that a sort of tube of light extended

itself toward my eyes, and through it I beheld, as in a diorama, each

and all of the terrible and painful scenes of what I believe to be my

most recent life on the earth. I beheld all my few joys and successes,

and all the countless agonies of body and soul, by which they had been

girdled. Men met the phantom of myself, with smiles upon their faces,

and seemed to speak in honied phrases, to make themselves believed, and

then these shadows stabbed at the listener and he fell, but did not seem

to die, for a grisly phantom ever hovered over him, but from pity

forbore to strike.

“The scene changed. It appeared to be a rural village--the date, in

fiery figures on the corner of the field, was 1852. It was a barber’s

shop, and a light, happy-hearted youth was therein pursuing his

avocation, and earning bread and health. This youth was apparently

gifted to look beyond the veil, and into the dim regions of the dead;

and it seemed that this was known, for presently people flocked about

him, and the scene closed.

“Again the magic picture presented this man as in public life; cliques

made use of him, flattered his vanity, and he was led into errors of

conduct and judgment, but none so great as manifested by others around

him; but, on the instant that this man discovered his error, and

announced it, ten thousand daggers were levelled at his heart, ten

thousand tongues defamed him--and for what? Because he had been true to

his knowledge, his conscience and his God. He fell beneath the strokes

of those who had sworn themselves his friends and the friends of all

mankind. See him now with his heart bowed down.

“It shifts; and lo! the man appears again. Consumed by the fires of

hatred, envy, ingratitude and venom of his former friends, he has risen

again. ‘_Je renais de mes cendres_,’ was the motto on the banner that he

floated to the breeze. He changed his mode of life. One of those who

were the very first to take him from his labor, and bring him before the

world, still clung to him, declared that even death should never

alienate him (for the pantomime was as readable as speech), and the

deceiver was believed.

“Again the phantorama changed. The barber-orator had reached to

competence--had gained much gold, a deal of philosophy, and but very

little wisdom with it all, for he still believed the speech of people;

measured men and women by the standard of his own heart, and believed

that honest say was honest mean. He had forgotten that, after all, this

is but a baby world, and still went on in the same old way, trusting and

suffering.

“He had one to provide for--a female relative--in whom his heart was

bound, but this was not reciprocal. The relation was that of religious

duty on his side, and self-interest on hers. Still the man nobly

struggled for her--so it seemed--and the picture faded, but another

came. His ‘_friend_’ by fraud obtained all the man had, and then, with

malignant purpose, defamed the female to his dupe, having first reduced

the man to beggary. All this, working on the barber, nearly upset his

reason, and the victim raged in his agony, and the financier laughed at

him, and fed sumptuously, daily; and, having previously obtained by

double fraud, a signature to the effect that robbery was a legal loan,

gloated over the misery he had caused, and denounced the victim himself

had made. Once more the picture flew on, years had gone by, the despised

man--despised because his skin was darker than his destroyer’s--had

risen into eminence and fame.

“It changed again. _Disgrace, poverty, the prison and the halter had

avenged him._

“‘The way of the world!’ said Miakus, ‘but recollect that

“‘Ever the Right comes uppermost,

And ever is justice done!’

What could you expect else from so small a portion of a man? Trust no

one. This was fate. Fate cannot be evaded. Submit. It will be well in

the sequel. WE MAY BE HAPPY YET!’

“Again those words! and uttered by Miakus, too!

“My mind framed a desire to behold something of the future that should

be as plain as the pictures of the past had been, and if there was any

means whereby the blows of fate might be softened, any field in which to

live and act free from the loneliness hitherto endured, and when next my

eyes glanced through the magic tube, there passed across the field of

vision a solitary human head and bust. So swiftly did it glide past that

only an electric sense of its beauty remained with me, but there was a

something that told me the head I saw was that of Evlambéa--that by

woman alone could redemption come. But then the curse said, ‘A daughter

of Ish,’ and she was a child of Japhet.

“Scarcely had this figure flitted by than the glass became clouded,

black, and finally resumed the appearance it had when first taken from

the box.

“‘Nothing further can be seen to-day,’ said Miakus, ‘I have already

endowed you with priceless gifts. You can go forth to the world and heal

the sick, restore the insane, make mirrors and the Elixir, and read the

past and future, and yet all this is as nothing to that which you may

expect after you shall have solemnly sworn to sleep the sleep of Sialam

for me.’

“Readily acknowledging all he said, gratitude prompted me to assent, and

the words were on my lips, when suddenly the same bust and head passed

before me very slowly, within one foot of my face. It was unmistakably

Evlambéa, and the countenance looked tearfully reproachful as it once

more disappeared; but even as it did so there came a soft, low, musical

voice, but sorrow-toned, saying: ‘_When I am in danger you will know

it, wherever you may be; when you are in danger you will see me, though

seas between our bodies roll!_’ The identical words uttered by the girl

at the door of the chief’s cottage, years agone, when we had so sadly

parted!

“Thus mysteriously warned, my consent was withheld. Miakus looked

pitiful and disappointed. He said nothing, however, but silently

repacked his paraphernalia, said he wished me well, and then, passing

with me into the street, we struck hands and parted.

“It were useless attempting to describe my feelings, consequent upon

these strange events. I could not help being grateful for the favors

shown me by the Enigma, and yet was I certain that I had, by ghostly

aid, triumphed over a great temptation, and that Miakus might, after

all, mean me no good. Involuntarily clinging to the memory of the maiden

of the valley, I blessed her from my soul, and offered up a prayer that,

if it were possible, she might be the redeeming angel for whom my lonely

soul so ardently longed and sighed.”

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

RAVALETTE.

“Years rolled away,” continued Beverly. “I had visited California; had

there made friends, as I had reason to suppose, and knew that I had

foresworn wealth and place in favor of usefulness, poverty and

knowledge; and had there helped to found an institution which, while it

was capable of diffusing infinite blessings to all around, languished

for want of seven good men and true. Yet it, like all other blessings

vouchsafed to man, may be so trodden down that it die; but nothing is

more certain than that it will rise again to the life everlasting.

* * * * *

“Months passed, and a continent and an ocean lay between the Golden Gate

and me. I was on my second journey toward the Orient, and had taken

London and Paris on my way. My objects in the journey were triple:

First, to visit the Supreme Grand Dome of the Rosicrucian Temple; to

make my obeisance to its Grand Master; to study its higher doctrines,

and visit the Brethren. Second, to obtain the materials, in Jerusalem,

for the composition of the Elixir of Life; not that I intended to make

_it_, but because I wanted to use _them_ in my medical practice, which I

purposed to resume on my return to America. And, third, I needed rest,

relaxation, and change of scene; for I felt that if I did not go, what

between the fraud I had suffered, the wretch’s scandal, the woman, the

dead child in the cemetery, and a variety of other troubles, I should

die; and if I died--what then?--And so I went.

* * * * *

“The scene I now present before you is Paris; the date, any day you

choose to imagine between the 16th of August, 1863, and the 11th of

June, 1854. I had just contracted for an anatomical Venus and cabinet,

designed for one of the Rosicrucian Lodges in America, and had paid out

some fourteen hundred dollars thereon, when, being weary, I strolled to

the Batignolles, from there to La Plaissance and Luxembourg, when I met

a person whom I had known in London, and he advised me by all means to

again visit the Emperor, and also to go to certain localities named,

before I left Paris. Promising that the advice should be followed, I

accordingly one day found myself in the Palace of the Louvre, not for

the first time, however, but for, perhaps, the tenth. On each of these

occasions my time had been mainly spent in admiring and examining the

contents of the _Galleries Assyrienne_ and _Egyptienne_. The

bas-reliefs, or coarse engravings rather, had commanded my attention on

previous occasions, along with the sphinxes of Rhampses and Menepthah,

as well as the curious statues of Amenophis, Sevekhatep, Osiris, and

Seti, from all of which I had learned much of that strange civilization

of the long-agone, usually assigned to the past four thousand five

hundred years, but which had in reality utterly perished from off the

earth at least ten thousand years earlier than the first year of that

date! for, but a little while before I saw those statues Mariette had

exhumed from the sands of Egypt, the celebrated sarcophagi and mummy, to

which the best Egyptologers, including the Chevalier Bunsen, had, with

one voice, assigned an age of not less than twelve thousand years.

“On this visit I stood rapt in wonder and conjecture before the

cuneiform inscriptions upon a series of tablets, and which archæology

has never yet interpreted--Bunsen, Layard, Botta, and Champollion having

all alike failed in the attempt.

“During the five or six last visits to the museum, I had observed near

me, apparently engaged in the same work as myself--the attempt to cypher

out the meaning of the inscriptions--an old gentleman, evidently French,

and as evidently belonging to the small remnant of the old _Noblesse_

yet surviving on the soil of _le Grand Nation_, judging from his

carriage, air, and manner--refined, polished, yet simple in the extreme;

and from the benignance that beamed from his countenance, it was clear

that there was happiness and content in his breast, and that he was a

benefactor to, as well as a devoted student of, all that was interesting

concerning mankind.

“On previous occasions when we met there had passed between us merely

the compliments of the day, and those general courtesies due between

well-bred people. This time, however, as if by mutual concession and

attraction, our greeting was much warmer and more prolonged; for, after

saluting, we drew chairs before the tablets and began conversing about

the arrow-headed characters; and the old gentleman, whose name was

Ravalette, said: ‘Sir, how is it that I see you daily here, taking

copies, and trying to decypher letters that the best scholars in Europe

have abandoned in sheer and hopeless despair? Surely a youth like you

cannot hope for success where they have failed?’

“‘True,’ was the reply, ‘_they_ may despair, but is that a reason why

others should? I believe I shall yet correctly read these enigmas of the

ages.’

“The old man smiled at my antiquarian enthusiasm, and merely remarked,

that Meses and the chronologists had better be looking out for their

laurels, else the parvenus of the present day would not leave many to be

gathered.

“‘It is my invincible conviction,’ said I, ‘that these sculptures were

wrought many ages prior to the making of the pottery found beneath the

valley of the Nile; and that the inscriptions on yonder porphyritic

tablets were engraved there a hundred centuries before the date of

Adam--an individual, by the way, whom I certainly regard as having had

an origin and existence in the imaginations of ancient poets, a mere

myth, handed down the night of Time as an heirloom to the ages--at least

all such as had a taste for things they could not comprehend--and had

an existence _there only_!’

“‘Then you do not entertain the belief that all men sprang from only one

source?’

“‘Yes--no. Yes; because God created all. No; because there are at least

ten separate and distinct families of human kind!’

“‘But may not all these differences spring from climate and the diverse

localizations and circumstances attending upon a wide separation of the

constituents of an original family?’

“‘No; because that will not account for different languages, physical

differences, and anatomical diversities. It is utterly impossible for

any sane man to believe that the Jaloff and other Negroes, the Maquaas

and other Indians, the Mongols and other Tartars, the Kanakas and other

Islanders, the European and other Caucasians, all sprang from one pair.

Indeed the thing is so plain, from a merely physical point of view,

without entering at all into the mental and psychical merits of the

case, that he who runs may read. Observe, I have said nothing about

superiority or inferiority, merely content to let Physiology speak for

herself.’

“‘Well,’ said Ravalette, ‘you inform me that you desire to learn, being

already learned to some extent. The views you entertain upon the Past

are, in some sense, consonant with my own; and if you are willing to be

taught, I am willing to instruct; and in any case, no harm can come of

the abrasion of ideas, but perchance much of good.’

“I was delighted to hear Ravalette talk in this manner; for I felt that

he was in some sort, notwithstanding our relative disparity of years, a

congenial spirit, and I longed for him to unfold to me the rich fabric

of his thought and experience. I had concluded, from a word dropped here

and there, that he was at heart a believer in the Faith of Christendom,

but in order to silence the lingering doubt I still entertained on that

point, I put to him the following questions, and attentively noted the

substance of his somewhat curious responses thereto.

“1st. Question. ‘You, Monsieur Ravalette, have doubtless travelled much,

and seen a great deal of this world of ours?’

“Here he interrupted me by saying, ‘_And several others beside!_’ I

asked for an explanation, but he merely waved his hand and motioned me

to go on. I did so. ‘Let me ask you if the result of your observations

abroad, amongst men of different nations and faith-complexions, has not

been a strengthening of your belief in the Mosaic teachings, generally,

and in what is popularly known as Christianity?’

“Answer. ‘No! In the many countries I have visited I found human nature

essentially the same as we find it here in France. Men are ever the same

at heart. Inwardly they are all alike, sincere, beautiful, good, and

religious; outwardly, the same selfish, heedless, careless, and

materialistic beings, as untamable, set, willful, and unreasonable as

the heartiest cynic could wish.

“‘Wherever I went I found the True Religion theoretically believed, but

practically ignored and set aside on the score of inexpediency.

“‘In all my travels I found but one religion, yet that religion passed

current under a vast variety of names. All men alike believed in good

and evil, a Heaven of some sort, and some sort of Hell likewise. I found

that while at bottom Faith was everywhere the same, yet the names by

which that faith was known, differed widely in different places and

latitudes. For instance, I found that the Catholic or Papal, the

Protestant or reformed, the Hindoo and Brahminical, the Boodhistic,

Lamaic, Greek, Polytheistic, Atheistic, Deistic, Magian, Guebre,

Islamic, Fetisch, and all other systems and modes of belief, were,

instead of being antipodal, in fact the same at bottom. This may

surprise you. Doubtless it would, were I to leave the subject just as it

is. But I will explain. They are all one at bottom, inasmuch as that

each and all of their respective and apparently dissimilar devotees do

homage at the same shrine, of the same Great Mystery. The modes and

names differ with latitude, but the _meaning_ and the principle are

everywhere the same.

“‘Popular estimate or opinion can never be a true criterion either of

persons, thoughts, events, principles, or things. We grow daily beyond

our yesterdays, and are ever reaching forth for the morrow. The world

has had a long night, as it has had bright days; and now another morn is

breaking, and we stand in the door of the dawn.

“‘I agree with you that could the dates on the tablets here before us,

be revealed, they would prove that human history really extends much

further back into the night of Time than the period assigned by Moses as

its morning.

“‘Human monuments are in existence that indubitably prove not only that

the world is much older than people give it credit for, but also that

civilizations, arts, sciences, philosophy, and knowledge infinitely

superior in some respects to what exists to-day, have blessed the earth

in by-gone ages, and been swept away, leaving only scattered vestiges of

the wreck behind to inform posterity that such things have been, but are

not.

“‘But what is still stronger food for thought, is the fact that amidst

these ruins of the dead Ages, we find others that are evidently relics

of times and civilizations still more remote--the débris of a

world-wreck remembered only by the seraphim! A demonstration of this

assertion is found in the pyramids, the date and purpose even of the

building of which is wrapped in conjecture, and has been for ages past.

The authentic history of Egypt can be traced for over 6,000 years, yet

even in that remote past the pyramids were as much a mystery as they are

to-day.

“‘This is not all: The catacombs of Eleuthas contain what in these days

would be called “Astronomic diagrams,” showing occultations of certain

stars by certain other stars. This is proved by one diagram showing the

relative place in the still heaven of each star of the series; another

displays an approach toward obscuration, and so on through thirteen

separate stages, the last being a complete emergement of the occulted

star on the opposite side.

“‘Now, it so happens that we have astronomers in our day who pique

themselves on their mental power and mathematical correctness, and these

inform us that a period of 57,879 years must elapse before the same

phenomenon will occur again, and that not less than 19,638 years must

have elapsed since it did occur! Now I foresee an objection in your

mind. “How is it known that the ancient diagrams refer to any two

_particular_ stellar bodies?”

“‘The answer is: From the relative positions of known stars in the

heavens whose places correspond to the positions of stars in the

diagrams, for the _mapping_ out is quite as perfect as it could be done

to-day, even with all the nice appliances of micrometrical science now

extant.[7]

[7] For the fullest and most extremely interesting proof--nay,

demonstration of human antiquity--that Adam was _not_ the first man, but

that men built cities over 50,000 years ago, read “Pre-Adamite Man,” S.

Tousey, N. Y.

“‘Who built Baal-bec? is a question that has been vainly asked for over

3,000 years, and then as now, men repeated “Who?” and echo said

“Baal-bec!” and says “Baal-bec” still.

“‘In a barren, sterile, sandy plain, which the augurs of the artesian

borers proved to have been once a rich and fertile bottom-land or

prairie, a very short distance westward of the Theban ruins, there once

existed a vast and magnificent city, so splendid that the modern

capitals of Europe are mere hutted towns in comparison. This is proved

by what has been exhumed from Earth’s bosom. In that city of palaces is

the wreck of one, which, from its situation with respect to other ruins,

must have been merely a third or fourth-rate edifice in the golden days

when AZNAK flourished; yet the portico of this fourth-rate structure,

situated in a suburb of the city, the name of which suburb was KARNAK,

consisted of 144 Porphyritic columns, 26 feet 6 inches apart. Each one

was 39 feet 5 inches in circumference, and not less than 52 feet high,

and every one was hewn out of a single stone!

“‘Moreover, this fourth-rate palace was two miles, five furlongs, and

eight feet long, by actual measurement of the ruins, and it required a

journey of quite nine miles to go around it.

“‘This palace faced the Sacred River (Nile), from which led a broad

avenue lined with colossal statues on each side, as close as they could

stand, for a distance of over one English league, and every one of these

statues commemorated either a king or a dynasty of that more than regal

country.

“‘Now, mark what I say: Proof, positive proof exists that this palace,

itself so imperial, so grand, so immeasurably superior to aught of the

kind attempted by man in this “Progressive age (?)” was, after all, but

a mere addition, an inconsiderable wing, a sort of appendage, a kind of

out-house to one of the main edifices of that immortal city.

“‘No man knows, or for four thousand years has known, who built

AZNAK--who laid the stones of KARNAK--who cut marble monsters weighing

two hundred and thirteen tons out of a single block of stone, and that

stone so hard that no modern steel will cut, or even scratch it!

“‘Railways! steam power! wheels! pulleys! screws! wedges! inclined

planes! levers, did you say?

“‘Sir, all these things existed long ago, else how could solid obelisks

of five hundred tons weight have been transported a distance exceeding

one thousand one hundred miles, from the mountains where they were hewn,

to the places where they were set up, and where we find them to-day?

“‘Without all the appliances enumerated, how could these monuments, some

of which measure eighty-nine feet in length, have been erected after

they were brought; and take notice, that some of these stone monsters

were placed upon pedestals, themselves ten or twelve feet high?

“‘It would strain the treasury of a modern state to pay the expense

attendant upon the erection of half-a-dozen such--as was proved here in

Paris in the case of the Obelisk of Luxor, the smallest of two that

stood before the Temple of Thebes, and which cost France over two

million dollars to place where it now stands. Without steam power and

railways, how could such immense masses of stone have been transported

over and through vast plains of shifting, burning sands, especially for

such immense distances as it is certain they were brought? A single

further remark on chronology, and I have done. It has been established

among the learned, that it takes not less than a period of ten thousand

years for a language to be perfected, and then die out, to give place to

an improved but entirely different one. Now, observe: Champollion

declares that he, through the assistance of modern Egyptian, was able

to master ancient Egyptian. This furnished a key to certain hieroglyphs;

these latter proved instrumental toward simplifying a series of three

more. He concludes that he has sufficient evidence to establish the

fact, that several successive languages had been spoken in the two

Egypts (Upper and Lower).

“‘But let us return to the original topic of conversation. How is it

that you expect a mere dream will aid you in researches of a nature so

profound as these? How do you suppose that a mere idle dream, even

supposing you to have one on the subject, could furnish you with the

key? There might be fifty persons, or fifty thousand, for that matter,

each one of whom might feel an interest and have a dream about it, and,

like yourself, discover a fancied key, and yet upon comparing notes no

two dreams and no two keys would be found alike amongst the whole fifty

or fifty thousand!’

“Vulgarly, this was a ‘poser;’ still, an answer was expected, and so I

said: ‘Very true, there might; but the true key would be that which,

whenever and wherever it was applied, would yield uniform and concordant

results.’

“This reply appeared satisfactory to the old gentleman, who, after a

little further conversation, invited me to attend him to his residence

and partake of a dinner with him at his own table. ‘’Tis but a short and

pleasant walk,’ said he; ‘my house is situated in the Rue Michel le

Compte, close to the grand Rue du Temple, and we shall reach it in a

very little time.’ Cheerfully accepting the invitation, I took the old

gentleman’s arm, and together we proceeded to his residence--which I

found to be one of those stately old mansions built by the nobless of

the times of Louis le Grande. We entered, and in due time sat down to a

repast at once rich, liberal and friendly, and which gave me a very high

notion of the man who presided over it. Wine of the rarest graced his

board; plate of the richest adorned it; servants most attentive served

it; coffee of the best followed, and tobacco of the finest finished it;

all of which strengthened Ravalette in my esteem. After partaking of his

elegant hospitality, he proposed a walk, and accordingly we withdrew

from the house together, and arm in arm strolled into the Rue du Temple,

and kept that route until we reached the limit of Paris in that

direction, and entered one of its suburbs known as Belleville.

“Before quitting the street where I dined, I had taken the precaution to

mark well the locality of the house, and to note its number on my ivory

tablets, which I invariably carried with me.

“And now we ascended the hills overlooking Paris; and then we descended

to the plain, and gratified the eye in viewing the rich market gardens,

and the conservatories of choice and rare flowers, cultured carefully

for the tri-weekly markets on the esplanade de la Madeleine and the

Château d’Eau. Again ascending the hill, we entered a café together, and

together partook of some frozen coffee and other ices, after which he

took me to see a guinguette--or tea garden--lately established for the

common people, where the customer for ten sous might ape royalty, and

sip his coffee from silver cups, and take his wine from Sèvres

porcelain. Here we both talked to the proprietor concerning the novelty

of his enterprise, and made inquiries as to whether his customers--who

were all of the lower classes of society--did not bear a great deal of

watching, and whether they did not now and then run off with a few

silver spoons, a chased goblet, or a silver-gilt fruit dish?

“‘No,’ replied the man, ‘I have seen enough of life and mankind to

warrant the step, apparently foolish, certainly quite novel, which I

have taken; and I have found out that, treat a man as if you regarded

him a thief, and you do much toward making him one. Watch a man closely,

and you that instant suggest rascally thoughts to him, which may bear

fruit, and that fruit be crime. But place full and free confidence in

those you deal with, and let the fact be known, and your conduct

sanction your words, and take my word for it, your confidence will very

rarely be abused, if at all. My place is the resort of thousands; my

invested capital is large, yet I have never lost ten francs from the

costly experiment of making the poor man realize the comforts and habits

of the rich at the expense of ten sous.’

“We could but admire the tact of Monsieur Popinarde, and frankly told

him so as we left his place, for we felt that there was a rich vein of

truth at the bottom of his philosophy of confidence, as he chose to call

it. After leaving this place, Ravalette and myself, still arm in arm,

pursued our walk in the environs of Belleville, and there, amidst the

sweet music of nature, the melody of the sunshine, the warblings of

birds, the quietude of the deep green canopy of leaves, the humming of

distant sounds, and the serenity of unruffled spirits, we entered upon

the discussion of a topic of singular interest. That topic was, ‘The

human soul, and its resources.’ I shall only record the latter part of

this conversation. Said the old gentleman--

“‘Then you really believe, as did a very ancient society of

philosophers, known to some students of the past as the Sacred

Twenty-four, that there is a kind of natural magic in existence, far

more wonderful in its results than the lamp of Aladdin, or the ring of

the Genii?’

“‘Most certainly I do.’

“‘How have you learned of its existence, and how do you propose to

become a noviciate, and avail yourself thereof for certain contemplated

translations? Perhaps you believe in Elfins, Fairies, Genii and

Magicians?’ said he, half laughingly.

“‘I do not absolutely know,’ I replied, ‘that such a magic exists, yet

firmly believe it does. The idea came to me I know not how. By striving,

perhaps, it may be found. There are steps leading to it, doubtless, and,

if we can discover the first (which I think we have already in

Mesmerism), we can follow till we reach the great goal. I do not believe

that Elfins, Fairies, Genii and Magicians are altogether mythical

personages. There must, it seems to me, be a foundation of truth

underlying the rich and varied accounts of such beings that have filled,

and still do fill the reading world with wonder.’

“‘Very good. But, tell me, have you an idea that such things belong to

this world or the world of spirits?’

“At that instant it seemed as if I lost my self-hood, and that a power

foreign to my soul for a moment seized my organs and answered for me--

“‘_They belong to neither, but to a different world!_’

“Ravalette, at this answer, looked in astonishment; and, after gazing

attentively at me for nearly a minute, muttered, in an almost

indistinguishable tone, the words, ‘It shall be!’ You spoke of Mesmerism

as the first step toward the true magic, which you believe, and I _know_

exists; and you thought it might be made successful use of in the

obtainment of knowledge not to be arrived at by or through ordinary

means, methods or agencies. Tell me in what manner? Surely not through

ordinary clairvoyance, which ever reveals foregone facts, and none

other; and, therefore, can be of little use to the true student? You

believe, as I do myself, that all ancient history, as it comes to us, is

at best a mere fable, or bundle of myths generally, albeit, certain

portions are composed of romance, that is to say, are tales of fiction

founded on a basis of fact, the superstructure being ten thousand times

larger than the foundations would justify, provided things went at their

proper value and importance. How, then, through the mesmeric force, do

you expect to dive beneath this superincumbent ocean of fancy, and fetch

up what few grains of truth yet sparkle at the bottom? Can you answer me

that?’

“Ravalette smiled, gazed sorrowfully at me, and then went on--

“‘Believe me, my excellent young friend, that Mesmerism is a fine thing

for inducing a “superior condition,” enabling one to write books which

send their readers to suicides’ graves; to discover the art of marrying

other people’s spouses; for procuring “Air-line” dispatches, and filling

lunatic asylums with poor reason-bereft creatures; for stultifying a

man’s conscience, and for emboldening one to pass for a philosopher when

one is but an ass!’ and Ravalette smiled gravely. ‘Distrust all mesmeric

railways,’ said he, ‘for many of the passengers, like Andrew Jackson

Davis, after riding on that train for many years, have landed either in

the swamps and mires of fantasy, or on the sides of moonshine mountains,

called “Mornia,” and “Hornia,” “Forlornia,” and “Starnos,” and

“Sternas,” and “Cor,” and “Hor,” and “Bore,” “Gupturion,” and

“Spewrion,” and forty thousand more!’

“I bit my lip with vexation; for I had devoutly believed in and loved

the subject and its advocates. I had always loved Davis, and highly

admired his philosophy and writings, especially since a great free

convention he once held in Central New York. I was aware that he had

foes--people who refused to believe that God had appointed him his

mouthpiece; who pointed to the graveyard in Quincey, Massachusetts,

where lie the bodies of John and Hannah Grieves, surmounted by a stone

that tells that these poor suicides came there, lost, ruined, from

reading his books. I was well aware that there were painful rumors

concerning a couple of divorces, and that some friends of mine had cut

their throats in order to all the quicker reach the ‘Summer-land’ which

he so elegantly described; but still I loved--still love him dearly. But

now, when Ravalette suggested that he was a humbug, it struck me that

Ravalette was right; for I suddenly recollected that once the great

clairvoyant lost a little dog named ‘Dick,’ which his seership could not

trace. I remembered that nineteen-twentieths of his prophecies from the

‘superior condition’ never came to pass, while the twentieth any

school-boy could guess at. I recalled the fact that his philosophy was

most decidedly medical--highly emetic, and very cathartic--and that his

followers soon lost what little common-sense they formerly had, else it

were impossible for them to accept the teachings of one who constantly

contradicted himself. Still, I respected and loved him dearly, albeit

Ravalette had utterly demolished his pretensions; and I saw clearly

that, in believing the stuff he wrote and talked, I was like one who

reads ‘Jack the Giant-killer,’ or ‘Gulliver’s Travels,’ or ‘Baron

Munchaussen,’ and believes the stories real and true.”