But was it possible to feel desolate in Heaven? Life now filled to the
horizon. Our business, our studies, and our pleasures occupied every
moment. Every day new expedients of delight unfurled before us. Our
conceptions of happiness increased faster than their realization. The
imagination itself grew, as much as the aspiration. We saw height beyond
height of joy, as we saw outline above outline of duty. How paltry
looked our wildest earthly dream! How small our largest worldly deed!
One would not have thought it possible that one could even want so much
as one demanded here; or hope so far as one expected now.
What possibilities stretched on; each leading to a larger, like
newly-discovered stars, one beyond another; as the pleasure or the
achievement took its place, the capacity for the next increased.
Satiety or its synonyms passed out of our language, except as a
reminiscence of the past. See, what were the conditions of this eternal
problem. Given: a pure heart, perfect health, unlimited opportunity for
usefulness, infinite chance of culture, home, friendship, love; the
elimination from practical life of anxiety and separation; and the
intense spiritual stimulus of the presence of our dear Master, through
whom we approached the mystery of God--how incredible to anything short
of experience the sum of happiness!
I soon learned how large a part of our delight consisted in
anticipation; since now we knew anticipation without alloy of fear. I
thought much of the joys in store for me, which yet I was not perfected
enough to attain. I looked onward to the perpetual meeting of old
friends and acquaintances, both of the living and the dead; to the
command of unknown languages, arts, and sciences, and knowledges
manifold; to the grandeur of helping the weak, and revering the strong;
to the privilege of guarding the erring or the tried, whether of earth
or heaven, and of sharing all attainable wisdom with the less wise, and
of even instructing those too ignorant to know that they were not wise,
and of ministering to the dying, and of assisting in bringing together
the separated. I looked forward to meeting select natures, the
distinguished of earth or Heaven; to reading history backward by contact
with its actors, and settling its knotty points by their evidential
testimony. Was I not in a world where Loyola, and Jeanne d’Arc, or
Luther, or Arthur, could be asked questions?
I would follow the experiments of great discoverers, since their advent
to this place. What did Newton, and Columbus, and Darwin in the eternal
life?
I would keep pace with the development of art. To what standard had
Michael Angelo been raising the public taste all these years?
I would join the fragments of those private histories which had long
been matter of public interest. Where, and whose now, was Vittoria
Colonna?
I would have the _finales_ of the old Sacred stories. What use had been
made of the impetuosity of Peter? What was the private life of Saint
John? With what was the fine intellect of Paul now occupied? What was
the charm in the Magdalene? In what sacred fields did the sweet nature
of Ruth go gleaning? Did David write the new anthems for the celestial
chorals? What was the attitude of Moses towards the Persistence of
Force? Where was Judas? And did the Betrayed plead for the betrayer?
I would study the sociology of this explanatory life. Where, if
anywhere, were the Cave-men? In what world, and under what educators,
were the immortal souls of Laps and Bushmen trained? What social
position had the early Christian martyrs? What became of Caligula, whose
nurse, we were told, smeared her breasts with blood, and so developed
the world-hated tyrant from the outraged infant? Where was Buddha, “the
Man who knew”? What affectionate relation subsisted between him and the
Man who Loved?
I would bide my time patiently, but I, too, would become an experienced
traveler through the spheres. Our Sun I would visit, and scarlet Mars,
said by our astronomers below to be the planet most likely to contain
inhabitants. The colored suns I would observe, and the nebulæ, and the
mysteries of space, powerless now to chill one by its reputed
temperature, said to be forever at zero. Where were the Alps of Heaven?
The Niagara of celestial scenery? The tropics of the spiritual world?
Ah, how I should pursue Eternity with questions!
What was the relation of mechanical power to celestial conditions? What
use was made of Watts and Stevenson?
What occupied the ex-hod-carriers and cooks?
Where were all the songs of all the poets? In the eternal accumulation
of knowledge, what proportion sifted through the strainers of spiritual
criticism? What _were_ the standards of spiritual criticism? What became
of those creations of the human intellect which had acquired
immortality? Were there instances where these figments of fancy had
achieved an eternal existence lost by their own creators? Might not one
of the possible mysteries of our new state of existence be the fact of a
world peopled by the great creatures of our imagination known to us
below? And might not one of our pleasures consist in visiting such a
world? Was it incredible that Helen, and Lancelot, and Sigfried, and
Juliet, and Faust, and Dinah Morris, and the Lady of Shalott, and Don
Quixote, and Colonel Newcome, and Sam Weller, and Uncle Tom, and Hester
Prynne and Jean Valjean existed? could be approached by way of holiday,
as one used to take up the drama or the fiction, on a leisure hour, down
below?
Already, though so short a time had I been in the upper life, my
imagination was overwhelmed with the sense of its possibilities. They
seemed to overlap one another like the molecules of gold in a ring,
without visible juncture or practical end. I was ready for the
inconceivable itself. In how many worlds should I experience myself? How
many lives should I live? Did eternal existence mean eternal variety of
growth, suspension, renewal? Might youth and maturity succeed each other
exquisitely? Might individual life reproduce itself from seed, to
flower, to fruit, like a plant, through the cycles? Would childhood or
age be a matter of personal choice? Would the affectional or the
intellectual temperaments at will succeed each other? Might one try the
domestic or the public career in different existences? Try the bliss of
love in one age, the culture of solitude in another? Be oneself yet be
all selves? Experience all glories, all discipline, all knowledge, all
hope? Know the ecstasy of assured union with the one creature chosen out
of time and Eternity to complement the soul? And yet forever pursue the
unattainable with the rapture and the reverence of newly-awakened and
still ungratified feeling?
Ah me! was it possible to feel desolate even in Heaven?
I think it may be, because I had been much occupied with thoughts like
these; or it may be that, since my dear mother’s coming, I had been,
naturally, thrown more by myself in my desire to leave those two
uninterrupted in their first reunion--but I must admit that I had lonely
moments, when I realized that Heaven had yet failed to provide me with a
home of my own, and that the most loving filial position could not
satisfy the nature of a mature man or woman in any world. I must admit
that I began to be again subject to retrospects and sadnesses which had
been well brushed away from my heart since my advent to this place. I
must admit that in experiencing the immortality of being, I found that I
experienced no less the immortality of love.
Had I to meet that old conflict _here_? I never asked for everlasting
life. Will He impose it, and not free me from _that_? God forgive me!
Have I evil in my heart still? Can one sin in Heaven? Nay, be merciful,
be merciful! I will be patient. I will have trust. But the old nerves
are not dead. The old ache has survived the grave.
Why was this permitted, if without a cure? Why had death no power to
call decay upon that for which eternal life seemed to have provided no
health? It had seemed to me, so far as I could observe the heavenly
society, that only the fortunate affections of preëxistence survived.
The unhappy, as well as the imperfect, were outlived and replaced.
Mysteries had presented themselves here, which I was not yet wise enough
to clear up. I saw, however, that a great ideal was one thing which
never died. The attempt to realize it often involved effects which
seemed hardly less than miraculous.
But for myself, events had brought no solution of the problems of my
past; and with the tenacity of a constant nature I was unable to see any
for the future.
I mused one evening, alone with these long thoughts. I was strolling
upon a wide, bright field. Behind me lay the city, glittering and glad.
Beyond, I saw the little sea which I had crossed. The familiar outline
of the hills uprose behind. All Heaven seemed heavenly. I heard distant
merry voices and music. Listening closely, I found that the Wedding
March that had stirred so many human heart-beats was perfectly performed
somewhere across the water, and that the wind bore the sounds towards
me. I then remembered to have heard it said that Mendelssohn was himself
a guest of some distinguished person in an adjacent town, and that
certain music of his was to be given for the entertainment of a group of
people who had been deaf-mutes in the lower life.
As the immortal power of the old music filled the air, I stayed my steps
to listen. The better to do this, I covered my eyes with my hands, and
so stood blindfold and alone in the midst of the wide field.
The passion of earth and the purity of Heaven--the passion of Heaven and
the deferred hope of earth--what loss and what possession were in the
throbbing strains!
As never on earth, they called the glad to rapture. As never on earth,
they stirred the sad to silence. Where, before, had soul or sense been
called by such a clarion? What music was, we used to dream. What it is,
we dare, at last, to know.
And yet--I would have been spared this if I could, I think, just now.
Give me a moment’s grace. I would draw breath, and so move on again, and
turn me to my next duty quietly, since even Heaven denies me, after all.
I would--what would I? Where am I? Who spoke, or stirred? WHO called me
by a name unheard by me of any living lip for almost twenty years?
In a transport of something not unlike terror, I could not remove my
hands from my eyes, but still stood, blinded and dumb, in the middle of
the shining field. Beneath my clasped fingers, I caught the radiance of
the edges of the blades of grass that the low breeze swept against my
garment’s hem; and strangely in that strange moment, there came to me,
for the only articulate thought I could command, these two lines of an
old hymn:
“Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green.”
“Take down your hands,” a voice said quietly. “Do not start or fear. It
is the most natural thing in the world that I should find you. Be calm.
Take courage. Look at me.”
Obeying, as the tide obeys the moon, I gathered heart, and so, lifting
my eyes, I saw him whom I remembered standing close beside me. We two
were alone in the wide, bright field. All Heaven seemed to have
withdrawn to leave us to ourselves for this one moment.
I had known that I might have loved him, all my life. I had never loved
any other man. I had not seen him for almost twenty years. As our eyes
met, our souls challenged one another in silence, and in strength. I was
the first to speak:
“_Where is she?_”
“Not with me.”
“When did you die?”
“Years ago.”
“I had lost all trace of you.”
“It was better so, for all concerned.”
“Is she--is she”--
“She is on earth, and of it; she has found comfort long since; another
fills my place. I do not grieve to yield it. Come!”
“But I have thought--for all these years--it was not right--I put the
thought away--I do not understand”--
“Oh, come! I, too, have waited twenty years.”
“But is there no reason--no barrier--are you sure? God help me! You have
turned Heaven into Hell for me, if this is not right.”
“Did I ever ask you to give me one pitying thought that was not right?”
“Never, God knows. Never. You helped me to be right, to be noble. You
were the noblest man I ever knew. I was a better woman for having known
you, though we parted--as we did.”
“Then do you trust me? Come!”
“I trust you as I do the angels of God.”
“And I love you as His angels may. Come!”
“For how long--am I to come?”
“Are we not in Eternity? I claim you as I have loved you, without limit
and without end. Soul of my immortal soul! Life of my eternal life!--Ah,
come.”