“When the signs are right. We expected him at the Outing; since then we
are unhappy.”
In this lovable manner does he couple himself with his relative’s heart,
who now approaches, and his snap is repeated upon her glowing cheek. But
she, as Charley, gets cross, and he comes back to me. I suddenly miss
Saucy, to see her flaxen hair dangling out of his sleeve, and know that
it is she, in childish fashion, who had done the snapping to our
disconcertment.
Laughing at the innocent cause of war I turn aside to enter the court,
which we are passing. Saucy seeing, drops out of her nest and hugs close
to my side; the rest proceed in peace.
“Ain’t it nice, Auntie, to have a church to step into all the week. You
feel so safe to stop in such a place. No one expects us to buy
something, or read something, or talk something. I wonder if they take
up a collection. If not, the tax supports it.”
“I do not believe they know what money is, though certainly they do its
equivalent—work. We must find the shops and select some work ourselves.”
Then, as Saucy mutters to herself, “What a queer people; no fire, no
dishes, no money, no Sunday, no schools,” I look around at the
delightfully intelligent, as delightfully happy countenances; though the
majority are lying comfortably back in their drapery supports and fast
asleep. This seems to be the rest hour, and I, as Saucy lays her head in
my lap, also to go to dreamland. In vision a mighty angel descends from
God, down through the open dome and takes us by our wing tips, to carry
us off. Hoping it is to America, I keep my eyes closed in expectation,
until an unusual jar involuntarily opens them, showing the angel to be
Show Off, who has deposited us safely at home on a cushion by the side
of Robet.
Half uncertain, as half awake, I hum to myself the tune of “Home, Sweet
Home,” when Robet gets down by me and swelling her throat, warbles
forth, like a bird of paradise, an entrancing melody, soothing me again
to slumbers.
I awake in high fever; at least so I am told, weeks after, when I sit
raised on a cushion and am able to talk. “Yes, Auntie,” says Mae, “when
you were in delirium you talked such strange talk. You raised up once
and asked us ‘What is in heaven?’ I humored you and said, ‘Golden
streets,’ but you shook your head wildly and waved your hand, saying,
‘No, no; golden ice, the sun shines all night to make it.”
While all regard me, lovingly, a golden point of light enters the room,
_dropping at my feet_, causing consternation in the rest. Show Off
hurries out and brings a tablet; reading it they point excitedly to me;
the sunburst growing, they gaze in stupor.
Not until it lessens and departs do they regain composure, when I ask,
“What is it?” Robet answering, “A prophecy. This sign that has never
been just this way before, heralds a new era in Arc; a new people, a new
land. The latter a necessity, as Arc is just evenly full.”
My overbalanced visionary tendency becomes imbued with a new power. I
rise in the air, spiritually, out of the open dome. Ascend to the
high-poised golden points, still glowing, (my soul having left material
enclosure) in the center, and look down a cavity miles wide in extent,
whence drops the last golden ray; a black cloud receives it. A glint of
silver lining and all is opaque.
I open my eyes to see Savant added to the circle, he was called, may be,
at my faint. But what is strange, he seems to know where I had
spiritually gone, and more, is expecting some revelation from me. I only
slowly shake my head, when he abruptly turns away.
My new spiritual power says of him, “He is the greatest of living men.”
I note where he disappears to sometime search him out.
The new telepathic condition I had suddenly gone into does not entirely
leave me. But takes a new form, that of outwardly statue or marble
state.
Seeming cold and rigid to others, I see intuitively into their minds,
read their thoughts and wishes. I am conscious at times of miraculous
ability, as though I could put forth my hand, and command omniscient
like.
As Robet tenderly teaches us Arc ways and diversions, I see the
adaptation in foreknowledge, and surprise her and the rest, so that they
are getting an awe of me, and are carefully respectful of my person.
[Illustration: Decoration]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“In the depths”
Mae goes out everywhere, often alone, finding the new ways and
amusements of the city.
When she finds one she thinks I will enjoy, she hurries home all out of
breath to take me or tell me.
She has been hunting around the halls to-day, as if there were hidden
mysteries close by. I do believe she has found one. Her hair flying and
eyes dancing, I go to meet her, to see what it is; getting some emotion
in my own frame. “Come in here, Auntie.” In there I go, like a lamb.
It is a glass entry of some sort. (I will stop to explain what I call
glass, as it is not exactly, but some transparency quite serving the
purpose.) Mae pulls certain knobs and lets in what——water!
“Auntie, this is bathday. We have on bath rigs. Put on this helmet with
its tubes above for breathing.”
I do so, as the water deepens. She opens a gate now, and a flood rushes
in, and takes us off our feet, which we regain by use of our elastic
breathing tubes.
We pass through the gate to all the glories of the sea. A sea bath—sea
mosses under our feet, shells piled in heaps, fern trees waving.
Mae dashes out and hides from view. I discover her, but cannot hold her
with my wet hands.
We hear a song. In the door of a crystal grotto stands a mermaid. “Come
into my bower, and I will give you amber. I am a sister of seven who
combs her long hair in the deep.”
Ascending steps of dainty harpshell, we tread an anemone carpet where is
a crowd of people.
Games are in order on rock ruby stands, in which I become engrossed, as
a “sister” plays a cameo-mandolin; another singing a rollicking song of
the sea, ending in sobs, for those who come down in ships.
There is sea-dancing—liquid symphony. I see Charley in his native
element, precluding tears or weeping for joy.
We round out on a tower top, and board a nautilus with unfurled sail. We
ride over a gold fish “gilt-edged” school, and a bank of red sea berries
that holly-like call up to us “Merry Christmas.”
Furling our sail, we drop down into the entry, which we empty, and
strange, our garments are dry.
We emerge among our friends. A sweep of robes is so close passing me, I
look up at the colossal face. It is Robet, but a strained, nervous look
forbids me to follow.
Toppling upon the hem of her robe, I am carried perforce in her company.
She stops in a conservatory, where one grand tree is growing, and bends
down a branch. I look to see it and all the tree transcribed with
names—a veritable family tree. More distraught, she speaks in a
loud-pitched voice, down into the face of Charley, who has followed me
(seeing him not), “Have you a pedigree?” He colors up in wrath, then
takes a tablet from my chatelaine, and places it in her hand, which
awakes her. Smiling, she says, “I did not mean you.” Charley reacting
from anger to hilarity, seizes a twig, crying. “I will write a
pedigree,” as a red pollen drops, touching up my cheeks. “They need it,”
he says, and goes for Mae, who now comes, and soon she glows like an
Indian.
When he is gone, Mae, in order for ablution, opens near by a door, that
is outwardly a picture. (More mystery).
Can it be the secret sanctum of Savant, that I have so vainly hunted?
Father sits in an easy chair deeply engaged with a pictured script. I
look around but see no books or apparatus—a cheerful, cosy room only. I
look over father’s shoulder as he turns the papyrus leaf, holding over
it a microscope. I catch sight of the meaning. Giving a sudden cry, he
arouses to my presence. He takes me on his knee, and we follow together
the tiny pictured lines of a story.
Anon a kitten purrs by me; I look up and see the host intently reading
my expression in his own absorbed, telepathic style. Genially smiling,
he takes my two hands, and kneeling places them on his head, thus
confessing his service to my will. Though in my new normal state, I feel
to deprecate myself, and smile in humblest mode, as he rises and sits
next us in similar seat.
Before we turn to our occupation, an incandescent glow falls upon the
page, causing us to raise our eyes quite wonderingly. The light emanates
quite mysteriously from Robet, whom I had not before observed as thus
illumined. I see in her hand a lighted lantern, which she is studying,
or the shining words upon it.
That these latter are possibly a code of rules is determined by her
action. Sinking down at Savant’s feet, she asks, “Do give me some new
plan for court to-day.”
“I will give you one,” speaks up father. She turns full to him.
“It is lawyer, a word signifying welfare.”
I was aware my English language was prolific of varied meanings. I am
pleased to hear this development. “Law,” he continues, “transposed is
‘well;’ yer is ‘fare.’”
Miss Robet has caught his idea, and elaborates it. “When I go into
court, the good word shall be welfare; when I come out—farewell,” and is
gone.
Dear Robet, what is her secret sorrow, that she hides in her tender
breast? Her genial soul should have no rebuff. Why is her intended away,
as I have heard?
Quite changeable in mood, as is Show Off, her great chum, who gets it
from his mother, the latter a triplet sister with Robet, and now on a
visit to the other triplet sister.
We now give attention to the story before us, but so loudly sounds a
refrain in my ears, “Savant before you is the greatest of living men,”
until I become impatient, and ask, “how great?” “Ask him hidden
knowledge,” refrains back to me.
What can it mean?
I will treat him to some unsettled points in spiritual doctrine to test
his lore.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Immortality of the soul is an universal instinct.
_Phil. Schaff, D. D._
Looking to where he sits, I study one in my mind, and observe father
sees my abstraction. I can tell by a wrinkling around his eyes, he is
preparing himself for enjoyment of the debate.
“What is the breath of life?” I at last ask ingenuously.
“Oh, I can answer that. I have found it out since I have been here. That
is an easy question. It is, my dear, electricity, which we assimilate
into spirit. Simple in explanation. The electric soul batteries of our
organism thus supplied by God, the maker of souls, drawn in with our
breath.” Quite suavely preaches my father to me.
“Yes, but there are two electricities; how could we take both and live?”
“There are two electricities, assuredly. They assimilate; the
assimilation is life.”