A MAN, A WOMAN, AND SPIRITS.
He did not go near her for three days. During all that time he was
battling with his own soul.
So strange and powerful was the impression made by the conversation of
Helena, that the whole current of his life seemed changed.
All his former independent course of action, which he had justified with
a thousand arguments, all his selfish years of pleasure, all his
Arcadian existence with Dolores, loomed up before him now as lawless and
wicked.
"No wonder my mother's pure spirit fled from me to the most distant
borders of the spirit world," he said. "How unworthy her sweet
companionship I am--and yet I might become worthy."
But how could he go to Dolores, and tell her that their life together
was a terrible mistake: that they must part at once, and forever?
And if he did not, how could he ever hope to attain that ideal of high,
noble manhood, which would alone fit him for the companionship of his
mother's spirit, here or hereafter?
He suffered the agonies of the damned, all those days. He shunned the
streets for fear of meeting Dolores: the Club seemed hateful to him, and
he remained shut in his own apartments, a prey to gloomy thoughts.
And then one of those curious caprices of Fate occurred, which again
compelled him to stifle the voice of his conscience.
It often seems in this life, when a soul is floundering in a net-work of
Sin's weaving, striving to extricate itself, that the Devil, like a
great spider, comes along and spins new meshes about it.
A messenger brought Percy a note from Dolores one day. He opened it
hastily and read:
"MY DARLING:
"I am ill: threatened with a fever. No one but Lorette is with me. I
am longing for you, and I am alarmed about you. You never remained
so long away from me before, without sending me some message. The
thought that you may be ill, and that I am not near you to minister
to your needs, is maddening. Write to me, dear, and if you can, come
to your sick and lonely
"DOLORES."
He was by her side within an hour. She reached out her arms, and
pillowed her flushed face on his breast, weeping softly.
"Oh, Love!" she murmured. "I have felt so lonely, so _deserted_ these
last days. I think I have realized just what life would be without you:
it would be an agony of desolation. I could not live."
Percy's heart writhed within him, as he stroked the beautiful head and
soothed her with kind words. How could he ever stab that loving heart by
telling her the change that had come over him--a change as thorough as
it was sudden; a change that was the dawn of a possible new life for
him.
"I cannot. It is too late; it would be more cruel than murder," he said
to himself, and he drew Dolores into his arms, and comforted her as he
would have comforted a sick child. She asked no explanation of his
absence, and he made none.
Within a week he had carried her away to a quiet country resort, where
she soon regained her health. But during her illness, there came to her,
through the clairvoyant power of a loving heart, the knowledge that some
mysterious change had taken place in Percy. He was kind, oh, very kind;
so careful of her bodily comfort, so solicitous for her welfare.
And yet--what was it?
"Is any thing troubling you?" she asked him one day. "You do not seem
like yourself."
"There are some business matters which annoy me," he said, evading her
eyes. "My South American ventures are a failure--that is all, my dear,
save a miserable lassitude and sideache, which Dr. Sydney says is due
to a touch of malaria."
But she knew better.
They returned to New York, and then Percy was guilty of an act of rash
folly, for a man who desired to escape a complication of troubles.
He sent Dolores a message, saying he was called out of town suddenly.
Then he took the train for Centerville. It was Saturday afternoon, and
he told himself, that he would merely attend divine service in the
morning, listen to Helena's voice once more, and come away without being
seen by any one.
But in his heart, he knew that this was impossible. And when Mrs.
Griffith approached him after service, and urged him to accompany them
home, and dine with them, he went, without offering one objection.
Helena greeted him with simple cordiality, and entertained him with the
easy grace so natural to her. He was at peace with himself, in her
presence, for the first time since he last saw her.
"How strange it is!" he mused, "I have seen the most beautiful women in
the world, I have listened to the most famous singers; and yet, I am
moved by the presence and voice of a simple village maiden as I have
never been moved in my life before."
A sudden impulse came over him to tell her his story, to ask her advice,
as they sat alone in the afternoon. Then he hesitated: what if she
turned from him, shocked, angry, horrified?--so he only said:
"I wish you would call some of your wise spirits, Miss Helena, and ask
them to read me my future. I am in trouble--a trouble out of which I can
see no pathway. I wish good angels would tell me how it is to end."
"But that is not the province of spirits," Helena answered. "People
often make the great mistake of supposing that the departed know all
that is to happen to us while we remain upon earth. The fact is, they
know very little about it, and are too busily employed to give their
time to finding out the future for us."
"But if their lives are so exalted and their vision so broad, I see no
reason why they should not know."
"You will see when you come to think of it sensibly," Helena continued,
with a smile. "Their lives are, compared to our own just as much
broader, more useful and more important, as the lives of great thinkers
and philosophers and reformers, are greater than the lives of little
children. Shakespeare, Carlyle, Lincoln, George Eliot, all were
wonderful people who grasped almost the whole of the universe with their
minds. Yet not one of them, were they all alive to-day, could foretell
the future life of Mrs. Griffith's little child, yonder. Not one could
say what was to occur to him in the next ten years. They could help him
by their example, and strengthen him by their philosophy, but no more,
great as they were. Well, now, the spirits of the dead regard us as
children at school. They are far beyond us, in knowledge and usefulness;
they are ever ready to strengthen and encourage us, but they cannot
predict events for us. There are some, no doubt, who were gifted with
clairvoyance here, who keep the power there. But such spirits are often
too busy to come at our call. And they know, too, that it is better for
us to depend upon ourselves in a great measure. It is through
self-dependence that we develope our individuality, and become fitted
for the labors of this world and the next."
"Then you think the future life is one of labor?" Percy asked.
"It is one of usefulness and progression, certainly, or it is not worth
living," she answered. "Who would want to live at all, if we never
advanced in any way? And the beauty of that new life is, that every
particle of progress we have made here, even if it has brought us no
reward, will enable us to take an advanced place there. So soon as we
are out of the body, we shall realize this in all its satisfying truth.
Every hard struggle on earth, every conquered temptation, every sorrow,
every trial endured, every labor well performed, we shall see has its
splendid reward in fitting us for the most exalted position in that new
life. Every particle of love and affection we have bestowed on objects
which seemed to make a poor return or no return here, will be given to
us in ten-fold strength and sweetness there. The more we love
humanity--the more we shall be loved and the wider will be our
capabilities of wonderful labors in the spirit world. The two most
God-like emotions given to mortals to experience, are love and sympathy.
If we give our love with prodigality, and sympathize with every human
being who crosses our pathway in life, it really matters very little
whether we are loved in return, or whether the world thanks us for our
sympathy, or not. It is the _act_ of loving and sympathizing which
shapes the soul. And when the body falls away, the spirit that has given
its affections and sympathies freely on earth will stand forth, a mighty
and beautiful Power in the New Life, no matter what its creed or belief
in the earth life has been."
Percy drew a long deep breath. Again the delicate curtain was drawn over
her dark eyes, softening and half concealing their sombre splendor.
Again he felt that subtle warmth and fragrance emanating from her
person, and was thrilled and magnetized by it.
"It is no earthly odor," he said. "It is the perfume of her soul."
"How clear and beautiful you make it all seem!" he said, aloud. "To
listen to your words makes one long for death. And yet, if our lives
have been selfish, immoral, unworthy, if we have wasted our time in mere
earthly or sensual pleasures, how terrible must be the consciousness of
it to the freed spirit."
"Yes, terrible, indeed. There comes the real hell of the suffering
conscience. The soul will see its fearful mistake, and see how long and
dreary is the pathway before it. Yet, it will realize, that God has left
that lonely path open for it, and that it may by hard toil climb up to
the position it might have occupied at the hour of its entering on the
new life. I think the capability of a soul to suffer at that time, must
be beyond our comprehension. It is terrible on earth to realize our lost
opportunities. It will be far more intense there. But even the most
depraved will be given a chance to rise, through centuries of striving.
There is no eternal damnation, any more than there is instantaneous
salvation."
Percy rose to go, stirred to the very depths of his better nature by her
words. As he made his adieus, he said:
"Miss Maxon, will you write to me? I am in great trouble, as I told you;
a trouble that seems to shut out every particle of light from the
universe. Your words afford me the only comfort I have had for weeks.
Will you write to me and cheer me a little through the gloomy days that
lie before me?"
Helena's heart welled full of sympathy toward all the suffering world.
Her creed of life was, to give all the comfort, and help, and cheer,
possible to every troubled mortal on life's highway. She was never
afraid to reach out her hand to a weak fallen creature, for fear of
soiling it.
It is the woman, who feels herself the strongest and most secure in her
virtue and her social position, who is most fearless in her efforts to
uplift the unfortunate: and a very benevolent heart, is seldom coupled
with a cautious brain.
There was such real suffering in Percy's face and voice, that Helena's
heart was moved with pity. She held out her hand and looked him full in
the eyes, her own full of sweetest sympathy.
"Yes, I will write to you," she said. "I am very sorry for you, if you
are in such trouble. But you must remember, that in this life, to grow
means to suffer. I found actual happiness in pain, when I fully realized
the truth of that."
"But you have never suffered, and made another suffer, by your own
selfish folly," Percy said, as he turned away. "Good by, and God bless
you for your promise to write to me."