[The Prophecy in Greek - not reproduced]
IN THE WRONG PARADISE
AN OCCIDENTAL APOLOGUE.
In the drawing-room, or, as it is more correctly called, the "dormitory,"
of my club, I had been reading a volume named "Sur l'Humanite Posthume,"
by M. D'Assier, a French follower of Comte. The mixture of positivism
and ghost-stories highly diverted me. Moved by the sagacity and
pertinence of M. D'Assier's arguments for a limited and fortuitous
immortality, I fell into such an uncontrollable fit of laughter as
caused, I could see, first annoyance and then anxiety in those members of
my club whom my explosion of mirth had awakened. As I still chuckled and
screamed, it appeared to me that the noise I made gradually grew fainter
and more distant, seeming to resound in some vast empty space, even more
funereal and melancholy than the dormitory of my club, the "Tepidarium."
It has happened to most people to laugh themselves awake out of a dream,
and every one who has done so must remember the ghastly, hollow, and
maniacal sound of his own mirth. It rings horribly in a quiet room where
there has been, as the Veddahs of Ceylon say is the case in the world at
large, "nothing to laugh at." Dean Swift once came to himself, after a
dream, laughing thus hideously at the following conceit: "I told Apronia
to be very careful especially about the legs." Well, the explosions of
my laughter crackled in a yet more weird and lunatic fashion about my own
ears as I slowly became aware that I had died of an excessive sense of
the ludicrous, and that the space in which I was so inappropriately
giggling was, indeed, the fore-court of the House of Hades. As I grew
more absolutely convinced of this truth, and began dimly to discern a
strange world visible in a sallow light, like that of the London streets
when a black fog hangs just over the houses, my hysterical chuckling
gradually died away. Amusement at the poor follies of mortals was
succeeded by an awful and anxious curiosity as to the state of
immortality and the life after death. Already it was certain that "the
Manes are somewhat," and that annihilation is the dream of people
sceptical through lack of imagination. The scene around me now resolved
itself into a high grey upland country, bleak and wild, like the waste
pastoral places of Liddesdale. As I stood expectant, I observed a figure
coming towards me at some distance. The figure bore in its hand a gun,
and, as I am short-sighted, I at first conceived that he was the
gamekeeper. "This affair," I tried to say to myself, "is only a dream
after all; I shall wake and forget my nightmare."
But still the man drew nearer, and I began to perceive my error.
Gamekeepers do not usually paint their faces red and green, neither do
they wear scalp-locks, a tuft of eagle's feathers, moccasins, and buffalo-
hide cloaks, embroidered with representations of war and the chase. This
was the accoutrement of the stranger who now approached me, and whose
copper-coloured complexion indicated that he was a member of the Red
Indian, or, as the late Mr. Morgan called it the "Ganowanian" race. The
stranger's attire was old and clouted; the barrel of his flint-lock
musket was rusted, and the stock was actually overgrown with small
funguses. It was a peculiarity of this man that everything he carried
was more or less broken and outworn. The barrel of his piece was riven,
his tomahawk was a mere shard of rusted steel, on many of his
accoutrements the vapour of fire had passed. He approached me with a
stately bearing, and, after saluting me in the fashion of his people,
gave me to know that he welcomed me to the land of spirits, and that he
was deputed to carry me to the paradise of the Ojibbeways. "But, sir," I
cried in painful confusion, "there is here some great mistake. I am no
Ojibbeway, but an Agnostic; the after-life of spirits is only (as one of
our great teachers says) 'an hypothesis based on contradictory
probabilities;' and I really must decline to accompany you to a place of
which the existence is uncertain, and which, if it does anywhere exist,
would be uncongenial in the extreme to a person of my habits."
To this remonstrance my Ojibbeway Virgil answered, in effect, that in the
enormous passenger traffic between the earth and the next worlds mistakes
must and frequently do occur. Quisque suos patimur manes, as the Roman
says, is the rule, but there are many exceptions. Many a man finds
himself in the paradise of a religion not his own, and suffers from the
consequences. This was, in brief, the explanation of my guide, who could
only console me by observing that if I felt ill at ease in the Ojibbeway
paradise, I might, perhaps, be more fortunate in that of some other
creed. "As for your Agnostics," said he, "their main occupation in their
own next world is to read the poetry of George Eliot and the
philosophical works of Mr. J. S. Mill." On hearing this, I was much
consoled for having missed the entrance to my proper sphere, and I
prepared to follow my guide with cheerful alacrity, into the paradise of
the Ojibbeways.
Our track lay, at first, along the "Path of Souls," and the still, grey
air was only disturbed by a faint rustling and twittering of spirits on
the march. We seemed to have journeyed but a short time, when a red
light shone on the left hand of the way. As we drew nearer, this light
appeared to proceed from a prodigious strawberry, a perfect mountain of a
strawberry. Its cool and shining sides seemed very attractive to a
thirsty Soul. A red man, dressed strangely in the feathers of a raven,
stood hard by, and loudly invited all passers-by to partake of this
refreshment. I was about to excavate a portion of the monstrous
strawberry (being partial to that fruit), when my guide held my hand and
whispered in a low voice that they who accepted the invitation of the man
that guarded the strawberry were lost. He added that, into whatever
paradise I might stray, I must beware of tasting any of the food of the
departed. All who yield to the temptation must inevitably remain where
they have put the food of the dead to their lips. "You," said my guide,
with a slight sneer, "seem rather particular about your future home, and
you must be especially careful to make no error." Thus admonished, I
followed my guide to the river which runs between our world and the
paradise of the Ojibbeways. A large stump of a tree lies half across the
stream, the other half must be crossed by the agility of the wayfarer.
Little children do but badly here, and "an Ojibbeway woman," said my
guide, "can never be consoled when her child dies before it is fairly
expert in jumping. Such young children they cannot expect to meet again
in paradise." I made no reply, but was reminded of some good and unhappy
women I had known on earth, who were inconsolable because their babes had
died before being sprinkled with water by a priest. These babes they,
like the Ojibbeway matrons, "could not expect to meet again in paradise."
To a grown-up spirit the jump across the mystic river presented no
difficulty, and I found myself instantly among the wigwams of the
Ojibbeway heaven. It was a remarkably large village, and as far as the
eye could see huts and tents were erected along the river. The sound of
magic songs and of drums filled all the air, and in the fields the
spirits were playing lacrosse. All the people of the village had
deserted their homes and were enjoying themselves at the game. Outside
one hut, however, a perplexed and forlorn phantom was sitting, and to my
surprise I saw that he was dressed in European clothes. As we drew
nearer I observed that he wore the black garb and white neck-tie of a
minister in some religious denomination, and on coming to still closer
quarters I recognized an old acquaintance, the Rev. Peter McSnadden. Now
Peter had been a "jined member" of that mysterious "U. P. Kirk" which,
according to the author of "Lothair," was founded by the Jesuits for the
greater confusion of Scotch theology. Peter, I knew, had been active as
a missionary among the Red Men in Canada; but I had neither heard of his
death nor could conceive how his shade had found its way into a paradise
so inappropriate as that in which I encountered him. Though never very
fond of Peter, my heart warmed to him, as the heart sometimes does to an
acquaintance unexpectedly met in a strange land. Coming cautiously
behind him, I slapped Peter on the shoulder, whereon he leaped up with a
wild unearthly yell, his countenance displaying lively tokens of terror.
When he recognized me he first murmured, "I thought it was these
murdering Apaches again;" and it was long before I could soothe him, or
get him to explain his fears, and the circumstance of his appearance in
so strange a final home. "Sir," said Peter, "it's just some terrible
mistake. For twenty years was I preaching to these poor painted bodies
anent heaven and hell, and trying to win them from their fearsome notions
about a place where they would play at the ba' on the Sabbath, and the
like shameful heathen diversions. Many a time did I round it to them
about a far, far other place--
"Where congregations ne'er break up,
And sermons never end!"
And now, lo and behold, here I am in their heathenish Gehenna, where the
Sabbath-day is just clean neglected; indeed, I have lost count myself,
and do not know one day from the other. Oh, man, it's just rideec'lous.
A body--I mean a soul--does not know where to turn." Here Peter, whose
accent I cannot attempt to reproduce (he was a Paisley man), burst into
honest tears. Though I could not but agree with Peter that his situation
was "just rideec'lous," I consoled him as well as I might, saying that a
man should make the best of every position, and that "where there was
life there was hope," a sentiment of which I instantly perceived the
futility in this particular instance. "Ye do not know the worst," the
Rev. Mr. McSnadden went on. "I am here to make them sport, like Samson
among the Philistines. Their paradise would be no paradise to them if
they had not a pale-face, as they say, to scalp and tomahawk. And I am
that pale-face. Before you can say 'scalping-knife' these awful Apaches
may be on me, taking my scalp and other leeberties with my person. It
grows again, my scalp does, immediately; but that's only that they may
take it some other day." The full horror of Mr. McSnadden's situation
now dawned upon me, but at the same time I could not but perceive that,
without the presence of some pale-face to torture--Peter or
another--paradise would, indeed, be no paradise to a Red Indian. In the
same way Tertullian (or some other early Father) has remarked that the
pleasures of the blessed will be much enhanced by what they observe of
the torments of the wicked. As I was reflecting thus two wild yells
burst upon my hearing. One came from a band of Apache spirits who had
stolen into the Ojibbeway village; the other scream was uttered by my
unfortunate friend. I confess that I fled with what speed I might, nor
did I pause till the groans of the miserable Peter faded in the distance.
He was, indeed, a man in the wrong paradise.
In my anxiety to avoid sharing the fate of Peter at the hands of the
Apaches, I had run out of sight and sound of the Ojibbeway village. When
I paused I found myself alone, on a wide sandy tract, at the extremity of
which was an endless thicket of dark poplar-trees, a grove dear to
Persephone. Here and there in the dank sand, half buried by the fallen
generations of yellow poplar-leaves, were pits dug, a cubit every way,
and there were many ruinous altars of ancient stones. On some were
engraved figures of a divine pair, a king and queen seated on a throne,
while men and women approached them with cakes in their hands or with the
sacrifice of a cock. While I was admiring these strange sights, I beheld
as it were a moving light among the deeps of the poplar thicket, and
presently saw coming towards me a young man clad in white raiment and of
a radiant aspect. In his hand he bore a golden wand whereon were wings
of gold. The first down of manhood was on his lip; he was in that season
of life when youth is most gracious. Then I knew him to be no other than
Hermes of the golden rod, the guide of the souls of men outworn. He took
my hand with a word of welcome, and led me through the gloom of the
poplar trees.