vision of all seemed to be fixed upon Him who sat on high. A great
number seemed to have no vocation except to float around and around the
throne; the concourse seemed incessant, interminable. Another mighty
number twanged invisible harps.
Here was fresh cause for amazement. How could a bodiless spirit touch
the strings of a harp? How could sound exist where there were no ears?
Does not science demonstrate that there is no such thing as noise,
unless there are ears to hear? This then was another figment of the
spiritual intelligence.
His ideas became so tangled that it worried him, but he finally summed
up in this manner; each intelligence received that which was desired
purely, or believed implicitly; music, worship, beauty; each but an
expression of adoration. A narrow limit, truly!
Many vapory forms floated around him, gently touching him with shadowy
wings. One sweet spirit ever pressed closely to his side as they neared
him in their slowly circling around that central figure—like motes in
the sun. A thought wave flowed from her intelligence to him, which he
interpreted, “Come join with me. Let us worship together!”
He hesitated; the movements looked very dreamy and poetic, but what had
that to do with spirituality?
Each spirit beamed with benignant light; eternal sweetness wafted around
them like the odor of innumerable flowers heavy with dew. Thought waves
rippled from spirit to spirit, transparent as a pellucid sea, gentle as
when the sweet south wind fans it into low, languid swells; pure as are
the lilies, and sweet unto faintness, as is their odor. His desire
hungered piteously: “Oh, for the scarlet of the passion flower and the
gold of the homely dandelion!” The sweet spirit gently touched him with
filmy wings; a thought wave reached his consciousness: “Cease rebelling;
you disturb the heavenly harmony. Oh come! Come with me!”
It seemed that a sigh floated past him—it could not be—but oh, all
things were so unreal! Even the holiness and perfection seemed dreamy
and untrue—too cold and calm.
A shiver ran through his spirit, he felt his earthiness cling about his
spirituality as had sodden garments adhered to his physical form; he was
weighted down by a sense of unworthiness and imperfection. The teachings
of his humanity so held him in thrall that he could not climb the
heights of exaltation on a single thought as all these souls appeared to
do.
The alluring spirit came again; pressing still more closely, pleading
yet more fervently; a hint of earthly love in her prayer—vaguely
suggestive—as were all things else.
He felt the Lofty Intelligence looking him through and through, and his
mind turned with a mighty longing to his former habitation; to him it
seemed that the limitations of the flesh were not so narrow as this
circumscribed routine. In this place was no progression; on earth, one
might at least make an effort.
Reproachfully, compellingly, the Immaculate gazed upon him.
Sweetly, gently, the fair spirit lured him, until his will was
compelled, and side by side with her who had so sweetly entreated, he
joined the slowly revolving circle.
Having once consented, turning back was an impossibility; therein they
differed from those in the flesh. We easily slip from our effort after
higher things, and when we fall, fall far; they, having once turned
their spiritual gaze upward, could not turn away. As he floated on, side
by side with the Beauteous One, her sweet magnetism enveloped him like
the odor of wild wood flowers.
His amazement increased; what worth in all this if he possessed no free
will? Compulsory virtue is of no avail. He wondered what purpose they
served floating about like butterflies on a summer breeze; and if it was
any particular pleasure to the Lord of All to behold them gyrate? Oh
dear! And did He never tire of even the Great White Throne?
He thought, with a chill of repulsion, that the Perfect One, who did
nothing but sit on a throne to be worshiped, was a less beautiful
expression of the Deity than the flowers of the field, or the birds that
wing their glad flight through the ether; also, that the incessant
twanging of harps was not so sweet a music, or so filled with worship,
as the babbling of the brook, or the whisper of the wind, to Him who
created them.
He was so weary of it all, even to the vapory, melodious voices of the
shadowy choir; he wondered if they never rested; also, if it was because
of the taint of his humanity that he could not appreciate the beauty and
sublimity of it.
He remembered that from childhood he had been taught that heaven was as
he now saw it, and whenever he had been given a hard task it had
appeared to him that the height of enjoyment would be in having nothing
to do; and that heaven was a place of eternal rest, had ever been held
out as an inducement to exalted virtue, and—excessive labor. He found
the inactivity terribly irksome, it reminded him of worldly _ennui_;
then, the unreality bewildered him—it was like pressing the fingers upon
the eyelids—persons, places and things are vividly seen, and yet we know
that it is but a chimera of the brain; a vision of the intelligence. So
he grew to doubt the reality of everything. He could not keep his
spirituality keyed up to the proper pitch; his intelligence would wander
back to earth and mortal love. The purely spiritual seemed to him to be
lacking. It is only given to humanity to burn hot and cold; to reach the
heights of bliss and the depths of despair; even that which we call
despair has its amelioration, for never yet was it so dark but, given a
little time, humanity looks upward to where the sun is shining, and
hopes and strives to reach the illuminated summit; but here—there could
be but this endless sameness through all eternity, without even the
pleasure of striving, “thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.”
He rebelled madly; he preferred the trials and the pains of the body,
with the power to control his actions, to the spiritual and no will of
his own. Eternal leisure has its unpleasant features, though many seem
to suppose that eternal leisure and eternal felicity are synonymous.
He looked back with positive longing to the hard work, and consequent
weariness; from bodily fatigue rest had been sweet; but the unending
spiritual lassitude of eternity was terrible to contemplate. A sad,
reproachful thought wave met his pessimistic, spiritual cry; with shame
and terror, he felt that the Perfect One saw all his discontent and
rebellion—still he could not but wonder. Had all these placid souls been
as easily swayed while in the body, as they were in the spirit? Their
very sweetness and complaisance exasperated him; he thought, with a very
human perverseness, that he should like to see one of them get angry, so
as to get up a little excitement; instead, they were as sweet as the
dripping sap of the budding maple, and—as insipid. Things and persons
can be too good. Better a thunderstorm and a purified atmosphere than a
sultry, lifeless day.
The exasperation grew upon him. The thought wave from his companion was
like a perpetual sigh; a curious blending of the wish to adore, and the
desire to be loved. He felt the reproach of the myriad souls who brushed
him with filmy wings. Sad reproof fell upon him from Him seated over
all.
Waves of love and adoration rose and fell on the soft, enervating air,
like strains of languid music, the perfect rhythm madly suggestive to
him of the sweetness and longing of human love. This love of his
companion spirit revolted him; it was like a draught of tepid water to
the traveler dying of heat and thirst; her thought wave had the effect
of clinging hands, which would not let him go, and he grew almost to
hate her.
As they once more came around that endless circle he saw the door
sliding noiselessly open, a spirit was for an instant outlined against
the darkness without; the door had already commenced to close; he madly
broke away from the compelling current of the She, who would have held
him. His consciousness felt her despairing cry breaking the placidity of
that spiritual atmosphere, as the tornado sweeps the ocean, lashing it
into frightful waves.
The All Seeing looked at him with awful wrath and majesty. He but sped
the faster. The door was closing rapidly; he forgot the terrors of the
darkness without—he forgot the multitude of drifting souls, and their
horrible contact—he forgot that he knew not where he should go in all
that limitless gloom; he strove madly to reach the door ere it closed,
to once more shut him into that horrible inactivity, and forced
semblance of adoration.
He reached the door—yet a little space open; the guardian angel paused
in amazement—it sufficed. He darted through; but instead of floating off
on the magnetic current as he had expected, he plunged downward—down,
down, down! Would he never reach a resting-place?
Oh, for a voice to cry aloud! Oh, for the company of even the gruesome
shadows! Though he loathed and feared them, this absolute isolation held
a greater terror, the fear that this state might be perpetual. One of
the first principles of all life is resistance, and deprived of all
motive—which is but another way of saying of all power of resistance—he
felt as though in the throes of a spiritual vertigo.
He struggled frantically to cry aloud, he imagined that a ray of light
pierced the gloom in the distance; with a mad effort he struggled
upward, unseen hands caught and held him down, and still that
tantalizing ray of light flickered and glowed like a beckoning ray of
hope.
Within its radius grew a face—his swooning soul revived—it bore the
lineaments of Aimee; she too must have passed over to the Beyond.
Like sweetest music a sound reached him; sweeter than all the mythical
harps are the tones of the human voice—and succeeding the deadly silence
through which he had passed—it flooded his whole being with delight.
Aimee was stooping over him caressingly, her words were very simple:
“August, dear, are you better?”
His fingers closed feebly over her hand, as he whispered faintly, “Oh, I
fell so far! How came you to catch me?”
She answered him soothingly, and held an invigorating drink to his lips;
he drank obediently and immediately dropped into a refreshing slumber.
* * * * *
When through the rush and roar of the storm the frightened men bore
August’s body to the farmhouse there was no disfiguring trace upon him
except a slight blue line, like a faint pencil mark, extending from brow
to chin; he lay like one asleep, that faint, sweet smile still upon his
lips. In a state of mental collapse Aimee accompanied them, and for days
her condition bordered upon insanity; when they made preparations to
bury August, she cried so piteously that he was not dead, that they were
forced to delay the final ceremonies; this was repeated until her
persistence won a measure of unwilling belief, and a council of
physicians was called, who decided that he was in a cataleptic
condition.
Aimee scarcely left his bedside until he recovered consciousness.
About a week after this occurred, as he lay on a couch drawn up to the
open window, languidly looking at the softly rustling leaves, the green
grass, the glowing flowers, he sighed restlessly.
Aimee was at his side instantly: “What is it, August? Are you in pain?”
“Oh, no! I was only thinking how much nicer this is than heaven, and
wondering why it is that people are not more content in this beautiful
world; we have such infinite variety, such happy conditions, and yet
humanity is so unsatisfied.” He paused a moment, then asked, “Didn’t you
know that I was in heaven while I was dead?”
“I know that you are talking fearful nonsense!” answered Aimee severely.
“Do you think it nonsense that I think this world so beautiful?” he
asked teasingly.
“You know that I do not mean that; but that is nonsense about your going
to heaven.”
“But I did go there and it made me awful tired! I am glad that I
returned to earth again,” said he.
“Oh, August! You are perfectly horrid!” was Aimee’s shocked rejoinder.
He smiled, but went on to relate his strange experience.
“But you were not really dead, you know,” she replied as he finished the
recital.
“Do you think that?” he answered thoughtfully; “I should like to have
some one—some person who really knows—explain the difference between
that which is called trance, and death, except as to duration. Where was
my soul during all that time? Not in the body of a certainty. I know
that my spirit went to heaven; everything there was just as I had been
taught from childhood that it would be; that teaching could not by any
possibility be wrong!” he added conclusively, but with a merry twinkle
in his eye.
Later on, sweetly and seriously he said, “I shall always love and
appreciate nature so much more for that experience; of things infinite
we know not the method; we behold the result, and we know that the
Creator _is_. All nature unites into a rhythm of grandest praise to Him
who is part and parcel of all things good. The leaf on the tree whispers
of his abiding presence; the flower that springs from the mold lifts its
face to the sun and air, and speaks of the Life, glorifying Him with its
beauteous colors. God is the very principle of all life. He is not an
Idle God; his work goes on forever, without haste, without cessation. We
are created in his image; not as to the physical, which must change its
form, and subserve in other ways, but as to the spiritual, which, if we
will not pervert our higher natures—will grow to sublime heights of
purity and goodness—the higher we place our standard the nearer we
approach the Divine.
“We sin continually against our better selves, our physical bodies and
our spiritual natures, we gorge the body and starve the mind; we
overwork the perishable physical, and let the mental and spiritual rust,
while we heap up a little gold and silver for those who shall come after
us to squander and quarrel over. We strive after a heaven in the future,
and neglect that which only is ours to-day. Why wait for an impossible
time, and a mythical place? We had best take a share of it each day; it
is here if we will accept it; for, dearest Aimee, what does heaven mean
but _happiness_?”
THE TRAGEDY OF THE GNOMES.
Many, many ages ago this fair old world of ours wore a solemn and
forbidding aspect; no carpet of thick, green grass eased the footfall of
man as he climbed the hills; no human voice was heard amid the
desolation—ice, ice everywhere—from the North Pole to the center of that
which is now the temperate zone, and only such life peopled this region
as could endure the rigor of a more than arctic condition. Vast sheets
of ice, in depth immeasurable, covered the surface of the hills and
valleys, broken toward the tropics into serrated edges—the verdure
running up an occasional valley, as though in laughing derisions of its
neighbors the ice-imprisoned mountains.
In those days there existed only hideous animals and reptiles of size
great and awful; animals whose terrible voice shook the mountains like
an earthquake; slimy or scaly reptiles who walked on many feet, or
dragged a hideous length along the ice-covered rocks. It seemed as if
the great Creator must have fashioned all existent things in an hour of
wrath, or that man, having existed, had been for some sin exterminated
by that icy inundation, and that animal creation had so displeased him
that he had fashioned them in grotesque caricature upon all grace and
beauty.
Man esteems himself higher than all other created things; who shall say
that the great, buzzing bluebottle fly does not think the same of
himself, and perhaps, with as much reason; it is at most but a grade of
intelligence; and what do we understand of that Intelligence which is
above _us_?
In one of the green valleys running up into the foothills of what is now
called the Rocky Mountains, frisked and played a band of Gnomes. These
were but a fairy people, differing only from the fairies of woodland
glade and dell in this; those fairy folk were things of beauty like
imprisoned sunbeams; lighter than gossamer, they floated hither and
thither, always trending toward the tropics, where the sun shone
radiantly warm, and the silvery moon lighted the verdant carpet of
grass, and the sweet south wind rang the lily bells in merry chime;
there they idled away each sunny day—creatures of light and frivolity.
These Gnomes were a sturdier, darker folk, short in stature, but with a
breadth of shoulder, a depth of chest, and muscles fit for giants.
Though for an occasional frolic they danced and roughly tossed each
other about in the valley, they better loved their homes in the heart of
the ice-covered mountains, where they forged beautiful things from the
yellow metal, or decked their cavern homes with softly glowing, or
fiery-eyed jewels; thus from earnest labor their faces gained a look of
firmness and determination; they were homely, but were good to look
upon, lighted as their faces were by love and kindliness.
One among them was wondrously fair: Lilleela they called her. Her hair
was like silk as it winds from the cocoon; her eyes were blue as the sky
when it shows between the fleecy clouds of summer; her cheeks were as
though they had been kissed by the wild rose blooms, which left their
dainty stains upon the fair skin. She was as sweet and pure as the
breath of the dawn.
Walado was her lover; a short, deep-chested giant, with a face like a
ripe walnut—all seams and puckers; not with age, but with jolly
laughter, and intent, hard work. Lilleela must have the finest of
rubies, on strings of beaten gold; tiny silver bells must be made, to
ring their sweet chimes with every joyous movement; dainty chains of
gold—set with amethyst, rubies and diamonds—must be wrought to bind the
floating cloud of hair. Away down in the heart of the mountain Walado
plied his little hammer of polished stone—clink-clink-clink all day long
like a refrain it accompanied his happy song.
One fair day the troop of Gnomes went down into the green valley for a
holiday.
Walado objected: “No, no! You can go, but I must finish this golden
girdle for my Lilleela, and then, there are sandals of gold to be set
with precious stones for her feet—they are too sweet and fair to be
bruised by the rocks,” he had answered, screwing up his face into a
funny little smile.
“Oh, do come, Walado! The girdle and sandals can wait! The sun is so
cold and sorrowful up here, but down in the valley it is so beautiful!”
pleaded Lilleela.
Her blue eyes moulded his will like warm wax, and over the ice they sped
away many, many miles, to where its broken edges lay like icicles
flattened out with huge rollers; some having sharp, sword-like points,
others rounded and scalloped, as though in fanciful adornment. All along
the border of the valley, reaching in places high up on the mountain
side—wherever there were breaks in the ice—hardy trees had planted their
feet, and lifted their heads to catch a breath of the warmer air of the
tropics; some few, essaying to climb still higher, or being less
hardy—reached their dead arms abroad, or pointed with ghostly fingers
toward the icy desolation in warning to their kind.
These happy, childlike beings, instead of walking, had a gliding
movement which carried them over the ground very rapidly; laughing,
tumbling, pushing one another in merry sport, they sped on as though
wings were attached to their feet. Hand in hand went Walado and
Lilleela; his nut-brown face drawing into a nest of comical wrinkles,
which were so many happy smiles; her look was like the sun, bright and
warm.
Of a sudden she stopped and shivered: “Oh, my Walado, what was that?”
From off the mountain height had come a long, low wail, and a chill was
borne with it which froze them with fear.
Walado gathered her in his embrace, and shading his eyes with one hand,
looked back over the mountain: “Fear not, my Lilleela, ’tis but the
voice of the storm on its way from the far north. See! We shall soon be
in the beautiful valley, where he cannot come!”
“Let us hasten, then, for in my heart I feel a chill which is like
death.”
Walado gathered her closer to him: “Little sun beam! Am I not able to
shield you from the shadow of the dark cloud?”
She patted his brown face with her wee, rose-leaf palms, and kissed the
wrinkles on his brown cheeks lovingly.
“Yes, my Walado; your arm is as strong as your heart is brave, but—” she
broke off abruptly: “Let us fly!” she finished with a sound between a
laugh and a sob as the wailing came borne from the mountain heights once
more.
Turning their affrighted glance backward, they saw the tall pines at the
foot of the hills swaying wildly; some which stood so tall and straight
were snatched off like a brittle weed and tossed down the mountain side.
Lilleela shivered again, remembering the look the fearful Ice King had
given her as he rode above the mountain height upon which she stood at
twilight hour; he was seated upon a cloud of inky blackness; his eyes
shot forth red and yellow flame, like the terrible light which streamed
up from the far north; his lips were blue and hideous, and his matted
hair, and long, tangled beard, were a mixture of frost and ice. He
pointed a finger at her which looked as though belonging to the hand of
one long since dead—so rigid and bloodless it appeared—the nails showed
blue and ghastly. With a voice like the whistling north wind, he said,
“You’ll make a bonny bride for the Ice King! Your youth will warm my old
blood finely! o-We-ee, Y-e-ss!” The cloud passed on, and bore him from
her view, but the deadly chill remained, for well Lilleela knew that his
love meant death, as his hate meant destruction.
For this reason the wailing sound shook her with an awful fear, but she
dared not tell Walado; she feared that he would turn and seek the
terrible monarch whose simple touch was death; once more she caught
Walado’s hand, crying gayly, “Come, come, before the storm god overtakes
us!”
They romped and played through all that happy day; they climbed the
steep inclines, and sitting on the glittering ice dashed down to the
valley below, tumbling over and over, with laughter sweet as the
tinkling of silver bells; it seemed strange to hear such sweet and
musical sounds issuing from those queer little bodies, but the sound
fitfully represented the sweet harmonious souls within.
At last, worn out with play, they climbed the long, icy hills; they
wound around the towering rocks, they clung to dizzy precipices; they
crept by the lairs of horrible animals with noiseless tread; ever upward
and onward toward the North Pole, where life had grown old and dead,
while the new life had slipped down toward the equator.
“Oh, why do we journey so far to-night, Walado?” said Lilleela wearily.
“There is a mountain lying in the light of the northern star, which is
filled with yellow gold; its caverns are lined with jewels; I seek them
for you, my Lilleela.”
As he ceased speaking, again that wailing sound filled with awful menace
smote their ears: “o-o-W-ee” a sound that rose from fretful discontent
into fiercest anger, then died away like a long sigh of satisfied hate.
“I am afraid, Walado! Oh do return!” cried Lilleela in terror.
“’Tis but the wind, beloved one,” answered Walado stoutly, though he too
shivered.
“Nay! nay! It is the Ice King passing by in his chariot of storm, and
drawn by his slaves—the winds of the hurricane,” she cried frantically,
fear making her pallid lips tremble.
Walado’s wrinkled visage grew stern—all the pleasant lines drawn out of
it; he understood more than her words told him.