childhood of springtime?
Oh, how pure, sincere! Transparent, clear! How loving the motive and
desire which prompts the children of men when close to nature to look
up wistfully for an answer.
“Whence comes this Spirit of New Life?”
And lo! the inner voice:
“All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made
that was made.”
And lo! again the voice:
“In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of Men.”
And lo! yet again the voice--for the third time,--the voice of a man
to his brother man:
“I am the Resurrection and the Life. Come unto Me.”
Adele heard this inner voice,--the Trinity in Nature operative,
speaking to her, to her personally.
She closed the book, pressing it against her heart, and wended her
way homeward, absorbed in thought, verily as one in the world, yet
now above it, spiritually.
Her father had spoken to her of the Light of the World, as
Intelligence and Righteousness. He who is the Light of the World had
said to her, spiritually:
“I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
She had sought the sunshine, and heard the Voice;--the Voice of the
Trinity in the springtime of her youth.
Not until next morning did the practical application of what Adele
had heard take hold upon her as something demanding prompt attention.
The concept once accepted, at once acted like a seed-word, producing
new life, and the beautiful blossoms of a new intelligence appeared.
She herself became a part of this springtime resurrection. Being what
she was, youthful, intelligent, sincere, it of course took form,
naturally, in connection with that phase of life and activity which
was uppermost in her own environment at the time,--but the motive now
much more heartfelt and spiritual.
She had longed to go abroad, and often said so, merely, however, for
the hope of enjoyment, now the desire was to see and learn more of
humanity at large for a given purpose; and especially that region,
the Orient, from which such thoughts, so practical yet spiritual,
had originally come. She wanted a broader knowledge of the world and
of the great religions; of the Light of the World as a universal
spiritual as well as physical experience, and this, simply in order
to live better, truer, and to help others.
“I must go!--really must,” she whispered, “even if I have to make the
circumstances.”
“_Oh, ye who may survive me when the spring returns,
Remember how I loved its loveliness._”
VII
OFF TO ASIA
It was at the Club, only a few days later, where the Doctor met
Professor Cultus. The usual preliminaries of greeting had hardly
passed from hearing before the Professor seemed unusually anxious
to know certain details about the Far East, details about modes of
travel and such things,--in fact, asked so many questions quite
unlike his usual mode of conversation, that the Doctor pricked up
his ears with delight, evidently having some suspicions, and finally
asked the direct question: “Why don’t you go and see for yourself?”
Professor Cultus laughed, and then frankly acknowledged the
situation: “Mrs. Cultus and Adele are so bent on seeing the Orient
before it becomes civilized, as they evidently expect, that I have
no peace. Mrs. Cultus is reading ‘O. K.’ between the lines of ‘The
Incarnation of Krishna Mulvaney,’ as if one ought to throw some light
upon the other. She says she wants to make the acquaintance of some
of those Khidmatgars and Maharajas while they yet stand upon their
native heath. I’ve told her they don’t wear kilts like MacGregor,
but ’twas no use. She immediately wished to know what they did wear.
I suppose I’m in for it. They’ve been talking the matter over at
intervals all winter, but now! now! O now! we have it from thin soup
to thick coffee.”
“Better give in,” said the Doctor, laughing heartily.
“Well, just between us, I have;--but I haven’t told them so, not as
yet. I rather take to the notion myself since I can see my way to
get off, but I don’t quite understand the _modus operandi_--how one
man can manage civilized women in a land where women don’t generally
count for much. Did you say the Taj could now be seen without an
elephant ride? That’s the sort of thing I must know beforehand; two
civilized women on one wild beast might demoralize the beast.”
The bare possibility of having the Cultus party in the East at the
same time with themselves, sent Paul to call upon Adele as quickly
as he could pick up his hat and rush out. These two young members
put their heads together and practically settled all details, both
possible and impossible, before the older members of the party could
well realize what they were talking about. Youth forever! American
style! Action! Action! Action! with occasional application of the
brake.
Mrs. Cultus was greatly in favor of having four in their own party.
“_Une partie carree_ is always so much more workable when
travelling,” she said, “and besides, Adele ought to have some one
nearer her own age. I don’t intend to follow Adele into every dirty
native haunt she may take a notion to visit. Now if we can only
find some one of the modern Investigating-Civil Club, or of the
Literary-Reformation Reportorial Society, we shall be in clover all
through the tour; we can report progress in print whenever we wish,
and have a book ready as soon as we return.”
“But, Mother, you are too grasping,” exclaimed Adele, “only a
literary corps can assimilate the whole thing.”
“No! Not quite!” said Mrs. Cultus. “We need only report our own
progress, not the rotation-progress-of-the-earth. Now that I come to
think of it, perhaps I’d better do the reporting myself. The society
column generally puts in what I send them,--and then I’m sure of what
is said. Oh! I have an idea! It’s a companion for you, Adele, that
troubles me! Now I come to think of it, whom would you like?” But
before any one could reply, Mrs. Cultus continued:
“Why, Miss Winchester, of course! Now if she can be persuaded,--Adele,
you know how to coax her,--that will be the very thing.” Professor
Cultus made no objection, and the delighted Adele took it up as if the
persuasion of Miss Winchester were a foregone conclusion.
Adele and Paul found Miss Winchester in her own study, her
writing-table littered with odds and ends, apparently, really notes
such as literary workers are apt to jot down when a passing thought
or phrase seems worth keeping; loose slips of paper and packages
held by gum bands, pieces pinched at the ends with mysterious folds,
also things tucked away under blotters where she couldn’t find them,
and so forth. The Persuasion Committee, Adele Chairman, entered,--a
gale of wind among the papers. Action first and the ideas picked up
afterwards. Rapturous greeting between the girl chums;--then Adele
exclaimed, “Oh! Frank! If you love me do consent to come with us.”
“Caramels or Gibraltars? Which is it this time?” laughed Miss
Winchester.
“Please put on your bonnet and come,” gushed Paul, manly mindful of
the importance of such things.
“O Frank! We’re just wild to have you.”
“Well, please become sane again, take a seat;--no, not on that box,
it’s precious!”
Adele dashed her hat and gloves on the writing-table, utterly
regardless of pens, ink, papers or blotters. “Now, my dear, no
nonsense,--do say yes.”
“My dear Adele, I do love you very much, but I haven’t the faintest
idea what you’re talking about.”
Adele produced a printed list of routes for travellers. “There!”
Miss Winchester noticed an illustration of the Sphynx on the cover.
“I never made her acquaintance,” said she, and a comical expression
played over her features as she tried to divine what Adele expected
the Sphynx to tell.
Adele took it up at once. “You never met the Sphynx! Why, that’s
just it! Now’s our chance,--don’t you see?” And the Committee started
in, one hundred and twenty words to the minute, to explain matters.
Miss Winchester, somewhat confused by the rapidity of Adele’s jumps
from place to place in mental travelling, but as responsively elastic
as either of the others, took several turns in her office-chair while
the others were chatting; but when they landed her among the Himalaya
mountains as part of the journey, she gasped for utterance:
“Bless me! You take my breath away.”
“Never mind! Catch it again. Oh, do please! Please do! and come
along!”
“But you must give me time to think,” and Miss Winchester began
cogitating how she would turn an apparent impossibility into an
assured fact.
“Oh, don’t think too much,” exclaimed Adele, when the result of
thinking looked precarious. “Just do it,--why, don’t you see? The
opportunity of our lives! We shall learn so much.”
Now it so happened, the circumstances being favorable, that Adele’s
last appeal touched upon a matter in Miss Winchester’s past
experience, and excited a far more potent incentive to join the party
than any amount of contagious enthusiasm could ever have accomplished.
Miss Winchester had not long before published a successful novel
based upon results of travel, including character sketches, the
result of careful observation amid episodes of ordinary life. She
had given it the whimsical title of “Upside Down.” Now what could
possibly be more opportune than to follow this with others,--say on
“Downside Up,” or, better still, “Outside and Inside”? And where
could more be found of circumstantial interest than in the Orient?
Who knows!--it might lead to still another, “Turned Inside Out,”
for the East undoubtedly had many examples of that sort of thing.
Being already a member of the literary craft, the opportunity was
altogether too good to be lost, every nerve must be strained to
reach the other side. It goes without saying that the Chairman of
the Persuasion Committee was caught dancing an impromptu tarantelle
when Miss Winchester finally told them it might, possibly might, be
arranged.
“Oh, then it’s settled positively,” exclaimed Adele; “for if you
hesitate you’re lost.”
Paul thought Adele a little witch as she danced with glee, all the
time encouraging her friend. He remembered how Adele had bewitched
himself also not long before, when she was in quite another mood.
Paul laughed outright, but could not keep his eyes from noticing her
every movement.
As to Miss Winchester, she took hold of the problem with a vim
characteristic of some of the characters of her own creation; she
tackled at once the ubiquitous problem known to all men on both
sides of the globe as, “How to make both ends meet,” and of course
solved it satisfactorily. Some few of the craft-literary, and in some
degree all women of whatever persuasion, usually do. So Adele was
right,--that settled it. Miss Winchester finally saw her way clear,
and joined their party.
It would have been difficult to find a more congenial and vivacious
group than Professor and Mrs. Cultus, Miss Winchester and Adele,
with their friends the Doctor and Paul, as they met in the salon
of the steamer on the eve of departure. Henri Semple, who looked
forward to meeting them later on the other side, led the party of
chosen friends who came to see them off, and while trying to aid the
Doctor and Paul with their hand-baggage, kept dodging Mr. Hammond,
one of those antipathetic, ghostly individuals who throw cold water
upon such occasions. Mrs. Maxwell sent her butler with an exquisite
kedge anchor in rose-buds for Adele, “in case you have no wireless
telegraph when wrecked, my dear.”
Amid friends, and flowers sent in kind remembrance, with many kind
messages “bon voyage,” there was, nevertheless, just a touch of
regret when some one asked Adele how she liked leaving America. She
had thus far thought of it as leaving home. Now home was “America”
in reference to where she was going,--her first sensation of the
broadening effects of travel.
A few moments later all were on deck in gay spirits, Miss Winchester
striving to avoid an impolite kodak-fiend in search of celebrities,
who was taking snap-shots from the bridge; but she only succeeded in
getting herself into a most unconventional attitude, almost doubled
up with laughter, strongly suggestive in a finished picture that
some one had the _mal de mer_ already. “One ought never to judge by
appearances,” remarked the Doctor, as he attempted to shield Miss
Winchester from the kodak.
The bell sounded, only passengers were permitted to remain longer
on board. The Doctor was saying “I trust we meet again” to one of
his trunks, when Semple hurried down the gang-plank waving back “au
revoir”; a gamin on the dock instantly echoed back what sounded like
“moo-swore, take moo-swore.” Adele waved her handkerchief to Semple,
and a Frenchman near by took off his hat, smiling as if the salute
were intended for him.
The steamer swung out from the wharf and glided into midstream; amid
cheers, and adieus waved in many directions, and kisses thrown to
loved ones left behind. America and home, now one and the same, began
to recede. They were actually on their way to the Far East.
VIII
A STUDIO FOR IMPRESSIONS
The voyage across the Atlantic from New York to the Gibraltar
proved a constant series of sapphire days. Skies light azure often
cloudless, the ocean a richer shade with enough wind to curl the
sea-foam into delicate lace-like patterns. When the billows rose
into the domain of direct sunlight, myriads of brilliant points
scintillated like sparkling gems decorating the wave crests,--the
sea-foam not unlike flossy embroidery or ruffles of lace upon silk of
blue.
Adele’s first experience of things as they are in the great motion
constant, onward, ever forward, in the very being of the boundless
deep; also her first impressions of the ways and means amid a
cosmopolitan crowd on board an ocean-flyer. Nature and humanity, each
in constant movement, the former with majesty and potency profound,
the latter on the grand rush, often to obtain something to eat.
Towards sunset she stood with the Doctor watching the crimson disk
grow less and less in brilliancy, and finally through a veil of
luminous atmosphere disappear in the mysterious beyond.
They spoke little, as if under some fascination. The varied
movements in the sky and unstable water-foundation were indeed
somewhat hypnotic in effect, but a psychologist would have been
puzzled to detect the outcome of their meditations. While they
gazed, a passing breeze crossed the surface immediately before them,
changing the delicate traceries in nature’s handiwork. The Doctor
at once responded, for the complications appealed to him, and most
naturally he spoke in terms of his own previous experience of similar
impressions.
“Those changes in the wave curves are not unlike harmonic
modulations, and I can actually hear the difference.” Adele seemed
surprised.
“Yes,” continued the Doctor, “the slow, dignified progression is
certainly symphonic in character, yet the infinite variety in less
melodic forms piles up little by little until the greater movement is
itself influenced. How wonderful, majestic, yet exceedingly subtle,
and always refined! It is certainly sound-color or color as sound,
and the drawing of the design--well, ’pon my soul, the drawing is
too quick for me. I can’t see how it is done, it flits from me, is
gone, living only in memory, not unlike the technical element in the
rendition of music. But the sound-color, the real harmony. Ah! that I
hear in my mind’s ear and see in my mind’s eye for long afterwards.”
Adele, much younger than the Doctor, was also working out her own
impressions according to previous experience, the experience of youth.
“Oh, yes! I see what you see,--very artistic,--you can talk about it
in that style if you choose, but----” and she seemed in doubt how to
describe what she really felt. The Doctor waited till she was ready.
“It’s so awfully real! It’s alive!”
“H’m!”
“Yes, a great real picture, that which I like in pictures.”
“No doubt an original,” remarked the Doctor, smiling. “The original
of many marines.”
Adele called attention to the magnificent contour lines which
themselves swayed to and fro over the curved surface.
“Don’t you see, it’s alive; the whole thing moves, it’s so true; and
you and I with it, we’re all going. Isn’t that just glorious!”
“Oh!” exclaimed the Doctor, “in Him we live and move and have our
being,--that’s what you mean?”
“Just so,” and she paused before continuing: “He was the Artist, and
it is a living picture, a real one, just ready to be painted.”
It was the apparent living earth, the breathing of the deep sea which
had impressed Adele, the suppressed emotion of the planet, ever
existing, ever apparent to those who had eyes to see and ears to hear
for observation; and this over the whole vast expanse.
“Of course,” whispered Adele, “a living picture, by so great an
Artist, must be sublimely artistic.”
“True,” mused the Doctor, “the greater will include the less,--a
masterpiece, an original, to lead the artistic sense onward and
upward.”
* * * * *
But there were few on board who gave even a passing thought to this
physical breathing of the earth, nor to the invisible moisture
ascending by evaporation. The majority thought no more of it than
they did of their own individual breathing; they took it as a matter
of course, no more, no less. They had, however, other impressions,
quite as mundane, and equally apparent. Some sought impressions from
watching card-sharpers in the smoking-room; others by listening
to fluent talkers who really abused good natural endowments by
promiscuous discussion of any and every subject that came up; men who
did not hesitate an instant to suggest what they considered to be
improvements upon nature. The conceit of some seemed indeed colossal,
especially when they, too, waved their arms about, forming contour
lines over curved ideas, to carry their impressions far beyond the
briny deep. Even such, however, were really small harmless game
compared to what Mrs. Cultus soon encountered.
IX
A BUDGET OF NEW SCIENCES
Previous to leaving home Mrs. Cultus had flattered herself she
was taking the Professor abroad to obtain rest from his arduous
scientific pursuits--alas! only to find herself at once in a very
vortex of new sciences and arts, so-called. Authorities discussed
Ping Pong as an art, also skittles, and the nomenclature of golf
was quite enough in matter of differentiations to establish it as a
science. Then there were new methods in the practice of medicine.
Thoughts warranted to cure were for sale under the title of Mental
Science;--and even a religious science, said to be popular and quite
new to the orthodox Science of Religions. All were on board and much
in evidence.
None of these things would have much troubled the Professor, but to
Mrs. Cultus they afforded a glorious opportunity to pick up odd bits
of information. She herself was certainly not suffering from fatigue
from the perusal of scientific publications, so when the book of
experience opened a chapter new to her, written by folk who prided
themselves upon the especial efficacy of their own mental efforts,
why, that appealed as the sort of science and art quite in her line
rather than the Professor’s. Having no lack of worldly wisdom in her
own mentality she at once took her stand. With regard to any new
phase of religious science, so-called, she would be very inquisitive,
not opinionated, much less dogmatic; but as to any mental racket,
scientific or otherwise, she thought she might venture further. In
fact ought to have some opinion of her own, being entitled to it,
_ex-officio_, as a Professor’s spouse. Such was Mrs. Cultus’ point of
view.
Matters were soon brought to a focus. She overheard repeated remarks
about patients who had been healed simply by receiving new mental
impressions easily obtained, generally by correspondence, fixed
charge, five dollars for epistolary impression. Some one who had
been victimized had told her of a bushel-basket full of impressions
shipped by mail each day from a single office.
“There must be some good ones in the lot,” thought Mrs. Cultus. “We
must investigate a little.”
Then she heard of others cured by thought-transference, either
with or without faith,--and finally of cures which tax credulity
to extreme limits of sanity, namely, by the persuasive efficacy of
belief, even in spite of the Creator Father’s natural laws to the
contrary, as if natural laws were inadequate to suit the Creator’s
purpose. Surely enough this to excite Mrs. Cultus’ curiosity. “What’s
the use of travelling unless you take things in, without being taken
in yourself?”--and she determined to caution her daughter. “Adele,
my dear, when your father and I first crossed the ocean together,
some time since, before you appeared, the ship’s company contained
many pilgrims from a sacred shrine, very sacred and very profitable.
We then heard much about cures. If I mistake not I have yet a bottle
of the sacred water from that European shrine, stowed away in our
medicine closet, warranted to be very efficacious to the faithful.”
“Did you ever test its efficacy?” asked Adele.
“Well, to be frank, I never saw it used except just previous to
funerals, which struck me as rather late in the day. It certainly
acted like a sedative upon those who administered it, but that’s
another matter. What I was going to remark is, that to-day the tide
of curative waters seems to flow all the other way. America does the
quick-cure business whether the patient is faithful or not.”
“Well, that’s certainly great gain for the medicine,” remarked Miss
Winchester. Mrs. Cultus continued:
“Yes, indeed; one might have guessed Americans would introduce
improvements in the system. I always did believe in practical
science, practical metaphysics they call it now, and all that sort of
thing, specially when the thing looks a little mysterious to begin
with,--it clears out the system.”
“Whose system? What system?” wondered Miss Winchester, “the
medicine’s or the patient’s?” but she said nothing, and smiled
inwardly as Mrs. Cultus continued her drolling.
“But tell me, are the new medicines proprietary, patented, or merely
bottles for sale, duly authenticated like the old bottles? I wonder
if it would be safe to put some of this new wine, beg pardon,
curative water, into the old bottles?”
“Oh, dear no!” exclaimed Miss Winchester, promptly. “All medicines
are quite out of date. All you have to do is to think you think, pay
the price, and there you are--cured. I was cured myself.”
“Why, bless me, child! of what?”
“Nothing serious--merely of my former impression.”
“What was your impression of an impressionist, Frank?” said Adele,
laughing. “I don’t believe all of them are quacks, certainly not
until I first hear what they have to say.”
* * * * *
Now Miss Winchester, being of the literary craft, indulged in methods
not unlike those practiced by the Doctor in connection with his
palmistry pranks. They both were much given to observing individuals
whose outward appearance suggested a personality from whom they could
learn something. Studying types, the Doctor called it; studying human
nature, Miss Winchester considered it. All was grist that came to
their mill, good, bad, and even the indifferent, cranks and amiables
included. It so happened that in the course of her study of human
nature Miss Winchester had encountered a pronounced specimen of the
genus Professoress, said to occupy the chair of Thought-Cure in a
would-be Sanitorium-University. This had been some time ago. What
was her surprise now to find said Professoress on board, occupying
a deck-chair among the innocents abroad. Not wishing to claim any
acquaintance (having already written her up in an article upon “The
Inside Cure”) unless forced to do so, she had avoided a meeting. It
had been this same individual of whom she had thought when telling
Mrs. Cultus of her own cure; and as luck would have it, there the
healer appeared,--on deck, in a chair, quite near them when Adele
innocently asked for an impression of an impressionist.