THE JOYS.
“Why went that young life out
On honor’s perilous road?
The carping tongue and the jealous mind
Stay here to wound and goad.
“A picture once I saw--
Three crosses against the sky!
And the heaviest cross was the highest one;
Perhaps that answers why.”
Mrs. Doring was surprised and delighted at receiving a visit from the
Joys one evening. Having parted with everything that goes by the name
of property, they had come to New York to seek fortune on the dramatic
stage, both having talent and taste for mimic art. As joyful as ever,
they met their changed fortunes with their old-time merry laugh. Their
two children were in an excellent school, and the business now in hand
was seeking a chance to earn the money necessary to keep the machinery
of life moving for them all.
“Our time for looking about is somewhat limited,” said Burton, with
cheery humor, “as the cash box is not overflowing.”
“We shall find something,” said Lilla, with calm assurance.
“MUST,” said Mrs. Doring. “Must is a magnet. What we must have, we
always get.”
The difficult search began at once in dead earnest. Thousands had
walked the rough road before them, some of whom had found foothold, but
others by scores and hundreds had gone down in the city’s remorseless
maelstrom. It was like being wrecked in mid-ocean. Some managed to
seize a plank and keep afloat. Some spent their strength and sank
early. Others buffeted the waves long and bravely, only to go down at
last, a pitiful, a woful, a heart-breaking spectacle.
The animal known as the dramatic agent was an unknown quantity to
the Joys, hence they were not prepared for his peculiar antics.
Snubs, insults and sneers rained down upon them. Still they kept
on and still they wore cheerful faces, still the sunshine of their
hearts was unclouded--the heavenly sunshine that was rated as mere
empty-headedness by duller, coarser souls.
Days and weeks rolled on, for “time carries no anchor,” until the money
that constituted their plank on the city’s rough ocean was gone.
When talking with Cartice one evening, Lilla Joy said: “If we did not
_know_ that we outlast death and have endless life before us, Burton
and I would end our troubles and our children’s too, perhaps. It would
require less courage than we need for one day of life now. But we
_know_ that we can’t kill ourselves, however much we might try because
there is no death. In spite of bullets, knives, poisons and rivers, we
should still be alive, wondering, no doubt, why we were so blind as to
think we could destroy that which is indestructible. No; our salvation
must be worked out clear to the end, uncomplainingly. We are here to
learn, and must stay until we are ready to go higher. At the longest,
our probation is short, and it means so much to us. We are building
the edifice of character, which is to last for all time. This little
chapter of existence is but a day in the great cycle. No; I shall not
give up; I shall never despair, let come what may.”
Day succeeded day, but no brighter outlook opened, yet never were they
seen with a cloud on their faces. Though their purses were empty,
friendship and compassion kept away bitter need, and their spirits were
sweet enough to accept the goods the gods sent without letting their
pride be wounded. It needs a sweeter spirit to receive than to give.
At last a foothold on the stage was gained for both--an opportunity
more likely to increase humility than foster vanity, but they accepted
it thankfully, and it led on to better things.
All went well for a time; but one day a telegram came announcing the
dangerous illness of their children, who had fallen victims to an
epidemic. They went at once. The children died, and a few days later
their father also closed his eyes to this world.
Lilla returned to New York to go on with the grim business of life.
Was the joy gone from her face? No; it was still there, softened,
heightened and illumined by a new and holy light.
“Dear friend,” she said, as she and Cartice talked together on the
evening of her return, “there are three new graves in the old cemetery
at home, but they do not hold my husband and children. That which each
contains is an unreality, a thing never destined to endure,--a garment
which the real being wore to make itself seen by our dim eyes. Alice
Carey has described it well:
Though you wore something earthly about you
Which once we called you--
A robe all transparent and brightened
With the soul shining through.
But when you had dropped it in going--
’Twas but yours for a day--
Safe back in the bosom of Nature,
We laid it away.
Strewing over it odorous blossoms,
Their perfume to shed:
But you never were buried beneath them,
And never were dead.
“Friends say that I am left alone; but it is not true. I am never
alone. There is no separation for those whom love unites. We are one
in the universal spirit of love--God. Did not one friend beyond
the grave tell us that every death is a resurrection? Is not the
stone already rolled away from every sepulchre? Would I call my dear
ones back to face the cruel conditions of life here? No, a thousand
times no. When I looked at the dead face of my husband, so calm, and
profoundly at peace with everything, I said ‘My love, my dear love,
heart of my heart and soul of my soul, love of my youth and companion
of my spirit forevermore, I thank God that the hard things of the
world can hurt you no more.’ The cruelest pang poverty has given me
was seeing him bear humiliation and insult in silence, with heavenly
patience. Poverty for oneself is bad enough, but when we see those we
love suffer because of it, we know exquisite anguish. I can make the
fight alone, and it is better so. He is safe. That will sustain me.
“And my children; they, too, are safe. It is well with them. They are
not lost. All things we call lost are in the angels’ keeping.
“I shall go on with my work, thankful for the chance, disagreeable as
much of it is, because of unavoidable contact with shallow, inferior
people. But my true life is away from it all, sacred and safe. There is
a reason beyond my fathoming for my being what and where I am. It is
all right--all wisely directed, and I shall go on, not sullenly, but in
patience and hope. My faith is that all is well. I must live it and
not simply talk it.”
Looking at Lilla’s beautiful face, brightened with the radiance of
belief, Cartice Doring knew that one by one she was finding her
people--the people whom she dimly remembered as having been a part
of her life in the remote past, and who were linked by the ties of
sympathy and love to the present and all the endless future.
Her own people,--the faithful, the heroic, the aspiring, the
wide-minded, the loving, the true.
Lilla was one of them--Lilla of the light heart and rippling laugh in
days gone by; and of the sturdy soul and dauntless faith in sorrow and
misfortune.
Now Cartice saw that her own people all became acquainted with
suffering, sooner or later, and that this was the greatest of teachers
to the human race. Without suffering nothing is born, nothing grows.
“Who are these in white garments?” asked the saint of the heavenly
visions.
“They are those who have passed through great tribulation,” was the
answer.
In fancy she saw again the long procession, made up of her people. Out
of the dim and far distant past they came, filing steadily on into
the unseen, endless future. In each spirit burned the quenchless fire
we name genius; on each face were signs of suffering; “but no voice
uttered plaints.” Not all were victors. Many were of the baffled and
beaten, the disappointed and defeated, but they went to the wall with
unbent head and silent, smiling lips.
“My people, my dear people,” she said, “with you I breathe the air
native to my soul. You sought the truth, you found it, you lived it,
and it made you free.”
What is truth? Who can answer the Roman governor’s question? In the
Syriac tongue it is described as “the arrow which flies to the mark.”
Nothing else reaches the mark. Nothing else has a mark. Life has no
other aim and end than to free oneself from error, through a knowledge
of truth. This is the only power that can set us free, and only in
freedom is happiness.
But with most people the search is not for truth but success--success
on the commonplace, external plane--which is the very negation of moral
growth and spiritual progress. High minds, dedicated to noble ideals
are few, but mediocres are numerous.
“When we have escaped from the region of mediocrity we revel in a purer
atmosphere, where we may join hands with the elect and dance a round,”
said Marie Bashkirtseff, one of the youngest, bravest and brightest of
the elect.
The mediocre mass is an aggregation of self-enslaved minds, against
whose self-satisfied stupidity the gods themselves are powerless.