River of Lethe--flowing sluggishly along through a valley. Across
this river I could see a country of vast extent, which was very
thickly peopled. I went down the hill-side, and came to the river,
and there I found an old ferryman and his boat waiting to convey me
over the dark flood. He asked me for the obolus with which to pay
toll across the river, but, unfortunately, I hadn't a cent with me.
He then asked, rather impatiently, if my friends were so poor when I
died that they couldn't afford to put an obolus in the coffin with
me. I smilingly replied that I wasn't aware I had ever died, whereat
he answered, very seriously, that he had carried a great many dead
men across, but never any dead-heads. I tried to coax the old man
into giving me a ride gratis, but he obstinately refused, saying that
only the disembodied were allowed to cross, and that if he took me
over he would catch the----
"Just the man I want to see," said I. "If I cannot go to him, except
as a blessed defunct, will you have the goodness to hand my card to
him, and say that I come from Chicago?"
The old man took the card, and, after taking on board two or three
people whom I used to know, and supposed were saints, he paddled
across and soon returned, saying that the Devil had sent his
compliments and was willing to see me. He also sent word that he was
desirous of sending back by me his thanks to Chicago, which was just
now conferring a great favor upon him in the way of business.
I accordingly jumped into the boat. The old man had to work very hard
in getting me over. The spirits which he was accustomed to carry
weigh nothing and pack close, but I was quite substantial.
In my passage across the river I observed that it was full of robes,
mitres, crosiers, censers, creeds, canons, and other articles
floating along, and I asked the old man the cause of it. He simply
replied that he didn't know what they were. He believed they were
some sort of stuff which some people brought along with them and
had to throw away because nobody used them here or in the other
place. When we had reached the other shore I landed, and the old man
informed me I was in Hell, and would find the Devil a short distance
away. I found him without difficulty. As soon as he had settled a
little dispute between some Board of Trade men who had been getting
up a corner,--which he declared was too disgraceful even for _his_
country,--he turned to me and bade me welcome.
I must acknowledge that I was disappointed in his appearance. He was
a very polite, affable person, and, apparently, a perfect gentleman.
There were certainly no claws upon his fingers. His feet were not
cloven. There were no horns upon his head. Neither did I, after a
rather secret and anxious scrutiny, discover any indications of a
tail. He greeted me as if he knew me well, and at once put me at
ease with himself. I made bold to congratulate him upon his personal
appearance, whereat he smiled and said: "Yes, the old story--horns,
hoofs and tail, I suppose. I know it is the custom for you people
on that little planet, which is called, I think, the Earth, when
you wish to represent anything infamous or abominable, to paint the
Devil, and you generally paint him very black. Now we know a thing
or two here, and we always return the compliment, for when we wish
to represent anything infamous or abominable we paint Man in his
natural colors. I assure you sir, I am not so black as they paint me.
Why, sir, I have been obliged to blush more than once at the crimes
which some men have committed who come here for cleansing."
I acknowledged the justness of his remarks and then, anxious to
settle a suspicion which had been troubling me, I asked him where the
fire was. He smiled again, and said:
"Fire? It is all round you. Hell-fire is by no means a falsehood.
Look at these people. They have brought all their passions with
them. We cannot manufacture a fire which can burn and consume like
the fires of passion in man's breast. We know of no hell so terrible
as the hell in a man's bosom. Let me tell you there isn't a man or
woman on your Earth without a tiger chained in his breast. Let him
but once unloose the beast and hell has broken loose in himself.
These tides of passion never ebb. They are resistless in their flow,
and they burn and kill, as they flow, like a stream of molten lava
running down the side of the volcano into the fertile plains. That
man there, who killed his brother is none the less a murderer now,
only that his passion to kill is intensified without the means of
its gratification; and you will notice that he carries the skeleton
of that brother tied to him, from which he cannot escape. Do you
think fire would be any such punishment to him? That miser, who was
eaten up with avarice in his mortal life, is doubly the miser now,
only the gains which he hoards are forever swept from him. So with
them all. They bring their passions with them here only to have them
intensified, to have their capacities for passion correspondingly
increased, and never to have the opportunities of gratifying them.
That is the kind of hell-fire we have here, and it burns until the
victim is burnt out, and purified, and regenerated, and rendered
capable of receiving pure enjoyment. We who are placed in charge of
them have no sympathy with them, for we have no passions. We have
living brains, but dead hearts.
"And yet," I remarked, "many of these people seem to be very quiet
and calm. They do not look as if they were troubled at all by
passions."
"There is where you make a great mistake," the Devil replied.
"Appearances are as deceitful here as they are on Earth. Outward
quietness is no sign of inward peace. The ocean, which is in
continual war with the elements, lashing its surface into
ungovernable fury, is secret and silent in its depth, while some
hidden lake in the mountains, or some pool in the valleys, which
never feels the ocean storm blowing over its surface, yet mirrors
every storm-cloud in its breast and is disturbed in its depths by
violent currents. Appearances are deceitful, even here, you see."
The Devil then offered to show me about his dominions, and we trudged
along together. I was surprised to find so many people there I had
known on Earth and supposed were saints; men whom I had known with
serene faces, and upturned eyes, and saintly expressions, who were
all the time deprecating the sinfulness of Earth; who held up their
hands in holy horror at pleasures and snuffed evil in every wind that
blew; and among them some whose names had been blown abroad loud and
long, and who had mounted upon the top of popular opinion by means
of the step-ladders of piety. The Devil noticed my surprise and said:
"Yes! we have a good many of that sort. They are all entered on the
books as hypocrites. One of our choicest vintages, which we serve on
State occasions, is their tears bottled up. They are much superior in
flavor to the tears of the crocodile."
He took me further on and showed me the men who had been cruel to
animals, each of whom was tormented by the animals he had tormented
in life. Brutal cartmen, who had lashed their horses to death, were
in harness, and the horses were lashing them. In one place, there was
an entire horse-railroad company drawing overloaded cars. A man who
was cruel to his dog was pursued and constantly bitten by a howling
pack of them. Another, who had wantonly killed a little bird, was
chained to a rock, like Prometheus, and vultures were forever pecking
at him. Nero, who took delight in killing flies, was forever stung
by swarms of insects. This one, who had been cruel to his ox, was
harnessed to a plow, and the ox was goading him along. That one,
who had been unnecessarily cruel to a fish, was forever swimming in
bottomless waters, pursued by sharks. Thus each was punished in kind,
and cruelty to the dumb beast brought its own compensation. Whereat
I rejoiced, and quietly pressed the hand of the Devil in token of
satisfaction.
And he said to me: "Even we devils, bad as we are supposed to be,
hardly know a crime so wicked as the crime of cruelty to the animal,
from man down to the insect. We have no worse punishments than that
for violations of the law of kindness, which is the law of love."
We wandered on, and found several other classes of persons, each
of whom was punished in some unique manner. There were pot-house
politicians by the multitude, who were chasing after offices which
constantly eluded their grasp just as they thought they had them.
There was an army of street-corner organ-grinders condemned to wander
for a term of years and never to cease grinding "Captain Jinks,"
while the man who wrote "Captain Jinks" was condemned to follow
them and listen to it as long as they played it. There was a large
multitude of people from Cincinnati, condemned to sit for a thousand
years upon a bank of a river and read the daily papers of Chicago.
There was a crowd of tradesmen, who cheated with false weights,
condemned to trudge for centuries with their weights hung about
their necks; and others, who mixed sand with sugar, and turmeric
with butter, and sold other villainous compounds for the genuine
article, who were forced to eat their own abominable adulterations
incessantly. And thus we went on until we came to a spot where there
was a fearful chattering and screaming. The Devil stopped his ears as
we approached, and I immediately discovered a crowd of able-bodied,
stout-armed women chasing a piece of paper which was fluttering
through the air. Every time that they were on the point of seizing
it, a puff of wind would blow it away again. And on the paper was
written the single word "Ballot." I smiled as I recognized some of
them.
Thus we went on, but it was everywhere the same story. Those who had
bad passions on Earth brought their bad passions along with them, and
made their own hells. Those who were foolish on Earth were foolish
here, and everyone was punished in kind. Each person had his crime
fastened upon him, and whatever chalice he had forced others to drink
was now commended to his own lips.
And as we retraced our steps, I asked the Devil if there was no
cessation from these punishments, and he answered: "Love will finally
triumph at last, for it is the law of laws, both on the Earth and in
the Heavens."
We again reached the River Lethe, and I asked him what word he wished
to send to Earth. He smiled, as he answered: "Nothing special. My
business is doing well there, and I have no fault to find with your
representation. The supply quite exceeds the demand."
He paused a minute, and said: "And yet I think I might send some
advice by you. A great many good souls upon Earth are troubled
about the meaning of life. There was one poor fool named Dr. Faust,
who once sold himself to me, in order to get at the meaning of the
riddle. Tell them that any one who can appreciate the littleness of
life and not lose his own dignity has come near enough to solving
the problem. Tell them, also, to realize, if they can, that their
condition is human, and that, whenever they try to ape the divine,
they are opposing the eternal fitness of things. The best happiness,
and glory, and virtue they can reach is in being _men_, and loving
their fellow-men. If they become angels on Earth, they have nothing
left to do when they get up there. That old poet whom you are
accustomed to style a heathen was just right when he said: 'I am
human, and I deem nothing human a stranger to me.'"
I promised the Devil I would take his message to Earth, and then
said: "I have but one more question to ask."
"What is that?" he replied.
"Do editors come here often?"
"No! they have quite enough of this place where they are."
I thanked him from my heart of hearts, and bade him good-bye as one
not utterly bereft of comfort and consolation.
As the old ferryman landed I noticed that his boat was full of stock
speculators, and that the Devil looked utterly disgusted when they
stepped into his dominions.
We passed over the river in silence. I climbed the hill and crossed
the blank moors, passed through the golden sea again, and then on
through the systems until I reached Earth and awaked.
It may be barely possible that a quarter section of hot mince pie had
something to do with this visit.
September 19, 1869.
_L'ENVOI._
It is only a few brief lines, and I must say good-bye to the reader,
and the book closes. You and I have kept company together through
nearly three years of pleasant intercourse--a brief time as numbered
by years, but long enough in the calendar of words and deeds. I trust
neither of us is the worse for the company, and that we shall part
with kindly words, good wishes and mutual blessings, until we see
each other again. I trust that in these preceding pages, each one
of you may have found some thought you will deem worthy to lay away
for preservation among the locks of hair and old letters and faded
flowers and other souvenirs which each of you keep and look at when
the world presses heavily upon you with its cares and anxieties.
I trust that you may have found something that is beautiful in the
lives of each one of our little family with whom you have been made
acquainted, in your companionship with me. I frankly confess to
you that I have a tender regard for them all, and that I shall be
disappointed if you do not share the same, as I have only been their
mouthpiece when they have spoken. I know that they regret the parting
with you as much as I, and that if we ever meet again, they will
extend to you the same warm welcome as I.
And now the book closes, just as the birds are flying to the warmer
South and the groves are growing strangely silent; just as the
flowers are fading in the gardens and in the fields; just as the
leaves are falling in the forests, and the hill-sides are beginning
to drape themselves in the melancholy and tender beauty of the
Autumn. I cannot make this parting without a feeling of regret and a
certain sadness; and, as I extend my hand to each and all of you--to
some whom I have met daily, to some whose faces have grown familiar,
and to some whom I have never seen and may never see, and yet have
sent me precious words of sympathy and encouragement during these
past three years--I should be ungrateful were I not to acknowledge
the constant kindness which has greeted these careless letters as
they have appeared in the columns of the TRIBUNE.
Hoping that, in some future time, we may meet together again as now,
it only remains to say Farewell, and to write those saddest of all
words--
THE END.
September 22, 1869.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious typographical errors were repaired.
Archaic or variant stylistic spellings, and hyphenation
inconsistencies, were retained.
Redundant title page at the beginning--displaying only "Letters of
Peregrine Pickle"--was removed.
Table on P. 260, "E-flat" and "B-flat" are displayed as the note name
followed by the musical "flat" symbol in the original.
End of Project Gutenberg's Letters of Peregrine Pickle, by George P. Upton