Strange Visitors Part 2

The libraries in this world are vast catacombs or repositories of buried knowledge. Here are found histories of decayed races, dynasties, and nations which have vanished from earth, leaving scarce a monument of their progress in art, science, and mental culture. In these libraries the student of history will find the exploits of ancient peoples recorded, and a description of their cities, with the temples and towers which they built and the colossal images which they created.

I own to the surprise which I experienced when I discovered that printed books were a part of the treasures of the spirit world. But the scholar will rejoice as I did to find the literary productions of remotest ages garnered in the s.p.a.cious halls of science that adorn our cities.

It is a principle of being--a condition of immortality--as inseparable from spirit existence as from earth life, that thought should express itself in external forms. Even the Great Spirit, the Creator of all, gives shape to his thoughts in the formation of trees, flowers, men, beasts, and myriad worlds with their constant motion, their sound and song.

It has been aptly said that the "stars are the poetry of G.o.d." He, the Great Spirit of all, writes his thoughts legibly; and so man, like his originator, whether living in the natural body or existing as a spirit, gives outward shape to his ideas; hence books become a necessity of spirit existence, and the writers from earth have still a desire to perpetuate their thoughts.

Oral communication is too evanescent, and therefore the dear old books still find a place in the spheres.

There are various modes of making these volumes, and the writer may become his own printer.

Some authors prefer to dictate, and a little instrument marks off the variations of sound which make the word, and thus, as he speaks, the word is impressed on the sheet.

Others, if the thought be clear and distinct enough, and the will sufficiently under abeyance, act through the mind upon a conductor, which dots down the thought in a manner somewhat similar to telegraphic printing.

The material used to receive the impression is of a soft, vellum-like nature, which can be folded up in any manner without destroying its form; it is very light and thin, but opaque, like the creamy petals of a lily.

The phonetic alphabet is used extensively, though we have many books printed in the mode usually adopted on earth.

All nature is constantly changing and progressing. The bards who sang upon the earth centuries ago--Homer, Virgil, the Greek and Roman, the Celtic and Saxon writers of old--have pa.s.sed beyond the spirit sphere which I inhabit to a spirit planet still more refined, and have left behind only the records of their strange experience.

The eighteenth century cannot walk side by side with the third or fourth century more readily in the spirit world than on earth.

The character of the spirit literature of the present day is essentially scientific and explorative. We have in our world, as you have in yours, intrepid travellers--learned men, who make voyages to almost inaccessible planets--and they return even as those of earth, with sketches and graphic outlines of the strange sights they have witnessed; and those less venturesome who remain at home are as anxious as your citizens might be to hear accounts of wonderful regions that have been visited. And such books of travel are sought eagerly.

We have but few works on theology; the nature and essence of G.o.d is discussed with us, but not so elaborately as with you.

Spirits who have pa.s.sed into a second life have so nearly approached the mystery of a Divine Being that they do not desire to debate the subject.

A large proportion of our writers are devoted to what you would here term transcendental thought, a kind of literature which lies between poetry and music, which awakens a feeling of ecstasy, and gives, as it were, wings to the soul.

The poets who sang upon earth during the last century, of whom Sh.e.l.ly, Keats, and Byron are an English type, and Halleck, Pierrepont, Dana, and Willis the American representatives, are among the most inspired and far-reaching of our present writers of poetry and song.

Our literature has one great advantage over that of earth, in that our separate nationalities become merged in one grand unit. We do not need translators, as we have adopted a universal written language. There are some writers who still retain, as I have said, the modes adopted on earth, but those who have been resident any length of time in the spirit sphere employ the plan of writing by signs, which are understood and acknowledged by every nationality.

I should like, in closing, to introduce an extract from an old volume which I found in a library in the city of Spring Garden.

It was written by Addison during his sojourn in that city, in the year 1720, and is in the form of a letter, supposed to be written to a friend on earth. In it he essays to portray the expansion of mind he has experienced in his new home through the magnetic influence of thought language:

"Behold the far off luminary suspended millions and billions and trillions of miles in s.p.a.ce; then turn the eye yonder and see that infinitesimal point of vegetation, earth--a speck, countless mult.i.tudes of which heaped and piled together would form but a point compared with that majestic sun!

"Yet behold it move and expand beneath the long fibrous rays which that effulgent orb sends down through so many billions of miles to the place of its minute existence. Even as that poor little existence shoots out its fibres to meet those rays which have travelled such great lengths, so a spirit in the spheres feels the quickening, effulgent rays thrown out by the brain of some prophet or poet existing millions and billions and trillions of miles away on some distant spirit planet, and his thought expands and enlarges beneath the warming action of that far-off brain, until it a.s.sumes a shape and form which its own emulation never prophesied."

BYRON.

_TO HIS ACCUSERS_.

I.

My soul is sick of calumny and lies: Men gloat on evil--even woman's hand Will dabble in the mire, nor heed the cries Of the poor victim whom she seeks to brand In thy sweet name, Religion, through the land!

Like the keen tempest she doth strip her prey, Tossing him bare and wrecked upon the strand, While vaunting her misdeeds before the day, Bearing a monument which crumbles like the clay.

II.

My sister, have I lived to see thy name Dishonored? Thou, who wast my pride, my stay; Shall Jealousy and Fraud thy love defame And I be dumb? Just Heaven, let a ray From thy majestic light illume earth's clay,[A]

That through her I may scorch the slander vile, And light throughout the land a torch to-day, Which shall reveal how false and full of guile Are they who seek thy name, Augusta, to defile.

[Footnote A: The Clairvoyant.]

III.

She who has borne my t.i.tle and my name, In deeds fraternal saw some monster crime; To her base level sought my heart to tame, Made mock of each aspiring thought sublime, And sought to bury me beneath the slime Of her imaginings. All--all are gone Who could defend me. From the grave of time I am unearth'd--by sland'rous miscreants torn, And rise to feel again the ills I once have borne.

IV.

Is this a Christian deed, to flaunt a vice, And with another's failings gild your own?

To hearken to the whisperings and device Of old age, selfish, to suspicion grown?

To misconstrue each friendly look--each tone-- And out of natural love create vile l.u.s.t?

Must brother's heart his very kin disown, While rudest hand disturbs her mouldering dust?

Is this a Christian deed? Shall mankind call it just?

V.

But let that pa.s.s. I hear a nation's voice Raised to defend the absent, wronged child; My hopes and aims were high, albeit my choice Was fixed on one who felt not for my wild And wayward nature; one who never smiled On imperfection. From my home of light Unscathed, I see life's blackening billows piled, Ready to sweep the daring soul from sight, Sinking his name and memory in darkest night.

VI.

I rise again above the woes of earth, Like unchained bird, seeking my native air.

Men seldom see their fellow-creatures' worth, But blot sweet nature's page, however fair.

Away, my soul, and seek thy n.o.bler state, Where loving angels breathe their softest prayer, Where sweetest seraphs for thy coming wait, And ne'er suspicion's breath can pa.s.s the Golden Gate.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

_APPARITIONS_.

Returning one evening from a visit to a friend on earth, I was impelled to take a route with which I was unfamiliar. It led me far beyond the habitations of the city, into an open country whose surface was diversified by sloping hills and broad valleys.

The sun was quite low in the horizon, and dark purple clouds, gathering in the west, indicated an approaching storm. Anxious to reach my spirit-home before such an event, I was nevertheless compelled to keep within the earth's atmosphere.

The aspect of the country became more uneven as I advanced, and the disappearing sun threw out the hills in cold blue relief against the evening sky. One peak to the northward stood high and isolated from the surrounding hills, and was crowned by a s.p.a.cious dwelling house; the high peaked roof and dark gloomy color of its exterior comported strangely with the landscape.