Tom Clark and His Wife Part 6

PART VII.

BETSEY CLARK IN DREAM-LAND.

Could I with ink the ocean fill, Were all the earth of parchment made; Were every blade of gra.s.s a quill, And every man a scribe by trade-- To tell the love of G.o.d above Would drain the briny oceans dry: Nor would a scroll contain the whole, Though covering all the arching sky.

"I believe just as did the writer of these lines," said the Rosicrucian, as he began his recital in the cabin of the "Uncle Sam," after partaking of what the purveyors of that steams.h.i.+p line, in the rich exuberance of their facetious imaginations were pleased to call a supper.

"Betsey Clark was dreaming: It was morning, and the glorious face of the sun shone in unclouded splendor over the world--this world, which, to the good man and woman, is ever a world of Good and Beauty, viewed from the G.o.d-side, whatever it may be from the human. All things were praising Him--at least all dumb things were, for men so intently adore their Lares and Penates--Dollars and Dimes--that they have scarcely time to devote a wors.h.i.+pful thought to Him who is King of kings, and regnant G.o.d of G.o.ds.

"Nature was arrayed in gala robes; she had put aside her frowns, and now smiled sweetly on the world, decked gaily in pearls and light; she was on her way to attend the weddings of the flowers and the birds. Betsey Clark was a blythe young girl again. In her dream she was gaily tripping o'er the lea, her happy heart swelling and palpitating with strange emotions--she was a budding virgin now, and her heart overflowed with innocence and love, accompanied with that pure, but strange, wild discontent, and longing for, she knew not what, but something, which all young women feel, and are conscious of, as they pa.s.s the golden barrier that divides their youth from womanhood. It is, and was, the holy and chaste desire to love, and be loved in return--from the heart, sir, right straight from the heart! Ah, how I sometimes wish I had been created a girl instead of a boy. Bah! What's the use of wis.h.i.+ng?

especially when all the girls desire an opposite transmigration.

"Betsey's bloom outrivalled the blushes of the newly-wedded roses--roses just married to sunlight, in the morning dew, with all the trees for witnesses, and all the birds to swell the sounding chorus! And she was happy; ah, how full of happiness! and yet it was slightly dashed with bitterness--just a taste of gall in her cup of honey--for she imagined a more perfect state, had vague dreamings of something still higher. So have we all. We have it! and that is a certain sign that that higher something is attainable, if we only try. Some one said he wanted to eat his friend. Good! but I want to lose myself in another self--to make of them twain a unit, which is better! or to thus blend, and then lose _ourself_ in the great G.o.d-life, which is Best!

"And she gaily tripped over the lea. She was going with a pitcher of cream, and a basket of fresh eggs, toward a hole in the rock, not a great way off, to present them to the strange 'Hermit of the Silver Girdle,' who dwelt within a little grotto just upon the edge of a forest wild, hard by her girlhood's home.

"Now, be it henceforth known to everybody, and to everybody's son and daughter--if the fact is not already patent unto them--that every female between the ages of fifteen and twenty-three, is naturally, spontaneously, and inevitably, in love; and all that is then wanting, is a suitable, and worthy object to lavish it upon. If she finds such, well and good; but whether she does, or not, still she must, and will pour it out--either healthily, or otherwise--on a cat or a man; a poodle or politics; marriage or a mirror. Between those ages the female heart is just as full of love as an egg is full of meat; nor can she help it; it is the birth of affection, love, romance--the endeared and endearing spring-tide of life and emotion. Alas! that the tide too often ebbs, never, never to rise again this side of the grave! Then, in the rich exuberance of her innocence and purity, woman, unlike man at the same age, thinks no wrong, fears no harm. Gentle, trustful, n.o.ble girl!

Blessed is he who then calls her to himself--who, in the morning of his life, and her own, shall win, and worthily wear, her heart; and abased indeed is he who then shall gaze upon her with unhallowed eyes, and seek to lure her from the path of honorable womanhood!

"Presently the girl reached the hermit's abode, saluted the reverend man, presented her welcome gift, and received on bended knee his blessing in return.

"They conversed awhile, did that fair girl and that strange recluse; the hermit stood on this side, the maiden stood on that. 'Daughter,' said he, as he placed his white palms upon her beaming forehead, 'the world and all it contains amounts to but little, if it, and they, be not improved to the utmost--the attainment of the soul's aliment, knowledge, which it a.s.similates and digests into Wisdom. I have partaken of that food for fourscore years and ten--have converted it into wisdom, and expect to be thus engaged during long centuries to come. Thou seest me living here alone, dependent upon the charities of such as thou: poor in California, where even the rocks are retained by golden wedges in their places, and where diamonds sparkle in a hundred valleys. Thou seest me shut out from the busy world, and drawing life from Charity--and Heaven.

Such an existence is suitable for me, but not for such as thee. I am a student and professor of a strange and mighty magic, for I possess the marvellous Mirror, and the still more wondrous Crystal Globe--both of which are heirlooms of the early foretime, handed down the ages to me, as I in turn shall bequeath them to the ages yet to be. But thou! thou art a woman, and cannot afford to shut thyself out from life, society, and pleasure, as Rosicrucians do, and must, if they would obtain the kingdom, the pa.s.sword--that uplifts the sable curtains that hide a dozen worlds--and the key, by which the doors of Mystery are opened. Child, for thee there are more fitting things in store than the upper knowing--better than solitude; higher charms than study, and abstruse pondering over recondite lore, and subtle laws of Being and of Power.

Thou in thy way, I in mine, are, and must be, soldiers in the strife for holy peace; toilers for the millions yet unborn; mechanics for redemption of the world; active bees in the busy hive--thou of active human life, I that of human destiny; together, marchers in the grand army whose movement is ever onward, and which never looks behind. I strive for the True; thy destiny tends toward the Beautiful; together, we shall reach the goal of Good, moving over th.o.r.n.y roads, albeit, on the way; for there are many dangerous pit-falls, deep mora.s.ses, dismal swamps, gloomy forest-solitudes, and stony mountains, steep and slippery, that bar man's path to happiness. "Prepare ye the way.... Make His paths straight!" Such is thy business--and mine. To accomplish this duty I am here; but a different field is thine to labor in. To achieve thy destiny thou must place thine affections upon a son of man--thy soul's great love on G.o.d alone. You must wed, bear children in great agony, yet gloriously, to your husband, your country, and to Him.

"'I will now, by means of the higher magic, which I am able to use in thy behalf, show the figure of a man whom you will hereafter marry. You shall behold him _as he is; as he will be_, and _and as he may become_--provided you choose to make him so; for a husband is _ever and always just what a woman makes him_! I am now about to display a phantarama of the future before you. Observe, and note well all thou mayest behold. Speak not thereof to vain worldlings, who cannot comprehend deep mysteries, such as these; above all, utter not one single word while thou sittest at yonder table, gazing into the Future-revealing Crystal Globe.'

"And so saying, the grey-clad hermit of the Silver Girdle, who dwelt in a forest wild, led the way to a recess of the grotto, where the light was very subdued, very dim, and exceedingly religious. There he seated her before a tripod, supporting a triangular shelf or table, himself taking a seat directly opposite. Upon this table he then placed a small, square, dark-leathern box, opening on bra.s.s hinges across the sides and top. He opened it, while reiterating his caution, and disclosed to the enraptured gaze of the doubly-delighted girl--all girls are delighted before they get their husbands--and many of them are considerably delighted, if not more so, to get rid of them afterwards!--a magnificent globe of pure crystal, clear as a dew-drop, radiant as a sunbeam. It was not over four inches in diameter, was a perfect sphere, and was altogether beautiful--in this respect, infinitely transcending that of a soap-bubble of the same size--a humble comparison, but a just one--for there are few things more beautiful than these self-same soap-bubbles!

"The first impulse of the girl was to handle this beautiful trinue--as it was called; and she made a movement with that intent, but was instantly prevented by the hermit in grey, who said: 'Not for a hundred husbands, should mortal fingers touch that sphere; for such contact would instantly rob it of its virtues, perhaps never to be regained!

Look, my daughter, look, but touch not!'

"She obeyed, and withdrew her hand, but reluctantly; for her fingers itched severely--as what young woman's would not, under similar circ.u.mstances. _Vide_ the Apple and Eve--by means of which, man fell--but fell _up-hill_ nevertheless! A great trait is this curiosity.

It is woman's nature; it is her great prerogative! Eve looked into matters and things generally, induced Adam to follow her example, and thus was the main lever that lifted the race out of Barbarism, and into civilization and decency. So much for this much-abused 'Female curiosity.' But for it, man had remained a brute. With it, he has risen to a position a long way below the angels, to be sure, but then he is 'Coming Up.'

"The twain now began to gaze steadily at the magic globe, maintaining perfect silence for the s.p.a.ce of ten minutes. All was still, hushed, silent as the grave, and only the wild throbbings of the young girl's heart could be heard. Presently the crystal began to change, and to emit faint streams of pale light, which gradually became more p.r.o.nounced and distinct, until finally there was a most magnificent play of colors all over its surface. Presently the rich, effulgent scintillas, the concentric, iridescent flas.h.i.+ngs previously observed, ceased entirely, and in their stead the girl began to notice two very strange and extraordinary appearances, which, to her and to all save those who are familiar with such mysteries (and which, although nearly unknown in this country, are still quite common in the farther East), are totally unaccountable. In the first place, she became conscious that she was breathing an atmosphere highly charged with a subtle aura that manifestly emanated from the body of the crystal itself. This air was entirely different from that which floated in the grotto an hour before, when she entered with her offering, because it was unmistakably charged, and that, too, very heavily, with a powerful magnetic aura. I said 'magnetic;' I should have said 'magnetoid,' for whereas the former induces drowsy feeling and somnolence, the latter had a purely opposite effect, for it provoked wakefulness, and promoted greater and intensified vigilance on the part of both the woman and the man.

"In the second place, there came a remarkable change in the crystal itself; for, having lost its brilliant, diamond-like colors and interchanging rainbow spray, it now became decidedly opalescent, speedily pa.s.sing into the similitude of a ball of clear gla.s.s, with a disk of pearly opal transversely through its centre. Very soon even this changed, until it became like a dead-white wall, upon the surface of which the eye rested, without the power of penetration as before. Gazing steadily upon this opaque frame, the girl in a short time distinctly and perfectly beheld, slowly moving across that pearly s.h.i.+eld, as if instinct with life, numerous pet.i.te, but unmistakable _human figures_!--figures of men and women, tiny to the last degree, but absolutely perfect in outline and movement. And they moved hither and thither across the field of vision; she saw them moving through the streets of a city. A little closer!--'as I live, they are going up and down Bush street!'--an aristocratic thoroughfare in the great city known in this story as Santa Blarneeo. This fact she instantly recognized, with that strange and inexplicable anachronism peculiar to Dreams, and the still stranger inconsistency peculiar to dreamers and voyagers to the 'Summer Land.'

"Gradually these tiny figures appeared to enlarge, or rather, she saw them in such a perspective, that they looked like full-sized persons some little distance off. Even while she gazed, the crystal changed again, or rather, vanished from her perceptions altogether, the figures enlarged--approached, as it were--and she became a pa.s.sive spectator of a scene at that moment transpiring--but where? Certainly not in this world of ours, nor in Dream-land, nor in fancy's realms, nor in the home of souls you read about in the 'very funny' descriptions of 'Starnos and 'Cor,' nor in 'Guptarion,' nor around the 'Lakes of Mornia,' nor among the 'Pyramidalia,' nor in 'Saturn,' nor in any of the gloriously ridiculous localities imagined by A. J. Davis, and put forth by him in the delusive hope that any sane man or woman could be found green or fool enough to swallow. Few men better deserve the name of impostor than the author of 'Guptarion,' 'Mornia,' 'Foli,' 'Starnos,' 'Galen,' 'Magic Staffs,' 'Harm _only_--Man,' and ''Cor,'--not one of which has the least existence on the earth, under, or above or around it; but the true and exact location of which is on an extensive and very soft spot just above their author's ears, and the soft spots of his followers, for it is morally certain that no one with even an ordinary modic.u.m of--not sanity, but common sense, can, would or could accept his funny 'Philosophy?' as true.

"'Where, then, was the true locality of the scene that Betsey saw taking place?' you ask. And I answer, and I tell you, in nearly the words of the strange Hermit of the Silver Girdle, when explaining it to Betsey Clark: All these strange things are occurring, not in any sort of phantom-world, but in another material earth, quite as solid as this.

This crystal is a magic telescope through which we may view whatever we desire to, whether on this earth or off it.

"Listen! s.p.a.ce is by no means limitless, but is a globular or elliptical, definite region--the play-ground of the Powers--and is bounded on all sides by a thick amorphous Wall, of the materials of which new worlds and starry systems from time to time are fas.h.i.+oned.

This Wall is thicker, a million-fold, than the diameter of the entire menstruum wherein this universe is floating. Surrounding this universe, on all sides of this wall, are seven other universes, separated as is this, from all the others; and they all differ from our own and the rest, as differs a volcano from a sprig of rosemary--that is to say, utterly--totally. The material worlds of each of these other universes outnumber the sands of the desert, yet their number is precisely that of the one in which we live; but they are larger, for the earth that corresponds to, and bears the name of this of ours, is, in the smallest of the other universes, quite as bulky as the sun which gives us light, and the other solar bodies in proportion. The universe next higher is immeasurably larger than the one just alluded to. It has the same number of material worlds, and the earth corresponding to this of ours is as large as the solar system in which we are. That of the third is as large as the solar system of the second, and so on to the last of the series of seven; but not the last in fact, for outside of, and surrounding the entire seven, is another Wall, separating them from forty-nine other systems, in ascending grade. I cannot now give you any information respecting the sublime realities of these forty-nine, nor of the regions and realms STILL BEYOND; therefore I recall your attention to this world and sphere of being.

"On earth there are seven distinct cla.s.ses or orders of men: the INSTINCTUAL, AFFECTIONAL, INTELLECTUAL, INTUITIONAL, ASPIRING, INDIFFERENT, and WISE, to all of whom a different destiny is decreed.

Organizations determine destinies! Every nebul seen in the far-off heaven is a system of worlds. That wonderful family of stars to which our sun belongs is, with all its overflowing measure of star-dust, but a single cosmos; and there are myriads of such within the confines of this present universe, and before we cross the vast ocean of Ethylle, and reach the Wall alluded to. All things are in halves; male, female--negative, positive--light, dark, and so on. So is the nebul of worlds to which we belong. Now, remember what I have said of the resemblances between this earth and universe and the seven others beyond the Wall. Precisely such likenesses exist between the worlds of the respective halves of our own system.

"At various distances, flecking the vault, we behold suns and systems innumerable. These all belong to this, the female half of our system.

Beyond them lies a vast ocean of Ether, separating the Continents.

Across that Ocean, at a distance incomputable by the human intellect, is the male half of our system. There--there is a sun precisely as large, as brilliant, and as hot as ours--and no more so. Around that sun fiery comets whirl, planets revolve, and meteors flash, just as they do hitherward. There is a Venus, Mercury, Asteroids, Mars, Jupiter, and all the other planetary bodies, just as here, and of the same dimensions. A globe there is called Earth; it has a moon, an Atlantic, Pacific, Mediterranean, and other seas, exactly equivalent to ours. It has a California, a San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburg, just as here; and their names, as are those of its trees, countries, counties, town, people, capitals, are exactly as on this earth. There is a President Lincoln, and General Fremont; a Thurlow Weed, and Cullen Bryant; an Aga.s.siz, and Horace Greeley; Atlantic Monthly, and Harper's Magazine; a New York Mercury, an Independent, edited by Beecher, Tilton and Leavitt--and they deal the same as do their similitudes here. The streets and omnibuses are precisely as here; Wall street is as full of thieves, and contractors get fat off their country's gore as they do here. There is a Rebellion there, and Union Generals sell themselves to Treason just as here--while the men who could and would save the nation are left out in the cold, in spite of the Tribunes, Posts, and Times--all of which long since pointed out the road to Richmond and to victory--and were laughed at just as in our planet.

"In that far-distant world there is at this moment a steamer, 'Uncle Sam,' sailing across the Gulf of California, as at this moment we are, and on board of her there are just as many men and women as on this one, and their persons, names, habits, features, motives, hopes, fears, characters, secrets, and intellectual and moral natures, are precisely the same as our own, on board this s.h.i.+p. Our namesakes there are at this instant doing, thinking, acting, reading, as are we; and some of them are listening to a very strange story, and its still stranger episodes, told by a Rosicrucian--just such a personage as myself--indeed my Very Self--in the self-same form and feature. And I say, and I tell you, that the _alter ego_--the living portrait of each man and woman in this circle, is thinking of him or herself, and of me and my revelations, at this moment, with the same stupid levity, with the same deep and awful impression of their truth, in the same manner, whatever it be, as are all of you at this moment. And some there, as here, set me and my story at naught--stigmatize me as an enthusiast or dreaming poet, as do some of you. Others believe my truths. You have heard that coming events cast their shadows before them, and that Prophecy has been demonstrated true.

Behold the solution of the world-enigma. Events transpire in that other world a trifle sooner than they do here; yet you must remember that there is a vast interval of s.p.a.ce, and therefore time, that must be bridged by even that swift courier, Sympathy. According as a man there, and his counterpart here, are fine, aspiring, and spiritual-minded, so is their _rapport_ across the awful gulf; and the male half, the more perfect portion of each man or woman's self, very frequently telegraphs the other, often a long time before the event becomes actualized on this earth. You have heard of Fays and Fairies. Listen, and learn the truth concerning them: Remembering that no human soul can by any possibility quit the confines of this universe until it has exhausted the whole of its, the universe's, resources, and has attained _all_ of Love, Will, Majesty, Power, Wisdom and Dignity, that this vast cosmos can give it; after which it sleeps awhile, but will awake again to the exercise of Creative Energy, on the thither side of the Wall--both duplicates sleep at once; for, after their deaths on the material earths, they exist apart, but sustain the same relations, in certain aromal worlds attached to their respective primary homes. At the final deaths, they blend forever, their stature is increased, and they enter, through the Wall, that earth resembling the one whereon the double unit had its birth _originally_.

"You have heard of Metempsychosis, Transmigration, of Reincarnation, and of Progress. Listen, and learn more: Not only the inhabitants of the countless myriads of worlds in this material _and aromal_ universe, but also the material and aromal worlds themselves, are in a constant state of progressive movement. By aromal worlds I mean the arial globes that attend each planet. They are places where souls rest awhile after death, before they commence in earnest the second stage of their career; and this state is an intermediate one, just like sleep, only that they are conscious and active while there; but it is an activity and consciousness, not like, but a.n.a.logous to that of Dream. Every world, and a.s.semblage of worlds, is periodically reduced, by exhaustion, but at enormously long intervals, into Chaos, and is then reformed, or created anew, still, however, being the same world. After this pa.s.sage, each system and world becomes vastly more perfect than before; but, owing to the diminished quant.i.ty of Spirit or essence which has been consumed in giving birth to hosts of immortal armies, each system and world is vastly smaller than before. This is for two reasons, one of which I have just stated; the other is, in order to make room for new cosmi, and new worlds, both of which are being constantly created from the material of the Wall; and the Wall itself is the condensed effluence of the Maker--in short, it is G.o.d-Od, and therefore inexhaustible. The majority of those who have lived on any world are re-born in it after its rest.i.tution, they, in the meantime, having grown correspondingly clean and perfect. The same relative proportions between a world and its occupants is still preserved, and never varies; and, consequently, the six-foot man and the five-foot woman of one career, find themselves, in their next state, occupying five and four-foot bodies respectively. The present is our thirty-fourth Incarnation. Originally we were taller than many of our present trees, and coa.r.s.er than our mountains. We are smaller and better than ever before, and our worst man is better than the best of the preceding state. The worst, in the next change, will be better than our best.[2] To ill.u.s.trate, let me say, that the following persons, viz.: Thurlow W----, Abraham L----, Russel L----, J. Gordon B----, Henry J. R----, Wm. Cullen B----, Jefferson D----, John G.

Fre----, James Buch----, Wigfall, Charles Sum----, Horace G----, Fernando W----, George B. Mc----, Gen. J. H--k--r, Dr. H. F. G--d--r, Charles T--n--s, Lizzie D---- and myself, respectively, were, previously to the last change: the first, a feudal lord; the second, an editor; the third, a Danish prince; the fourth, a court-jester; the fifth, a missionary; the sixth, a _generalissimo_; the seventh, a harpist; the eighth, a theatrical manager; the ninth, a knife-grinder; the tenth, a privateer; the eleventh, a preacher; the twelfth, a schoolmaster; the thirteenth, a trumpeter; the fourteenth, a politician; the fifteenth, a hunter; the sixteenth, a very little boy, died exceedingly young; the seventeenth, an emperor; the eighteenth, a born queen; and the last, a barber's clerk; so that it is evident, that though our progress is slow, still that we are 'Coming up.' Little as our actual worth may be, still we are better now, generally speaking, than in the former stage. Thus, we will grow smaller at every change. Some worlds, and their dwellers, in this universe have thus decreased, and being sometimes seen by people here, have been called Fays or Fairies. The world has yet to undergo some thousands of these changes, until at last we become very small indeed, which will occur when conception is no longer possible in the universe, either in the vegetable or animal worlds; and then will occur the change and transference beyond the Wall.

[Footnote 2: Extremes meet. The sublime impinges on the ridiculous. The substance of the text--save only that I have changed the names--was put forth seriously as truth, by a recent British author. Here, of course, it is given for what it is worth, which may be _more than some imagine_.

Viewed in one light, these notions are almost as absurd as are the desperately-funny lucubrations of Andrew Jackson Davis, concerning what he calls the "Summer Land," which many people regard as true revelations of Man's _post-mortem_ life, when, in fact, they are monstrous abortions, devoid of even common sense, and are without one particle of truth from beginning to end.]

"Betsey Clark was beholding persons and events of that other world-half of this, our little staying-house, beholding things through that fairy lense--that beautiful magic crystal, through which the human eye can see, the human brain _sense_, things that have occurred, are occurring, or are to occur, upon the world-stage of this our life's theatre.

"It is an established fact that fools never dream! Wise people often do!

And those belonging to the latter category cannot have failed to notice that things, dates, persons, circ.u.mstances, and probabilities, are considerably mixed up, as a general thing, in dreams. Their anachronisms are especially remarkable and provoking, and indicate that time is of but little, if any, account, so far as the soul, _per se_, is concerned.

A dream of a minute often embraces the multifarious experience of a century. This instant you are hob-n.o.bbing with one of the pre-Adamite kings on the plateaus of eastern Asia, and in the next are taking wine with Pharaoh and Moses on the banks of the Nile; now you are delivering an oration before Alexander the Great, and in a jiffy find yourself stuffing ballots on Cornhill in an election for ward-constable; now you are contemporary with Sardanapalus or Thothmes III., and in half a second you are delivering a 'Spiritual Lecture' in Lamartine Hall, having paid fifty cents for the privilege of listening to your own 'Splendid and Overpowering Eloquence.' Taken together, dreams, like Complimentary Benefits, are queer concerns. Such was that of Betsey Clark; for at one moment of time she was a virgin girl, a wife, a widow, and a wife again. She recognized at once the facts of her girlhood, that she had carefully deposited one husband in a hole in the ground, and was in high hopes of performing the same kind office for a second--Mr.

Thomas W.

"Presently the view in the crystal faded away, and in its stead there came the appearance of a large and splendid atelier, containing numberless statues, in a more or less finished condition, standing on pedestals or in niches round the wall-sides. The sculptor was absent. It was evident at a glance that his images were not hewn of marble, but of some other material, which needed but a touch of fire to make them start up into life, liberty, and light. It was a man-factory--a place where people were carved out to order by a wonderful Artist, who had just opened business thereabouts and who, judging from appearances, was already in a fair line of patronage, and quite likely to do well, if not better.

"Standing near the centre of the apartment, propped up with bits of wood, Betsey saw the exact likeness, in all respects, of Mr. Thomas Clark--but the figure was unfinished--soft, puttyish, and doughy as a Northern Politician.

"This statue stood semi-erect, and strongly suggested an invalid kitten, leaning on a hot brick; or, a modern philosopher of the spread-eagle and Progressive school, when the contributions are small. The figure was labelled 'Tom Clark, as he was;' that is to say, soft, ductile, capable of being moulded into the Ruffian or the Man. Directly beside it was another statue, closely resembling the other in many points, but yet different. It was labelled 'Tom Clark, as he is!' that is to say, it looked as if abundantly capable of feeding on tenpenny nails, dining on files, and supping upon pigs of iron. It looked, for all the world, as if the greatest possible favor that could be done for it, would be to tread on the tail of its coat, or knock a chip off its shoulder, or as if its supreme delight would be to be permitted to wrap itself in a star-spangled banner; move across the room in three strides and a straddle; fire off two horse-pistols, and die like a son of a--gun, after having exercised a special penchant for divorced women--separating wives from their husbands, for the sake of position, wealth, beauty and pa.s.sion. It looked as if it was troubled about stealing rain-producing theories--not for stealing, but for being caught at it. It looked as if its heart was breaking, because it had not brains enough to be a Pantarch--or the tenth-part of one. It looked as if its heart would burst with envy, because other men had friends, and power, and applause, and merit, in spite of _its_ little, perked-up, seven-by-nine, skull-cracked soul--poor cambric, needle-eyed soul, twelve hundred and eighty trillions to the half ounce. It looked, for all the world, as Tom really did the very last time he came home, just before they lay down upon their couch, in the little chamber in which was the little window, whose upper sash was down--that is to say, short, crusty, crisp, and meaner than 'git;' as he felt before they both lay down, and dreamed such 'very funny' dreams--mean, despicable, iron-hearted Tom Clark, the plague of her life, bane of her existence, and source of all her troubles. So at least it seemed to the lady in her curious vision.

Presently both these figures slowly faded from her sight, and in their stead there arose through the floor a third figure, labelled, '_Tom Clark, as he may be_.' While she was admiring the vast superiority, in all respects, of this new statue, a fourth human figure entered the atelier; this figure was alive, and, _mirabile dictu!_ the woman beheld the exact counterpart of--_herself!_--clad as a working artist--a sculptor, with ap.r.o.n, paper-cap, and dusty clothing, all complete, as if she had just left chiselling the dead marble. This lemur of herself appeared deeply gratified at the appearance of the statue; for, after surveying it awhile, she proceeded to arm herself with a flame-tipped baton, wherewith she touched the figure in various places, but mainly on the head, and over the region of the heart. The effect of these touches of flame was to make the figure move; and, in five minutes the dead ma.s.s was warm with life, vitality and genius--for the phantom-artiste appeared to endow the figure with a portion of her own life; and a closer inspection revealed the curious fact that the flame at the end of the staff--which was hollow--was fed from a deep well of subtle, fine and inflammable ether in her own heart.

"The statue lived. It was Tom Clark, and no mistake; but Heaven! what a change!--what a difference between the actual and the ideal man! His features fairly blazed with the fires of Genius and Ambition; and they beamed like a sun, with Friends.h.i.+p, Intelligence, Truth and Manhood--they all held high court in his soul, and radiated from his inspired features; his very presence charged the air with Mind, though his lips spoke never a word, breathed never a syllable. And now Betsey heard her _alter ego_ speak; and it said to the living statue: 'Rise, Tom Clark; rise, and be a Man--be yourself. Rise!' And it rose; stepped from the pedestal, erected its head--and such a head!--while she, the phantom artiste, with careful tread, and anxiously holding her nether lip between her teeth, slowly retreated backward from the room, quitting it through the door by which she had entered a little while before. She was followed majestically by the statue, which moved with power and grace, as if charged to the brim by G.o.d's Galvanic Batteries.

"Scarcely had the two phantoms left the room, than the woman on the stool--the real Betsey Clark--followed their example with a sudden bound, exclaiming, as she did so, despite the warning of the Hermit of the Silver Girdle (for whom at that moment she didn't care;--not even a piece of a fig), 'My _husband_! _my_ husband!' Human nature, especially woman nature, could stand the pressure no longer. She felt and acted _as_ she felt--as every woman has, since the year ONE--and will, until Time and Eternity both grow grey. '_My husband!_' there spake the woman.

In an instant the Hermit of the Silver Girdle was in a very great and unprecedented fl.u.s.ter.

"'Silly girl! didn't I tell you not to speak? Only look! see how you have gone and done it!--done _me_! Oh, dear! if I warn't a Rosicrucian, I'd get excessively angry, Dorg on it, if I wouldn't!' and in his trouble, he p.r.o.nounced 'dog,' with an _r_. Commend me to a female for upsetting the best calculation of the wisest Rosicrucian that ever lived. I speak from experience.

"'I told you not to open your lips, and here you've gone and spoken right out! What's the consequence?' exclaimed the venerable grey-beard.

'Why, the spell is broken--the charm fled--nor can either be recalled before the sun has set and rose again, and once more declined toward the western sea. Familiar as I am with the secrets of Gal and the mysteries of magic crystals, I know that you have done very wrong; for no one is fit to consult Destiny by their aid who is not competent to keep silence for an hour, no matter what the temptation or provocation to break it may be. Now hie thee homeward. To-morrow thou mayest return again, provided thou wilt obey me, and speak not a syllable while the phantasmal game of Fate is being played before thine eyes.'

"The Hermit of the Silver Girdle had spoken truly; for at the very first movement of her lips, the whole scene of enchantment vanished into thin air, leaving only a three-cornered table and a little glossy-looking ball behind.

"To depict her chagrin and disappointment at this abrupt termination of a very strange affair, is a task totally beyond my capacities. She bounced out of the grotto in a miff, tossing her pretty head in a manner peculiarly adapted to play the very Old Scratch with the soft and susceptible heads and hearts of the male 'sect'--especially their heads; but she had no idea of abandoning the adventure at that point--not she; but was fully resolved to see it out next day, even if she bit her tongue in two, in the endeavor to keep still. Warriors, statesmen, philosophers, and well-read men can comprehend the sublimity of her resolution, because they know that of all earthly tasks, the one a.s.signed herself was the greatest, most heroic, and one compared to which the twelve labors of the Greek G.o.d were mere child's pastime. At all events, to keep perfectly silent she would certainly--'Try,' said a voice, right beside her ear! She started, attributing the circ.u.mstance to mere fancy; but again the magic word was, by unseen lips, gently, softly whispered in her ear. 'Try,' it said--and the word went echoing through her very soul. Whence came the voice? Who was it--what was it that spoke? Certainly not herself, nor the Hermit. When was it, where was it, that she had heard that voice and word before? When, how, where had it made so deep an impression on her mind? Was it in a dream? Who can tell? she could not. My hearers, can you?

"Next morning, bright and early, the young girl returned once more to the grotto of the Hermit of the Silver Girdle, who dwelt on the shady borders of a forest wild. An hour or two elapsed in friendly converse and admonition; and now again behold the dissimilar twain once more seated silently before the little table, on which glittered, as before, the rare, pearl-disked, magic, wonder-working crystal globe. Again, as before, the glorious play of colors came and went. Again it faded, and she saw the atelier, the artiste, and the artiste's living statue; but this time Betsey could look right through its body, as if it were made of finely-polished gla.s.s. Tom Clark stood before her. She saw and comprehended him on all sides--soul, spirit, body; and though she was neither a strong-minded woman, a lecturess on philosophy, 'The good time coming,' nor 'Woman's sacred and delicate work,'--and though she knew but little of the human organism, beyond a few familiar commonplaces--yet she comprehended enough of the glorious mystery before her to be aware that the red, pulsing lump just beneath its throat was technically known and considered as the heart; and she couldn't help admiring its wonderful and mighty mechanism; its curious movements, mystical arrangements of parts, and adaptation of means to ends; its auricles, valves, and veins; its ventricles, and its pump--tapping the well of life, and forcing its water through a million yards of hose, plentifully irrigating the loftiest gardens of man's body, and hence, of his imperishable soul. The inspection was almost too much for the girl, who had liked to have screamed out her wonderment and delight; but having made up her mind to keep still this time, she, by dint of much handkerchief and tongue-biting, succeeded, to the eternal credit of herself--or any other woman!

"'That which you see,' said the Hermit, who of course had the privilege of talking as he pleased, 'is a man's heart, in full play. It is, as you perceive, filled with blood, whose office is to give life to the body and vigor to the mind. But the heart has other chambers than those containing the venous and arterial fluids; for all its walls and valves contain innumerable small cells; and these cells secrete and contain certain ariform fluids far more potential than blood, and which subserve the ends of a higher and far more wonderful economy. There are two kinds of blood; so also are there two kinds of the subtle fluid I have mentioned: one sort is born with us, and we come into the world with exactly one half of these cells full, while the other half are entirely empty; and so they must remain until they are filled from the heart of some one else. Males are born with the cells of the left side empty, females with those of the right unfilled, while the other cells of each are always full. These fluids are real, actual, perceptible, but imponderable. Their name is Love; and when things take their proper and natural course, the fluid flows out from the cells of a woman's heart into the empty ones of a man's; and the full cells of a man's heart fill the empty ones of a woman's, in which case they are said to "love each other." Two men cannot thus love; nor can two females. Many of either s.e.x travel from the cradle to the grave without either filling, or being filled in turn; for it is a law that love cannot flow unless it be tapped by the opposite party; and it can only be tapped by KINDNESS, GENTLENESS, RESPECT--these three! The unloved and unloving are only half men and half women--and, believe me, my child, there's a mighty sight of Halfness in this world of ours! Much of it comes of not Trying to have it otherwise. People--married people, especially--devote half their days to growling because they have not got somebody else's wife or husband, when the fact is that their own partners are quite good enough--as they would find out with a little proper endeavor. Men expect a woman's love to bubble up all the time. Fools! why don't they sound its depth, and _bring it to the surface_? There are altogether too many divorces--a divorce first, and the next step--is dangerous. I knew a wife of three divorces; I knew a man the husband of two consecutive divorcees. Good intentions! Bah! h.e.l.l is paved with such. I know of fifty broken-hearted women whose husbands, after wearing them out, sneaked off to Indiana and robbed them of name, fame, life, and hope;--the demons! Out upon the wretches! The woman who has wasted her youth and bloom upon a man who then wants a divorce, and permits him to obtain it, is a fool. He promised for life. Make him keep it, even if you invoke the law's strong arm. If both agree, that alters the case. I have a legal acquaintance in New York who drives a large trade in the divorce line, at twenty-five dollars a head. I feel called upon to expose the infernal methods by means of which it is done, and I call upon the Legislature to see to it that the thing is not suffered to go on. A. is a lawyer; B. and C. are husband and wife. B. wants a "divorce without publicity;" goes to A. and pays a fee to secure it, but has no legal quibble by means of which to obtain it. A. gives him the following counsel: "Go to a brothel, take up with an inmate thereof; call her D.; make three or four male and female acquaintances (E., F., G., and H.), introduce them to D. as your wife; leave town a day or two, but take care that D. is well watched in the interim. Of course she will avail herself of your absence to ply her vocation. E., F., G., and H. furnish the most incontestable and d.a.m.ning proof of her supposed guilt. The witnesses may or may not know your precious scheme. You prosecute the leman under your wife's name--she, of course, knowing nothing about the proceedings--poor thing! The court takes the evidence, hands it over to a referee, who pa.s.ses on it; returns it, affirmed, to the court, which forthwith enters a decree of perpetual divorce. A scoundrel goes unwhipped of justice, and an honest woman's reputation is forever d.a.m.ned!