CHAPTER XIX.THE JOYS.
“Why went that young life outOn honor’s perilous road?The carping tongue and the jealous mindStay 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 notknowthat 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 weknowthatwe 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 childrendied, 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 youWhich once we called you—A robe all transparent and brightenedWith 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 inthe 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 isthat 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 utteredplaints.” 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.