PART V.

"'With her tacks and sheets, and her bowlines, too,And colors flying—red, white, and blue,'

She was once more ready to dare and do for husband number three. To do her justice, shewasgood-looking—all women are, when they choose to be. Her face was fair and intelligent; she possessed a voluptuous degree of what Monsieur de Fillagre calls 'om-bong-pong' (embonpoint), could sing—at a mark; and if not O fat! wasau fait—a little of both, perhaps—on the light, fantastic toe—of the California Order; while as an invaluable addition, there was no woman on the coast who could equal her in getting up either linen, a dinner, or a quarrel. She excelled all rivals in the really divine art of cooking a husband—beefsteak, I mean. Her pastry and bread were excellent, her tea was fine, and her coffee was all that man could wish, and more so, for it was good—perfectly killing—as we have seen.

"Betsey took matters coolly; was in no apparent hurry, for she had resolved to shoot only at high game, and, accordingly, after a time, deigned to smile upon the Reverend Doctor Dryasdust, the honored head of the new sect recently sprung up in the land, and which was known as the 'Wotcher Kawlums,' and who rejoiced in repudiating everything over five years old in the shape of doctrine, tenet and discipline, but who went in strongly for Progress and pantaloons—for women; for Honduras and thenakedtruth; for Socialism and sugar estates; mahogany and horticulture—a patent sort.

"Now, the pastor of this promising body felt that it was not good for man to be alone, and therefore cast about for a rib whereof to have fashioned a help meet unto him. He saw the widow, fell in love, proposed, was accepted, and in due time she became the wife of the Newlight preacher. I like the old lights best; she didn't.

"Betsey achieved a 'position'—a thing for which her sex almost proverbially sacrifice all they have on earth—happiness, health, long life, usefulness. She enjoyed herself quite well, and only two things disturbed her peace of mind: First, she could not bear the smell or sight of coffee, which drink her new lord was strongly addicted to, and insisted on her making for him with her own hands; thereby inflicting daily tortures upon her, compared to which all physical pain was pleasure. The second disturbing cause was this: by a very strange fatality their house was overrun with rats, and their garden fairly swarmed with gophers—which, with infernal malice and pertinacity, became quite tame, semi-domesticated, and intruded themselves upon her notice a dozen times a day, thereby fetching up from memory's storehouse fearful reminiscences of other days—horrible recollections of the gophers of the long-agone. It is hard to be weaned of your fears; nevertheless, after a while she conquered herself, brazened down her horrors, weighed herself, applied a false logic, tried herself by it, and returned a clear verdict of 'Justifiable all the way,' and concluded that her present happiness, what there was of it, fairly outweighed the crime by which it had been reached. She was materially justified in her conclusions by an accidental development of character on the part of her present husband, who had, in a fit of petulance, unfolded a leaf from the inner volume of the soul within.

"Not caring to recapitulate the whole story (for reticence is sometimes wisdom), I will merely observe that at the end of a somewhat heated controversy, her husband had smashed a mirror, with one of Webster's quarto dictionaries, and roundly declared that he 'preached for pay. Hang it, Madame, the salary's the thing!—youBet! How can souls be saved without a salary? That's a plain question. They are not now, at all events, whatever may have been the case with the Old Lights, who had a great deal more zeal than discretion—more fools they! It can't be done in these days of high prices and costly raiment—with the obligation of feeding well and dressing better. What's life without money? What's talent without brass? What's genius without gold? They won't pay! No, no, Madame; in the game of life, diamonds are always trumps, and hearts are bound to lose. What's the result?

"'Listen! Five years ago, up in the mountains, I thought I had a call. I did, and went—and preached the new doctrines of Do-as-you-feel-a-mind-to-provided-you-don't-get-catched-at-it-ism—the regular out and out All-Right-ite-provided-you-don't-tread-on-my-corns religion. Well, I preached it, had large houses, converted many—and nearly starved! What's the consequence? Why, I left, and now hear only the loudest kind of calls! What's the loudest call? Why, the biggest salary! that's what's the matter! Do you see the point—the place where the laugh comes in? It's as plain as A B C to me, or any other man! and all the rest is leather and prunella—stuff, fudge—Hum!'

"Honest, out-spoken Dryasdust! How many of the world's teachers sail in the same boat! His eloquence—not all false, perhaps—was not lost upon his wife. The Dryasdusts are not all dead; there's a few more left of the same sort—only they keep their own counsel, even from their wives. New Lights!

"As a result of this conversation, Madame became a sort of cross between an Atheist and—God knows what; for she was neither one thing nor 'tother, but a sort of pseudo-philosophical nondescript, without any set principle of belief whatever. Her conscience froze.

"'Who knoweth the spirit of a man that it goeth upward, or of a beast that it goeth downward? The Spiritualists?—a pack of fanatics! I don't believe in ghosts'—but she shuddered as she gave utterance to the words, and her hair crawled upon her head as if touched with spectral fingers. No man disbelieves his immortality—the thing is impossible,per se; for although he may differ with that class of people who pretend to very extensive ghostly acquaintanceship and commerce, as many do—yet he doubtless always whistles as he passes a graveyard in the night! I certainly do! Why? Because I disbelieve in ghosts!—of course.

"She resumed her soliloquy: 'I'm nervous—that's all! I mean to eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow I die—DIE!What of it—isn't Death an eternal sleep? My husband says that it is, to all except the New Lights; but he's a fool, in some things, that's certain.... And after death theJudgement!' And she shuddered again, for a cold wind passed by her, and she thought it best to light two more candles and run her fingers over the piano, and take a glass of Sainsevain's best Angelica. 'Bah! who knows anything about a judgment? There's no such thing. He's dead. What of it? He can't talk! If he could, what of it? Ghosts can't testify in court! Besides, it was to be—and it's done. Fate is responsible, not I—

"'In spite of Reason, erring Reason's spite,One truth is clear, Whateverisis right.'

"'Tom was to die. The conditions that surrounded him were just such as had determined the results that followed. I was but the proxy of eternal Fate. Am I to blame? Certainlynot, for I acted in precise accordance with the conditions that surrounded me—that made me do as I did—tempted me beyond my strength; and, for that reason, the crime, if crime it be, was a foregone conclusion from the foundation of the world! Hereafter?

"'Come from the grave to-morrow with that story,And I may take some softer path to glory.'

"'Parrhasius was a true philosopher—or Willis. Pshaw! I guess I'll take another drop of Angelica!'

"Poor Betsey! she had been reading Pope and Leibnitz, and Ben Blood—bad, worse and worst, unfairly interpreted; good, better and best, rightly understood—and as the respective writers probably meant. Weak people read a book as children do Swift's Gulliver—on the surface; others read the great book whose letters are suns, whose words are starry systems, in the self-same manner; and there is still a greater volume—the first edition, to be continued—the Human Soul—which they never read at all. All of these must go to school; they will graduate by-and-by, when Death turns over a new leaf. It is best to study now—there may not be so good a chance presently.

"Betsey Clark believed, or thought she did, that because God made all things, therefore there could be no wrong in all the world. She accepted Pope's conclusions literally, misread them, and totally overlooked the sublime teachings of the third author named; and her mind went to rest, and her conscience slumbered under the sophisms—for such they are, from one point of view. The opiate acted well. And so she slept for years—long years of peace, wealth, all the world could give her—slept in the belief that there would never be a waking. Was she right? Wait. Let us see.

"We are still in the little chamber, near the window—the little window at the foot of the bed—whose upper sash was down."

"And now the Shadow—the terrible, monstrous Thing, that had so strangely entered the room through the window—the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down—hovered no longer over the heads of the woman and the man—the unhappy woman, the misery-laden man, who, when the last sun had set, went to bed with Murder and Revenge—and Hatred—this wretched couple, who had contemplated such dreadful crimes, and who, within the past two hours, had had such strange and marvellous dreams! Only two hours! and yet in that space had been crowded the events of a lifetime. They say there are no miracles! What, then, is this? What are these strange experiences of soul which we are constantly having—fifty years compressed in an hour of ordinary Dream!—thirty thousand ages in a moment of time, while under the accursed spells of Hasheesh? The soul flying back over unnumbered centuries; scanning the totality of the Present, and grasping a myriad Futurities—sweeping the vortex of unborn epochs by the million!—and all in an instant of the clock, while under the influence of the still more accursed Muust. What are the frogs and bloody waves of Egypt, compared to these miracles of the human soul—these Dream-lives that are not Dreams?

"And so the Thing took the glare of its horrible Eye from off the woman and the man. Its mission—its temptations were over. And it floated from off the bed, frown-smiling at Hesperina as it did so; and it passed lazily, gloomily, scowlingly through the window at the foot of the bed, through which it had a little previously entered; and it moved through the starlight with a rush and a roar—a sullen rush and roar—as if each star-beam stabbed it with a dagger of flame; and the Thing seemed consciously angry, and it sullenly roared, as doth the wintry blast through the tattered sails of a storm-tossed bark, toilsomely laboring thro' the angry deep: a minute passed, and IT was gone; thank God! IT was gone—at last—that horrible Incubus—that most fearful Thing!

"Simultaneously the sleepers evinced by their movements that their souls, if not their senses, had been relieved by the presence of its absence; and they were apparently on the point of waking, but were prevented by the magic, or magnetic action of the angelic figure at that moment leaning o'er their couch; for she gently, soothingly waved her snowy hands, and, in a voice sweeter than the tones of love, whispered: 'Sleep on; still sleep—softly—sweetly sleep—and dream. Peace, troubled hearts! Peace; be still!' and they slumbered on.

"Tom Clark's dream had changed. All the former troubled and exciting scene had vanished into thin air, leaving only vague, dim memories behind, to remind his soul of what it had been, and what it had seen and suffered. In the former dream he had been on dry, solid land; but now all this was strangely altered, and he found himself tossed on a rough, tumultuous sea; his lot was cast upon the deep—upon a wild and dreary waste of waters. In his dream the rain—great round and heavy drops of rain—fell in torrents; the mad winds and driving sleet—for the rain froze as it fell—raved and roared fiercely, fitfully; and the good ship bent and bellied to the hurricane, and she groaned as if loath to give up the ghost. And she drove before the blast, and she plunged headlong into the foaming billows, and ever and anon shook her head—brave ship! as if she knew that ruin was before her, and had determined to meet it as a good ship should—bravely, fairly in the face.

"I have yet to disbelieve that every perfect work of man—ship, watch, engine—has a semi-conscious life of its own—a life derived from the immortal soul that gave its idea birth—for all these things—these ships, watches, engines, are ideas, spiritual, subtle, invisible, till man hides their nakedness with wood, iron, steel, brass—the fig-leaves of the Ideal World. Some people cannot feel an idea, or be introduced to one, unless it be dressed up in matter. Sometimes we lay it on paper or canvas, and draw pencil lines around, or color it, and then it can be seen; else we take one and plant it out of doors, and then put brick and iron, marble and glass sides to it, rendering the spirit visible, and then the people see the Idea's Clothing, and fancy they behold the thing itself, just as others, when looking at a human body, imagine they behold the man, the woman, or the child. A mistake! None but God ever yet beheld a human Soul, and this it is, and not the body or its accidents, that constitutes the Ego.

"And the ship surged through the boiling seas, and her timbers strained and cracked in the combat, and her cordage shrieked as the blast tore through, and the tattered sails cried, almost humanly—like a man whose heart is breaking because his wife loves him not, and all the world for him is robed in mourning—and they cried, as if in deadly fear they were craving mercy at the Storm-King's hands. He heard the cries, but he laughed 'ho! ho!' and he laughed 'ha! ha!' and he tore away another sail and hurled it in the sea, laughing madly all the while; and he blew, and he rattled, and he roared in frightful glee; and he laughed 'ha! ha!' and he laughed 'ho! ho!' as the bridegroom laughs in triumph.

"And still the storm came down; and the yards bent before the gale, and then snapped asunder, like pipe-clay stems, and the billows leaped and dashed angrily at her sides, like a trained blood-hound at the throat of the mother, whose crime is being black—Chivalrous, well-trained blood-hounds! And the waves swept the decks of the bark—swept them clean, and whirled many a man into the weltering main, and sent their souls to heaven by water, and their bodies to the coral caves of Ocean. Poor Sailors! The Storm-King's spirit was roused, and his soul up in arms; and the angry waves danced attendance; the lightning held high revelry, and flashed its applause in the very face of heaven, and lit up the night with terrible, ghastly smiles; and the sullen growl of distant thunder was the only requiem over the dead upon that dismal deep.

"It was night. Day had long left the earth, and gone to renew his youth in his Western bath of fire—as we all must—for death is our West—and the gloomy eidolon had usurped Day's throne, arrayed in black garments, streaked with flaming red, boding no good, but only ill to all that breathed the upper air. And the turmoil woke the North, and summoned him to the wassail; and he leaped from his couch of snow, with icebergs for his pillow, and he stood erect upon his throne at the Pole, and he blew a triumphant, joyous blast, and sent ten thousand icy deaths to represent him at the grand, tempestuous revel. They came, and as the waters leaped into the rigging, they lashed them there with frost-fetters; and they loaded the fated ship with fantastic robes of pearly, heavy, glittering ice—loaded her down as sin loads down the transgressor.

"And still the noble ship wore on—still refused the bitter death. Enshrouded with massy sheets and clumps of ice, the good craft nearly toppled with the weight, or settled forever in the yawning deep; for despite her grand endeavors—her almost human will and resolution—her desperate efforts to save her precious freight of human souls—she nearly succumbed, and seemed ready to yield them to the briny waters below. Lashed to staunch timbers, the trembling remnant of the crew soon found out, while terror crowned their pallid brows, that the tornado was driving them right straight upon a rock-bound coast—foaming and hopeless for them, notwithstanding that from the summit of the bold cliffs, a light-house gleamed forth its eye coldly—cynically upon the night—in mockery lighting the way to watery death and ruin. Steadily, clearly it glimmered out upon the darkness, distinctly showing them the white froth at the foot of the cliff—the anger-foam of the demon of the storm. Ah, God! Have mercy! have mercy!

"Look yonder, at the stern of the ship! What frightful gorgon is that? You know not! Well, that is Death sitting on the taffrail. See, he moves about. Death is standing at the cabin door; he is gazing down below, looking up aloft, glaring out over the bleak, into the farther night. See! he is stalking about the deck—the icy deck—very slippery it is, and where you fall you die, for he has trodden on the spot. Ah, me! ah, me! Woe, woe, a terrible woe is here, Tom Clark! Tom Clark, don't you hear? Death stands glamoring on you! Hark! he is whistling in the rigging; he is swinging on the snapping ends of yonder loosened halliards; if they strike you you are dead, for they are Whips, and Death is snapping them! He is calling you, Tom Clark; don't you hear him?—calling from his throne, and his throne is the Tempest, Tom Clark—the Tempest. Now he is watching you—don't his glance trouble you? Don't you know that he is gazing down into your eyes? How cold is his glance! how colder his breath! It is very, very cold. Ah! I shiver as I think—and Death is freezing you, Tom Clark;—he is freezing your very heart, and turning your blood to ice. He is freezing you, and has tried to freeze me, in various ways. But I bade him stand back—to stay his breath—for, unlike you, Tom Clark, I am a Brother of the Rosie Cross, and I have been over Egypt, and Syria, and Turkey; on the borders of the Caspian, and Arabia's shores; over sterile steppes, and weltered through the Deserts—and all in search of the loftier knowledge of the Soul, that can only there be found; and I found what I sought, Tom Clark—the nature of the Soul, its destiny, and how it may be trained to any end or purpose. And the History and Mystery of Dream, Tom Clark, from the lips of the Oriental Dwellers in the Temple—and Pul Ali Beg—Tom Clark—our Persian Ramus and our lordly Chief—and I learned the worth of Will, and how to say, andmean,—'Iwillbe well, and not sick—alive, and not dead!' and achieve the purpose. How? That is our secret—the Rosicrucians'—strange order of men; living all along the ages,till they are ready to die—for Death comes only because man will not beat him back.They die through feebleness of will.But not so with us, Tom Clark; we leave not until our work is done, and mine is not yet finished. We exercise our power over others, too, but ever for their good. Well do I remember, how, when I lived in Charlestown, there was an old man dying, but I bade him live. He exists to-day. And long years before that, there reached me—lightning borne, on the banks of the Hudson, a message saying, 'Come, she is dying!' and I went, and stood beside the bed of the sick child, and I prayed, and I invoked the Adonim of the Upper Temple; and they came and bade her live. And she liveth yet—but how ungrateful!

"Till our work is done! What work? you ask me, and from over the steaming seas I answer, and I tell you through the boundless air that separates us: Our work is to help finish that begun lang syne upon the stony heights of Calvary; in the shade beneath the olive in Gethsemane, where I have stood and wept—begun when Time was thousands of years younger than to-day. Our work, Tom Clark, is to make men, by teaching them to make themselves. We strive to impress a sense upon the world of the priceless value of aMAN!

"And the vessel drove before the gale straight upon the cliff. All hope was at an end; all hope of rescue was dead. There was great sorrowing on board that fated bark. Heads were downcast, hearts beat wildly, ears drank in the mournful monody of the scene, and lo! the strong man lifted up his voice and wept aloud. Did you ever see a man in tears—tears tapped from his very soul? When they laugh at his misery, whose lives he has saved? When he discovers that the man he has loved as a brother, and for whom he has sacrificed his all during long years, was all the while a traitor and a foe, a mean and conscienceless traitor, and a secret, bitter Judas Iscariot, yet wearing a smile on his face continually? God grant you never may.

"The strong man wept! the very man, too, who, a few brief hours before, had heaped up curses, for trifling reasons, upon the heads of others; but now, in this hour of agony and mortal terror, fell upon his knees in the sublime presence of God's insulted majesty; who now, in the deadly peril, lashed to the pump, trembling to his soul's deep centre, cried aloud to Him for—Mercy! God's ears are never deaf! At that moment one of His Angels—Sandalphon—the Prayer-bearer, in passing by that way, chanced to behold the sublime and moving spectacle. And his eyes flashed gladness, even through his tears; and he could scarcely speak for the deep emotion that stirred his angel heart; but still he pointed with one hand at the prostrate penitent, and with the other he placed the golden trumpet to his lips, and blew a blast that woke the sleeping echoes throughout the vast Infinitudes; and he cried up, cried up from his very soul: 'Behold! he prayeth!' And the Silence of the upper courts of Heaven started into Sound at the glad announcement, 'Behold! he prayeth!' And the sentence was borne afar on the fleecy pinions of the Light, from Ashtoreth to Mazaroth, star echoing to star. And still the sound sped on, nor ceased its flight until it struck the pearly Gates of Glory—where was an Angel standing—the Recording Angel—writing in a Book; and, oh!howeagerly he penned the sentence, right opposite Tom Clark's name: 'Behold! he prayeth!' and the tears—great, hot, scalding tears, such as, at this moment, I am shedding—rolled out from the angel's eyes, so that he could scarcely see the book—mine own eyes are very dim—but still he wrote the words. God grant that he may write them opposite your name and mine—opposite everybody's, and everybody's son and daughter—oppositeALLour names!

"'Behold! he prayeth!' And lo! the Angels and the Cherubim, the Seraphs and the Antarphim, caught up the sound, and sung through the Dome; sung it till it was echoed back from Aidenn's golden walls, from the East to the West, and the North and South thereof; until it echoed back in low, melodious cadence from the Veiled Throne, on which sitteth in majesty the Adonai of Adonim, the peerless and ineffable Over Soul, the gracious Lord of both the Living and the Dead! Are there anyDead? No! except in sin and guiltiness!... And there was much joy in the Starry World over one sinner that had in very truth repented.

"And still the ship drove on, and on, and on—great heaven! right on to a shelving ledge of rock, where she was almost instantly dashed into a million fragments; masts, hull, sails, freight, men, all, all swept and whirled with relentless fury into one common gulf of waters; and yet, despite the din and roar, there rose upon the air, high and clear, and shrill:

"'The startling shriek—the bubbling cryOf one strong swimmer in his agony.'

"And that swimmer was Tom Clark. Thrice had he been thrown by the surf upon a jutting ledge of rock; thrice had he, with the strength of despair, clung to it, and seized upon the sea-weed growing on its edges, with all the energy of a drowning man. In vain; the relentless sea swept him off again, broke his hold, and whirled him back into the brine. His strength was almost gone; exhaustion was nigh at hand; and he floated, a helpless, nerveless mass at the mercy of the tide. And yet, so wonderful a thing is a human soul!—in that dreadful moment, when Hope herself was dead, and he was about to quit forever and forever this earth of sin and sorrow, and yet an earth so fair and bright, so lovely and so full of love, teeming so with all that is heroic and true, so friendly and so kind; his soul, even then, his precious and immortal soul, just pluming its wings for a flight to the far-off regions of the Living Dead—that soul for which God Himself had put forth all His redemptive energy—had abundant time to assert its great prerogative, and bid Death himself a haughty, stern defiance. With the speed of Light his mental vision flashed back along and over the valley of the dead years, and saw arrayed before it all the strange phasmaramas of the foretime. Deeds, Thoughts, and Intuitions never die! They are as immortal as the imperishable souls that give them life and being!

"And in that wondrous vision Tom Clark was young again; his childhood, youth, maturity; his sins, sorrows, virtues, and his aspirations, all, all were there, phototyped upon the walls of the mystic lane through which his soul was gazing—a lane not ten inches long, yet stretching away into the immeasurable deeps of a vast Infinitude. A Paradox! I am speaking of the Soul!—a thing whereof we talk so much, and know so very little.

"The spectres of all his hours were there, painted on the Wall of Memory's curved lane; his joys, his weary days of grief—few of the first, many of the latter—were there, like green and smiling oases, standing out in quick relief against the desert of his life. His anxious eyes became preternaturally acute, and seemed to take cognizance both of fact and cause—effect and principle at the same glance. His marriage life—even to its minutest circumstance—stood revealed before him. He saw Betsey as she had been—a girl, spotless, artless, intelligent, ambitious; beheld her married; then saw her as she was when she joined her lot with his own. He beheld her as she had become—anything but a true wife and woman, for only her surface had been reached by either husband. There was a fountain they had neither tapped nor known. Her heart had been touched, indeed; but her soul, never. He was amazed to find that a woman can give more than a husband is supposed to seek and find. More, did I say? My heaven! not one man in ten thousand can think of a line and plummet long enough to fathom the vast ocean of a woman's affection; cannot imagine the height and depths—the unfathomable riches of a woman's Love. Not a peculiar woman's—but any, every woman's love; your sister's, sir, or your wife's, sir, or mine, or anybody's sister or wife—anybody's daughter.

"It appeared to Clark's vision that a vast deal of his time had been worse than wasted, else had he devoted a portion of it to the attentive study of the woman whom he had, in the presence of God and man, sworn to love, honor, and protect; for no man is fit for Heaven who does not love his wife, and no man can love his wife unless he carefully studies her nature; and he cannot study her nature unless he renders himself lovable, and thus calls outherlove; and until her loveisthus called out, the office of husband is a suicidal sham. Thus saith the canons of the Rosicrucian philosophy. Are they bad?

"And he gazed in the depths of her spirit, surprised beyond measure to find that God had planted so many goodly flowers therein—even in virago Betsey's soul! And he said to himself—as many another husband will, before a hundred years roll by—'What a precious fool I've been! spending all my time in cultivating thistles—getting pricked and cursing them—when roses smell so very well, and are so easily raised? fool! I wish'——and he blamed his folly for not having nurtured roses—for not having duly cultivated the rich garden God had intrusted him with; execrated himself for not having cherished and nursed this garden, and availed himself of its golden, glorious fruitage. It was as a man who had willfully left down the bars for the free entrance of his neighbor's cattle, and then wondering that his harvest of hay was not quite so heavy as desired.... Clark saw that it had been in his power—as it unquestionably is in that of every married man—by a few kind acts, a few tender, loving words, to have thawed and melted forever the ice collected by ill-usage—and every woman is ill-used who is not truly, purely, loyally loved! He saw that he might easily have warmed her spirit toward himself, therefore toward the world, and consequently toward the Giver. He might have made their life a constant summer-time—that very life that had been by his own short-sighted externalism, confirmed into freezing, stormy, chilling winter.

"Wheat and lentils I have seen in Egypt, taken from a mummy's hand, where they had lain three thousand and four hundred years. Some of that wheat I still possess; some of it I planted in a flower-pot, and it forthwith sprung up, green and beautiful, into life and excellence. The mummy's hand was crisp; the tombs of Beni-Hassan were not the places for wheat to grow, for they are very dry. Do you see the point, the place—the thing I am aiming at? It is to show that the ills of marriage life are to be corrected not by a recourse to law-courts and referees, but by each party resolutely trying to correct them in the heart, the head, the home. Another thing I aim at is to seal the lips—to strike to the earth the brawlers for Divorce—the breakers-up of families, who preach—or prate of—what they have neither brains to comprehend, nor manhood to appreciate—Marriage!

"Clark saw, in the soul of his wife, in an instant, that which takes me an hour to describe; for the soul sees faster than the hand can indite, or the lips utter. He beheld many a gem, pure and translucent as a crystal, shut up in the caverns of her nature; shut up, and barred from the light, all the while yearning for day. What seeds of good, what glorious wheat was there. The milk of human kindness had been changed to ice-froth—sour, and sugar-less, not fit to be tasted. Inestimable qualities had been left totally unregarded, until they were covered up, nearly choked out by noxious weeds. God plants excellent gardens, and it is man's express business to keep them and dress them, and just as surely as he neglects them, and leaves the bars down, or the gates open, just so surely along comes the Tare-sower, whether his name be 'Harmonial Philosopher,' 'All-Right' preacher, Tom, Harry, Dick, Devil—or something worse.

"Many good things, saw Tom, that might have been developed into Use and Beauty, that had, in fact, become frightfully coarse and abnormal; and all for want of a little Trying.

"'The saddest words of tongue or penAre these sad words:It might have been!'

"But that he was not kind, tractable, and confiding; and that he was the reverse of all this. Faults of his own—great and many; tremendous faults they were. He had been curt, short, sarcastic, selfish, exacting, petulant,offish, arbitrary, tyrannical, suspicious, peremptory—all of which are contained in the one wordMEAN!—and hewasmean. Too late he realized that he might have brought to the surface all the delicious, ripe sweets of her woman, and her human nature, instead of the cruel and the bitter. He saw, what every husband ought to see—but don't—that no woman can be truly known who is not truly loved!—and that, too, not with mere lip-homage, nor with nervous, muscular, demonstrative, show-love—for no female on the earth but will soon detect all such—and reckon you up accordingly—at your proper value—less than a straw! She demands true homage, right straight from the heart; from the bottom of the heart—whence springs the rightful homage due from man to woman—right straight from the heart—without deflection. Mind this. Give herthat, and ah, then,then, what a heaven is her presence! and what a fullness she returns! compound interest, a thousand-fold repeated!—a fullness of affection so great that God's love only exceedeth it!—a love so rich and vast, that man's soul can scarce contain the half thereof.This truth I know.This truth I tell, because it is such. You will bless me for it by-and-by, when I am Over the River—if not before—will bless and thank me—despite of what 'They say.' Remember that!

"Tom Clark was drowning, yet he realized all this. He regretted that he had treated his wife as if she were soulless, or a softer sort of man. He could have so managed as to have been all the world to Betsey—all the world, and something more and better, for there are leaves in wedlock's book which only those can turn and read who truly love each other. Marriage is, to some, a coarse brown paper volume, with rough binding, bad ink, and worse type, poorly composed, and badly adjusted, without a page corrected. It may be made a super-royal volume, on tinted paper, gilt-edged, clear type, and rich and durable covers, the whole constituting the History of two happy lives spent on Hymen Island: Profusely illustrated, in full tints, with scenes of Joy in all its phases. Price, TheTrying! Very cheap, don't you think so?

"He saw, as he floated there in the brine, that he had never done aught to call out his wife's affection, in which he resembled many another whiskered ninny, who insanely expect women to doat upon them merely because they happen to be married. Dolts! Not one in a host comprehends woman's nature; not one in two hosts will take the trouble to find it out; consequently, not one man in three hosts but goes down to the grave never having tasted life's best nectar—that of loving and being loved.

"'O Betsey, Betsey, I know younow!Whata stupid I have been, to be sure!'

"Profound ejaculation!

"'I've been an out-and-out fool!'

"Sublime discovery!

"Thus thought the dying man, in the dreadful hour of his destiny—that solemn hour wherein the soul refuses to be longer enslaved or deceived by the specious warp and woof of the sophistical robe it may have voluntarily worn through many a year, all the while believing it to be Truth, as some people do Davis' and Joe Smith's 'Philosophy.' It is not till a dose of Common Sense has caused us to eject from our moral stomachs the nice philosophical sweetmeats we have indulged in for years, until at last they have disturbed our digestion—sweets, very pleasant to the palate—like the 'All Right-ism' of the 'Hub of the Universe'—but which, like boarding-house hash, is very good in small quantities—seldom presented—and not permanently desirable—that we begin to have true and noble views of life, especially married life, its responsibilities and its truly royal joys and pleasures. Clark had reached this crisis, and in an instant the scales fell from his eyes—the same that blinds so many of us during the heyday and vigor of life.

"'If I could be spared, Betsey, I'd be a better man.'

"Bravo! Glorious Thomas Clark! Well said, even though the waters choke thine utterance.

"'I would. O wife, I begin to see your value, and what a treasure I have lost—lost—lost!'

"And the poor dying wretch struggled against the brine—struggled bravely, fiercely to keep off the salt death—the grim, scowling Death that had sat upon the taffrail; that had stalked about the deck, and stood at the cabin door; the same fearful Death that had whistled through the rigging, and ridden on the storm, and which had followed but had not yet touched him with his cold and icy sceptre."

Our entertainer ceased to speak, for the evening meal was nearly ready, and the golden sun was setting in the West, and he rose to his feet to enjoy the glowing scene. Never shall I forget the intense interest taken by those who listened to the tale—and doubtless these pages will fall in the hands of many who heard it reported from his own lips, on the quarter-deck of the steamer "Uncle Sam," during the voyage begun from San Francisco to Panama, on the twenty-first day of November, 1861. At first his auditors were about ten in number, but when he rose to look at the crimson glories of the sky, fifty people were raptly listening. We adjourned till the next day, when, as agreed upon the night before, we convened, and for some time awaited his appearance. At last he came, looking somewhat ill, for we were crossing the Gulf of California, and Boreas and Neptune had been elevating Robert, or in plainer English, "Kicking up a bobbery," all night long. We had at least a thousand passengers aboard, consisting of all sorts of people—sailors, soldiers, and divers trades and callings, and yet not one of us appreciated the blessing of the epigastrial disturbances—caused by the "bobbery" aforesaid. Many could successfully withstand any amount of qualms of conscience—but those of the stomach were quite a different thing altogether! and not a few of us experienced strong yearnings toward "New York," and many "reachings forth" went in that direction. Indeed the weather was so rough, that scarce one of us in the cabin fully enjoyed our breakfasts. As for me, I'm very fond of mush and molasses, but I reallycouldn'tpartake thereof on that occasion. No,sir! The gentleman from Africa who stood behind us at table to minister to our gustatory wants, found his office a perfect sinecure that morning; and both I and the Rosicrucian, in whose welfare that official took an especial interest—because, in a fit of enthusiasm, we had each given him four bits (ten dimes)—seemed to challenge his blandest pity and commiseration, for we both sat there, looking as if we had been specially sent for and couldn't go. The waiter—kind waiter!—discerned, by a wonderful instinct, that we didn't feel exactly "O fat," and he therefore, in dulcet tones, tried to persuade us to take a little coffee. Coffee! Only think of it! Just after Mrs. Thomas W. had poisoned her husband through that delectable medium. He suggested pork! "Pork, avaunt! We're sea-sick." "Beef." Just then I had a splendid proof of Psychological infiltration and transmission of thought; for my friend and I instantaneously received a strong impression—which we directly followed—to arise from our seats, go on deck, and look over the lee rail. Toward the trysting time, however, the sea smoothed its wrinkles, and the waters smiled again. Presently the expected one came, took his accustomed seat, and began the conclusion of

"There's a tide in the affairs of men, which,Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."Shakspeare.

"There's a tide in the affairs of men, which,Taken at the flood, leads on to fortune."

Shakspeare.

"There's a tide in the affairs of women, which,Taken at the flood, leads—God knows where."Byron.

"There's a tide in the affairs of women, which,Taken at the flood, leads—God knows where."

Byron.

"Neither do I! Last night, my friends, we left poor Tom in a desperate situation, from which it seems necessary that I should relieve him, but really without exactly knowing how—not feeling particularly well from the motion of the ship last night, it is not easy to think under such circumstances; still, believing as I do, in the sterling motto, Try, why, I will endeavor to gratify your curiosity, especially as I perceive we are honored with the presence of the ladies, and, for their sakes, if not for our own, I feel it incumbent to do something for him.

"Tom Clark had, by the waves, been already taken in, and by this time was nearly done for, so far as easy breathing was concerned. Slowly, but surely, his vision was fading away, and he felt that he was fast sinking into Night.

"'Deep the gulf that hides the dead—Long and dark the road they tread.'

That road he felt that he was rapidly going; for his senses were becoming numb, and a nauseant sensation proved that if he was not sea-sick, he was remarkably sick of the sea, even to the point of dissolution.

"All dying persons hear musical sounds: all dying persons see strange, fitful gleams of marvellous light, and so did Thomas Clark—low, sweet music and soft and pearly light it was, but while he drank it in, and under its influence was being reconciled to Death, there suddenly rose high and shrill above the midnight tempest, a loud and agonizing shriek—the wild, despairing, woeful shriek of a woman—and it was more shrill and piercing than the ziraleet of Egyptian dame or Persian houri; and it broke upon the ear of the perishing man, like a summons back to life and hope. Well and instantly did he recognize its tones. 'It must be—yet no!—still it can be no other thanherv-voice! It cannot be—and I am dy-ing!' and an angry wave dashed over him, drowning his utterance, and hurling his body, like a wisp of straw, high upon the ledge of rocks, whence the recoil, or undertow, was about to whirl it out again into the foaming waters, when it was prevented by a most wonderful piece of good fortune, which at that instant, intervened to save him, at what certainly was the most interesting and critical juncture of his entire earthly existence. Again that sharp voice rang out upon the storm, and a hand, small, soft, yet nerved with all a woman's desperate energy—desperate in Love! clutched him by the hair, and dragged—triumphantly dragged him to the hard and solid land, just over the ledge, on a winding path at the foot of the overhanging cliff. It was Betsey Clark's voice; it was Betsey Clark's hand; it was she who saved him; and thus he received a new lease of life at the hands of the very woman whom, in a former dream, he had sent so gaily sailing down the empty air—down through four hundred feet of unobstructed space—with boulders at the bottom—solid boulders of granite and quartz—gold-bearing quartz at that, and very rich, too, but still quite solid and considerably harder than was agreeable to either the woman, the buggy, or the horse, for not one of them was

'Soft as downy pillows are'—

not even Governor Downie's of California.

"It was, indeed, his wife's voice that he heard; it was she that rescued him from what, in very truth, was a most unfortunate pickle—orbrine—as you choose, orboth—but at all events one into which he would never have got had he not been far greener than a cucumber.

"In a dream strange things come to pass. And in strict accordance with the proprieties of that weird life and Realm—a life and Realm no less real than weird—Tom was speedily cared for, and emptied of the overplus of salt water he had involuntarily imbibed, while Mrs. Clark carefully attended upon him, and a score or two of good people busied themselves in saving all they could from the wreck. After this they all retreated to a comfortable mansion, situated on the summit of this cliff, in the regions of Dream, and there the following explanations took place: It appeared that Betsey had been on a visit to her uncle, who kept the light-house, and had for several days been on the look-out for the arrival of the vessel—the wrecked one—in which, some time previous, Tom had sailed on a voyage to Honey-Lu-Lu, the Bay of Fun-dee, or some other such place that vessels trade to. The ship had at last been descried, laboring in the midst of a violent storm, just before dark, and under such circumstances as rendered it positively certain that she would drive headlong upon the rocks at the foot of the very cliff on which the light-house stood.

"But by a singular coincidence, perfectly unaccountable anywhere else, save in Dream-land, Betsey Clark had learned to love Tom dearly, at the precise instant that he had discovered, and repented his own great error. At the instant that Tom had declared that, could he be spared, he would be a better man, she saw his deadly peril; the icicles began to melt around her heart—melt very fast—so that by the time she reached him her soul was in a glow of pure affection for the man she had until that moment hated. She now saw, with unmitigated astonishment, that, with all his faults, there was a mine of excellent goodness; that God had not made anything either perfect or imperfect; and that, after all was said or done, he was of priceless consequence and value to her.

"Human nature and woman nature are very remarkable institutions, especially the latter. We seldom value either a man or woman, until they are either dead or a long way off, and then—'Who'd a'thought it?'

"When Clark awoke from the gentle sleep into which he had fallen after the kind people had made him comfortable, he found his head pillowed on a bosom a great deal softer than down or Downie's—that of his loving and tender wife—for she was so now, and no mistake, in the full, true sense—A Wife!

"Tom Clark got well. He never grew rich, and never wanted to. He went to Santa Blarneeo, and had both their pictures taken in a single frame, on one canvas, and he hung it over the window in the little room—the little window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down.

"Years rolled by. Long did they live in the enjoyment of a domestic bliss too great for expression or description—a happiness unsullied by an unworthy thought, unstained by any blot; for it was full, pure, husbandly, wifely; and daily, hourly, did they bless and learn to love each other more.

"'Cease dreaming,' said Hesperina—the beautiful Hesperina, the Genius of the Garden and the Star—'cease thydreamof Perpetual Peace, and live to actualize it on thy way through the World! Cease dreaming, but awaken not. Remember the counsel of Otanethi, the radiant, Lord of the Temple, the Spirit of the Hour; and when thou wakest,TRYto be a nobler and a better man. Waken not yet, O frail and weak! but still sleep—sweetly, soundly sleep, yet awhile, and only wake to be a full, true, loving man, forgiving and forgiven!' And then the peerless being waved her hand over the prostrate woman, and, lo! her movements gave token that the strange and mighty magic was felt, and that she was swiftly passing the mystic Threshold of that sphere of new and marvellous activities where the Dream Fay reigns supreme."

At this point of the story, a lady, Mrs. V., invoked the narrator's attention, saying: "Thus far, sir, your story is an excellent one, and its moral is all that could be desired; yet how comes it that you, who so strongly deprecate all human hatreds and unkindness, are yet, in a measure, amenable to the very thing you decry? In the proem to the remarkable story you have been reciting, you have admitted that there was one man toward whom your soul felt bitter. Is this right? Is it just to yourself, your foe, the world, or God? Answer me!"

The Rosicrucian studied awhile, and then replied: "It isnotright or just, and yet it is very hard to forgive, much less to forget, a cool, deliberate injury, such as I suffered at the pen, and hand, and tongue of the man alluded to. It is hard to forget"——

"And still harder to forgive," said one of our company, a rather young-looking man, who had been one of the speaker's most attentive auditors. He spoke with much passion.

Said the Stranger: "It is hard to forgive or forget. Few people in the world are capable of long-continued love in a single direction, unless self-trained; fewer still of deliberate, long-continued hatred, and fewer still are competent to full, free, unqualified forgiveness.I am not.In all my experience, I never knew but one man in whom unqualified Hatred was a paramount King-passion, over-riding and surviving all others whatsoever. I will tell you that man's story as he told it to me, for he was a friend of mine whom I dearly loved, and who loved me in return. One day I asked him to open his heart to me, which, after a while, he did as follows, saying: 'Listen, while I briefly sketch the story of my life. There was a man who, because I differed with him on questions of Philosophy—for he claimed to be Nature's private secretary, which claim all sensible people laughed at, and only weaklings listened to and believed—he, this man, for this cause, called in question, not only my own, but the fair fame of the mother who bore me—that mother being already dead; and for this I hate him, as roses hate the foul malarious swamps of earth. The blazoned motto of that man was—Let no man call God his Father, who calls not man his brother. I rose in the world, and he hated me for the talent God gave me. Envy! I was in a sense his rival, and as such, this man, snake-like, used his very utmost influence and power, by tongue and pen, to injure me—and did—for he took the bread from my children by depriving me of employment. I wrote a pamphlet, under anom de plume, and he joyfully exposed my secret. Jealousy! He attacked me personally, grossly in his paper, misrepresented well known facts—LIED! Robbing me of fair fame, as he had my dead mother before me. It is impossible for A to forgive B for a crime against C. I hated him for the dead one's sake; that hate I once thought would survive my death, and be the thing next my heart through all the Eternities. Perhaps it will not. He crushed me for a time, but "Je renais de mes cendres!" We two are yet in the World. He will not forget it! Will I? Never!—for the sake of my dead mother. I can overlook his crimes toward me, but before the Bar I hold him ever accountable for the injury to her—and to my little ones, who nearly starved, while this fiend of hell, in the garb of heaven, triumphed inmymisery, and gloated overtheirwrongs. I am the watchful proxy—the rightful Nemesis, of the living and the Dead! I put forth books to the world. This demon in saint's garb, and his minions, howled them down as blood-hounds do the panting slave. More bread lost to my hungry ones, more stern calling for reprisals. All men have foes. I had; and this man—this impostor, this conscienceless outrager of the dead and starver of little children, listened gladly, and covertly published their statements—and that when he morally knew them to be as false as his own black, polygamous, scoundrel heart. More wrong done, more little pale hands reaching vainly forth for bread; and more hatred laid up for him and his minions at the bottom of my heart of hearts, the core and centre of my soul!'

"Thus he spake, and the man's eyes flashed fire as the words escaped him, proving that they were not the impulsive utterances of temper, but the deep and cherished results of long and bitter years of feeling. Said I: 'And does this feeling demand a physical atonement?' With a look of ineffable scorn, he replied: 'Not for an empire's sceptre would I harm a single hair of that man's head. Were his wife in a burning building, I would rescue her, or perish in the trial; were his children—but, thank God, he cannot propagate his species—Monsters never do!—but had he such, and they were hungry, I would work till I fell from exhaustion, in the effort to procure them bread: were the man himself in want or danger, I would joyously risk my life to save or serve him. Why? Because my revenge is one that could not be appeased by blood. It is too vast—too deep—and I will wreak it in other worlds, a myriad ages from now. To this I pledge my very soul; and when hereafter I point him to what I am, and what he has brought me to, I will thunder, in the ears of his spirit, in the very presence of the Judge, "Thou art the Man!" Wherever he may be, in the Vault, or in the Space, there will I be also. Nor can this feeling die before he shall undo his doing, and—no matter what. At length this feeling of mine grew strong. I loved. It drowned all love. I was ambitious, and ambition paled before it. I had wealth within my reach, and turned from the shining gold to the superior brilliance of the pole star of my passion against the soul of this man, not against his body. And then I said:—I will rise from my ashes. I will win fame and name. I, the Angular Character, will rise, and in my dealings with this fiend will be as remorseless and bitter as the quintessence of Hate; I will suffer patiently, and mount the steeps of fame, and I will ring the bells at the door of the world till all the peoples wake, and then,thenwill I launch him down the tide of time in his own true colors—stripped to the centre, and show him to the Ages for the monster that he is. This is a revenge worthy of an immortal being; one that merely extends to the physical person is such as brutes enjoy, but is not full, broad, deep and enduring enough for a man. As for his minions they are too contemptible to engage my attention for a moment; but in their master's soul will I fix my talons so deep, that an eternity shall not witness their extraction; and henceforth I dedicate all my life to the one purpose ofavenging the dead!'

"Five years rolled by after this recital, when again, in a foreign land, we met each other. In the meantime he had grown grey. His foe still attacked him; he had never once replied, but his hatred had crystallized in the centre of his soul, and, said he, 'I can wait a million years; but revenged I will be yet, by the Life of God!' That is my story; I believe my friend will keep his oath," said the young man as he turned from the company on the quarter-deck, and slowly walked toward the bow of the steamer.

The words he had spoken were bitter ones, and they were expressed with such averve—such a vehemence of vigor, intensity and passion, that not one man or woman on the quarter-deck of the steamer doubted for an instant that himself was the injured one, himself the vehement hater, notwithstanding his implied disclaimer. We saw that he fully, deeply, felt all he gave utterance to; and never, until that moment, did I comprehend the awful depths and capacity of the human soul for either love or hatred; nor had any of us, even the Rosicrucian, the faintest idea but that every word of his awful threat came from his heart; nor the slightest doubt that if there were a possibility of wreaking his revenge in the World to come, that he would find that possibility, and remorselessly execute it. Said the Rosicrucian, as the man finished his terrible recital: "This episode comes in quiteaproposto my own story's moral. It is well to beware, lest we, by some act or word of ours, so deeply plant the germ of hatred, that in after years it spring up to annoy us, and mar our peace of mind. Now, I have some knowledge of the soul, and am firmly convinced that the man who has just left us means all that he says; nor would I incur so dreadful a penalty as that man's hatred, for all the diadems on the terraqueous globe. His passion is not merely external, else he would, by an assault, or by slander, seek its satisfaction. But his feeling is the offspring of a sense of outraged justice. I have not the least doubt that the object of his spleen laughs at the man. But Revenge will outlive laughter, wealth, position, influence—all things, when of the nature of the present case. Thus, Madame, your question, I hope, has been answered to your satisfaction. Of course, I deprecate hatred, but demand justice.

"But see, the sun is setting again, and the conclusion of our story must be deferred until after supper, when, if you will again assemble here upon the quarter-deck, you shall learn what befell Mr. Thomas W., and what other events transpired in the little chamber with a window at the foot of the bed, whose upper sash was down."

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