Mosses from an old manse
friend. “You are at least a democrat; and methinks no scanty share of
such faith is essential to the adoption of that creed.”
Among the characters who had elicited these remarks were most of the
noted reformers of the day, whether in physics, politics, morals, or
religion. There is no surer method of arriving at the Hall of Fantasy
than to throw one’s-self into the current of a theory; for, whatever
landmarks of fact may be set up along the stream, there is a law of
nature that impels it thither. And let it be so; for here the wise head
and capacious heart may do their work; and what is good and true
becomes gradually hardened into fact, while error melts away and
vanishes among the shadows of the ball. Therefore may none who believe
and rejoice in the progress of mankind be angry with me because I
recognized their apostles and leaders amid the fantastic radiance of
those pictured windows. I love and honor such men as well as they.
It would be endless to describe the herd of real or self styled
reformers that peopled this place of refuge. They were the
representatives of an unquiet period, when mankind is seeking to cast
off the whole tissue of ancient custom like a tattered garment. Many of
then had got possession of some crystal fragment of truth, the
brightness of which so dazzled them that they could see nothing else in
the wide universe. Here were men whose faith had embodied itself in the
form of a potato; and others whose long beards had a deep spiritual
significance. Here was the abolitionist, brandishing his one idea like
an iron flail. In a word, there were a thousand shapes of good and
evil, faith and infidelity, wisdom and nonsense,—a most incongruous
throng.
Yet, withal, the heart of the stanchest conservative, unless he abjured
his fellowship with man, could hardly have helped throbbing in sympathy
with the spirit that pervaded these innumerable theorists. It was good
for the man of unquickened heart to listen even to their folly. Far
down beyond the fathom of the intellect the soul acknowledged that all
these varying and conflicting developments of humanity were united in
one sentiment. Be the individual theory as wild as fancy could make it,
still the wiser spirit would recognize the struggle of the race after a
better and purer life than had yet been realized on earth. My faith
revived even while I rejected all their schemes. It could not be that
the world should continue forever what it has been; a soil where
Happiness is so rare a flower and Virtue so often a blighted fruit; a
battle-field where the good principle, with its shield flung above its
head, can hardly save itself amid the rush of adverse influences. In
the enthusiasm of such thoughts I gazed through one of the pictured
windows, and, behold! the whole external world was tinged with the
dimly glorious aspect that is peculiar to the Hall of Fantasy, insomuch
that it seemed practicable at that very instant to realize some plan
for the perfection of mankind. But, alas! if reformers would understand
the sphere in which their lot is cast they must cease to look through
pictured windows. Yet they not only use this medium, but mistake it for
the whitest sunshine.
“Come,” said I to my friend, starting from a deep revery, “let us
hasten hence, or I shall be tempted to make a theory, after which there
is little hope of any man.”
“Come hither, then,” answered he. “Here is one theory that swallows up
and annihilates all others.”
He led me to a distant part of the hall where a crowd of deeply
attentive auditors were assembled round an elderly man of plain,
honest, trustworthy aspect. With an earnestness that betokened the
sincerest faith in his own doctrine, he announced that the destruction
of the world was close at hand.
“It is Father Miller himself!” exclaimed I.
“No less a man,” said my friend; “and observe how picturesque a
contrast between his dogma and those of the reformers whom we have just
glanced at. They look for the earthly perfection of mankind, and are
forming schemes which imply that the immortal spirit will be connected
with a physical nature for innumerable ages of futurity. On the other
hand, here comes good Father Miller, and with one puff of his
relentless theory scatters all their dreams like so many withered
leaves upon the blast.”
“It is, perhaps, the only method of getting mankind out of the various
perplexities into which they have fallen,” I replied. “Yet I could wish
that the world might be permitted to endure until some great moral
shall have been evolved. A riddle is propounded. Where is the solution?
The sphinx did not slay herself until her riddle had been guessed. Will
it not be so with the world? Now, if it should be burned to-morrow
morning, I am at a loss to know what purpose will have been
accomplished, or how the universe will be wiser or better for our
existence and destruction.”
“We cannot tell what mighty truths may have been embodied in act
through the existence of the globe and its inhabitants,” rejoined my
companion. “Perhaps it may be revealed to us after the fall of the
curtain over our catastrophe; or not impossibly, the whole drama, in
which we are involuntary actors, may have been performed for the
instruction of another set of spectators. I cannot perceive that our
own comprehension of it is at all essential to the matter. At any rate,
while our view is so ridiculously narrow and superficial it would be
absurd to argue the continuance of the world from the fact that it
seems to have existed hitherto in vain.”
“The poor old earth,” murmured I. “She has faults enough, in all
conscience, but I cannot hear to have her perish.”
“It is no great matter,” said my friend. “The happiest of us has been
weary of her many a time and oft.”
“I doubt it,” answered I, pertinaciously; “the root of human nature
strikes down deep into this earthly soil, and it is but reluctantly
that we submit to be transplanted, even for a higher cultivation in
heaven. I query whether the destruction of the earth would gratify any
one individual, except perhaps some embarrassed man of business whose
notes fall due a day after the day of doom.”
Then methought I heard the expostulating cry of a multitude against the
consummation prophesied by Father Miller. The lover wrestled with
Providence for his foreshadowed bliss. Parents entreated that the
earth’s span of endurance might be prolonged by some seventy years, so
that their new-born infant should not be defrauded of his lifetime. A
youthful poet murmured because there would be no posterity to recognize
the inspiration of his song. The reformers, one and all, demanded a few
thousand years to test their theories, after which the universe might
go to wreck. A mechanician, who was busied with an improvement of the
steam-engine, asked merely time to perfect his model. A miser insisted
that the world’s destruction would be a personal wrong to himself,
unless he should first be permitted to add a specified sum to his
enormous heap of gold. A little boy made dolorous inquiry whether the
last day would come before Christmas, and thus deprive him of his
anticipated dainties. In short, nobody seemed satisfied that this
mortal scene of things should have its close just now. Yet, it must be
confessed, the motives of the crowd for desiring its continuance were
mostly so absurd, that unless infinite Wisdom had been aware of much
better reasons, the solid earth must have melted away at once.
For my own part, not to speak of a few private and personal ends, I
really desired our old mother’s prolonged existence for her own dear
sake.
“The poor old earth!” I repeated. “What I should chiefly regret in her
destruction would be that very earthliness which no other sphere or
state of existence can renew or compensate. The fragrance of flowers
and of new-mown hay; the genial warmth of sunshine, and the beauty of a
sunset among clouds; the comfort and cheerful glow of the fireside; the
deliciousness of fruits and of all good cheer; the magnificence of
mountains, and seas, and cataracts, and the softer charm of rural
scenery; even the fast-falling snow and the gray atmosphere through
which it descends,—all these and innumerable other enjoyable things of
earth must perish with her. Then the country frolics; the homely humor;
the broad, open-mouthed roar of laughter, in which body and soul
conjoin so heartily! I fear that no other world call show its anything
just like this. As for purely moral enjoyments, the good will find them
in every state of being. But where the material and the moral exist
together, what is to happen then? And then our mute four-footed friends
and the winged songsters of our woods! Might it not be lawful to regret
them, even in the hallowed groves of paradise?”
“You speak like the very spirit of earth, imbued with a scent of
freshly turned soil,” exclaimed my friend.
“It is not that I so much object to giving up these enjoyments on my
own account,” continued I, “but I hate to think that they will have
been eternally annihilated from the list of joys.”
“Nor need they be,” he replied. “I see no real force in what you say.
Standing in this Hall of Fantasy, we perceive what even the
earth-clogged intellect of man can do in creating circumstances which,
though we call them shadowy and visionary, are scarcely more so than
those that surround us in actual life. Doubt not then that man’s
disembodied spirit may recreate time and the world for itself, with all
their peculiar enjoyments, should there still be human yearnings amid
life eternal and infinite. But I doubt whether we shall be inclined to
play such a poor scene over again.”
“O, you are ungrateful to our mother earth!” rejoined I. “Come what
may, I never will forget her! Neither will it satisfy me to have her
exist merely in idea. I want her great, round, solid self to endure
interminably, and still to be peopled with the kindly race of man, whom
I uphold to be much better than he thinks himself. Nevertheless, I
confide the whole matter to Providence, and shall endeavor so to live
that the world may come to an end at any moment without leaving me at a
loss to find foothold somewhere else.”
“It is an excellent resolve,” said my companion, looking at his watch.
“But come; it is the dinner-hour. Will you partake of my vegetable
diet?”
A thing so matter of fact as an invitation to dinner, even when the
fare was to be nothing more substantial than vegetables and fruit,
compelled us forthwith to remove from the Hall of Fantasy. As we passed
out of the portal we met the spirits of several persons who had been
sent thither in magnetic sleep. I looked back among the sculptured
pillars and at the transformations of the gleaming fountain, and almost
desired that the whole of life might be spent in that visionary scene
where the actual world, with its hard angles, should never rub against
me, and only be viewed through the medium of pictured windows. But for
those who waste all their days in the Hall of Fantasy, good Father
Miller’s prophecy is already accomplished, and the solid earth has come
to an untimely end. Let us be content, therefore, with merely an
occasional visit, for the sake of spiritualizing the grossness of this
actual life, and prefiguring to ourselves a state in which the Idea
shall be all in all.
THE CELESTIAL RAILROAD
Not a great while ago, passing through the gate of dreams, I visited
that region of the earth in which lies the famous City of Destruction.
It interested me much to learn that by the public spirit of some of the
inhabitants a railroad has recently been established between this
populous and flourishing town and the Celestial City. Having a little
time upon my hands, I resolved to gratify a liberal curiosity by making