Beulah Part 73

Mr. Lindsay came in and stood near her un.o.bserved. They had not met for several weeks, and she was not aware that he was in the city.

Charon, who lay on the rug at her feet, growled, and she looked round.

"Good-evening," said her visitor, extending his hand.

She did not accept it; but merely inclined her head, saying:

"Ah, how do you do, sir?"

He laid a package on the table, drew a chair near the hearth without looking at her, and, calling to Charon, patted his huge head kindly.

"What have you there, Miss Beulah? Merely a newspaper; it seems to interest you intensely. May I see it?"

"I am certainly very much obliged to you, sir, for the chivalrous spirit in which you indited your criticism. I was just pondering it when you entered."

She smiled as she spoke, and shook the paper at him.

"I thought I had feigned a style you would not recognize," he answered quite unconcernedly.

"You succeeded admirably, with the exception of one pet phrase, which betrayed you. Next time, recollect that you are very partial to some particular expressions, with which I happen to be acquainted; and avoid their introduction."

"I rather think I shall not repeat the experiment; especially as my arguments seem to have failed signally in their design. Are you quite sure that you understand my review perfectly?"

He looked a little curious--she fancied disappointed--and she replied laughingly:

"Oh, I think I do; it is not so very abstruse."

He leaned forward, took the paper from her, before she was aware of his intention, and threw it into the fire.

She looked surprised, and he offered his hand once more.

"Are we still friends? Will you shake hands with your reviewer?"

She unhesitatingly put her hand in his, and answered:

"Friendship is not a gossamer thread, to be severed by a stroke of the pen."

She endeavored to withdraw her fingers, but he held them firmly, while his blue eyes rested upon her with an expression she by no means liked. Her black brows met in a heavy frown, and her lips parted angrily. He saw it, and instantly released her hand.

"Miss Beulah, my uncle commissioned me to say to you that he received a letter to-day from Dr. Hartwell. It was written during his voyage down the Red Sea, and contained a long farewell, as inland travel would afford no facilities for writing."

He noted the tight clasp in which her fingers locked each other, and the livid paleness of her lips and brow, as the long lashes drooped and she sat silently listening. Charon laid his head on her knee and looked up at her. There was a brief silence, and Mr. Lindsay added slowly:

"My uncle fears he will never return. Do you cherish the hope?"

"Yes; he will come back, if his life is spared. It may be many years; but he will come, he will come."

Their eyes met; there was a long, searching look from Mr. Lindsay; she did not shrink from the scrutiny. An expression of keen sorrow swept over his face, but he conquered his emotion, took the parcel he had brought, and, unwrapping a book, said, in his usual quiet tone:

"When I saw you last you were regretting your inability to procure Sir William Hamilton's 'Philosophy of the Conditioned,' and I have taken the liberty of bringing you my own copy. Read it at your leisure; I shall not need it again soon. I do not offer it as a system which will satisfy your mind, by solving all your problems; but I do most earnestly commend his 'Philosophy of the Conditioned,'

as the surest antidote to the abstractions in which your speculation has involved you. The most erudite scholar of the age, and one of the finest metaphysical minds the world has ever known, he expressly sums up his vast philosophic researches with the humble confession: 'There are two sorts of ignorances; we philosophize to escape ignorance, and the consummation of our philosophy is ignorance; we start from the one, we repose in the other; they are the goals from which, and to which, we tend; and the pursuit of knowledge is but a course between two ignorances, as human life is itself only a traveling from grave to grave. The highest reach of human science is the scientific recognition of human ignorance.' Like you, Miss Beulah, I set out to discover some system where no mysteries existed; where I should only believe what I could clearly comprehend. 'Yes,' said I proudly, 'I will believe nothing that I cannot understand.' I wandered on until, like you, I stood in a wide waste, strewn with the wreck of beliefs. My pride a.s.serted that my reason was the only and sufficient guide, and whither did it lead me? Into vagaries more inexplicable than aught I fled from in Revelation. It was easier to believe that, 'in the beginning, G.o.d created the heaven and the earth,' than that the glorious universe looked to chance as its sole architect, or that it was a huge lumbering machine of matter, grinding out laws. I saw that I was the victim of a miserable delusion in supposing my finite faculties could successfully grapple with the mysteries of the universe. I found that to receive the attempted solutions of philosophy required more faith than Revelation, and my proud soul humbled itself and rested in the Bible. My philosophic experience had taught me that if mankind were to have any knowledge of their origin, their destiny, their G.o.d, it must be revealed by that G.o.d, for man could never discover aught for himself. There are mysteries in the Bible which I cannot explain; but it bears incontrovertible marks of divine origin, and as such I receive it. I can sooner believe the Mosaic revelation than the doctrine which tells you that you are part of G.o.d and capable of penetrating to absolute truth. To quote the expressive language of an acute critic (whose well-known lat.i.tudinarianism and disbelief in the verbal inspiration of Scripture give peculiar weight to his opinion on this subject), 'when the advocates of this natural, spontaneous inspiration will come forth from their recesses of thought and deliver prophecies as clear as those of the Hebrew seer; when they shall mold the elements of nature to their will; when they shall speak with the sublime authority of Jesus of Nazareth; and with the same infinite ease, rising beyond all the influence of time, place, and circ.u.mstances, explain the past and unfold the future; when they die for the truth they utter, and rise again as witnesses to its divinity; then we may begin to place them on the elevation which they so thoughtlessly claim. But until they either prove these facts to be delusions, or give their parallel in themselves, the world may well laugh at their ambition and trample their spurious inspiration beneath its feet.'

There is an infinite, eternal, and loving G.o.d; I am a finite creature, unable to comprehend him, and knowing him only through his own revelation. This very revelation is insufficient for our aspiring souls, I grant; but it declares emphatically that here 'we see through a gla.s.s darkly.' Better this than the starless night in which you grope, without a promise of the dawn of eternity, where all mystery shall be explained. Are you not weary of fruitless, mocking speculation?" He looked at her anxiously.

She raised her colorless face, and said drearily, as she pa.s.sed her hand over her forehead:

"Weary? Ah, yes; weary as the lonely mariner, tempest-tossed on some pathless ocean, without chart or compa.s.s. In my sky, even the star of hope is shrouded. Weary? Yes; in body and mind."

"Then humble your proud intellect; confess your ignorance and inability, and rest in G.o.d and Christianity."

She made an impatient gesture, and, turning away, he walked up and down the floor. For some moments neither spoke. Finally he approached her, and continued:

"There is strange significance in the Mosaic record of the Fall.

Longing for the fruits of knowledge, whereby the mysteries of G.o.d would be revealed, cost man Eden. The first pair ate, knowledge mocked them, and only the curse remained. That primeval curse of desiring to know all things descended to all posterity, and at this instant you exemplify its existence. Ah! you must humble your intellect if you would have it exalted; must be willing to be guided along unknown paths by other light than that of reason if you would be happy. Well might Sir William Hamilton exclaim: 'It is this powerful tendency of the most vigorous minds to transcend the sphere of our faculties, which makes a "learned ignorance" the most difficult acquirement, perhaps indeed the consummation of knowledge.'"

He sighed as he uttered these words; she said nothing; and, putting his hand gently upon hers, as they lay folded on the table beside her, he added sadly:

"I had hoped that I could aid you; but I see my efforts are useless; you will not be guided nor influenced by others; are determined to wander on in ever-deepening night, solitary and restless! G.o.d help you, Beulah!"

A shudder ran over her; but she made no reply.

He took her cold hands in his.

"And now we part. Since the evening I first saw you with your basket of strawberries, I have cherished the hope that I might one day be more than a friend. You have constantly shown me that I was nothing more to you; I have seen it all along, but still I hoped; and, notwithstanding your coldness, I shall continue to hope. My love is too entirely yours to be readily effaced. I can wait patiently.

Beulah, you do not love me now; perhaps never can; but I shall at least cling to the hope. I shall not come again; shall not weary you with professions and attentions. I know your nature, and even had I the power would not persuade you to give me your hand now. But time may change your feelings; on this frail tenure I rest my hopes.

Meantime, should circ.u.mstances occur which demand the aid or counsel of devoted friendship, may I ask you to feel no hesitancy in claiming any a.s.sistance I can render? And, Beulah, at any instant, a line, a word can recall me. The separation will be very painful to me; but I cannot longer obtrude myself on your presence. If, as I earnestly hope, the hour, however distant, should come when you desire to see me, oh, Beulah, how gladly will I hasten to you--"

"We can never be more than friends; never!" cried Beulah.

"You think so now, and perhaps I am doomed to disappointment; but, without your sanction, I shall hope it. Good-by." He pressed his lips to her hand and walked away.

Beulah heard the closing of the little gate, and then, for the first time, his meaning flashed upon her mind. He believed she loved her guardian; fancied that long absence would obliterate his image from her heart, and that, finally, grown indifferent to one who might never return, she would give her love to him whose constancy merited it. Genuine delicacy of feeling prevented his expressing all this; but she was conscious now that only this induced his unexpected course toward herself. A burning flush suffused her face as she exclaimed:

"Oh, how unworthy I am of such love as his! how utterly undeserving!"

Soon after, opening the book he had brought at the place designated, she drew the lamp near her and began its perusal. Hour after hour glided away, and not until the last page was concluded did she lay it aside. The work contained very little that was new; the same trains of thought had pa.s.sed through her mind more than once before; but here they were far more clearly and forcibly expressed.

She drew her chair to the window, threw up the sash, and looked out.

It was wintry midnight, and the sky blazed with its undying watch- fires. This starry page was the first her childish intellect had puzzled over. She had, from early years, gazed up into the glittering temple of night, and asked: "Whence came yon silent worlds, floating in solemn grandeur along the blue, waveless ocean of s.p.a.ce? Since the universe sprang phoenix-like from that dim chaos, which may have been but the charnel-house of dead worlds, those unfading lights have burned on, bright as when they sang together at the creation. And I have stretched out my arms helplessly to them, and prayed to hear just once their unceasing chant of praise to the Lord of Glory. Will they shine on forever? or are they indeed G.o.d's light-bearers, set to illumine the depths of s.p.a.ce and blaze a path along which the soul may travel to its G.o.d?

Will they one day flicker and go out?" To every thoughtful mind these questions propound themselves, and Beulah especially had essayed to answer them. Science had named the starry hosts, and computed their movements with wonderful skill; but what could it teach her of their origin and destiny? Absolutely nothing. And how stood her investigations in the more occult departments of psychology and ontology? An honest seeker of truth, what had these years of inquiry and speculation accomplished? Let her answer as, with face bowed on her palms, her eyes roved over the midnight sky.

"Once I had some principles, some truths clearly defined; but now I know nothing distinctly, believe nothing. The more I read and study the more obscure seem the questions I am toiling to answer. Is this increasing intricacy the reward of an earnestly inquiring mind? Is this to be the end of all my glorious aspirations? Have I come to this? 'Thus far, and no farther.' I have stumbled on these boundaries many times, and now must I rest here? Oh, is this my recompense? Can this be all? All!" Smothered sobs convulsed her frame.

She had long before rejected a "revealed code" as unnecessary; the next step was to decipher nature's symbols, and thus grasp G.o.d's hidden laws; but here the old trouble arose. How far was "individualism" allowable and safe? To reconcile the theories of rationalism, she felt, was indeed a herculean task, and she groped on into deeper night. Now and then her horizon was bestarred, and, in her delight, she shouted, "Eureka!" But when the telescope of her infallible reason was brought to bear upon the coldly glittering points, they flickered and went out. More than once a flaming comet, of German manufacture, trailed in glory athwart her dazzled vision; but close observation resolved the gilded nebula, and the nucleus mocked her. Doubt engendered doubt; the death of one difficulty was the instant birth of another. Wave after wave of skepticism surged over her soul, until the image of a great personal G.o.d was swept from its altar. But atheism never yet usurped the sovereignty of the human mind; in all ages, moldering vestiges of protean deism confront the giant specter, and every nation under heaven has reared its fane to the "unknown G.o.d." Beulah had striven to enthrone in her desecrated soul the huge, dim, shapeless phantom of pantheism, and had turned eagerly to the system of Spinoza. The heroic grandeur of the man's life and character had strangely fascinated her; but now, that idol of a "substance, whose two infinite attributes were extension and thought," mocked her; and she hurled it from its pedestal, and looked back wistfully to the pure faith of her childhood. A G.o.dless world; a G.o.dless woman. She took up the lamp and retired to her own room. On all sides books greeted her; here was the varied lore of dead centuries; here she had held communion with the great souls entombed in these dusty pages. Here, wrestling alone with those grim puzzles, she had read out the vexed and vexing questions, in this debating club of the moldering dead, and endeavored to make them solve them. These well-worn volumes, with close "marginalias," echoed her inquiries, but answered them not to her satisfaction. Was her life to be thus pa.s.sed in feverish toil and ended as by a leap out into a black, sh.o.r.eless abyss? Like a spent child she threw her arms on the mantelpiece and wept uncontrollably, murmuring:

"Oh, better die now than live as I have lived, in perpetual stragglings! What is life worth without peace of mind, without hope; and what hope have I? Diamonded webs of sophistry can no longer entangle; like Noah's dove, my soul has fluttered among them, striving in vain for a sure hold to perch upon; but, unlike it, I have no ark to flee to. Weary and almost hopeless, I would fain believe that this world is indeed as a deluge, and in it there is no ark of refuge but the Bible. It is true, I did not see this souls'

ark constructed; I know nothing of the machinery employed; and no more than Noah's dove can I explore and fully understand its secret chambers; yet, all untutored, the exhausted bird sought safety in the incomprehensible, and was saved. As to the mysteries of revelation and inspiration, why, I meet mysteries, turn which way I will. Man, earth, time, eternity, G.o.d, are all inscrutable mysteries My own soul is a mystery unto itself, and so long as I am impotent to fathom its depths, how shall I hope to unfold the secrets of the universe?"

She had rejected Christian theism, because she could not understand how G.o.d had created the universe out of nothing. True, "with G.o.d, all things are possible"; but she could not understand this creation out of nothing, and therefore would not believe it. Yet (oh, inconsistency of human reasoning!) she had believed that the universe created laws; that matter gradually created mind. This was the inevitable result of pantheism; for, according to geology, there was a primeval period when neither vegetable nor animal life existed; when the earth was a huge ma.s.s of inorganic matter. Of two incomprehensibilities, which was the most plausible? To-night this question recurred to her mind with irresistible force, and, as her eyes wandered over the volumes she had so long consulted, she exclaimed: