Hiero-salem : the vision of peace, a fiction founded on ideals which are grounded in the real, that is greater than the greatest of all human great ideals

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Preface

r I ^HE world seems to be made up of fighters aud peace- -*- makers : of uniters and separators.

At certain stages of mental and moral development, fightings and friction aid growth. But at a more advanced epoch in the development of man as an individual, and of society as a whole, there comes a stage at which fightings against, fears of, and desires for What-might-be are advantageouslysupplanted by an intelligent acceptance of What-is.

But this acceptance of What-is must (in order to be advantageous) be full of a recognition that What-is can be developed into What-might-be. It must be full of a recognition of this, I say, not full of a desire for it. And I make this distinction because an individual who has attained to a stage of development at which fightings against or desires for What-might-be are supplanted by a faith in and acceptance of What-is has then but to attain the sweetest of all gifts of grace in order to be, in all ways, perfectly happy and perfectly powerful.

Now then : —

This story foregleams not only the struggle of individual and family toward this last attainment, but also it foregleams the result which accrues to those who are even partially successful in this struggle.

A crowded, overloaded story it may seem, and because it attempts almost too much.

Yet, if the reader is interested enough in this novel to

read it as one part of a whole, the other parts of which may

follow interpretingly in future novels, then the story of

HiBBO-SALEM may prove to be not a bad thing, nor devoid

of interest to the agfe we live in.

E. L. M.

Boston, Sept. 3, 1889.

LETTER TO PUBLISHERS.

Dear Sirs, — You ask, Shall there be an inscription under the frontispiece-picture of the Valkyria ? I answer, in fact the picture is not a frontispiece ; and that to place it at the beginning of the book will be to riddle a riddle before the riddle is proposed.

The picture is a climax.

Now I know there are certain accepted methods of book-making which should not be seriously disarranged. Yet the meaning of this volume, the very soul of the sense toward which I have striven, will be better declared if this picture is placed on the page with the last words of this part of the Vision of Peace, that is, placed instead of the word " Finis."

Of course it goes without saying, not all persons will understand the purpose of this, as I do ; but that may be true of the rest of the volume also. Still, you know t only agree with myself to furnish, not understanding, but that which may be understood by him who cares to understand what Artist, Poet, and Prophet have age-long preserved in painting, poem, and prophecy for this, the on-coming Golden Age.

So, then, place the " frontispiece " on the last page, where it shall picture the triumph of a Victor, not " dead on the field," but in transit to Valhalla.

Those who read may understand ; while those who do not understand yet may read. Sincerely,

E. L. MASON.

Boston, 1889.

vll

Book I. Chapter Page

I. Love and Wisdom 1

IL On the Threshold 16

III. In the Midst of Things 25

IV. Was he Mad? 72

BOOK IL

V. Who has Come? 89

VI. ** The Tools TO Who CAN Use Them'* 109

VII . New Powers of the New Age 127

VIU. Too Late for That 164

BOOK IIL

IX. Are our Principles for Use? 184

X. Insights 230

BOOK IV.

XI. Queen of Home 286

XII. Columnar Humanity 343

Xni. The Real War for the Real Union 383

BOOK V.

XIV. The Keeper of the King's Lion 449

XV. The Re-collected Ego 484

XVI. Ready to Live Liberty's Law 499

ix

ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

The Education of Com us (From Vase-picture) .... 1

The Dioscuroi proceed with their Work amid Derision (From Vase-picture) 89

Juno and Minerva go to help the Greeks .... 184

The Caryatides 286

The Winged Bull, Ashurnazipal 359

The Priestess and Neophyte 363

Psyche in the Lower Regions 423

Una and her Lion 449

Valkyria bearing a Victor to Valhalla (Frontispiece),

(see Letter to Publishers, Page vit.) 508

HIERO-SALEM.

"THE TRUTH IS, A GREAT MiyP MUST BE AITDROOYNOUS,**

— COLERIDGE.

HIERO-SALEM.

BOOK I.

*' A S for that, beginnings of things are rooted in the -^^- dark."

It was the speaker's evident repose on the facts of the case as they were knoTva to himself which had arrested Miss Eloi"s attention, concentrating her forces in her regard of him. Next, she noticed that not only she, but also the Reverend Erauin and others were absorbed in this man's thought, and that a youth, crossing the greensward, had set down liis baskets, and was saying with a too easy tar of good comradeship, —

" He is a queer fellow. Miss Eloi."

■' Who is he ? " she deigned to ask after a haughty pause.

"He is Daniel Heem, a world-wanderer, crazed with much learning, they say. I am in danger of nothing of that kind, put I can put these dainties on tlie fable for the children, « you will help me ? " was the ingratiatory reply.

It was more than forty years ago, at a picnic in a wood "ear a town of Massachusetts ; and it was a breezy day, ^''lieu children's hats and voices, as well as the tree-boughs »'i(l table-coverings, seemed blowing about inextricably. And to this hurly-burly there was now added the click of a 'laiLimer as, failing to retain Miss Eloi's attention, the young 'nau had proceeded to tack tlie cotton sheeting on to the Iwsrds set for the festal spread amid that rural scene. Just "len, up came Arthur Braum and Daniel Heem, clinging to llieir hats and talking high above the noise of the ro^cWng iuughB and children.

As they approached, they were both looking at Althea, who stood like a statue of a wind-tossed goddess, but with warm fires moving in her lustrous eyes, and with the white line creeping round her mouth sharply defined against the color of cheek and lips. For with quickened pulse she was waiting to hear what next memorable thing the man from the Indias would say. To her, it was as if this picnic, nay, the forest itself, had had its being for no other purpose than as a background to the introduction which now took place.

Daniel Heem, arrested three feet away, with a mounting glow on his clear face, stood as she stood, in silent gravity of gaze, when an old acquaintance came up boisterously, and, declaring he had not seen Daniel for twenty-five years, took him away, barely giving him time to make adieux.

" Twenty-five years since he left this town. Since then he has become a Hindoo, a world-wanderer, and a woman-hater," ejaculated the young man, with his mouth full of tacks.

With this account of Daniel's doings ringing in her ears, Althea, turning to Arthur Braum, remarked with definite purpose, —

" Twenty-five years ago ? Then I was not born."

" But your Aunt Judith was," said Arthur, with meaning, adding, however, hastily, " and I was a boy who half-worshipped Daniel Heem. But he had set himself against social conditions and was thought hardly of by most people. He was and is a queer fellow. Yet I don't forget that it was he who taught me that the tendency of all life is good and for good only. In those days. New Englanders were taught almost anything rather than that."

Althea Eloi was not one of the Reverend Braum's parishioners. She was known as a recluse young heiress whose family— old residents of this town of Alford — was under the cloud of that social doubt which is the lot of those even of noblest Hebrew blood who chance to dwell in a Christian community. Added to this, there was the further fact that the Elois did not even stand well with their own synagogue. There was in this family intelligence, wealth, exclusiveness, and love of truth-seeking, but Althea was practically a stranger among the young people of the town. Arthur Braum, in the goodness of his heart, had gotten her out to this picnic, and was trying to make her feel at her ease.

But curiously now it was not she, but he, who needed to be set at ease, as Althea, with a certain sturdiness of manner, impatient of his pause, said, brusquely : —

"New Englanders were taught almost anything rather than what? I don't understand. What was it about him that made people think hardly of him ? "

An element had come into the affair which gave piquancy to Arthur's interest, as he answered : —

" O, to begin with, on his father's side there was the blood of that O'Connel who, with faith in all things high, knew no law stronger than that laid on him as 'liberator of his people,' and his mother was a believer in the ' inner light of the Quakers.' So, what with his love of personal freedom and his inspirational religious notions, he was a host in himself. Besides this, he had no little mechanical and artistic ability. Yet, with all this, he has only succeeded in ruining himself in his efforts to reconstruct society. There is too much of him. He has practically spent the last twenty-five years running over the world trying to get at tho'-basal principle of the world's great religions or religion."

"Has he found it?" said Althea.

" He thinks so," said Arthur, laughing at her curtness. " And he thinks it is very simple and practical. And that it would bind us back to such a sweet, refined, and satisfactory life as would result in the evolution of quite a new order of power and — "

" Who has ever proved it will not ? " interrupted Althea.

" O, no one ; but it would take more than fifty years of combined effort to put it to the test. And you see, a man who has done nothing with his own life but theorize, hardly gets a hearing when he claims to be able to reconstruct the world and the devil. For this is about what he expects to do."

"Fifty years of combined effort to test it? Haven't people been more than fifty years testing your theories? Have you folks evolved any new powers? And isn't that what all you ministers do? — theorize and be good, I mean ? "

Arthur laughed good-naturedly ; then answered : " He's an entertaining idealist, but he is impractical to the verge of insanity. The world has no use for him, nor \\^ ioii: ^Jcia world. Yet that practical aunt of yours believed m \i\T£i.

If he had been rich, as he would have been if he had married Judith, he might have tried his plans himself."

" Ministers try to reconstruct the world, and they are not rich," said Althea, flushing, but with a gaze as steady as ever.

" I pity those who try that," said Arthur, laughing again at this girl's bluntness. But he laughed as laughs one who, having made a success in life by throwing aside the Utopian theories of his youth, has little patience with the intangible virtues the idealist wishes to foist on people who have no desire for anything so exalted.

Daniel was now the centre of a group of people, from the midst of which one of the Reverend Braum's deacons had snatched a listening child and was now getting away, angrily thudding the ground with his stick.

"There! You see how solid-going people treat his notions ? They call him crazy. I don't say he is. He is a believer in something the opposite of what he calls ' dark, passional religion,' of which I suppose he thinks that old man is an image and outcome."

" But is he a woman-hater ? "

" He has curious theories about all that, too. He worships woman too much and at too great a distance," was hurriedly answered; for Daniel Heem was swiftly approaching, with his eyes on Althea, as if he were scrutinizing a problem to which he was glad to return.

From that time, that long summer day became to Althea a day in a new world. For whether walking or resting, Daniel Heeni was with her, telling her of India, Egypt, and Palestine, and of what was yet more to her mind, — the then new and undeveloped Western States of this country ; talking of them, as if all these lands were but adjacent streets of a town, and philosophizing concerning pre- Adamic races and on-coming civilizations as though a view of that past and this future were outstretched before him as he talked.

They kept apart from others all that day. Daniel was content to have so good a listener, and was fully aroused as he saw her interest in his theory that the new Western country would be an admirable place in which to test his ideal reconstruction of society. And so sharply did Althea, question him point by point as to the practicability of some of his visionary schemes, that Daniel found himself suddenly saying, " O, if two people should agree to do so, with a very little money they could there secure plenty of land and of time to put my theory of home-making to the test I O, yes indeed ! The jewels on your fingers would buy the place, with the nice little house and implements from which I just came away. One who was once a townsman here owns that place in Wisconsin and wants to sell it. I told him if I wanted it he would see me back there, with the money in hand, in a month or two. He gave me what he called 'the refusal' of it for three months' time."

Daniel had said this quite gravely, noticing meanwhile, that this young recluse, in her intention of being very impressive on the occasion of this picnic, had bedecked herself with a ring quite familiar to his sight. There was some valuable jewelry, a Houndsheath-heirloom, in the family. This ring was part of it. The jewelry all belonged to Althea, who had recently come of age. And on this jewelry Althea had lately habituated herself to look as on a possible friend which might be made serviceable by her in time of need. And now with a swift summing up of the result of many hours spent in groping among difficulties, she said, " Well then I These rings shall buy that place if you will make the purchase. I am of age and these diamonds are mine." And the young man, who for the last time flits into this story, saw Daniel Heem put these jewels in his pocket, as he said he would do it. Reserving for a while that part of the story, the young man contented himself with saying to one and another on the picnic-ground, "It would be a poor stroke of business for the Elois if ttieir heiress should throw herself away on a man who, at forty-eight, has done nothing and has nothing."

Of course this soon reached Althea's ears. And its effect on her was to fix her in her purpose to do as she chose. But even that long summer day — that day of days to her — at last drew to a close ; and though she tarried till the last, yet at last, home she had to go. But they went together, Daniel and she, through the purpling twilight.

The floating glow of the sky 'mid which the moon came buoyantly up, the wind so soft and still, were to li"ei\^t\v\a» nighty a revealment of a new wonder, as lookixv^ iiotci \\»

back to Daniel's eyes she sensed that which to her seemed to fill the hour. That was, an all-pervasive revelation that life is good, true, and beautiful, and only beautiful, true, and good continually. New meanings of the great things which he had that day told her took hold on her soul, crowding it with an indignant wonder that the world had ever laughed at him ; yet whelming that wonder in a pity at something in him which evidenced self-neglect and self-misuse. But even as this pity whelmed her, it was met by something else comparable to nothing other than a chivalrous determination that she, the niece, would do for this man even yet that which the aunt's indeterminate timidities had kept her from doing in those days before the niece was born. And then it was that there came upon her the utter devotion of that primeval love which is devoid of thought of self or of consequences. A love full of the will and the blind impulse to do what must be done for the good of the loved one. It was well that such love of such a woman was given to the keeping of only such a man as he who walked at her side, looking into her soul. For this man had watched the stars on Chaldean plains and believed that he now lived amid peoples as bright as those star-beams; and this man knew that for him the chance of peace in the pursuit of his spiritual philosophies lay in keeping himself to those pure flights of vision in which contact with all strifes and passions is avoided. He knew that if, at this epoch in his advancement, his spirit should sink into the bondage of flesh and sense, it would droop, wing-clipped, and would become a crippled, bedraggled thing. So he turned from her eyes as a free man turns from chains. Yet he looked back again, telling himself, with a weird interest unguessed by her, that what he saw looking out of this girl's eyes was the spirit of that Rabbi Eloi whose death had been so dire a horror.

When Daniel Heem the next day called at Althea's home, she plainly perceived that the meeting between him and Judith was not the first which had taken place since his return to town. The look on Judith's face did not help to put out of mind that which Braum had said of old matrimonial possibilities. " If he were rich, as he might have been if he had married Judith when he was young, he could have tried bis philosophies for himself." There was that in this sentence which not only had stung the family pride of the Hebrew maiden, but also had determined her that what might have been, should now be accomplished for Daniel under circumstances in which she herself would figure. So she watched, like a lioness between her young and a foe, saying little or nothing, but thinking with a ferocity of regard that turned Daniel's seer-like gaze upon her studiously.

The result was, by the end of the week it only needed one piece of attempted opposition to climax the matter. And this opposition met Althea in the person and words of the Reverend Arthur Braum, as she was returning from a visit to Daniel's little parlor which she had twice before visited that week as some young women go to the study of the minister whose teachings best meet their mental hunger. Arthur Braum had just left the Eloi mansion, full of sympathy for Judith and a lively recognition that even now a marriage between the old friends might secure to the working force of his parish a sobered-down Daniel and the pleasant old Eloi mansion, as well as be a fitting climax to the old romance. So he turned, and walking a little way with Althea, rushed merrily to the fray with the words, "What? Been up to the lunatic asylum again? Look out. Don't throw yourself away on old Daniel Heem, Althea." With suppressed wrath in her deep contralto tones, " O no ! that is not my plan," she said. " What I am to do is to win all that he has or is. He is personal integrity, pure blood and brain, and no woman-hater. He is a hero in the dust : but a hero still; — and is the father of my future children."

" Well, he is in luck," said Arthur, with a convulsion of laughter at the ease with which this youthful ignorance had thrust aside social interference. Then, under the look of thrilling savagery that met his laugh, he clutched at his chin, with a mature man's kindly doubt as to " whether she knew what she was talking about." Whatever he saw, he gave her his hand, and wishing good luck to them both, got away round the next corner laughing himself almost into DanieFs arms ; and under the shock of this concussion Arthur bolted out " the joke of the thing." Then finding it still too good to keep, took it home to his wife and a few other friends. Next the town seemed buzzing over the way the niece had taken possession of the aunt's old adm\t^\ o\ oi the object of the aunt's old admiration, wliicYieNet ^^a ^iItkfe case in hand. Last of all " the fun " reached the Eloi mansion. Then the aunt set herself to make the niece tell what she had said that had excited such a furore. Althea, suddenly frightened, would not open her lips, and then Judith in wrath had said, " You may well keep still. You have said enough in one breath to last a lifetime." At this Althea had ejaculated, " Yes, just enough to last a lifetime, as you will see," — but not another word could the aunt or the invalid mother get from this girl on that or any subject.

Meanwhile gossip took form in the question, " What right has a man who has made a failure of life to saddle the remains of it onto the shoulders of a young creature such as Althea Eloi, with her expectations?"

This came to Daniel's ears like a pleasantry. He, condemned as a fortune-hunter, because of the words of the child who had listened so eagerly to his philosophies ? True, he had told her that he believed all delight in time and eternity was conditioned on participation in that " real marriage which really does flow forth from Heaven Heights." True (he inwardly confessed), she had carried away with her the paper on which he had drawn the 47th problem of Euclid, illustrative of his philosophy I True, he had told her, this figure was identified with his philosophy under the name of " the nuptial diagram of Plato's Commonwealth ! " True, he had distinctly recognized that no teaching concerning any symbol had ever taken the hold on this impetuous womanchild that his talks about the mystical triangle had done. True, he had seen that, even the one day's care which he had bestowed on this maiden had allied her to his ideals, known and unknown, as if they had been the sum total of wisdom. True, since the first day, he had, day by day, seen coming to this child a sort of a fury for the havoc of shackle or custom which stood between her and some expectancy that had gained a hold on her. And true, this, her enthusiasm, had thoroughly aroused him, to save her from herself, by finding the keynote with which her character was set in accord, and by starting her to sing in that key her own song of life ! He had perceived that " love of possession " was the keynote of her character ; and, knowing ail that he did know in regard to the Eloi affairs^ he had promptly aided her to exchange her finger-rings for real estate in the new West, where land was then to be had for the homesteading of it. "Hence the tempest in the teapot," thought Daniel. Then with a whimsical light on his countenance, he fell into a reverie of the way he had always lived, homeless, and, in a way, purposeless, among rich and poor, with no ties, yet bound to every living creature by an ability to give incidental aid : of the way he had lived between two worlds, with less hold on either world than each had on him. A Seer he had been, to whom all disorder had ceased to be a puzzle because of the real order which he saw underlying all the contrary seeming of the case. King of himself he had been, for he had clung to the royal-purple of a poverty and isolation self-chosen, which had yet left him free of the world, that after all loved him well.

" I have been among people too long. I must get away," he said, arousing himself. Then, with a laugh, he thought of the commercial precision with which Althea had summed up the advantages that would accrue to the parties to a marriagecontract, if (as he had suggested) each parti would but cling to his and her special ability, while stimulating the other to do the same. And whileSnusing on, he found himself skirting the town on his way to the old Eloi mansion ; though that was just two doors away from his temporary domicile.

The result was, when the sun's rays were falling aslant through the forest, he was still sitting there, musing on this new work in his old home : — musing, till presently, bird air, nodding flower, yes, and the universal system of things were all to him intoning the melody of the words, " the father of future children."

He sprang to his feet, and hastened to the old Eloi mansion.

" — are all asking why you, with your expectations, should do such a thing? As to the 'expectations' — if I were pleased with your choice, I would take care of the money part of it, Althea."

" Save your anxiety as to my future ! See, this is a philosopher's nuptial diagram ! My future is all arranged. Aunt Judith."

" You are as crazy as Daniel Heem himself."

This was what Daniel heard as he came up the garden to open doors and windows ; and what he saw at a glance was Althea holding up the paper with the 4Ttli problem oI^m^v^ upon it.

At the next instant she had intercepted him at the door» with extended hands and eyes like those of a hunted creature, and with the color washed out of her face. And his hand had closed on hers. For, like uttered words, there had come to him from her soul, the confession cry and promise, " It was a lie ! Help me, and I will bless you for a lifetime : " — while almost at the same moment she had said aloud, with her back to her aunt, and for that aunt to hear, "Judith calls us crazy. Do you see ? You are just in time to help me to show her what that diagram means."

And half-dazed at the onslaught, yet holding tight that firm young hand, he, trembling, whispered to the pallid aunt, " She is speeding under commands that must be obeyed."

Then pushing forward, he walked, with the girl, to the table, near where lay the invalid mother, — the table on which were the papers with the figures illustrative of the diagram of his ideal of nuptials.

Althea held them up with one hand, while with the other she still kept hold on his hand, saying, —

" It was this which gave rise to the battle cries that you heard. Yet you said it was a type of — of true harmony, did you not ? "

" Of true harmony," he responded, trembling at the proximity of this woman, who was, unconsciously, like a surcharged battery brought to bear upon him to make him support her now in all that she should say or do. He looked up, then down again, alive to the fact that he was being forced to throw himself into the tempestuous current that surged through and about him, dazing him with voices — whether true or false he knew not — voices that were telling him, "not by the other, but by this path winds your road to the future." . On the table was a paper on which was this figure : —

a

At his side was Althea, pointing at it but looking two yards away, at Judith Eloi, who was watching in breathless wrath and wonder.

" See ? Here is the triangle. The perpendicular line, a 6, is Althea Eloi. The horizontal line, b <?, is — "

" — is old Daniel Heem."

Siero-salem.

Prompt as fate his words had come, startling Althea as though every nerve had not been strained to hear them. Half-blinded with a torrent of triumph, she yet said hesitatingly,—

" We can call it so for now." Then with a half-sob she went on rapidly, " Take it as a lesson in geometry. Aunt Judith. See? It is a right-angled triangle. This is the hypothenuse of it : and you know the square on the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides, — and — and we have agreed that the perpendicular line a J is I, and that the line J <? is Daniel Heem. Now wait till I fill in something on this other paper ! "