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Page 31
"You seem sad to-night, Algernon."
Algernon started, sighed heavily, and turning slightly on his saddle,
said: "I am sad, Ella--very, very sad."
"May I ask the cause?" rejoined Ella, gently.
"Doubtless you will think it strange, Ella, but the cause I believe to
have originated in a waking vision or presentiment."
"That does seem strange!" observed Ella, in return.
"Did it never strike you, dear Ella, that we are all strange beings,
subject to strange influences, and destined, many of us, to strange
ends?" inquired Reynolds, solemnly.
"Perhaps I do not understand you," replied Ella; "but with regard to
destiny, I am inclined to think that we in a measure shape our own. As
to our being strange, there are many things relating to us that we may
not understand, and therefore look upon them in the light of which you
speak."
"Are there any we do understand, Ella?" rejoined Algernon. "When I say
understand, I mean the word to be used in its minutest and broadest
sense. You say there are many things we may not understand concerning
ourselves--what ones, I pray you, do we fully comprehend? We are here
upon the earth--so much we know. We shall die and pass away--so much we
know also. But how came we here, and why? How do we exist? How do we
think, reason, speak, feel, move, see, hear, smell, taste? All these
we do, we know; but yet not one--not a single one of them can we
comprehend. You wish to raise your hand; and forthwith, by some
extraordinary power--extraordinary because you cannot tell where it is,
nor how it is--you raise it. Why cannot a dead person do the same?
Strange question you will say to yourself with a smile--but one easily
answered! Why, because in such a person life is extinct--there is no
vital principle--the heart is stopped--the blood has ceased to flow
in its regular channels! Ay! but let me ask you _why_ that life is
extinct?--why that breath has stopped?--and why that blood has ceased
to flow? There was just the same amount of air when the person died as
before! There were the same ingredients still left to stimulate that
blood to action! Then wherefore should both cease?--and with them the
power of thought, reason, speech, and all the other senses? It was not
by a design of the individual himself; for he strove to his utmost to
breathe longer; he was not ready to die--he did not want to quit this
earth so soon; and yet with all his efforts to the contrary, reason
fled, the breath stopped, the blood ceased, the limbs became palsied and
cold, and corruption, decay and dust stood ready to follow. Now why was
this? There is but one answer: 'God willed it!' If then one question
resolves itself into one answer,--'the will of God'--so may all of
the same species; and we come out, after a long train of analytical
reasoning, exactly where we started--with this difference--that when we
set out, we believed in being able to explain the wherefore; but when we
came to the end, we could only assert it as a wonderful fact, whereof
not a single iota could we understand."
Algernon spoke in a clear, distinct, earnest tone--in a manner that
showed the subject was not new to his thoughts; and after a short pause,
during which Ella made no reply, he again proceeded.
"In this grand organ of man--where all things are strange and
incomprehensible--to me the combination of the physical and mental is
strangest of all. The soul and the body are united and yet divided. Each
is distinct from and acts without the other at times, and yet both act
in concert with a wonderful power. The soul plans and the body executes.
The body exercises the soul--the soul the body. The one is visible--the
other invisible; the one is mortal--the other immortal. Now why do they
act together here? Why was not each placed in its separate sphere of
action? Again: What is the soul? Men tell us it is a spirit. What is a
spirit? An invisible something that never dies. Who can comprehend it?
None. Whither does it go when separated forever from the body? None can
answer, save in language of Scripture: 'It returns to God who gave it.'"
"I have never heard the proposition advanced by another," continued
Algernon, after another slight pause, "but I have sometimes thought
myself, that the soul departs from the body, for a brief season, and
wanders at will among scenes either near or remote, and returns with
its impressions, either clouded or clear, to communicate them to the
corporeal or not, as the case may be: hence dreams or visions, and
strong impressions when we wake, that something bright and good has
refreshed our sleep, or something dark and evil has made it troubled and
feverish. Again I have sometimes thought that this soul--this invisible
and immortal something within us--has power at times to look into the
future, and see events about to transpire; which events being sometimes
of a dark and terrible nature, leave upon it like impressions; and hence
gloomy and melancholy forebodings. This may be all sophistry--as much of
our better reasoning on things we know nothing about often is--but if it
be true, then may I trust to account for my present sadness."
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