The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance
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Marie Corelli >> The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance
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29 Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
THE LIFE EVERLASTING
A REALITY OF ROMANCE
BY MARIE CORELLI
AUTHOR OF THELMA, ETC.
CONTENTS
AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE
I. THE HEROINE BEGINS HER STORY
II. THE FAIRY SHIP
III. THE ANGEL OF A DREAM
IV. A BUNCH OF HEATHER
V. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
VI. RECOGNITION
VII. MEMORIES
VIII. VISIONS
IX. DOUBTFUL DESTINY
X. STRANGE ASSOCIATIONS
XI. ONE WAY OF LOVE
XII. A LOVE-LETTER
XIII. THE HOUSE OF ASELZION
XIV. CROSS AND STAR
XV. A FIRST LESSON
XVI. SHADOW AND SOUND
XVII. THE MAGIC BOOK
XVIII. DREAMS WITHIN A DREAM
XIX. THE UNKNOWN DEEP
XX. INTO THE LIGHT
THE LIFE EVERLASTING
A REALITY OF ROMANCE
AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE
In the Gospels of the only Divine Friend this world has ever had or
ever will have, we read of a Voice, a 'Voice in the Wilderness.'
There have been thousands of such Voices;--most of them ineffectual.
All through the world's history their echoes form a part of the
universal record, and from the very beginning of time they have
sounded forth their warnings or entreaties in vain. The Wilderness
has never cared to hear them. The Wilderness does not care to hear
them now.
Why, then, do I add an undesired note to the chorus of rejected
appeal? How dare I lift up my voice in the Wilderness, when other
voices, far stronger and sweeter, are drowned in the laughter of
fools and the mockery of the profane? Truly, I do not know. But I am
sure that I am not moved by egotism or arrogance. It is simply out
of love and pity for suffering human kind that I venture to become
another Voice discarded--a voice which, if heard at all, may only
serve to awaken the cheap scorn and derision of the clowns of the
piece.
Yet, should this be so, I would not have it otherwise, I have never
at any time striven to be one with the world, or to suit my speech
pliantly to the conventional humour of the moment. I am often
attacked, yet am not hurt; I am equally often praised, and am not
elated. I have no time to attend to the expression of opinions,
which, whether good or bad, are to me indifferent. And whatever pain
I have felt or feel, in experiencing human malice, has been, and is,
in the fact that human malice should exist at all,--not for its
attempted wrong towards myself. For I, personally speaking, have not
a moment to waste among the mere shadows of life which are not Life
itself. I follow the glory,--not the gloom.
So whether you, who wander in darkness of your own making, care to
come towards the little light which leads me onward, or whether you
prefer to turn away from me altogether into your self-created darker
depths, is not my concern. I cannot force you to bear me company.
God Himself cannot do that, for it is His Will and Law that each
human soul shall shape its own eternal future. No one mortal can
make the happiness or salvation of another. I, like yourselves, am
in the 'Wilderness,'--but I know that there are ways of making it
blossom like the rose! Yet,--were all my heart and all my love
outpoured upon you, I could not teach you the Divine transfiguring
charm,--unless you, equally with all your hearts and all your love,
resolutely and irrevocably WILLED to learn.
Nevertheless, despite your possible indifference,--your often sheer
inertia--I cannot pass you by, having peace and comfort for myself
without at least offering to share that peace and comfort with you.
Many of you are very sad,--and I would rather you were happy. Your
ways of living are trivial and unsatisfactory--your so-called
'pleasant' vices lead you into unforeseen painful perplexities--your
ideals of what may be best for your own enjoyment and advancement
fall far short of your dreams,--your amusements pall on your over-
wearied senses,--your youth hurries away like a puff of thistledown
on the wind,--and you spend all your time feverishly in trying to
live without understanding Life. Life, the first of all things, the
essence of all things,--Life which is yours to hold and to keep, and
to RE-CREATE over and over again in your own persons,--this precious
jewel you throw away, and when it falls out of your possession by
your own act, you think such an end was necessary and inevitable.
Poor unhappy mortals! So self-sufficient, so proud, so ignorant!
Like some foolish rustic, who, finding a diamond, sees no difference
between it and a bit of glass, you, with the whole Universe sweeping
around you in mighty beneficent circles of defensive, protective and
ever re-creative power,--power which is yours to use and to control-
-imagine that the entire Cosmos is the design of mere blind
unintelligent Chance, and that the Divine Life which thrills within
you serves no purpose save to lead you to Death! Most wonderful and
most pitiful it is that such folly, such blasphemy should still
prevail,--and that humanity should still ascribe to the Almighty
Creator less wisdom and less love than that with which He has
endowed His creatures. For the very first lesson in the beginning of
knowledge is that Life is the essential Being of God, and that each
individual intelligent outcome of Life is deathless as God Himself.
The 'Wilderness' is wide,--and within it we all find ourselves,--
some wandering far astray--some crouching listlessly among shadows,
too weary to move at all--others, sauntering along in idle
indifference, now and then vaguely questioning how soon and where
the journey will end,--and few ever discovering that it is not a
'Wilderness' at all, but a garden of sweet sights and sounds, where
every day should be a glory and every night a benediction. For when
the veil of mere Appearances has been lifted we are no longer
deceived into accepting what Seems for what Is. The Reality of Life
is Happiness;--the Delusion of Life, which we ourselves create by
improper balance and imperfect comprehension of our own powers, must
needs cause Sorrow, because in such self-deception we only dimly see
the truth, just as a person born blind may vaguely guess at the
beauty of bright day. But for the Soul that has found Itself, there
are no more misleading lights or shadows between its own
everlastingness and the everlastingness of God.
All the world over there are religions of various kinds, more or
less suited to the various types and races of humanity. Most of
these forms of faith have been evolved from the brooding brain of
Man himself, and have nothing 'divine,' in them. In the very early
ages nearly all the religious creeds were mere methods for
terrorising the ignorant and the weak--and some of them were so
revolting, so bloodthirsty and brutal, that one cannot now read of
them without a shudder of repulsion. Nevertheless, from the very
first dawn of his intelligence, man appears always to have felt the
necessity of believing in something stronger and more lasting than
himself,--and his first gropings for truth led him to evolve
desperate notions of something more cruel, more relentless, and more
wicked than himself, rather than ideals of something more beautiful,
more just, more faithful and more loving than he could be. The dawn
of Christianity brought the first glimmering suggestion that a
gospel of love and pity might be more serviceable in the end to the
needs of the world, than a ruthless code of slaughter and vengeance-
-though history shows us that the annals of Christianity itself are
stained with crime and shamed by the shedding of innocent blood.
Only in these latter days has the world become faintly conscious of
the real Force working behind and through all things--the soul of
the Divine, or the Psychic element, animating and inspiring all
visible and invisible Nature. This soul of the Divine--this Psychic
element, however, is almost entirely absent from the teaching of the
Christian creed to-day, with the result that the creed itself is
losing its power. I venture to say that a very small majority of the
millions of persons worshipping in the various forms of the
Christian Church really and truly believe what they publicly
profess. Clergy and laity alike are tainted with this worst of all
hypocrisies--that of calling God to witness their faith when they
know they are faithless. It may be asked how I dare to make such an
assertion? I dare, because I know! It would be impossible to the
people of this or any other country to honestly believe the
Christian creed, and yet continue to live as they do. Their lives
give the lie to their avowed religion, and it is this daily
spectacle of the daily life of governments, trades, professions and
society which causes me to feel that the general aspect of
Christendom at the present day, with all its Churches and solemn
observances, is one of the most painful and profound hypocrisy. You
who read this page,--(possibly with indignation) you call yourself a
Christian, no doubt. But ARE you? Do you truly think that when death
shall come to you it is really NOT death, but the simple transition
into another and better life? Do you believe in the actual
immortality of your soul, and do you realise what it means? You do?
You are quite sure? Then, do you live as one convinced of it? Are
you quite indifferent to the riches and purely material advantages
of this world?--are you as happy in poverty as in wealth, and are
you independent of social esteem? Are you bent on the very highest
and most unselfish ideals of life and conduct? I do not say you are
not; I merely ask if you ARE. If your answer is in the affirmative,
do not give the lie to your creed by your daily habits, conversation
and manners; for this is what thousands of professing Christians do,
and the clergy are by no means exempt.
I know very well, of course, that I must not expect your
appreciation, or even your attention, in matters purely spiritual.
The world is too much with you, and you become obstinate of opinion
and rooted in prejudice. Nevertheless, as I said before, this is not
my concern. Your moods are not mine, and with your prejudices I have
nothing to do. My creed is drawn from Nature--Nature, just,
invincible, yet tender--Nature, who shows us that Life, as we know
it now, at this very time and in this very world, is a blessing so
rich in its as yet unused powers and possibilities, that it may be
truly said of the greater majority of human beings that scarce one
of them has ever begun to learn HOW to live.
Shakespeare, the greatest human exponent of human nature at its best
and worst,--the profound Thinker and Artist who dealt boldly with
the facts of good and evil as they truly are,--and did not hesitate
to contrast them forcibly, without any of the deceptive 'half-tones'
of vice and virtue which are the chief stock-in-trade of such modern
authors as we may call 'degenerates,'--makes his Hamlet exclaim:--
"What a piece of work is man!--how noble in
reason!--how infinite in faculty!--in form and moving
how express and admirable!--in action how like an
angel!--in apprehension how like a god!"
Let us consider two of these designations in particular: 'How
infinite in faculty!'--and 'In apprehension how like a god!' The
sentences are prophetic, like so many of Shakespeare's utterances.
They foretell the true condition of the Soul of Man when it shall
have discovered its capabilities. 'Infinite in faculty'--that is to
say--Able to do all it shall WILL to do. There is no end to this
power,--no hindrance in either earth or heaven to its resolute
working--no stint to the life-supplies on which it may draw
unceasingly. And--'in apprehension how like a god!' Here the word
'apprehension' is used in the sense of attaining knowledge,--to
learn, or to 'apprehend' wisdom. It means, of course, that if the
Soul's capability of 'apprehending' or learning the true meaning and
use of every fact and circumstance which environs its existence,
were properly perceived and applied, then the 'Image of God' in
which the Creator made humanity, would become the veritable likeness
of the Divine.
But, as this powerful and infinite faculty of apprehension is seldom
if ever rightly understood, and as Man generally concentrates his
whole effort upon ministering to his purely material needs, utterly
ignoring and wilfully refusing to realise those larger claims which
are purely spiritual, he presents the appearance of a maimed and
imperfect object,--a creature who, having strong limbs, declines to
use the same, or who, possessing incalculable wealth, crazily
considers himself a pauper. Jesus Christ, whom we may look upon as a
human Incarnation of Divine Thought, an outcome and expression of
the 'Word' or Law of God, came to teach us our true position in the
scale of the great Creative and Progressive Purpose,--but in the
days of His coming men would not listen,--nor will they listen even
now. They say with their mouths, but they do not believe with their
hearts, that He rose from the dead,--and they cannot understand
that, as a matter of fact, He never died. seeing that death for Him
(as for all who have mastered the inward constitution and
commingling of the elements) was impossible. His real LIFE was not
injured or affected by the agony on the Cross, or by His three days'
entombment; the one was a torture to His physical frame, which to
the limited perception of those who watched Him 'die,' as they
thought, appeared like a dissolution of the whole Man,--the other
was the mere rest and silence necessary for what is called the
'miracle' of the Resurrection, but which was simply the natural
rising of the same Body, the atoms of which were re-invested and
made immortal by the imperishable Spirit which owned and held them
in being. The whole life and so-called 'death' of Christ was and is
a great symbolic lesson to mankind of the infinite power of THAT
within us which we call SOUL,--but which we may perhaps in these
scientific days term an eternal radio-activity,--capable of
exhaustless energy and of readjustment to varying conditions. Life
is all Life. There is no such thing as Death in its composition,--
and the intelligent comprehension of its endless ways and methods of
change and expression, is the Secret of the Universe.
It appears to be generally accepted that we are not to know this
Secret,--that it is too vast and deep for our limited capacities,--
and that even if we did know it, it would be of no use to us, as we
are bound hard and fast by certain natural and elemental laws over
which we have no control. Old truisms are re-stated and violently
asserted--namely, that our business is merely to be born, to live,
breed and arrange things as well as we can for those who come after
us, and then to die, and there an end,--a stupid round of existence
not one whit higher than that of the silkworm. Is it for such a
monotonous, commonplace way of life and purpose as this, that
humanity has been endowed with 'infinite faculty'? Is it for such
poor aims and ends as these that we are told in the legended account
of the beginning of things, to 'Replenish the earth and subdue it'?
There is great meaning in that command--'Subdue it!' The business of
each one of us who has come into the knowledge and possession of his
or her own Soul, is to 'subdue' the earth,--that is, to hold it and
all it contains under subjection,--not to allow Its forces, whether
interior or exterior, to subdue the Soul. But it may perhaps be
said:--"We do not yet understand all the forces with which we have
to contend, and in this way they master us." That may be so,--but if
it is so with any of you, it is quite your own fault. Your own
fault, I say,--for there is no power, human or divine, that compels
you to remain in ignorance. Each one of you has a master--talisman
and key to all locked doors. No State education can do for you what
you might do for yourselves, if you only had the WILL. It is your
own choice entirely if you elect to live in subjection to the earth,
instead of placing the earth under subjection to your dominance.
Then, again, you have been told to 'Replenish the earth'--as well as
to subdue it. In these latter days, through a cupidity as amazing as
criminal, you are not 'replenishing' so much as impoverishing the
earth, and think you that no interest will be exacted for your
reckless plunder? You mistake! You complain of the high taxes
imposed upon you by your merely material and ephemeral Governments,-
-but you forget that the Everlasting Government of all Worlds
demands an even higher rate of compensation for such wrong or
injurious uses as you make of this world, which was and is intended
to serve as a place of training for the development and perfection
of the whole human race, but which, owing to personal greed and
selfishness, is too often turned into a mere grave for the interment
of faulty civilisations.
In studying the psychic side of life it should be well and
distinctly understood that THERE IS AN EVER LIVING SPIRIT WITHIN
EACH ONE OF US;--a Spirit for which there is no limited capacity and
no unfavourable surroundings. Its capacity is infinite as God,--and
its surroundings are always made by Itself. It is its own Heaven,--
and once established within that everlasting centre, it radiates
from the Inward to the Outward, thus making its own environment, not
only now but for ever. It is its own Life,--and in the active work
of perpetually re-generating and re-creating itself, knows nothing
of Death.
* * *
* *
*
I must now claim the indulgence of those among my readers who
possess the rare gift of patience, for anything that may seem too
personal in the following statement which I feel it almost necessary
to make on the subject of my own "psychic" creed. I am so often
asked if I believe this or that, if I am "orthodox," if I am a
sceptic, materialist or agnostic, that I should like, if possible,
to make things clear between myself and these enquirers. Therefore I
may say at once that my belief in God and the immortality of the
Soul is absolute,--but that I did not attain to the faith I hold
without hard training and bitter suffering. This need not be dwelt
upon, being past. I began to write when I was too young to know
anything of the world's worldly ways, and when I was too
enthusiastic and too much carried away by the splendour and beauty
of the spiritual ideal to realise the inevitable derision and scorn
which are bound to fall upon untried explorers into the mysteries of
the unseen; yet it was solely on account of a strange psychical
experience which chanced to myself when I stood upon the threshold
of what is called 'life' that I found myself producing my first
book, "A Romance of Two Worlds." It was a rash experiment, but it
was the direct result of an initiation into some few of the truths
behind the veil of the Seeming Real. I did not then know why I was
selected for such an 'initiation'--and I do not know even now. It
arose quite naturally out of a series of ordinary events which might
happen to anyone. I was not compelled or persuaded into it, for,
being alone in the world and more or less friendless, I had no
opportunity to seek advice or assistance from any person as to the
course of life or learning I should pursue. And I learned what I did
learn because of my own unwavering intention and WILL to be
instructed.
I should here perhaps explain the tenor of the instruction which was
gradually imparted to me in just such measures of proportion as I
was found to be receptive. The first thing I was taught was how to
bring every feeling and sense into close union with the spirit of
Nature. Nature, I was told, is the reflection of the working-mind of
the Creator--and any opposition to that working-mind on the part of
any living organism It has created cannot but result in disaster.
Pursuing this line of study, a wonderful vista of perpetual
revealment was opened to me. I saw how humanity, moved by gross
egoism, has in every age of the world ordained laws and morals for
itself which are the very reverse of Nature's teaching--I saw how,
instead of helping the wheel of progress and wisdom onward, man
reverses it by his obstinacy and turns it backward even on the very
point of great attainment--and I was able to perceive how the
sorrows and despairs of the world are caused by this one simple
fact--Man working AGAINST Nature--while Nature, ever divine and
invincible, pursues her God-appointed course, sweeping her puny
opponents aside and inflexibly carrying out her will to the end. And
I learned how true it is that if Man went WITH her instead of
AGAINST her, there would be no more misunderstanding of the laws of
the Universe, and that where there is now nothing but discord, all
would be divinest harmony.
My first book, "A Romance of Two Worlds," was an eager, though
crude, attempt to explain and express something of what I myself had
studied on some of these subjects, though, as I have already said,
my mind was unformed and immature, and, therefore, I was not
permitted to disclose more than a glimmering of the light I was
beginning to perceive. My own probation--destined to be a severe
one--had only just been entered upon; and hard and fast limits were
imposed on me for a certain time. I was forbidden, for example, to
write of radium, that wonderful 'discovery' of the immediate hour,
though it was then, and had been for a long period, perfectly well
known to my instructors, who possessed all the means of extracting
it from substances as yet undreamed of by latter-day scientists. I
was only permitted to hint at it under the guise of the word
'Electricity'--which, after all, was not so much of a misnomer,
seeing that electric force displays itself in countless millions of
forms. My "Electric Theory of the Universe" in the "Romance of Two
Worlds" foreran the utterance of the scientist who in the "Hibbert
Journal" for January, 1905, wrote as follows:--"The last years have
seen the dawn of a revolution in science as great as that which in
the sphere of religion overthrew the many gods and crowned the One.
Matter, as we have understood it, there is none, nor probably
anywhere the individual atom. The so-called atoms are systems of
ELECTRONIC corpuscles, bound together by their mutual forces too
firmly for any human contrivance completely to sunder them,--alike
in their electric composition, differing only in the rhythms of
their motion. ELECTRICITY is all things, and all things are
ELECTRIC."
THIS WAS PRECISELY MY TEACHING IN THE FIRST BOOK I EVER WROTE. I was
ridiculed for it, of course,--and I was told that there was no
'spiritual' force in electricity. I differ from this view; but
'radio-activity' is perhaps the better, because the truer term to
employ in seeking to describe the Germ or Embryo of the Soul, for--
as scientists have proved--"Radium is capable of absorbing from
surrounding bodies SOME UNKNOWN FORM OF ENERGY which it can render
evident as heat and light." This is precisely what the radio-
activity in each individual soul of each individual human being is
ordained to do,--to absorb an 'unknown form of energy which it can
render evident as heat and light.' Heat and Light are the
composition of Life;--and the Life which this radio-activity of Soul
generates IN itself and OF itself, can never die. Or, as I wrote in
"A Romance of Two Worlds "--"Like all flames, this electric (or
radiant) spark can either be fanned into a fire, or allowed to
escape in air,--IT CAN NEVER BE DESTROYED." And again, from the same
book: "All the wonders of Nature are the result of LIGHT AND HEAT
ALONE." Paracelsus, as early as about 1526, made guarded mention of
the same substance or quality, describing it thus:--"The more of the
humour of life it has, the more of the spirit of life abounds in
that life." Though truly this vital radio-active force lacks all
fitting name. To material science radium, or radium chloride, is a
minute salt crystal, so rare and costly to obtain that it may be
counted as about three thousand times the price of gold in the
market. But of the action of PURE radium, the knowledge of ordinary
scientific students is nil. They know that an infinitely small spark
of radium salt will emit heat and light continuously without any
combustion or change in its own structure. And I would here quote a
passage from a lecture delivered by one of our prominent scientists
in 1904. "Details concerning the behaviour of several radio-active
bodies were detected, as, for example, their activity was not
constant; it gradually grew in strength, BUT THE GROWN PORTION OF
THE ACTIVITY COULD BE BLOWN AWAY, AND THE BLOWN AWAY PART RETAINED
ITS ACTIVITY ONLY FOR A TIME. It decayed in a few days or weeks,--
WHEREAS THE RADIUM ROSE IN STRENGTH AGAIN AT THE SAME RATE THAT THE
OTHER DECAYED. And so on constantly. It was as if a NEW FORM of
matter was constantly being produced, and AS IF THE RADIO-ACTIVITY
WAS A CONCOMITANT OF THE CHANGE OF FORM. It was also found that
radium kept on producing heat de novo so as to keep itself always a
fraction of a degree ABOVE THE SURROUNDING TEMPERATURE; also that it
spontaneously PRODUCED ELECTRICITY."
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