The Shoulder-Knot, Chapter VII [pp. 86-91]

THE LADIES' REPOSITORY.
war upon the overhanging clouds; last of all, he came,
all pale and poor, the very image of myself, and took
me by the hand. As he looked like a most wretched
and fearful thing, I struggled hard to break his grasp;
he strove as earnestly to get free from me; but, strange
to tell, neither could quit the other, till I swooned again,
from which time I never saw him more.
"Not long afterward, however, I was sleeping profoundly in a bank of snow, where I had made my bed
as a penance for a then recent sin. A single blanket,
above and below, poorly protected my shivering sides
and limbs from cold. The winds were howling through
the woods, and over my living grave. I dreamed that I
died by freezing, being conscious of every step in the
progress of this awful death. First my toes and fingers
stung, as if burned by fire, and then became comfortable
again. Next, my legs underwent the same process,
stinging and becoming insensible by degrees. At last
my blood grew hot, my vitals seemed to be on fire, till
they, too, burnt out and ceased to feel. Last of all,
when driven from every other point, the soul clung for
a moment with a mortal struggle to the brain; then, giving up one division of it after another, as the fire and
frost of death followed on, all was soon lost but that single particle, to which adheres the Love of Life, where
the spirit hung tremblingly, but with all its might. No
words can tell the strange sensations of the soul thus
holding to the last atom of its mortal life. How the faculties, those noble powers, had vanished, as the work of
death had steadily progressed! Sensation, perception,
and reflection, had passed away. Memory, reason, imagination, were for ever gone. The emotions, love,
hope, fear, and all the rest, had disappeared. All was
gone but volition and the desire to be. The simple formula-I will live-fully expressed all that remained of
the glorious and godlike soul; and ivhen the mortal
atom to which it clung gave up, the spirit yielded not
to death, but quivered an instant on this pivot of its
former existence, then, strong in the resolution not to
die, passed at once into the immortal state.
" Entering, now, into the spiritual world, I was greatly
disappointed in many things. I had expected to leap, at
once, into the highest ecstasies of delight; but I found
myself a mere child, a spiritual child, just born. My
life was to be begun anew. All the powers of my soul
immediately returned to me, it is true; but, though niature in the former state, they seemed but childlike, compared with the breadth of this higher sphere. My recollection of past evtents, in fact, was perfect; for I could
not only distinctly recall each passage of my mortal
life, but every trace of it seemed to be alive in me in a
moment. My reason, too, was cleared of every mist;
so that I could collate facts, compare propositions, and
draw conclusions. with a wonderful precision and certainty of result. N othing, however, was more free from
its former shackles, than the imagination, which now
soared through the whole compass of possibilities, calling up shapes and images from the great deep of nonentity, and basking in the gorgeous light of its own creations. All the natural desires and appetites rose up
within me with more than tenfold strength; the artificial
were but habits of my body, which I had left behind.
My sensibilities were strangely acute; the affections possessed an unknown buoyancy and ardor; and the will,
that centre of all life, whether bodily or spiritual, towered up with colossal strength.
"Here I was, then, an inhabitant of another world,
yet entirely alone; for he that is born into that state,
though an infant in experience, needs no maternal help.
The soul is left to its own resources, as much as in the
mortal life; and it must be the cause of its own condition, even in that world of unchangeable effects. Having lost all sense of time, I know not how long I stood
on the brink of the future state, without making the
slightest effort of any kind; but, at length, becoming
pained with my loneliness, and every principle of lmy
being calling out for society, I uttered a wish to see
some being of like nature with myself. I even definitely
desired, that a certain female friend of nmine, a pattern of
every virtue, who had died many years before, might
come to nmy relief. In an instant, she stood before me,
the most beautiful and lovely creature I ever saw. We
met each other with a cordial salutation. At first, her
company gave me pleasure; but afterward I began to
grow uneasy in her presence, her conversation, her manners, her spirit, being so entirely above my own. Never
before had I seen nmy own nmoral deformity, as I saw it
then; and gradually I fell into such a distaste of the
silent reproof, which her exalted purity and loveliness
cast upon me, that I secretly wished myself alone. The
wish was creator to the fact; for, in a moment, she vanished from my sight.
"Supposing, however, that the fault might be in the
inexperience of my visitor, who might never have been
called to such a task before, I concluded that my best
resort would be to demand one of the most perfect of
the heavenly host, whose very perfection would fit him
to bend to my low estate. I called for the archangel,
Michael, and he came. Though his form was mniolded
into absolute beauty, and his nianners were as graceful
and as winning as a child's, there was, withal, such a
majesty in his look of innocence, that I dared not touch
even the border of his robe. The rays of his exalted
character streamed from his head with such a brilliance,
that, though he seemed all love and condescension, he
had scarcely appeared to mne, before I internally desired
him to be gone. Perceiving instantly my wishes, he
smiled most benev olently, and receded from my view.
" Discouraged by these attempts to associate with beings so far above my level, I began to feel a strong curiosity to know whether heaven contained any inmates
suited to my state. To discover this, however, by calling one after another to mly aid, would certainly be a
tedious, and might be a fruitless work. The only alternative was to go in person, could I be permitted, and
make general observations; and a sense of this alternative so fastened itself upon me, that I soon resolved, if
possible, to go. No sooner determined than I began to
rise, and soar-up, up, away, away-through the ethereal space, until, at last, the gleams of celestial light
dawned upon my rapt vision. The nearer I approached,
the more intense was the radiance. Strains of choral
music, faint at first, then louder and louder, burst upon
my hearing. Soaring upward and onward, each moment adding strength and harmony to the voices, and
power of effulgence to the light, the music became at
last so ravishingly sweet, as to be painful to me, and the
brilliance so dazzling that I could not endure it. Shutting my eyes, to sane them from being utterly extinguished, and my ears, to stop up the avenues of insufferable emotions, I gave one loud shriek, and, in a moment, found ty self once more alone on the verge of
that existence, which I knew not how to occupy. One
thing, however, I had learned. Heaven was no place
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