14 Affectional Alchemy.
tempting scenes and people. Guilty, or not guilty, forget and for¬
give. Voluntarily free this simpleton from the chafing thrall that
binds her to one whose purse, not person, is all on earth she cares for.
Let her go at the call of affection, and, forsaking you and duty, yield
her to the better and nobler law of love. Free her, and they twain
will likely wed. Hold her, and she is that nameless thing — a wed¬
ded harlot.
My soul had, still as my friend, not myself, gotten thus far in its
just reasonings when methought I heard a sweet and silvery voice
say, " Behold ! " And as the delicious tones rung glorified changes
through my spirit I felt that I had grown a century within an hour;
and notwithstanding that I actually believed my friend's wife to be
guilty, and might probably so believe until my dying day, yet I had
charity for her, as well as sorrow and sympathy for him. I put
myself in his place, and for the first time in my life not only realized
the luxury of forgiveness, but felt capable of even dying a lingering
death that the woman so loved might be happy with him she so
loved; and greater affection than that can no man show, in that he
would lay down his life for a friend. I talked with the husband;
persuaded him to lay by the pistols and revenge. He did so, and
ceased to be jealous from that hour, caring but little whether the
vision was of actual fact or a delirious dream.
" Behold !" I looked, still with that ultra soul-sight which leaps
all boundaries, cleaves all space, flashes over rivers, mountains, seas,
penetrates all bodies, and brings us in actual contact with the whole
domain of mystery; and again I saw the little German child,
through the walls of both houses, as clearly as if they were of finest
crystal or purest glass instead of boards and mortar. And I beheld
an ineffably pure, pearly-hued effulgence playing about her little
head, undulating in billowy movement all about her infantile
shoulders, streaming from her hair, glowing round her waist, and
in loving wavelets all around. I watched this with astonishment.
It was but the prelude to the celestial cantata that followed. I saw
her mother gently chide her, and soon she went to bed, and slept the
sweet, delicious slumber of absolute innocence; and as she thus lay
I saw the gossamic cloud of pearly aura expand till it filled the room,
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