A dead man's diary

by Coulson Kernahan

CHAPTER XI.

THE MYSTERY OF "THE DEAD WHO DIE."

"Of all these mysteries there is none which fills me with such abject horror and dread as the mystery of 'the dead who die.'"

"Through many days they toil; then comes a day
They die not,—never having lived,—but cease;
And round their narrow lips the mould falls close."
Rossetti—"The Choice."

It may occur to those of my readers who have neglected to bear in mind the concluding words of Chapter VIII., that notwithstanding the remorse which I have pictured myself as suffering in Hades, I do not appear to have been altogether indifferent to the consolations of social intercourse, and that existence in the Unseen, as represented in the pages of this diary, would seem to consist largely of conversation between the "spirits in prison." But because I have confined myself in my last three chapters to the relation of such facts in regard to the condition of others, as, either through observation or conversation, came to my knowledge in the course of my singular experiences, it must not be supposed that my own sufferings had in any way ceased. What those sufferings were as described by me in my sixth chapter, they continued to be during the whole of the time in which it was ordained that I should remain in Hades, and each of the conversations here recorded took place during that comparatively painless interval of which I have elsewhere spoken, and was separated from the conversation preceding or following it by a space of terrible pain. With which necessary reminder I pass on to tell of "the dead who die."

During the time of my wanderings in the spirit world, it happened that I had occasion to speak to one to whom I was personally unknown, but who had lived for many years in a country town in which I had myself once resided. Though comparatively guiltless, as I learned he was, of any criminal offence, he seemed to be incessantly consumed by a spirit of strange unrest, and I noticed that, even in his moments of reprieve, he appeared unable to free himself from some singularly disturbing thought. I was aware that he had at one time been intimate with a former neighbour of mine, and something in our conversation recalling this man's name to my memory I asked my companion if he knew "what had become of Henry Marshall?"

The words had scarcely fallen from my lips before there passed over his features a spasm of uncontrollable fear, and with a quick gasping cry, and covering his face with his hand, as if to shut out some ghastly vision, he exclaimed: "He is dead; he is dead—but why do you speak of him? Know you not that he is of the dead who die?"

"Of the dead who die?" I repeated wonderingly; "I do not understand you. Surely all who are dead must die?"

To this he made no answer, and seeing that he was strangely moved, I forbore to question him further, but by-and-by he became calmer and of his own accord continued the conversation.

"You asked me about Henry Marshall," he said, "and I will tell you all I know about him; but first let me explain that, next to the love of money which has been my ruin, my sorest hindrance on earth was my unbelief and faithlessness; and that here in hell the punishment of the unbeliever is that he shall be consumed by the anguish of his own unbelief. Once when I might have believed, I would not, and now, though I would believe, I cannot, but am for ever torn by hideous apprehensions and doubts as to my own future and the future of those dear to me. Moreover, there are many things which, clear and plain as they may be to the faithful of heart and to the believing, are to my doubting eyes wrapt around in mystery and in gloom. Into these mysteries it has been ordained as part of my punishment that I shall ever desire to look, and of all these mysteries there is not one which fills me with such abject horror and dread as the mystery of the dead who die."

"Of the dead who die?" I said again; "what do you mean by those strange words?"

"They are my words," he cried excitedly, and with a hysterical laugh, "mine, mine; the words I use to myself when I think of the mystery which they strove so carefully to conceal from me, but which for all their cunning I have discovered. Listen, and I will tell you about it. When I first came here, I saw, either in hell or in heaven, the faces of most of the dead whom I had known on earth, but some faces there were (Henry Marshall's was one of them) which I missed, and which from that time to this I have never seen. 'Where, then, are they?' I asked myself, 'since neither earth, hell, nor heaven knows them more? Has God some fearful fate in store for the sinner, which may one day fall upon me and mine, as it has already fallen upon them?' As I felt the shadow of that dark misgiving resting on my heart, I knew that for me another horror had arisen in hell, and that rest thenceforth there could be none until I had solved the mystery.

"And so it came about that all the moments of my release from suffering were spent in the search for those missing faces. Sometimes I took counsel with those who were in hell as I was, but they could teach me only that which I already knew; sometimes I asked the help of the souls in Paradise, but they told me nothing save that I must be no more faithless but believing. And then I sought to know of the angels where were those lost ones, but with a look of sad and pitiful meaning, they passed on and left me unanswered. Ah! but they could not hide their secrets from me! No, no, I was not one of the credulous, nor was I to be put off with a frown, and I have found out their mystery, and you shall share it.

"When you and I were children, we were taught that every human being is made in the image of God, and is born with an immortal soul. But they did not tell us that just as neglected diseases can kill the body, so unchecked sin can kill the soul, and that we have it in our power to so deface the Divine Image that we become like unto, if not lower, than the beasts which perish, and die out at our deaths as they. But it is so, and that is what I meant when I said that he of whom you asked was 'of the dead who die.'

"You shake your head, and mutter that I am mad, and that you cannot credit such a statement. Well, perhaps I am mad—mad with the horror of my unbelief; but why should it not be as I say, I ask you? I have brooded over it all a thousand times, and am convinced that I have solved the riddle, and I will tell you why I think so.

"God is answerable to Himself for His actions, and when He made man, He made a man, and not a puppet—a being of infinite possibilities for good as well as for evil, and to whom it was given to choose for himself between the doing of the right or the wrong. But God knew that many of those whom He so made would sin away all memory of their Divine origin. God did not will it so, for He made us men, not machines, and the evil we do is of our own choosing, but God foreknew it; and, fore-knowing that, God owed it to Himself not to call a creature into being, the result of whose creation would be that creature's infinite and eternal misery. No, even the Omnipotent dared not perpetrate so wanton and wicked a deed as that, for God is the inexorable Judge who sits in judgment upon God; and hence it was that He decreed that those for whom there could be no hope of heaven should die out at their deaths like the brutes. Doesn't that seem to you a probable solution? and isn't it rational and feasible upon the face of it? Our life—such as it is—is from God, and may not God take His own again, and withdraw that life if He wish it? and could anything better happen to many people whom you and I know, than that they should be allowed to die out, and the very memory of them pass away for ever?"

I was convinced that he was mad—mad, as he had himself hinted, with the horror of his unbelief; but I was interested in what he had to say, and in his singular fancies.

"Tell me more of these missing faces, and of the 'dead who die,'" I answered. "Who are they, for the most part?—murderers and criminals of the most bestial nature?"

"Not always," he replied excitedly, "not always; and that is the reason why I am so fearful about my own future. Most of them are those who in their lifetime were regarded as belonging to the respectable classes, and who, so far from having come at any time within reach of the law, were looked upon as good citizens and estimable members of society. Shall I tell you what killed the immortal soul in them, and in me, and turned us into mere animated clay, fit only to die out like the beasts which perish? It was money—money, the love of which is often more deadening to the spiritual nature than actual vice or sin.

"I set out in life with one steadfast purpose before me—the purpose of devoting myself body and soul to business and to the making of money. It was not that I was indifferent to the attractions of a profession, and still less that I was wanting in appreciation of higher things, for I liked books and pictures and music. Sometimes, too, when I was listening to my sister's singing of Herrick's lines, 'To Anthea,' or to Ben Jonson's 'Drink to me only with thine eyes,' I felt bitterly the littleness of my aims, and seemed to know, as I never knew at any other time, what it was to love a woman with that high, whole-hearted, and deathless devotion which brings redemption and ennoblement to the soul of the man to whom it comes. But I said to myself: 'Patience; first of all let me grow rich; let me make all the money I can get together, and then, when I have sufficient for all my requirements, I will forsake the money-making, and turn my thoughts to love and poetry and pictures; and through them, perhaps on to religion, for I knew even then that though love and poetry are not religion, that they yet serve, before a higher faith has been called into being, to keep the life of the soul alive, and to open up the way for holier things.

"And so I became what is called a good business man. I made business the motive of my life. I thought of nothing else, and read nothing but the papers, and these I only scanned for the purpose of observing the influence of political or other passing events upon the markets. At last I became rich. And with what result? That when I no longer needed business, I found I could live no longer without it; that it had become my life, and I its slave, and that I could awaken no lasting interest in anything which did not pertain to the making of money. It is true that I had at that time a wife and children (the former of whom I had married chiefly for her fortune), and was not without a certain half-selfish love for them as part and parcel of myself; that I possessed a handsome house and gardens in which I took pride as being of my own acquirement; and that I went into society with enjoyment; and found a certain pompous pleasure in extending my patronage to Sunday-schools, bazaars and Young Men's Christian Associations. But where my treasure was, there my heart was also, and at heart I was a business man, and nothing more. I did not know myself then as I do now, and so far from being in any way dissatisfied, I had no more suspicion that I was other than one of the most enviable of men, than has the grinning savage with his handful of beads. But I know now the thing I am, and what I have missed, and I tell you that the most sorely swindled simpleton in existence is the man whose business capability is so keen, that though he has never been bested in a bargain, he has bartered away his own happiness for a bauble, and (so skilful a schemer to defraud us is old Satan) has become bankrupt of all that makes life worth the living, in order that he may boast a heavy balance at his banker's!

"Yes, I was a good business man—a smart and shrewd business man, as business men go—and I know much of such men and of their transactions; and I tell you that, since the days of Judas Iscariot, the money-lover and grubber who sold his God for thirty pieces of silver, as thousands are selling their infinite souls this day, there have been no more soulless and selfish creatures upon God's earth, than the men who have made what should be a means to an end an end in itself, and who live for business, instead of by it.

"They go to church, many of them, on Sundays, and subscribe liberally to coal clubs and soup kitchens, thinking, poor fools! to offer such acts as those as a set-off to God for the sordid self-seeking which has been the secret of their success in their commercial calling; never suspecting that in their respectable selfishness and sordidness of spirit, they are lower in the scale of being and farther from the kingdom of heaven than is the lurking prostitute shivering at the street corner, or the drunken sot reeling home after a night's debauch.

"That they must die out at their deaths, as do the beasts, I am convinced, for what can God find for such men to do in heaven?—men to whom the earth, its prototype, is nothing but a gigantic shop, and to whom Music, Art, and Song are but as dead letters and foolishness; men who are susceptible to no emotion save the greed for gain; and who have let the infinite soul within them pine away and perish for the want of the wherewithal to keep that soul alive.

"And I, I am one of them, and am of the dead who die! I have bartered away love and life and happiness for such Dead Sea fruit as this; I who once was young, and not altogether, as I now am, a soulless creature of clay! For I can remember the time when flowers, pictures, beautiful faces and music set stirring always some strong emotion within me, in which it seemed that I saw hidden away in a crystal cell in the depths of my own strange heart, the shining form of a white-robed Soul-maiden, who cried out to me, 'Ah! cannot you make your life as pure and beautiful as the flowers and the music, that so you may set me free?'

"But I chose the ignoble part, and gave myself up body and soul to the greed for gain. And often in the hour when, tempted by an evil thought, I turned to do some shameful or selfish action, I seemed to see the white arms of the Soul-maiden uplifted in piteous entreaty to heaven, until at last the time came when her voice was silent, and when I knew that I had thrust her down and down into a darkness whence she would never again come forth!

"And now nor picture, nor poem, nor music moves me more, for the soul of me is dead!—is dead! and I have become like unto the beasts that perish, and know not that at any moment I may flicker out like a spent taper, and become as the dead who die!"

So saying, he burst into a shriek of insane and unearthly laughter, and foaming at the mouth like a madman, turned from me, and fled gibbering into the night.