Tales of the Wonder Club, Volume I

by M. Y. Halidom

I felt somewhat chilled at this reception, as it seemed to me that they must have heard us, and purposely avoided looking up. My guide, who could read all that was passing in my mind, responded to my thoughts.

"Be not grieved at their apparent want of civility, for they do not even see you. These spirits see nothing and hear nothing but what is immediately before them and connected with their pursuits. All you see here are alchemists. In your terrestrial globe their sole delight was in the endeavour to make gold. To this end they voluntarily imprisoned their spirits in one channel in order to concentrate the force of their intellects towards the object of their pursuit.

"The development of their intellects alone at the expense of everything else that is human, was their desire in the world; their intellects alone, therefore, after death remain engrossed in their one pursuit to all eternity, and they are both deaf and blind to all else."

"And will this be my lot?" I asked of my guide.

"That depends upon yourself," was the reply. "Your spirit is not so entirely separated from your body as to make your doom irrevocable. In whatever state you quit the world of the body, in that state the spirit remains to eternity. If the state of these spirits pleases you not, there is time to set your affections on another.

"Anon I will show you another class of alchemists. These that you have seen are spirits who strive to make gold from love of science. Those I will show you now are those who have the love of gold for their aim, to which they make science subservient."

My guide then conducted me through a long dark corridor of arches until we reached another hall lighted up in a similar manner to the first. Here were a number of spirits, each likewise occupied with his own crucibles and apparatus, and paying no attention to those around him. The hall and the instruments used by the spirits of this second hall differed little from those of hall the first, but the faces of the men were different.

In the second hall the faces were less dignified and the skulls were broader, each of them having a preternatural protuberance like an egg at the temples, whilst the crown of their heads was flat. The heads of those of the first hall were higher, and their bearing more philosophic.

"I do not like the faces of those men," said I to my guide. "I dislike the expression of greed depicted on their countenances. Remove me from hence."

"I will now show you another order of spirits, also alchemists in their way, since gold is their pursuit," and here he led me down a dark subterranean staircase, damp and cold, which I descended with difficulty on account of the slipperiness of the steps.