"Perhaps," was the reply,—"but it must have been long since; and the trifling circumstances which you call life, with all their direct and recognizable effects, pass away so soon, that it is impossible to recall anything of it. There seems a kind of consciousness when we have something to act against, as against your mind at the present moment; but as to name, and all that kind of distinctiveness, what is the use of it where there is no possibility of confusion or mistake as to identity? We have said that we are spirit; and when we say that spirit is one and matter one, we have gone behind personal identity."
"But," asked I, "am I to lose my individual existence,—to become finally merged in a universal impersonality? What, then, is the object of life?"
"You see the plants and animals all around you growing up and passing away,—each entering its little orbit, and sweeping through this sphere of cognizance back again to the same mystery it emerged from; you never ask the question as to them, but for yourself you are anxious. If you had not been, would creation have been any less creation?—if you cease, will it not still be as great? Truly, though, your mistake is one of too little, not of too much. You assume that the animals become nothing; but, truly, nothing dies. The very crystals into which all the so-called primitive substances are formed, and which are the first forms of organization, have a spirit in them; for they obey something which inhabits and organizes them. If you could decompose the crystal, would you annihilate the soul which organized it? The plant absorbs the crystal, and it becomes a part of a higher organization, which could no more exist without its soul; and if the plant is cut down and cast into the oven, is the organic impulse food for the flames? You, the animal, do but exist through the absorption of these vegetable substances, and why should you not obey the analogical law of absorption and aggregation? You killed a deer to-day;—the flesh you will appropriate to supply the wants of your own material organization; but the life, the spirit which made that flesh a deer, in obedience to which that shell of external appearance is moulded,—you missed that. You can trace the body in its metamorphoses; but for this impalpable, active, and only real part of the being,—it were folly to suppose it more perishable, more evanescent, than the matter of which it was master. And why should not you, as well as the deer, go back into the great Life from which you came? As to a purpose in creation, why should there be any other than that which existence always shows,—that of existing?"
I now began to notice that all the leading ideas which the dæmon offered were put in the form of questions, as if from a cautious non-committalism, or as if it dared not in so many words say that they were the absolute truth. I felt that there was another side to the matter, and was confident that I should detect the sophistry of the dæmon; but then I did not feel able to carry the conversation farther, and was sensible of a readiness on the part of my interlocutor to cease. I wondered at this, and if it implied weariness on its part, when it was replied,—"We answer to your own mind; of course, when that ceases to act, there ceases to be reaction." I cried out in my own mind, in utter bewilderment,—"Objective or subjective?" and ceased my questionings.
The camp-fire glowed splendidly through the overhanging branches and foliage, and I longed for a revel of light. I asked the guides to make a "blaze," and, after a minute's delay and an ejaculation of "Game, to your high, low, jack," they emerged from the tent and in a few minutes had cut down several small dead spruces and piled the tops on the fire, which flashed up through the pitchy, inflammable mass, and we had a pyrotechnical display which startled the birds, that had gone to rest in the assurance of night, into a confused activity and clamor. The heat penetrated the camp and gave me a drowsiness which my disturbed repose of the night before rendered extremely grateful, and when the rest of the party returned from their row, I was asleep.
It was determined, the next morning, in council, to move; and one of the guides having informed us of a newly-opened carry, by which we could cross from Little Tupper's Lake, ten miles above us, directly to Forked Lake, and thence following the usual route down the Raquette River and through Long Lake, we could reach Martin's on Saranac Lake without retracing our steps, except over the short distance from the Raquette through the Saranac Lakes,—after breakfast, we hurriedly packed up our traps and were off as early as might be. It is hard boating up the Bog River, and hard work both for guides and tourists. All the boats and baggage had to be carried three miles, on the backs of the guides, and, help them as much as we could, the day had drawn nearly to its close before we were fairly embarked on Little Tupper's, and we had then nearly ten miles to go before reaching Constable's Camp, where we were to stop for the night. I worked hard all day, but in a kind of dream, as if the dead weight I carried with weariness were only the phantom of something, and I were a fantasy carrying it;—the actual had become visionary, and my imaginings nudged me and jostled me almost off the path of reason. But I had no time for a séance with my dæmon. The next day I devoted with the guides to bushing out the carry across to Forked Lake, about three and a half miles, through perfectly pathless woods; for we found Sam's statements as to the carry being chopped out entirely false; only a blazed line existed; so all the guides, except one, set to work with myself bushing and chopping out, while the other guide and the rest of the party spent the day in hunting. At the close of the day we had completed nearly two miles of the path, and returned to Constable's Camp to sleep. The next day we succeeded in getting the boats and baggage through to Bottle Pond, two and a half miles, and the whole party camped on the carry,—the guides anathematizing Sam, whose advice had led us on this road. The next afternoon found us afloat on Forked Lake, weary and glad to be in the sunlight on blue water again. Hard work and the excitement of responsibility in engineering our road-making operations had kept my visitor from dream-land away, and as we paddled leisurely down the beautiful lake,—one of the few yet untouched by the lumbermen,—I felt a healthier tone of mind than I had known since we had entered the woods. As we ran out of one of the deep bays which constitute a large portion of the lake, into the principal sheet of water, one of the most perfectly beautiful mountain-views I have ever seen burst upon us. We looked down the lake to its outlet, five miles, between banks covered with tall pines, and far away in the hazy atmosphere a chain of blue peaks raised themselves sharp-edged against the sky. One singularly-shaped summit, far to the south, attracted my attention, and I was about to ask its name, when Steve called out, with the air of one who communicates something of more than ordinary significance,—"Blue Mountain!" The name, Steve's manner, and I know not what of mysterious cause, gave to the place a strange importance. I felt a new and unaccountable attraction to the mountain. Some enchantment seemed to be casting its glamour over me from that distance even. There was thenceforward no goal for my wanderings but the Blue Mountain. It is a solitary peak, one of the southernmost of the Adirondacks, of a very quaint form, and lies in a circlet of lakes, three of which in a chain are named from the mountain. The way by which the mountain is reached is through these lakes, and their outlet, which empties into Raquette Lake. I had determined to remain in the woods some weeks, and now concluded to return, as soon as I had seen the rest of the party on their way home, and take up quarters on Raquette Lake for the rest of my stay.
That night we camped at the foot of Forked Lake, and not one of the party will ever forget the thunder-storm that burst on us in our woods-encampment among the tall pines, two of which, near us, were struck by the lightning. I tried in vain, when we were quiet for the night, to get some information on the subject of my attraction to the Blue Mountain. My dæmon appeared remote and made no responses. It seemed as if, knowing my resolution to stay alone there, it had resolved to be silent until I was without any cause for interruption of our colloquies. Save the consciousness of its remote attendance, I felt no recurrence of my past experience, until, having seen my friends on the road to civilization again, I left Martin's with Steve and Carlo for my quarters on the Raquette. We hurried back up the river as fast as four strong arms could propel our light boat, and resting, the second night, at Wilbur's, on Raquette Lake, I the next morning selected a site for a camp, where we built a neat little bark-house, proof against all discomforts of an elemental character, and that night I rested under my own roof, squatter though I was. The dæmon seemed in no haste to renew our former intimate intercourse,—for what reason I could not divine; but a few days after my settling, days spent in exploring and planning, it resumed suddenly its functions. It came to me out on the lake, where I had paddled to enjoy the starlight in the delicious evening, when the sky was filled with luminous vapor, through which the stars struggled dimly, and in which the landscape was almost as clearly visible as by moonlight.
"Well!" said I, familiarly, as I felt it take its place by my side, "you have come back."
"Come back!" it replied; "will you never get beyond your miserable ideas of space, and learn that there is no separation but that of feeling, no nearness but that of sympathy? If you had cared enough for us, we should have been with you constantly."
I was anxious to get to the subject of present interest, and did not stop to discuss a point which, in one, and the highest sense, I admitted.