LITMIR.BIZ

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dark as is your intellectual vision, you can not fail to note the frequent occurrence of such significant words as ‘Bride,’ ‘Bridegroom,’ ‘espousal,’ ‘united,’ ‘heavenly consummation,’ ‘destination,’ ‘desolate Psyche,’ ‘Love,’ ‘indulged,’ ‘original majesty,’ ‘altogether lovely,’ and ‘wonderful.’

      “You can not fail to note that in this wonderful revelation of the possibilities of a single sentence, the personal pronouns ‘He’ and ‘Him’ always begin with a capital ‘H.’ Can you further doubt that this refers to ME? Can you further protest that this union of ME and MINE is not an essential part of the great plan and purpose of the Cosmic Intelligence to whom alone I acknowledge equality?

      “But if, perchance, there yet remains a lingering doubt, then listen once more to this inspired Mystic; for at page 197 he says—

      “ ‘In the ascent of life, desire seems to compel its cosmic partner, as hunger its victim, suspending that operation of physical and chemical forces proper to them outside of this dominion of vitality; in its descent these forces more and more tend to resume their proper action, until finally they bring into their own domain the structure they have served; their hardening of the walls of life’s outward temple, begun for protection, has gone on to the extreme of fragility and destruction—an office as kindly as any they have performed.’

      “And once more, O, my benighted friend, at page 185 he again says—

      “ ‘In this complex hierarchy of Nature discrete accords are sustained, so that they fall not into indifference and confusion; degrees of excellence are marked—of truth, beauty and goodness; individual sequestration and tranquillity are secured, and for each life a way—its own that no other can take, and yet open to accordant intimacies and correspondences; and in the psychical involvement life acquires a feeling of itself and a conscious control, the liberty of its dwelling.’

      “And yet again at page 108—

      “ ’As these organic capacities are deepened inwardly, representing in their sphering and involution and convolution the synthetic action of cosmic envelopment from the beginning, the desire which has thus shaped itself by intussusception, expressing its postulation, is outwardly a flame of increase, ascending also while it is crescent until it reaches the culminant point of its physiological term, where it—’ ”

      “Hold up there. Close that valve a minute. Put on the lid,” roared Bill, “and tell me in the name of all specialized idiocy what you’re at. If you can’t untangle yourself with four thousand languages dead and alive, then you better go chase yourself into cosmic nebulosity.

      “If this is your Ex—pli—ca—tion—, and if this is your only excuse for involuting yourself into an introconvertible, double-back-action dictionary, then, says I, t’mud with your mysticism. And now hereafter, when you want to ‘explicate’ you go out to the harmless ward where they’ve got whole bunches of just such as your old Manhattan misfit mutt.

      “You go out there and talk to your own brand of mystics. Don’t you talk shop here. I’m in the drug business and I know a little bit about medicine, but I’ll be everlastingly lost in a cosmological fog if I’d know how to prescribe for symptoms like yours. The kind of microbes that manifest through the gray matter of a mystic are not identified in these mundane dispensatories.

      “Now, you hear me a minute, Mr. Alonzo Leffingwell—INEXPLICABLE mystic and all around D—P—of every old degree, you want to get right out of Kankakee and lose no time. The state of Illinois makes our city the center of only ordinary aberrations; it does not provide wards for such illuminated inanities as you at this minute have been explicating.

      “I say, my friend, you go get some bars and lock yourself up. Go sink yourself in a tank of formaline and then will the tank to the scientific department of the institution. This, I say, would never be misunderstood by anybody who knew you. It would be a contribution to science, an aid to education, and an example to the young. And this would be the only good excuse you could ever give to society for having been on the top side of the earth.”

      “Unhappy trifler, you will regret your selfishness,” murmured the occultist, less in anger than sorrow. “But I have done. I leave you to your destiny. I leave you to your own conscience. This will cost you cycles of expiation. You have forfeited your possibilities. Had you resigned her in accordance with the law, all had been well. But your persistence shall react upon your own head—and now farewell. I leave you, to return no more—at least not this afternoon. I shall seek the lady. It rests with her. If possible I shall save her from the sad error of marrying you. I shall save her from herself. I shall lift her up to ME, and in this wise I may perhaps save her from other and very disagreeable reincarnations.”

      Bill Vanderhook picked his hat off the peg, carefully selected a big cigar, lighted it, took a whiff and then replied sardonically—“Well, Mr. Dianzy Chooanzy, and suppose she won’t affin, what then?”

      “Then, O, then,”—lisped Lonnie as he leaned upon the show-case as if for support—“I shall be compelled to wait through several cycles, perhaps, until she has worked out the necessary karma and attained to ME.”

      “But see here,” persisted Bill. “I thought that you gurus and gnanis and you astral fellows generally took the bachelor’s degree the very first inning. I thought you were clean off the market. I’ve always heard that matrimony was quite outside the mystic foul lines.”

      “Right,”—answered Lonnie—“that is, as you understand mysticism, marriage is forbidden, except a gentleman discovers his very own. And even then,”—and his voice quavered—“he must not even get engaged until she who is his in primordial biogen shall attain to an equal illumination. This frequently postpones the happy day for ages.”

      “Well, now, that’s a horse of another color,”—and Bill heaved a sigh of relief. “This is most likely one of those postponed cases. Anyway, I was solid up to last night, but if you don’t mind waiting a couple of thousand years I haven’t any objections,”—and the generous young druggist let fizz a glass of mineral water.

      “Thanks, awfully,”—murmured Lonnie, but whether for the permission or the apollinaris was not quite clear. He sipped the sparkling water with suggestive mournfulness.

      “Being chained to the material,” he added, “it is very possible she may even prefer you to ME. The fleshly veil which yet so thickly clothes her higher principles, may obscure ME to her inner consciousness; in which case I must temporarily resign her. I may not claim her for several brief earth lives yet. For all this I am fully prepared. And should she not cognize ME for what I AM, I shall hence to India, and there, by contemplation in the sacred cave I shall astralize. I shall return again, and keep watch over her.”

      “Well, well, well—that’s quite an idea, isn’t it!”—responded Bill. “No,”—as Lonnie felt in his vest pocket—tentatively—“it’s my treat. The plan you mention isn’t more’n half bad—kind o’ lets us all out without any hard feelings. I know it will suit Imogene to a T. Come back from India any time—in the astral. You’ll find the latch-string out.”

      “You forget,” returned the Mystic mildly, even sadly, “that ONE—WHO—KNOWS requires neither latch-string nor pass key.

      “Such an one, as I AM—TO—BECOME, neither asks admission nor visits by invitation. These are they who function in the Universal and whose atomic particles respond to the WILL. These are they whose levitations are uncircumscribed, who moveth by Desire and where they listeth. If I go shall I return again? And if so, from whence and for why? And who shall let me in? Aha! Ah-ha!”

      Saying which the wise man of Kankakee turned, went softly out the door and gliding down Asylum Avenue sought the abode of the fascinating Typewriter.

      [Pg 46]

       [Pg 47]

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