AN INDEX FINGER.

BY TULIS ABROJAL

“All the Sutras are but fingers that point out the shining moon.” “Man, thou livest forever.” Has any one supposed it is lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him, or her, it is just as lucky to die, and I know it. This day before dawn I ascended a hill and look’d at the crowded heaven. And I said to my spirit: When we become the unfolders of those orbs, and the pleasure and knowledge of everything in them, shall we be filled and satisfied then? And my spirit said: No, we but level that lift to pass and continue beyond. —Walt Whitman.

R. F. FENNO & COMPANY, 9 and 11 EAST SIXTEENTH STREET: NEW YORK CITY 1898

Copyright, 1897 BY TULIS ABROJAL.

An Index Finger.

DEDICATION.

To those who faithfully follow their ideals, ever doing the work they love to do, always giving to the world the best that is in them—the truth as they see it—though in the face of difficulties, disasters and defeat; enduring persecution, poverty and want, meeting the dread spectre of starvation, suffering death itself if need be, yet counting all not too great a price to pay for the freedom of their souls, this book is sympathetically dedicated.

CONTENTS.

[Pg 7]

PREFACE.

The good old custom of the author telling his readers in a preface why he wrote his book, happily has not yet gone out of date. Though no particular friend to guide-board literature in general, I confess to a weakness for the preface. It has its helpful uses. There the author can talk directly to his readers, without filtering his thoughts through the brains of his characters; and in consequence the readers come into closer sympathy with him and understand him better. In not a few cases I have wished books were all preface. I hope others may not wish so in this case.

In the preface we meet the author face to face, as it were, and he becomes ours or we become his at once. It is a little confidential glimpse into his soul, which he kindly gives us before we enter it by means of the book.

Yes, I am decidedly in favor of the preface, both as reader and author.

A time-honored method of prefatory writing, made the author assume a modesty that was self-depreciatory in the extreme. More often than not he warned readers off by throwing out hints disparaging his own ability. To such few readers[Pg 8] as he thought might follow him through the book in spite of his assurance that it would be unprofitable to do so, he apologized with the utmost humility for the waste of their time and drain upon their patience for which he was about to be responsible.

I shall do no such thing. On the contrary, I believe that he who reads this book will not find his time ill spent. Its theme is the most important that can engage the human race. It is my answer to the mightiest question ever propounded. My answer. Its value extends that far and no farther. “It is only insight into the ground of being that secures satisfaction and thorough knowledge.” My light may be only a rush-light; but such as it is I obey the behest to let it shine.

Says one of the greatest of modern philosophers: “If anything in the world is worth wishing for—so well worth wishing for that even the ignorant and dull herd in its more reflective moments would prize it more than silver or gold—it is that a ray of light should fall on the obscurity of our being, and that we should gain some explanation of our mysterious existence, in which nothing is clear but its misery and its vanity.”

To each of us things are what they appear from each particular point of view. Our idea is our limitation.

[Pg 9]

He who writes a book presents to other minds a picture of life as it appears to him, from whatever point of view he has chosen. His work portrays both that which he sees outside himself and that which is within. It is a combination of himself and the world as he sees it, for of subject and object are all things made.

When we read a tale it is the author we learn to know, rather than his people; but we know him through his people. They are the dwellers within his mind, and we cannot know them without entering that realm and knowing it, be it enchanted or disenchanting.

Sight and insight make up all literature. Every book is a combination of the author and what he looks upon and studies objectively as well as subjectively. It is truth as he sees it.

I have read many interesting works of fiction; but for the most part I laid them down dissatisfied. They lacked something for which I was always searching. They gave no answer to the questions that early began to trouble me—questions that nobody could answer and few cared to be bothered with. Often they were very attractive pictures of that which the world is to so many—a fool’s paradise.

They dealt with the emotions of those whose lives they portrayed, and they appealed to the emotions of those who read them; and all had ever the one, one theme—the pursuit of happiness.[Pg 10] And all pursuers saw the alluring phantom in the same shape, and gave chase to it by the same road. Sometimes they captured it, and then—the book ended. There was nothing else for the author to do when he reached that point, but to let the curtain drop and turn out the lights, lest his audience see that the happiness so hotly pursued was not the true thing after all; but only an appearance, an illusion, a disappointment, as veritable a phantom as ever—which left the one in possession of it no better off than he was before he captured it.

Now the form of this phantom, was the love of the man and the woman for each other, and the possession of each by the other. Romances have been mostly amplified sex chases. They wrought upon the reader’s emotions through many harrowing chapters, the end thereof being that a certain man married the particular woman he was pursuing.

An old man whom I knew in my youth said he only read the first and last chapters of a novel. In the one he became acquainted with the hero and heroine; in the other he found out “whether he got her or not.” By so doing he escaped much emotional wear and tear to which less discriminating readers subjected themselves. As we all know, sometimes “he didn’t get her.” What then? Well, perhaps she died or he died, and that ended the story. Everybody accepted[Pg 11] that event as final and incontestable. That was the end, and nobody ventured to ask what lay behind it. It was the end of the successful as well as of the disappointed—the end of everybody in the world, yet nobody sought its meaning.

In this respect the people outside of books were precisely like the people in books. They had the same ideal of happiness, chased it through the same difficulties and disasters, and would not admit that it was a phantom; would not see that Death stalked behind every joy, sat at every feast, touched elbows right and left with the victorious as well as with the defeated, and waited for everybody under the sun. They knew it, of course, but they did not want to think about it or talk about it.

And what was this spectre to which all closed their eyes because of terror? Death was death. That was all they knew. It was the terrible and final thing that could happen. More; it was sure to happen; but it must be put off as long as possible and ignored in the meantime.

To me it ever was incomprehensible that so dreadful an issue was so hopelessly accepted and so little inquired into.

I pondered much on this strange problem. The dream haunted my mind that somewhere there was a solution.

I sought it everywhere from men and books; but long without success. At last a ray of light[Pg 12] fell upon my path. Faithfully following it through years of earnest inquiry I learned that Death is not death. With that knowledge happiness took a new form and beckoned to me over a new road.

Because of the new ideals it placed before me I wrote this book. Its people are my people; its gospel my gospel. From the truth as I was led to see it I found a reason for my own being as well as for that of the book, and I have tried to give it to the reader as simply as it came to me.

The psychical phenomena described are not exaggerated. Most of it came within my own experience, and would be accessible to any one who devoted to the study as much patience, time and effort as I did.

There will be those who will give to the book only the sneer of conceited ignorance. For such I have no message. With them, the first condition of all learning—receptively—is lacking. I make no argument. I try to convince no one. I simply tell a story. It will bear its own message to those ready to receive it. None else can understand. God Himself cannot give us what we will not receive.

The book is but a finger that aims to point out to others a moon that made glorious light for me. And if you will patiently look in the direction it points, you, too, will see the shining moon.

The Author.

[Pg 13]

PART I.

CHAPTER I.THE CHILD AND HER OWN PEOPLE.

There are some of us who in after years say to Fate, “Now deal us your hardest blow; give us what you will; but let us never again suffer as we suffered when we were children.”

The barb in the arrow of childhood’s suffering is this; its intense loneliness, its intense ignorance.—Olive Schreiner.

Under a great tree a child was singing softly to herself:

Beautiful, dear, and noble old tree Bend your green branches caressing o’er me. For oh! a day’s coming, and soon will be here, When I shall be far from your presence and cheer; And my heart will be lonely without your embrace, And you—you will long for a sight of my face. Your branches bend low to the ground, Bend low and caressingly, And they sway with a murmurous sound— A language of nature profound— Sway softly and caressingly, As they bend, with a sigh, to the ground. They chant the grand chorus of ages, In musical monotone; And open the past’s mystic pages— The wonderful, solemn, sealed pages— So vaguely and dimly known. [Pg 14]They sing me the song of the ages. When I listen with spirit and soul To each swaying, whisp’ring bough, The silent centuries backward roll And open before me like a scroll. And I view the “Then as Now”— When I listen with spirit and soul.

She was lying on the grass, with her face toward the sky, which she could only see in spots through the tree’s thick branches, which hung low and swayed in the slightest breeze, with a motion that was very like a caress to one beneath them. A house stood near, but the tree completely hid it on one side. One coming from the south saw only a beautiful grassy hill surmounted by a great green umbrella.

Under this friendly shelter the woman-child lay, singing her own words to her own tunes. Oblivious to outward sounds, she heard no footsteps until the branches parted and a stranger entered her temple.

At this a dog that had been enjoying the profoundest of slumber near her, sprang to his feet with a great show of vigilance, making up for his tardiness by the most energetic barking.

“Be quiet, Bliss,” said the child, rising to a sitting posture and looking steadily at the stranger, with the utmost composure. The dog at once became silent, but he went close to her and posed as on the defensive.

“I beg pardon,” said the intruder, politely raising his hat, “I saw no one, and thought to[Pg 15] rest a bit in the shade, and get a cool drink of water, too.”

“The well is on the other side of the house,” she said, making a motion in that direction with a thin, nervous, unchildlike hand. Her words and manner expressed the utmost indifference—yet there was a gleam of interest in her big, clear eyes.

The stranger moved on, murmuring thanks. She looked after him with a sudden yearning in her heart for his return. He was not of her world, that was sure; and yet somehow it was quite clear to her that he was of her world—the world of her dreams, where she longed to be, fancied she had been, and from whence she had somehow sadly strayed. Yes, in that instant of contact she understood that in spite of all apparent difference their worlds were the same.

In another moment he returned. Gracefully begging permission, he seated himself on the grass and leaned against the tree. His manner captivated her. It was respectful and deferential as to a woman grown. It enchanted her, for she was one of those misunderstood children who have thoughts and feelings far beyond their years and suffer great humiliation when treated patronizingly.

“You are not at all afraid of me although I came unannounced and unintroduced, are you?” he asked, half laughing.

[Pg 16]

“Afraid? Why should I be? I am in my own door-yard. Besides, you don’t look like a wild beast, and if you were one, here is Bliss to take care of me.”

“Thank you. It’s a comfort to know you have no doubt that I am human. But what is this?” he asked, as a piece of cardboard blew toward him. “Ah! a drawing. May I look at it?”

She nodded her consent.

It was a pencil drawing of a woman’s head, and interested him at first glance, because, imperfect though it was, it had that which makes art great when it is so—the human quality, the power to express its creator, the aim and object of all art. This penciled face gave an insight into the artist’s mind, showing that which she had tried to express and yet had not made clear. It showed the height to which she rose in fancy, and the long and rugged road between present performance and the perfection of which she dreamed.

All this the stranger saw, because we see what is within ourselves. It takes genius to recognize genius. He had traveled the road on which she was taking her first feeble steps.

“Is it your work?” he asked.

“Yes,” she nodded, coloring faintly. It was plain that she expected no praise, yet longed for a helping word.

“Is it a copy?” he asked, for there was about[Pg 17] it, although but half expressed, that which he thought must have been suggested by something from a master hand.

“No.”

“Then who is it?” There was unaffected interest in his voice.

“One of my people,” she answered.

“Does she live here?”

“She is here sometimes, not always.”

“Well, she must be a beautiful woman—even more beautiful than you depict her.”

“You understand,” said the child. “I cannot put her on paper as I see her. I know but little of drawing, but I am always trying to draw faces—the faces of my own people—and trees, for they are my own people too; but I am never satisfied with my work. They do not get on the paper as they are in my mind.”

“Why not have some instruction?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

The stranger understood, but in order not to seem to, he began to pick up some scattered leaves of paper near him. Seeing that they contained writing he was about to lay them down with an apology when the child said:

“It is a letter I have written to Helen, the woman whose picture you have just been looking at. You may read it, only not aloud. I couldn’t stand that.”

“But why should I read it at all?” he said.[Pg 18] “It would be impertinent on my part. Besides, I am not afflicted with the despicable vice of curiosity.”

“If you don’t mind, I wish you would read it,” she said. “It may help me. You will understand when you have finished.” But she looked ill at ease, nevertheless.

The stranger read:

My dearly Beloved Helen:—Since you went away I am very lonely indeed. None other is so near and dear to me as you. I fill the hours with thoughts of you—thoughts so intense and absorbing that at times I actually see you by my side. But, alas! you do not stay when you come like that. You fade out of my sight; you go back to your world and I cannot follow you only with my thoughts, my dreams, my love and my letters.

But I shall go and find you some day. I shall be one of the people of your world, and shall be busy with work which shall fill my time, my brain and my heart. I shall meet all my people there—my very own people, and shall love them and work with them and know loneliness no more. I have a story to tell you, Dear Heart. It is this:

In a world nameless to all mankind, lived a woman, sweet and fair. It was a beautiful world. There the men were all true and the[Pg 19] women all faithful. Misery was unknown and none sought happiness, for all possessed it.

But this one woman dreamed dreams and saw visions. She heard voices calling to her from another world—a world whose people sought continually and vainly to attain a condition they knew only in name, and which they called Happiness. All believed in the existence of this condition and gave chase to it, each in his own way, but none found it. Often hearing the voices of these unhappy people and seeing them in visions, this woman longed to go and help them. The longing disturbed the harmony of life in all her world, until it was decreed that she must leave it and go to that other whose vibrations of anguish had shaken the spheres. But they did not tell her of her destiny. “She will know when she is there,” they said.

So she slept, and the sleep was long in the eyes of the children of Time.

When she awoke, memory was gone, and everything had to be learned over again. At first her consciousness was very dim, and her strength feeble, and having slept so long she could scarcely keep awake at all.

But after a time a faint memory of the past came to her, and she saw that all was different from that other time, which now seemed like a dream. This was not the same world, nor were these the same people she had known, for she was[Pg 20] in the sad world she had seen in visions, whose people so persistently and often frantically sought Happiness and never found it—and that sad world was this in which we live.

She was changed in appearance, too, for when she looked in a mirror she saw a face that was new to her and a tiny figure. She was like a child, and everybody called her a child, though to herself she seemed not to be a child, because part of her memory had come back, and it was the memory of a woman.

It was very hard to feel like a full-grown person in mind and be treated like a creature with almost no mind at all. One of the most painful things she saw was that sometimes the most ignorant and unfeeling were in positions of power over sensitive children. She suffered much from the very beginning of consciousness.

To go back to the world she could so dimly remember was her one dream. But when she spoke of it those about her laughed and said she had never been in any other world, because there was no other.

Once in a dream she went back, or perhaps it was that some of her old friends came to her. They told her to be patient; that she had been sent to help the unhappy ones who had so often called to her; that scattered all over the planet in which she dwelt now were others like herself, who had come for the same purpose; that she[Pg 21] would meet them from time to time and that would pay her for much of her pain.

They said, too, that she had a particular work to do here and could not leave until it was done, but she must find out what it was herself; that the road would often seem very hard and very long, but it had an end, and if she did her work well—

There the dream ended; but it comforted her, all unfinished as it was.

By and by her childhood was gone. She was a woman, and went forth to find her work, earnest, enthusiastic and eager, and they said she had precious gifts.

“I will paint pictures,” she said, “for always in my mind are noble faces and figures, like the gods when they walked among men, and these shall show mankind how glorious it can itself become.”

Beautiful creations, perfect shapes of beauty came forth from her hand, but the world, for the most part, passed them by. It said, “We see nothing in these,” and it spoke the truth, for that in them could only be seen by those like unto them.