By Whom?

I can only answer: By some one who is pleased; and

probably by many such. How, why, and wherefore—I catch your crowd of

questions in advance— we need not seek exactly to discover, although

the answer of no uncertain kind, I hear within the stillness of a heart

that has learned to beat to a deeper, sweeter rhythm than before.

Those who loved beauty and lived it in their lives,

follow that same ideal with increasing power and passion

afterwards—and for ever.

The shutter of black iron we call Death hides the

truth with terror and resentment; but what if that shutter were, after

all, transparent?

A glorious dream, I hear you cry. Now listen to my

answer. It is, for me, a definite assurance and belief, because—I know.

Long before you have reached this point you will, I

know, have reached also the conclusion (with a sigh) that I am embarked

upon some commonplace experience of ghostly return, or, at least, of

posthumous communication. Perhaps I wrong you here, but in any case I

would at once correct the inference, if it has been drawn. You remember

our adventures with the seance-mongers years ago?… I have not changed

my view so far as their evidential value is concerned. Be sure of that.

The dead, I am of opinion, do not return; for, while individuals may claim startling experiences that seem to

them of an authentic and convincing kind, there has been no instance

that can persuade us all—in the sense that thunderstorm convinces us

all. Such individual experiences I have always likened to the

auto-suggestion of those few who believe the advertisements of the

hair-restorers—you will forgive the unpoetic simile for the sake of

its exactitude—as against the verdict of the world that a genuine

discovery of such a remedy would leave no single doubter in Europe or

America, nor even in the London Clubs! Yet each time I read the cunning

article (I have less hair than when I ran away from Sandhurst

that exciting July night and met you in the Strand!), and look upon the

picture of the man, John Henry Smith, “before and after using,” I admit the birth of an unreasonable belief that there may be something

in it after all.

Of such indubitable proof, however, there is, alas, as yet no sign.

And so with the other matter—the dead do not “return.” My story,

therefore, be comforted, has no individual instance to record. It may,

on the other hand, be held to involve a thread of what might be

called—at a stretch —posthumous communication, yet a thread so

tenuous that the question of personal direction behind it need hardly

be considered at all. For let me confess at once that, the habit of the

“thrill” once established, I was not long in asking myself point blank

this definite question: Dared I trace its origin to my own unfruitful

experience of some years before?—and, discovering no shred of

evidence, I found this positive answer: Honestly I could not.

That “somebody was pleased” each time Beauty offered a wisdom I

accepted, became an unanswerable conviction I could not argue about;

but that the guidance—waking a responsive emotion in myself of

love—was referable to any particular name I could not, by any stretch

of desire or imagination, bring myself to believe.

Marion, I must emphasise, had been gone from me five years at least

before the new emotion gave the smallest hint of its new birth; and my

feeling, once the first keen shame and remorse subsided—I confess to

the dishonouring truth—was one of looking back upon a painful problem

that had found an unexpected solution. It was chiefly relief, although

a sad relief, I felt…. And with the absorbing work of the next

following years (I took up my appointment within six months of her

death) her memory, already swiftly fading, entered an oblivion whence

rarely, and at long intervals only, it emerged at all. In the ordinary

meaning of the phrase, I had forgotten her. You will see, therefore,

that there was no desire in me to revive an unhappy memory, least of

all to establish any fancied communication with one before whose

generous love I had felt myself dishonoured, if not actually disgraced.

Even the remorse and regret had long since failed to disturb my peace

of mind, causing me no anxiety, much less pain. Sic transit was

the epitaph, if any. Acute sensation I had none at all. This, then,

plainly argues against the slightest predisposition on my part to

imagine that the loving guidance so strangely given owned a personal

origin I could recognize. That it involved a “personal emotion” is

quite another matter.

The more remarkable, therefore, is the statement truth now compels

me to confess to you—namely, that this origin is recognizable,

and that I have traced in part the name it owns to. My next sentence

you divine already; you at once suspect the name I mean. I hear you say

to yourself with a smile—”So, after all… !”

Please, wait a moment, and listen closely now; for, in reply to your

suspicion, I can give neither full affirmation or full denial. Yet an

answer of a certain kind is ready: I have stated my firm conviction

that the dead do not return; I do not modify it one iota; but I

mentioned a moment ago another conviction that is mine because I know. So now let me supplement these two statements with a third:

the dead, though they do not return, are active; and those who lived

beauty in their lives are—benevolently active.

This may prepare you for a further assurance, yet one less easy to

express intelligibly. Be patient while I make the difficult attempt.

The origin of the wisdom that now seeks to shape and

guide my life through Beauty is, indeed, not Marion, but a power that

stands behind her, and through which, with which, the energy of her

being acts. It stood behind her while she lived. It stands behind not

only her, but equally behind all those peerless, exquisite

manifestations of selfless love that give bountifully of their best

without hope or expectation of reward in kind. No human love of this

description, though it find no object to receive it, nor one single

flower that “wastes” its sweetness on the desert air, but acknowledges

this inexhaustible and spendthrift source. Its evidence lies strewn so

thick, so prodigally, about our world, that not one among us, whatever

his surroundings and conditions, but sooner or later must encounter at

least one marvellous instance of its uplifting presence. Some at once

acknowledge the exquisite flash and are aware; others remain blind and

deaf, till some experience, probably of pain, shall have prepared and

sensitized their receptive quality. To all, however, one day, comes the

magical appeal.