Ardath | Page 7

troubles. Well, that is
easily obtainable through certain narcotics, if you choose to employ
them and take the risk of their injurious action on your bodily system.
You can drug your brain and thereby fill it with drowsy suggestions of
ideas--of course they would only he SUGGESTIONS, and very vague
and indefinite ones too, still they might be pleasant enough to absorb
and repress bitter memories for a time. As for me, my poor skill would
scarcely avail you, as I could promise you neither self-oblivion nor
visionary joy. I have a certain internal force, it is true--a spiritual force
which when strongly exercised overpowers and subdues the
material--and by exerting this I could, if I thought it well to do so,
release your SOUL--that is, the Inner Intelligent Spirit which is the
actual You--from its house of clay, and allow it an interval of freedom.
But what its experience might be in that unfettered condition, whether
glad or sorrowful, I am totally unable to predict."
Alwyn looked at him steadfastly.

"You believe in the Soul?" he asked.
"Most certainly!"
"As a separate Personality that continues to live on when the body
perishes?"
"Assuredly."
"And you profess to be able to liberate it for a time from its mortal
habitation--"
"I do not profess," interposed Heliobas quietly. "I CAN do so."
"But with the success of the experiment your power ceases?--you
cannot foretell whether the unimprisoned creature will take its course to
an inferno of suffering or a heaven of delight?--is this what you mean?"
Heliobas bent his head in grave assent.
Alwyn broke into a harsh laugh--"Come then!" he exclaimed with a
reckless air,--"Begin your incantations at once! Send me hence, no
matter where, so long as I am for a while escaped from this den of a
world, this dungeon with one small window through which, with the
death rattle in our throats, we stare vacantly at the blank unmeaning
honor of the Universe! Prove to me that the Soul exists --ye gods!
Prove it! and if mine can find its way straight to the mainspring of this
revolving Creation, it shall cling to the accused wheels and stop them,
that they may grind out the tortures of Life no more!"
He flung up his hand with a wild gesture: his countenance, darkly
threatening and defiant, was yet beautiful with the evil beauty of a
rebellious and fallen angel. His breath came and went quickly,-- he
seemed to challenge some invisible opponent. Heliobas meanwhile
watched him much as a physician might watch in his patient the
workings of a new disease, then he said in purposely cold and tranquil
tones:

"A bold idea! singularly blasphemous, arrogant, and--fortunately for us
all--impracticable! Allow me to remark that you are overexcited, Mr.
Alwyn; you talk as madmen may, but as reasonable men should not.
Come," and he smiled,--a smile that was both grave and sweet, "come
and sit down--you are worn out with the force of your own desperate
emotions--rest a few minutes and recover your self."
His voice thouqh gentle was distinctly authoritative, and Alwyn
meeting the full gaze of his calm eyes felt bound to obey the implied
command. He therefore sank listlessly into an easy chair near the table,
pushing back the short, thick curls from his brow with a wearied
movement; he was very pale,--an uneasy sense of shame was upon him,
and he sighed,--a quick sigh of exhausted passion. Heliobas seated
himself opposite and looked at him earnestly, he studied with
sympathetic attention the lines of dejection and fatigue which marred
the attractiveness of features otherwise frank, poetic, and noble. He had
seen many such men. Men in their prime who had begun life full of
high faith, hope, and lofty aspiration, yet whose fair ideals once bruised
in the mortar of modern atheistical opinion had perished forever, while
they themselves, like golden eagles suddenly and cruelly shot while
flying in mid-air, had fallen helplessly, broken-winged among the
dust-heaps of the world, never to rise and soar sunwards again.
Thinking this, his accents were touched with a certain compassion
when after a pause he said softly:
"Poor boy!--poor, puzzled, tired brain that would fain judge Infinity by
merely finite perception! You were a far truer poet, Theos Alwyn,
when as a world-foolish, heaven-inspired lad you believed in God, and
therefore, in godlike gladness, found all things good!"
Alwyn looked up--his lips quivered.
"Poet--poet!" he murmured--"why taunt me with the name?" He started
upright in his chair--"Let me tell you all," he said suddenly; "you may
as well know what has made me the useless wreck I am; though
perhaps I shall only weary you."
"Far from it," answered Heliobas gently. "Speak freely--but remember I

do not compel your confidence."
"On the contrary, I think you do!" and again that