I found but one person who properly appreciated this great truth.She was a New England lady, from Hartford--an agent, I think, for some commission, perhaps the Sanitary.
After I had told her my views and feelings she said: ``Yes, I comprehend.The fractional entities of vitality are embraced in the oneness of the unitary Ego.Life,'' she added, ``is the garnered condensation of objective impressions; and as the objective is the remote father of the subjective, so must individuality, which is but focused subjectivity, suffer and fade when the sensation lenses, by which the rays of impression are condensed, become destroyed.'' I am not quite clear that I fully understood her, but I think she appreciated my ideas, and I felt grateful for her kindly interest.
The strange want I have spoken of now haunted and perplexed me so constantly that I became moody and wretched.While in this state, a man from a neighboring ward fell one morning into conversation with the chaplain, within ear-shot of my chair.Some of their words arrested my attention, and Iturned my head to see and listen.The speaker, who wore a sergeant's chevron and carried one arm in a sling was a tall, loosely made person, with a pale face, light eyes of a washed-out blue tint, and very sparse yellow whiskers.His mouth was weak, both lips being almost alike, so that the organ might have been turned upside down without affecting its expression.His forehead, however, was high and thinly covered with sandy hair.I should have said, as a phrenologist, will feeble; emotional, but not passionate;likely to be an enthusiast or a weakly bigot.
I caught enough of what passed to make me call to the sergeant when the chaplain left him.
``Good morning,'' said he.``How do you get on?''
``Not at all,'' I replied.``Where were you hit?''
``Oh, at Chancellorsville.I was shot in the shoulder.I have what the doctors call paralysis of the median nerve, but I guess Dr.
Neek and the lightnin' battery will fix it.
When my time's out I'll go back to Kearsarge and try on the school-teaching again.
I've done my share.''
``Well,'' said I, ``you're better off than I.''
``Yes,'' he answered, ``in more ways than one.I belong to the New Church.It's a great comfort for a plain man like me, when he's weary and sick, to be able to turn away from earthly things and hold converse daily with the great and good who have left this here world.We have a circle in Coates street.If it wa'n't for the consoling I get there, I'd of wished myself dead many a time.
I ain't got kith or kin on earth; but this matters little, when one can just talk to them daily and know that they are in the spheres above us.''
``It must be a great comfort,'' I replied, ``if only one could believe it.''
``Believe!'' he repeated.``How can you help it? Do you suppose anything dies?''
``No,'' I said.``The soul does not, I am sure;and as to matter, it merely changes form.''
``But why, then,'' said he, ``should not the dead soul talk to the living? In space, no doubt, exist all forms of matter, merely in finer, more ethereal being.You can't suppose a naked soul moving about without a bodily garment--no creed teaches that; and if its new clothing be of like substance to ours, only of ethereal fineness,--a more delicate recrystallization about the eternal spiritual nucleus,--must it not then possess powers as much more delicate and refined as is the new material in which it is reclad?''
``Not very clear,'' I answered; ``but, after all, the thing should be susceptible of some form of proof to our present senses.''
``And so it is,'' said he.``Come to-morrow with me, and you shall see and hear for yourself.''
``I will,'' said I, ``if the doctor will lend me the ambulance.''
It was so arranged, as the surgeon in charge was kind enough, as usual, to oblige me with the loan of his wagon, and two orderlies to lift my useless trunk.