<^\> h' ^>v->^l H" ,» t* ^^1 ;^ >'/B : J*^ LI B RAR.Y OF THE UNIVLRSITY or ILLINOIS 823 tyvi922t v.i '^#ft^ «i%^^S^ mm m^^mi "We ■^ %^-^£>^^'^.% hi. THE TWIN SOUL. Digitized by tflie Internet Archive jh funding from universiiy ot Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://www.archive.org/details/twinsoulorstrang01inack THE TWIN SOUL OR, THE STRANGE EXPERIENCES OF MR. RAMESES. a Ip6?cbological anb IRealietic IRomance- IN TWO VOL UMES. VOL. I Fay que mon ame a la tienne s'assemble, Range nos coeurs et nos esprits ensemble, L'amour I'entend ainsi ; Tu es mon feu, je dois ^tre ta flamme, Et dois encor puisque je suis ton ame Etre la mienne aussi ! " — Philippes Des Fortes. 1575. London : WARD AND DOWNEY, 12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 1887. \All rights reserved^ PRINTED BY KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W.C, AND MIDDLE MILL, KINGSTON-ON-THAMES. s CONTENTS OF VOLUME ONE CHAP. PAOH I. — A Rural Home . . . . i II. — A Letter of Introduction ... 7 III.— The Rookery 13 IV. — In the Sanctum . . . . 23 v.— A Rainy Day 34 VI. — Concerning Twin Souls . . 44 VII. — The Stoney-Stratford Family . . 56 VIII. — Physical Slavery and Spiritual Freedom 74 IX.— Lurula 85 X. — The Butler and the Gardener . . 97 f^ XL — Modern Civilisation .... 104 ti XII. — The Palimpsests 112 fc XIII. — The Dream of Amenophra 123 ^ XIV. — Reveries of a Stormy Night . . . 133 >^ XV. — The Millionaire in London . 139 XVI. — New Scenes and New Characters . -158 r^ XVII.— The Deer Forest . . 177 i^^VIII.— Matrimonial Traps . . . .186 ^ XIX.— On the Full Tide of Fashion . 196 XX.— To the Highlands Bound . . .206 -^V XXL— Platonic Only 216 V XXIL— The Summit of the Mountain . . 228 ^ XXIIL— Return to London . . . 237 j XXIV.— The Grand Symposium . . .248 THE TWIN SOUL. THE TWIN SOUL. H ps^cboloatcal anb IRealistic IRomance, CHAPTER I. A RURAL HOME. Though I flatter myself that I am a philosopher, I am not a recluse. I love my books very dearly, as I do my flower- garden, my orchard, and my kail-yard, where, like the Emperor Diocletian, I grow very fine drum-head cabbages ; but I also love at times to close my library door, to shut my garden gate, and go forth into the busy world, to mix with my fellows, hear their opinions and give them mine. On these occasions I endeavour to rub off the rust and mildew of rural solitude, to acquire, I will not say a polish, but a certain smoothness, from the lubrication of social intercourse. At the same time cultivate my sympathies by laughing at human nature, whenever, as Beaumarchais says, 1 am not incUned to weep for it. Some people call me -a VOL. I. r 2 THE TWIN SOUL. cynic, others a wit and humourist, while a few consider me to be a kindly and well-meaning philosopher, and speak of me as the country people spoke of the poor gentleman in Goldsmith's " Deserted Village," with a kind of wonder at the vastness of my knowledge. Others again, who are no- thing if they are not critical, assert that I know too much to know anything well, and say of me as the envious critic said in another sense of the late Lord Brougham, that if I knew a little of the world, I should know a little of every- thing. But having a good income wholly unincumbered, and being untroubled by reckless or extravagant connec- tions or relatives, and possessing marginal money enough to keep adding week by week and day by day to one of the rarest libraries in England without depriving myself of any other luxury, I manage to be happy enough without caring very particularly what anybody thinks or says of me. I am fifty years of age, a widower, and likely to remain so. I was once in love, very desperately, with one who was as good as she was beautiful, " but thereof came in the end " a short, too short, happiness succeeded by " despondency and sad- ness " — a sorrowful memory, and regrets for lost joy. I am to a certain extent selfish — all men are, or ought to be ; A RURAL HOME. 3 for selfishness, like everything else in this world, is only bad in excess, like wine, or courage, or prudence, or a belief in the goodness of everybody. But, though I love myself tolerably well when I am in good health, which is pretty nearly always, I love my fellow creatures — especially when I do not see too much of them — and am glad if I can wisely distribute a portion of my wealth among the strug- gling and the deserving, to strengthen the weak, to lighten the sorrows of venerable age, or to help the young along the stony and thorny path that leads to fame or fortune. I am fond of music and languages. I can play on the violin and the organ. I can speak French, German, Italian and Spanish; and understand Latin and Greek tolerably well; Celtic, Hebrew, and Sanscrit, less tolerably. I dabble a little in chemistry, have read all the writings of the old Alchemists and Rosicrucians ; have made the religion, mythology, manners and history of Egypt, and of still more ancient nations, my particular study, and have come to the conclusion that I know little or nothing of any of them. I am not an Admirable Crichton ; I can neither dance, sing, fence, ride, wrestle, fish nor shoot ; and when I think of what I know and compare it with what I don't know, I am almost 1* 4 THE TWIN SOUL. — I will not say quite — convinced that I am a poor ignoramus, and that possibly I might pass the threshold of the great Temple of Isis at the age of three hundred, if I could live as long in mental and bodily health, and pos- sess the same love of knowledge at the end that I do at the beginning. I have a small house in London, a large one in the country, and my name is De Vere. I understood, when a child, that my father desired to call me Triptolemus, because of his great love for agriculture, and of his hope that I too would become an agriculturist. He reHn- quished his absurd idea of Triptolemus, for which I am very grateful, and called me Godfrey, after my grandfather. As regards the hope which he cherished, that I should become a great agriculturist and improver of stock, it has not been fulfilled. I cultivate no fields, only a garden, and, like the Roman Emperor, I live happier among my splendid " drum-heads " — the finest cabbages in the world — than I should be in the Senate, or on the vice-regal chair of Canada or India. No vice-regal chair would suit my caprice or my pleasure. I have a throne on which I sit comfortably — the great chair in my library — that stands A RURAL HOME. 5 opposite my writing-table. Here I am monarch of all the historians, philosophers, sages, wits, poets and famous story-tellers of all times. They are each and all of them my subjects, who administer to my pleasure and my in- struction. They never "bore" me (I hate the word, but use it in default of a better), unless I happen to be in a lazy condition of mind or body, when I put them back on their shelves without offending them, to be ready for my use when I am more worthy of profiting by their perennial wisdom. In my library, placed on top of my book-cases, are six busts of great sages, all of comparatively modern origin, for I have no faith in the marble portraits of antiquity. Shaks- peare the first, though I can't believe that the Stratford-on- Avon bust can resemble him; second, Geoffrey Chaucer; third, John Milton ; fourth, George Gordon Byron ; fifth, Walter Scott ; and sixth, a poet in his way almost as great as any of them — Ludwig von Beethoven. Lastly, my inner study and private sanctum — my holy of holies, as I call it to the housekeeper, who would fain dust it and keep it in order, but is not allowed to do so, to her sore tribulation (I believe it is the only sorrow the good old woman has'^ — is adorned with two ancient sarcophagi from Egypt, each con- 6 THE TWIN SOUL. taining a mummy, as yet unrolled, but to be unrolled on some great occasion hereafter, in presence of a select and congenial few, capable of enjoying and appreciating the ceremony. One word more about myself, when my personal revelations must cease. My income is five thousand pounds per annum. I state this fact, of which I am not in the least proud, in order that he or she who may be in- duced to read the following pages may look upon my writings with becoming respect, as not being the handiwork (or head-work) of a common fellow who writes for money, or of a mere man of genius who expects to live by his writings, and pay his butcher or his baker as punctually as if he were a banker. CHAPTER 11. A LETTER OF INTRODUCTION. One day I received a letter from Paris from a particular friend, a member of the Academy and a chevalier of the Legion of Honour. The letter interested me greatly. Let rue call the writer, for the purposes of this narrative, the Vicomte de Palliasse ; that is not his name, but his family is as old as the first introduction of the palliasse into France, and it will suit him as well as any other. He informed me that he had given his friend, Mr. Rameses, a short but cordial letter of introduction to me, and expressing his con- fident belief that he was a gentleman whose acquaintance I should be glad to make. It was possible, he added, that the letter would not be personally presented for two or three weeks. Meanwhile, being of opinion that I ought to be fully prepared for the advent of a remarkable personage, he had resolved to communicate such particulars concerning ing him as he knew or had reason to believe were authentic. Mr. Rameses, he went on to say, though he was sometimes called Ramsay, and which some people believed to be his 8 THE TWIN SOUL. true name, was not a Scotsman. He did not even believe that he was a European, though there was a report that his father or grandfather was either an Englishman or a Scots- man, who had been in the service of the old East India Company, and that his mother was a powerful Begum, who had been attracted by the good looks, stalwart presence or flattering tongue of the Englishman or Scotsman afore- said, and had contracted marriage with him. He was apparently about thirty years of age, was of commanding stature and presence, had a jet-black beard, and a luxuriant head of hair of the same colour, and looked as if he might have sat for the model of an old Assyrian. He was re- puted to be exceedingly rich, and was certainly learned. He had travelled in every part of the world between Co- penhagen and Melbourne, and between Kamschatka and New Zealand, spoke many languages, and was neither Christian, Jew, Mahomedan, Buddhist nor Atheist, but ap- peared to be, as far as anybody could make out, a fire worshipper — an ancient Druid, or possibly a Rosicrucian. His manners were agreeable and his conversation full of matter. He was fa?it soit peu cynical, and such a favourite of the ladies that the young men of Paris, the copiirchics A LETTER OF IXTRODUCTIOX. 9 especially, held him in detestation, and scores of handsome young women, who loved money more than matrimony — or who, at all events, behaved as if they did — had set their caps at him. But hitherto all their efforts had been in vain. ** I anticipate," said M. de Palliasse, " that Mr. Rameses will create a sensation in London. All the ladies in Paris, mothers and daughters, desire much to know whether he is or ever has been married, but all who are impudent or im- prudent enough to ask him the question receive 'such a reply, by word and look, as effectually prevents them from asking a second time. Probably it will be the same in London, Mr. Rameses has letters of introduction -to a score of your dukes, marquises, earls, and other fashionable people and leaders of society. He banks with Rothschild, and is fabled to be a Croesus. Anyhow, he is a very able and very handsome man, and seems, if I may believe his words, his looks, his gestures, to set more store upon the letter I have given him to you than to any of the others that have been showered upon him. *' His intention in visiting London is to study the manners, the customs, and the characteristics of the English, but I don't think he means to write a book. He has heard of lo THE TWIN SOUL. your learning, and as he admires you, I suppose, on the principle of Boileau's saying : ' Chaque sot trouve tou jours un plus grand sot qui V admire' (for 'sot' read 'sage'), you will admire him^ and that you will both get on very well together. Please introduce him to all the Oriental scholars, especially to the Egyptologists, but don't trust him alone with your mummies, lest he proceed to un- swaddle them. He is very affable, and very good, but, as you will soon discover, he is somewhat eccentric. But ec- centricity is nothing, or if it be anything it is a something that is rather agreeable than otherwise, if it be quiet and unaggressive. So you know all about Mr. Rameses, or, at all events, as much as I can tell you. I recommend him earnestly to your polite attention and amiable services." It was not until nearly a month after the receipt of this letter, about which I had not thought much, that, sitting alone in my study in my small house in Park Lane — dingy in front, but beautiful enough behind, for the reason that my windows overlook the fair expanse of Hyde Park — that a well-appointed carriage drove up to my door, and that my servant brought me up a letter from M. de Palliasse, and the card of Mr. Rameses. I hastened down A LETTER OF INTRODUCTION. ii to the reception-room, and found Mr. Rameses. He was staid, solemn, handsome, rather sad-looking, I thought. I gave him a cordial greeting. I had not been five minutes in his company before I was convinced that the commenda- tions bestowed upon him by M. de Palliasse were not mis- placed. The only thing that I did not admire about him was that his eyes were very black. I have a predilection, though the reader may think it wrong, for blue-grey eyes in man or woman, and somehow or other associate black eyes in men with an idea of ferocity. He spoke English as well as an Englishman — better than many who interlard their discourse with vulgar colloquialisms and the slang of the stable and the race-course — but he had a slight ac- cent, which hinted rather than proved that he was a foreigner. I had previously arranged to leave London on the morrow, and, without making any idle excuses, I informed Mr. Rameses of the fact, and I gave him, at the same time, a cordial invitation to visit me on a future day, at " The Rookery," to stay a week or ten days, or as long as he pleased. " I have heard," he said, " of your mummies, and of the treasures of your library, both in manuscripts and printed books, and of your rolls of Egyptian papyri, baked tiles or 12 THE TWIN SOUL. slabs, and your cuneiform inscriptions. Can you read the pai:»yri or the slabs ? " " No, unfortunately. I wish I could." " I can," said Mr. Rameses, " as easily as if they were French or English." " Happy man ! " I thought, for my mouth watered at the information as the mouth of a hungry epicure waters when a rare dish steams before his nostrils. " Then," I said, " you will not pass a dull time in The Rookery, if you are as fond of ancient lore as I am." " Dull ! " he repHed ; "I am never dull. I am some- times sad, sometimes weary with the world, with myself, or with Fate, Fortune, and Circumstance ; but I am never dull — unless, perhaps, at a fashionable evening party or dinner, when the gossip of fools goes bubbling up around m,e ; but even then, by a happy faculty of abstraction, my mind can wander away and go back ten thousand years into the scenes of a bygone civilization, or fly to the uttermost ends of the earth." Here was a man after my own heart. I felt grateful to M. de Palliasse for introducing him, and doubly grateful to Mr. Rameses for condescending to make my acquaintance. CHAPTER III. THE ROOKERY. Let me describe The Rookery. It is an old and spacious house (the guide-books call it a mansion). It was not built by any one architect, or at any one time, but grew like the British Constitution, and was the handiwork of many generations. The oldest part of it dates from early in the sixteenth century, and this oldest part, originally small, has received accretions at the hands of successive De Veres. Our original name was Brown, as I have heard, which we now write Browne, with a final e, and we took the name of De Vere on the marriage of the head of the family, a hundred and fifty years ago, or thereabouts, with a Miss De Vere, a wealthy heiress. Though of no order of architec- ture, but a combination of many styles, the old house is picturesque, and what is more, it is comfortable. It is ap- proached by an avenue of elms, of half-a-mile in length, on the tops of which an ancient colony of rooks has long been established. Hence the name given to it by my ancestors. 14 THE TWIN SOUL. In front is part of a moat, over which is a neat stone bridge, of antique fashion, that leads to the principal entrance. The moat, fed by a tiny spring of the purest water, is as clear as crystal, and is inhabited by a multitude of gold and silver fish, and by a profusion of water-lilies, that seem to me to be as full of life and enjoyment as the fish, and much more beautiful. The house contains three good reception-rooms, a stately entrance-hall, a picture- gallery, and my library — consisting of six rooms en suite. The grounds are extensive and well laid out, containing fruit, flower, and vegetable gardens (I am my own head gardener), together with lawns, shrubberies, and meadows, sloping to an artificial lake. There are, in addition, about one hundred and eighty acres of woodland, consisting of venerable yews, oaks, elms, birch, and beeches, and some very magnificent hawthorns, that began to spread their green leaves to the breeze and to the blast long before the days of the so-called " merry monarch." I do not live alone at The Rookery, for I have a daughter — beautiful, good,affectionate, clever, the model of all female virtue and loveliness, the joy of my heart, the delight of my eyes, the mistress of my household, the belle of the THE ROOKERY. 15 county — who has scores of admirers, but not one whom she herself particularly admires. Her name is Laura ; her age is twenty-two. She is neither tall nor short ; she has splendid golden hair, perfect teeth, lustrous blue-grey eyes, a voice that is all music and melody, and when she sings, which she often does, not Patti herself could excel her — that is to say in my opinion — which may be wrong ; though I do not think it is. She has, I think, but one fault — she loves me too much, who am only her father, and proud of the relationship, and gives to me the kindness for a thousandth part of which more than one fine fellow in the county would be only too happy to marry her. But at this period of my story, she is absent in Italy, with a friendly family, for the sake of a little change and recreation, which she needs ; so that the inhabitants of The Rookery at the time when Mr. Rameses came to visit me, were my mother, my sister. Lady De Glastonbury, and her husband, Sir Henry De Glastonbury, a man about ten years older than herself. They lived very much abroad, but when they came to England they always made The Rookery their home, and were always welcome. Then there was my second sister, Mrs. Brocklesby, the widow of a London i6 THE TWIN SOUL. merchant, who left her with three children and seventy thousand pounds. Mrs. Brocklesby usually passes the summer months with me in- the home of her childhood, for the sake of- old association, for love of the place, and for the fresh freedom of a country life which it affords her children. When these visitors are with me, I meet my eldest sister and her husband and my second sister with her children at breakfast, and see nothing of them afterwards until dinner- time. The intermediate [hours are spent by me in the library, into which, by an unwritten and unspoken, but well understood and implicitly obeyed law, no gossips or visitors are permitted to enter, unless by special invita- tion. When I am wearied with sitting, or studying, or otherwise [desirous of a change, I betake myself to the garden, and look after my flowers, my cabbages, and my gardeners, during which time I may be spoken to by any one who meets me accidentally and desires to exchange thoughts or words with me. My mother, kind soul, has one great grievance, the only drop of bitter in the otherwise pleasant cup of her existence, which is that I am a persistent widower, am not disposed to marry again, and do not THE ROOKERY. 17 cultivate the acquaintance of the young and beautiful, so as to give me the chance of falling in love with any one of them, or any one of them the chance of falling in love with me, either for the sake of worldly position, or as the French say, '"''pour P amour de mes beaux yeiix'^ She maintains that I am doing injustice to myself, to my country, to society, and to the long line of my ancestors, by not doing what I ought to do to become the ancestor of other people. To all her arguments I listen with patient resignation, and sometimes tell her that I am too old — which insinuation she vehemently resists as an imputation against herself — that I cannot fall in love by command, that I never saw but one sweet woman who approached my ideal of what a woman ought to be, and that she has gone and left no parallel ; that if another of the same kind should cross my path, I would look at her, and admire her, but would not promise to fall in love with her ; that I do not expect such a being is in existence, and that, all things considered, I am very happy as I am. " You are a fool, Godfrey," says my sister sometimes. "Call yourself old, indeed" (she is two years older than I am), "why, you are in the very prime of life, at the time when the blood is warmest, VOL. I. 2 1 8 THE TWIN SOUL. and the reason strongest, and the imagination brightest ! One of these days, when you are really old, a quarter of a century hence perhaps, you will be taken in by some designing minx, who will marry you for your money and make your life miserable ever afterwards, and serve you right ! " To this I seldom reply, except by the pococurante asser- tion, that sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. But I can see that my mother and sister believe all the same that I am not so stony-hearted as I pretend to be, and that some day or other, while yet in my prime, as they say, that very wary bird, myself, will set his unsuspecting feet on the bird-lime and become a captive. These two ladies, though accustomed to defer to my will, as the representative of the family, the inheritor of the blood and fortune of the De Veres, were not altogether pleased when they heard that Mr. Rameses was coming. Not that they objected to the presence of a stranger ; on the contrary, they liked the idea of a visitor. But Mr. Rameses, according to the account I gave of him, was a book-worm, a philosopher, a speaker of many languages, a Rosicrucian, a Pagan, more or less infatuated with the acqui- sition of dangerous and useless knowledge, a student of THE ROOKERY. 19 antiquity, and altogether a person whose companionship was likely to confirm me in my bad habits of attempting to learn too much and make me more of a recluse and woman-shunner than I was already. In vain I represented that I was not a woman-hater, but that on the contrary I loved and admired the whole sex, young and old, provided they were not scolds, slatterns or tipplers. Lady De Glastonbury thought that a young man, such as she considered me to be, should not imagine that there could be women to whom such epithets could apply, and that those who boasted of admir- ing and loving the whole sex, did not in reality love any- body. But I refrained from arguing this particular point, and endeavoured to persuade the ladies that Mr. Rameses was not a book-worm, as they imagined, but an experienced and highly-accomplished man of the world. " But he is not a Christian ! " suggested my mother. " Xo but he may be as good a man, or better, than some who call themselves Christians," I replied. " He is not to blame because geography and the accident of birth made him a sun-worshipper, and for my part I like the sun-worship- pers. They consider the sun the emblem of Divinity, and they worship the Divinity through the sun and beyond him /' 20 THE TWIN SOUL. " Idolatry ! " said my sister. " But never mind, the pool man can't help his birth and education, and I shall do my best to make him comfortable, and, Oh ! what a noble thing it would be if I could convert him to Christianity ! " " I hope you won't try," I replied, " for he might attempt, by way of revanche^ as the French say, to convert you to sun-worship." My sister smiled, for she is a sensible woman, and saw that there were two sides to the question. The result of my little rejoinder was that there was no further discussion on the subject of sun-worship. When at the appointed day Mr. Rameses and his Persian valet arrived, my female folk did the honours of my house- hold with a grace and a pleasantness that were very gratifying to me as well as to my guest. It was evident that Mr. Rameses made a favourable impression both upon them and upon Sir Henry De Glas- tonbury. His noble, I might almost say majestic, presence, his sparkling black eyes, his dark, but not too dark, com- plexion, his faultless white teeth, that owed nothing to the dentist, his abundant hair, that owed nothing to the barber, graceful and well-formed hands, his small feet and THE ROOKERY. 21 high insteps, and the perfect ease and elegance of his manners, were all well calculated to impress the imagina- tion of women. I never yet knew a woman who did not look to the hands and feet of a man, and dislike him if these portions of his mortal frame were large and ungainly. And then Mr. Rameses' deference to their sex, without servility or obsequiousness, or awkward attempts to please them by unmeaning and over-condescending flattery, suggested the gentleman — which he was — and put them as much at their ease with him as he was with them. Binns, my butler, a man of venerable appearance, with beautiful white hair, a rosy face, and with an air of gravity that would have suited a bishop, looked somewhat askance, I thought, at the valet of Mr. Rameses, as Englishmen of his class generally do at foreigners, and Mrs. Grabb, the housekeeper, turned up her nose at him, not too demonstratively, in fact almost imperceptibly, but still in a manner sufficiently symptomatic of a latent dislike that was more likely to increase than to diminish. But of these matters I took httle heed, being quite certain that when the day came for Mr. Rameses' departure, the " tips " 22 THE TWIN SOUL. or " vails," or whatever is the proper slang for gratuities, which he would bestow upon them, would reconcile them alike to himself and to his valet. Thus Mr. Rameses was satisfactorily installed at The Rookery ; and after a short rest, an ablution, and a lunch, he joined me by invitation in the inner sanctum of my library. CHAPTER IV. IN THE SANXTUM. There is an electricity or magnetism (I was going to write freemasonry, but that is an artificial institution, whereas electricity is natural, spontaneous and irrepressible) between persons of congenial tastes and studies, which sometimes declares itself with the suddenness of the lightning flash, and this occurred between Mr. Rameses and me. We understood each other at the first interchange of looks, even before words gave expression to the ideas which prompted them. " Excuse me," he said, " if I look at the backs of your books. I can never enter a library without an invincible curiosity to know what books are m it. Ah 1 " he added, *' I see you have an imaginary library on the back of the door. Good I All the lost books of the Roman historians and the Greek poets I The original Homeric ballads ! * Eve upon Millinery,' and ' Adam upon the varieties of the Potato,' ' Nimrod upon the necessity of irrigating the plain 24 THE TWIN SOUL. of Shinar, and his purpose in building the Tower of Babel/ the nine books of the Sibyls, the reflections of Jonah in the Whale's Belly, the History of Human Folly, in one thousand volumes — volume the first, the nine hundred and ninety- nine unwritten ! Ah, my friend, a thousand volumes would be all too few for -the mighty encyclopaedia ! But where are your Ninevite slabs ? " I pointed them out to him, and he was soon engrossed in the perusal of the first that came to his hand. " I really think," he said, " that, for the preservation of history, the baked clay is better than the printed paper. If the great Library of Alexandria, burned by Caliph Omar, had contained nothing but baked tiles and slabs, some of its priceless treasures might have come down to the present day as certainly as the worthless thing I hold in my hand, which is but a mortgage deed on a house and garden." " But not altogether worthless," I said, " because it proves that three thousand years ago there were mortgages on land and houses as there are now." " Yes. Human nature, human wants, and human con- trivances to satisfy them, and to discount to-morrow for the sake of the pleasures of to-day, are the same in all ages. IX THE SANCTUM. 25 They were the same three thousand years ago as they were yesterday, as I can testify." " As you can testify ? " I said, with a sHght upraising of my eyebrows. " Yes, as / can testify. Do you beheve in an Eternity with only one end ? You and I are immortal — at least, our souls are — and if we are never to end, how can we ever have begun ? The clothes and habiliments of my soul, after accompanying me and the earth in seventy or eighty gyrations round the sun, may wear out. But the wearer re- mains, and has to get new clothes, either in this world or in the next. And why not in this world ? " " Why not, indeed ? " I rephed. " But then, we do not obtain new clothes in this world — that is to say, new bodies after the old body is no longer capable of clothing the soul decently or comfortably ; and it is of no use arguing or endeavouring to find out why not. It is sufficient to know the fact that we do not and cannot." " But how do you know it to be a fact," asked Mr. Rameses, " that we do not, or that we cannot ? I know for myself that this is not my first appearance in the world, though I most devoutly wish that it may be my last ! You 26 THE TWIN SOUL. may not know and you may not believe when told that this fact is 7?iy particular fact, and that , I know it and feel it as much as I know and feel that I am alive at this moment, and that I breathe and talk to you. And if you don't know it iand won't believe it, the fault is yours, not mine, and my fact is to me an indubitable fact, in spite of your incredulity." " Here," I thought to myself, as Mr. Rameses, his black eyes flashing phosphorescent light, thus delivered himself of his idea, " is the little eccentricity of which M. de Palliasse warned me." I never contradict eccentric people. I never argue with anybody whom I think to be more or less crotchetty — or, perhaps I should use a less offensive word, and say more or less the victim of hallucination — but, play- ing the part of Polonius to Hamlet, fool him to the top of his bent, and run no risk of making him furious by doubt, and, above all, by contradiction. So I carefully humoured Mr. Rameses in his idea. " And on what do you ground your belief in this fact ? " I enquired, " except what I suppose I must call your in- tuitive certainty that it is a fact ? " " By my imperfect remembrance," he replied, "of all that IN THE SANCTUM. 27 happened to me in my previous dress or body, which I cas off more than three thousand years ago. I cast it off after having worn it for seventy years, and remained a naked soul, floating along in the atmosphere, until about thirty years ago, when I came into the world once more, bringing all my previously acquired knowledge along with me, dull and vague until my new adolescence, when it burst partially upon me. But we will not venture further upon the sub- ject just now. At a future time, if you like to hear it. It w^ill tell you the story of my first life — no, not my first, for I have led many lives — but the life before this, more than three thousand years ago, and will unfold to you the record of my hopes, my fears, my knowledge, my ignorance, my loves, my hates. Would it interest you, do you think ? " *' It would interest me very powerfully indeed," I re- pUed, still humouring him, and not venturing to cast even the shadow of a doubt upon anything he might choose to tell me ; for human nature, even in its aberrations from the straight line, is always human nature to me, and there are wiser thoughts in mad people's brains than the world is wilUng to acknowledge. Not that Mr. Rameses 28 THE TWIN SOUL. was mad. No ! He was not only a man of genius, but of common sense, which for all I know may be much the rarer quality of the two. " Well," he said, taking a second slab from the heap, " another time, not now. It will be a long story, and may perhaps weary you." I was going to reply that it would not weary me at all, when he suddenly exclaimed, as he passed his finger over the cuneiform characters, " You have a treasure here, Mr. De Vere ! A contemporary record of the building of one of the Great Pyramids. Do you love money ? " " I do, and I don't. I have more than enough for my wants and my luxuries, more than enough for urgency, and for the maintenance of the old family prestige of those who are to come after me." " That's good," said Mr. Rameses ; " but if you really wanted or desired money, I would offer to buy the slab of you at your own price." " If you will read and translate it for me, I will cheerfully make you a present of it, whatever its worth or its worth- lessness." IN THE SAXCTUM. 29 " Worthlessness ! " rejoined Mr. Rameses. " It would be cheap at any fabulous price you might mention. It clears up a historical doubt — no doubt to me, however. I will tell you all about it, and all about the building of the Great Pyramid, some other day. Meanwhile, I will not accept your gift. Bestow it upon the British Museum, or upon some similar institution in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, St. Petersburg, lest it should be lost, injured, or destroyed in your private keeping. We will talk about it hereafter." Mr. Rameses put back the tile in its place, and inspected another, with much apparent interest, but said nothing. He next proceeded to the papyri, several of which he un- rolled. " Nothing of much moment here. Records of battles and victories, renowned in their day, waged and won by kings whose very names have perished, and for the sake of the stability of Empires which are extinguished as completely, and have left as little mark behind them, as the soap-bubbles that children toss into the sunshine from the bowls of tobacco-pipes, and wonder at for half a minute Thus it has been with Egypt and Assyria. Thus it will be with France, Russia, England, America, and all the rest of 30 THE TWIN SOUL. the fussy nationalities, that think they are playing mightier parts in the world's great stage than ever were played before ! Let us take a walk in your grounds, Mr. De Vere. I want to get out of antiquity into the atmosphere of the living day, and feel the breath of the skies upon my cheek." I led the way into the woodland, among the oaks and beeches, and was gratified to find that Mr. Rameses had as much admiration for noble old trees as I have myself, and that he looked upon them with the eyes of a poet and a painter. " Do you not think," he said, turning to me as we stood under the wide-spreading boughs of the very finest old beech in the park, " that men are a little arrogant in the pride of what they think their superior wisdom, but which may be no- thing more than their superior conceit, in denying to trees and flowers the possession of a certain amount of in- telligence ? The sense of enjoyment, accompanied as it must be, if it exists at all, by the sense of pain and suffering ? " " I have often thought so," I replied, " as regards the trees — IN THE SANCTUM. 31 ' ' That all their leaves In moms, or noons, or eves, Or in the starry stillness of the night, May look to Heaven in prayer. Or bend to earth and share Some joy of sense, some natural delight, * * # * And feel through all their sap God's glory infinite." " Exactly so," said Mr. Rameses. " It is the faculty of poetry to utter musical truth, and to say what we have all of us thought, but never found words to express The Greeks, who imagined that there were Dryads and Hama- dryads in the trees, and Nereids in the water, were nearer to truth than modern mathematicians are willing to allow. And the ancient Phoenicians and the Egyptians, from whom the Greeks borrowed nearly everything they knew, were nearer to it still. Compared with the Phoenicians and Egyptians, the Greeks were only babes and sucklings." " That would be considered rank heresy by most of the scholars of our day ; though I am quite prepared to accept it as indubitably true. But then my opinion is not worth much, as my knowledge is small, and I have not studied the learning of the ancient Egyptians half or a hundredth part as much as I should like to study it. And human life is short I" X 32 THE TWIN SOUL. " But I am an ancient Egyptian myself," said Mr. Rameses. " I have been initiated into their mysteries. I have been admitted into the Inner Circle, and I know, where others only suspect, Greece and Rome were but the great-grandchildren of Egypt and Phoenicia ; and all the inventions and discoveries of your boasted modern civi- lization, are but accidental and imperfect re-discoveries of what was once familiar to me and my ancestors. But we must have a long evening alone to discuss these matters. At present I am weary of knowledge, and only wish to feel that I am alive, like a bird or a butterfly." We talked no more about antiquity that day ; but the more I saw of Mr. Rameses, and the oftener I conversed with him, the more I seemed to be convinced that his eccentricity was assumed — that he had a wonderfully capacious memory, in which he had stored a vast multitude of facts and ideas, all ranged in their proper niches, ready for use whenever he required them, for his own pleasure, or that of his listener. We returned to The Rookery to dinner, where a few gentlemen of the neighbourhood assembled by special invitation to meet the distinguished traveller. Mr. Rameses IM THE SAXCTUM. 33 made himself very agreeable, and my guests were all delighted with him. But after they had taken their departure, and we were seated alone in the " sanctum," he asked me as a particular favour not to invite him too often into company, and to be allowed, as long as he remained in my house, to dine alone, or with the family. "You and I, and Sir Henry de Glastonbury, are quite sufficient company when the ladies have retired. English dinner-parties are only the feeding-times of tame beasts, and I don't care to be one of their number." I was too much interested in him to thwart his wishes, and so I gave the promise of compliance, and kept it. VOL. I CHAPTER V. A RAINY DAY. " You don't hunt or shoot, Mr. Rameses ? " said Sir Henry, at the breakfast-table next morning. " No, I take no joy in kilHng. If animals are to be killed for my food — and I must say that I am almost a vegetarian, and eat little but fruit and grain — I like to have the killing done by an expert, by the poulterer, the butcher, or the fisherman." " But don't you think that sport — I won't call it killing — is good for the health, and that it leads a man to take necessary exercise ? " " I don't," replied Mr. Rameses emphatically. " If a man desires exercise — as every man ought — he can take it without destroying the life of innocent creatures. Is it not as healthy to climb a mountain-top for the sake of climbing as to climb for the sake of the stags or the birds, and for the mere love of slaughter ? I can understand the hunting of tigers, Hons, wolves, and noxious animals, but I can't A RALXY DAY. 35 understand the killing of grouse, pheasants, partridges, deer, and other harmless creatures for the sake of killing them. Let the poulterers and butchers do it ; not me ! Why don't your ruthless sportsmen hire themselves out to the butchers, and kill oxen, sheep and pigs for the wages of the work and for the sake of killing them ? " " I am not much of a sportsman myself," replied Sir Henry, "and must say that my fancy lies in the direction of encouraging and improving life rather than in the direction of taking it away. If my health would allow me to live in England, I would cultivate my old taste — the breeding of cattle, and the improvement of the stock of all the domestic animals that are useful to mankind." " Ah ! " said Mr. Rameses, " that is a worthy pursuit. The horses — the cattle — the sheep of England are superior to those of every other country, and all because of the care taken to improve the stock — just as the pears and plums of France excel those of all other parts of Europe ! It is my belief that the race of man is quite as improvable by culture as the race of horses — or of roses and apples." " No doubt ! " interposed I, " but you must remember that the horses, and the bulls, and the sheep, and the roses, 36 THE TWIN SOUL. are the slaves of man — and that man himself is free to indulge in vices and excesses, and to propagate his kind when he is drunk, insane or diseased ! " " Just so," replied Sir Henry, " and all ideas of improve- ment in the race of man, are idle as long as each man remains^his own master. " What a blessing it would be if the diseased, the vicious, the deformed, the ugly, were prohibited from pairing, and left no successors." " Aye ! or could be controlled by the strong arm of a benevolent despotism," said Mr. Rameses. " The time was when this was done ! " " When and where ? " — enquired I. " In the days before history ! " " If before history, how can you know ? " asked Sir Henry. From my own experience," replied Mr. Rameses. " I ha\ e seen it and known it." " Cracked ? " suggested Sir Henry in a whisper to me — " off his head, as they say ? " It had been raining persistently all the morning — and walking up to the window — opening it — and looking out — by way of changing the subject, which began to alarm A RAIXY DAY. 37 Sir Henry — but which did not alarm me, except for the fact that my sister just then entered the room, and might ha3'e heard what we were speaking about, I suggested that as nothing could be done out of doors we might profitably adjourn to my study. The suggestion was adopted. Z^Ir. Rameses no sooner entered the sanctum than he re- commenced the examination of the Babylonian slabs — some of which he affirmed to form portions of the historical books of the Kings of Babylon — venerable secrets of little use unless the Avhole record could be discovered. " That is tantalizing," said I. " The world thirsts for knowledge, and it would be of the highest interest to the present and future generations to be able to reveal the mysteries of all but obliterated history." " If you earnestly desire to pierce into the mysteries," replied Mr. Rameses, "you can learn to read for yourself the arrow-headed records^ of which you possess so many ; though it will possibly take a longer lifetime than you or any man can expect, to piece the fragments together — even if the -fragments exist. What a poor little mushroom thing history is \ Soon grown — sooner perished — never completed ! It is said that Truth endures for ever ! 38 THE TWIN SOUL. Bah ! The Truth of history is unknown^ but the Lies of history are imperishable ! " " Very true, and very sad," remarked Sir Henry. " But what's the good of complaining ? " *' Yes ; very true and very sad. But what's the good of anything ? Except sleep ! That is glorious, and would be divine if there were no awakening." '' You are too young, Mr. Rameses," said I, " to indulge in such gloomy, misanthropical, God-denying ideas as these. Life is good, and all the beautiful universe is full of it." " Too young ! did you say ? I am miserably old ! But I don't want to infect either of you with my melancholy. Don't call me young ! I am old, very old ! And the old- ness of my head drives the youngness out of my heart." " Excuse the abruptness of the question, Mr. Rameses," said I ; " but it relates to youthfulness of heart. I make bold to ask, were you ever in love ? " " Ever in love ? I have been in love more deeply than I care to think of ! I am in love now, with my twin soul — of whom I am in daily search, and whom I am compelled to seek all over the world, under the heavy penalty of daily A RAIXY DAY. 39 misery, until I make her mine. Then I shall be happy ; and then the end will come ! " " Cracked, very much cracked ! " said Sir Henry in a whisper to me, as he prepared to leave the room. " Excuse me to him. I have a horror of people who are not quite sane. There is no knowing when the insanity will boil over ! " And then, in a louder voice, he said, as he gazed for a few moments out of the window, " There is a break in the clouds. I shall take my usual ride after all. Will either of you accompany me ? " " You know," I replied, " that I never trust myself on horseback. Walking's the exercise that suits me best." "It suits me too," said Mr. Rameses. " I love to think as I go, and if a man on horseback thinks about anything but his horse, he is very likely to come to mischief." "Good-bye, then," said Sir Henry, "my ride shall be solitary." Sir Henry left us, glad to escape from Mr. Rameses. Left alone with me, putting aside a slab as he spoke, Mr. Rameses said, " I am afraid that I have startled Sir Henry, and that he has taken it into his head that I am not 40 THE TWIN SOUL. exactly in my right mind. He is welcome to think so if it pleases him, but I should not like you to share his opinion. I recognise in you a man in advance of his age, one who is not shocked at great ideas, even when they run counter to the preconceived opinions lof the world, as I wish to confide to you the history of my life and my mind. Will you accept the confidence ? " " I shall be highly honoured. The greatest joy of my life is to learn, and I feel that I can learn a hundred times more from you than you are Hkely to learn from me." "Well," he replied, "the story will be the story of a soul, as well as of a body, and may possibly make you sad. Will you be ready to hear it if I begin to-night ? " " Quite ready, and all attention." " Tell me, first — Are you a believer in what is called spiritualism ? " " A difficult question to answer. I believe in spirit or soul. And I believe that there is a sympathy — an attractive, an occult influence exercised by one living soul over another living soul in this world. I believe that friendship between man and man is a manifestation of spiritualism ; and that love between man and wcman, if it be pure love, of the A RALXY DAY. 41 soul as well as of the body, is the highest manifestation of spiritualism — you may call it electrcity if you will — that can exist in this world. But I do not believe that the living soul, that has departed from the body in this world, any longer exercises influence over a soul that still performs its own functions by means of its own temporary body. But this is not what the world calls spiritualism." " No," said Mr. Rameses ; " this is not spiritualism. Spiritualism affirms that the disembodied spirit is still an active power in our world of embodied spirits." "I can't believe that," I replied "All ghosts are of our own making, born out of a foolish or an excited imagi- nation, and cannot turn tables, or write letters, or perform conjuring tricks. So if these performances, or others of a like nature, constitute spiritualism, I am not a spiritualist." " I asked you the question for a reason. I do not, any more than you do, believe that spirit manifests itself in what is called spiritualism. But I believe (and I think I know) that spirit exerts itself in our living bodies with a power that is drawn from eternity, and that you and I, in this mortal life, are subject to the eternal experience of the spirit or soul that we hold for a time in the physical 42 THE TWIN SOUL. embrace of our corporeal frame. Do you follow me ? " *' I follow you, but do not clearly understand you." . *' You are willing to understand — I gather that from all you say ; and if so, you will understand my story when I have told it you. The eternal nature of the soul, both before and after this present life — that is my theme, that is the secret of my history. To-night, if you will be a learner, I shall be proud to be your teacher. But you, and you only, are to be my listener. You will perhaps find that as I am, and as I have been, you are also, and that your mind will be opened, as mine has been, to many things of high importance, that, as your poet Shakspeare says, 'Are caviare to the miUion.' " Though not quite satisfied that Mr. Rameses was not the slave of a fancy, a hallucination, a crotchet, or whatever else an aberration from the common-place may be called, I was quite -convinced that if he were mad, it was with the madness of Hamlet, that his madness had much method in it, that he knew a hawk from a heronshaw — when the wind was in the proper quarter — and that I should derive instruction more or less valuable, or, at all events, intellec- A RAIXY DA V. ' 43 tual recreation, from what he had to tell me. He expressed his desire to take a solitary ramble, so we each betook our- selves our several ways, and I awaited the night by taking a good half-da>^s work in my garden, lamong the flowers and the cabbages. ^ife CHAPTER VI. CONXERNIXG TWIN SOULS. The night that came did not bring Mr. Rameses along with it. But just as I was beginning to grow anxious on account of his non-appearance, little Jack Jonas, the son of one of my tenants, brought me a missive, written with a pencil on a scrap of paper torn out of a note-book, which informed me that the writer — Mr. Rameses — had been summoned to London on urgent business, that admitted of no delay, and that he would give me notification of his return. I won- dered a Httle, not much, that his urgent business should have found him out in the neighbourhood of the Rookery, where he desired to remain unknown — but, as wonder was not of the slightest use, and no enlightenment could come of it, except by investigations and enquiries which I had no desire to make — I dismissed my wonder into the atmosphere, or into nonenity, if there be such a thing — which, ejitre iious^ critical reader, is an impossibility. Anyhow, I speedily forgot all about Mr. Rameses, quite COXCERNIXG TJVIX SOULS. 45 content to await his re-appearance to hear his promised story or his non-appearance, and speculated for a full half-hour or more on the singularity of his character, of on the doubtful point whether, like Hamlet, he was half- mad, wholly mad, or not mad at all. But I banished him from my mind as soon as possible, and buried myself, like a bee, deep in the petals of a book, from which I expected to draw wisdom, and from which I certainly drew amuse- ment — a book by a living author, whom I shall not name, lest I should excite the ire of other living authors, who will never acknowledge an author to be great until he be dead and past rivalry. I heard no more of Mr, Rameses for three weeks. After that interval he called upon me in Park Lane. My daughter had returned a few days previously from her Italian hoHday, and was sitting with me in the study when his card was brousrht. She had heard all about him, and perhaps more than all, from Lady de Glastonbury, who was afflicted with an epistolary cacoethes, to a degree more than usually violent. My daughter was naturally anxious to see a man of whom she had heard so much ; but, at the announcement of his name, she fled precipitately, giving the 46 THE TWIN SOUL. very feminine reason that she did not wish to appear before him in a deshabille that I thought showed her off to very great advantage, but which she declared made her look a "perfect fright." "Do invite him again to The Rookery," she said, as she imprinted a kiss upon my forehead, and drew her delicate taper fingers through my abundant hair (I have not the slightest tendency to baldness, having all my life avoided the use of tobacco), for I long to see him, after the description Aunt Margery has given me. Do, do, there's a dear!" I promised compliance, as she glided like a sylph from the room just as the foot of Mr. Rameses was heard upon the stairs. "You will have thought it strange," he said, after the customary salutations had been exchanged, " that I should have disappeared so suddenly from the quiet Rookery, in which I delight. I owe you an explanation. The truth is that I felt a malady, to which I am occasionally subject, coming upon me. On these rare occasions, I hate to be condoled with or pitied. What is more, I hate sick people, and myself most of all when I am in a state that threatens to make me burthensome and disagreeable to COXCERXIXG TIVIX SOULS. 47 anybody. So I went away, and got well by myself, as I always do. I sometimes think that if I were a poor man and desired to gain a large income, I would become a physician, and cure all my patients (for large fees, be it understood) by doing nothing and prescribing nothing, and by no other course of treatment than that of putting on a pleasant face, and uttering a hopeful prophecy upon every- thing, and trusting to all bountiful and all beneficent Nature to work a cure. There is only one malady that cannot be cured by hope and wholesome inattention to it, and that is old age, the incurable disease, not to be scientifically described except by Anno Domini, or, as some would prefer it, Anno Mundi. And now that the shadow has passed over, I am come to invite myself once more to The Rookery, if you will tolerate me for awhile." " For as long as you please. When will you come ? " *' In a week, if that will suit you." "Perfectly." " During this week I have two or three invitations from great people in London, not very great to me, but great to themselves and to the outer world of common Londoners. I have accepted two of them, with a view 48 THE TWIN SOUL. of studying the manners of the EngUsh, I was going to say of amusing myself; but great gatherings do not amuse me, whether at dinners, evening parties, balls, or theatres. I go the day after to-morrow to the Earl of Stoney-Stratford's, who has three unmarried daughters ; — lovely girls they say. I like to look at lovely girls, if they be sensible and modest and do not talk slang. Next day, a fascinating widow, of great popularity, greater ambition, and with a very small jointure, has made up a party, at an expense which I am afraid she cannot afford, to meet me — a poor, mysterious, unknown Asiatic, who is reputed to be fabulously rich. Shall I go ? *' Why not ? The proper study of mankind is man and woman. You may be amused.'' " Possibly, though it takes a great deal to amuse me. My next invitation is from what in the slang of the day is called a professional beauty. I shall go, of course. ' Profes- sional beauty' tickles my fancy; though a woman who gains notoriety, and loves it, by her charms, is not superior in my mind to a professional beauty, who turns her charms to profit and to pleasure in the harem of an Eastern potentate." " You love the sex, you say, or, at all events, you like COXCERNLXG TWIN SOULS. 49 them, and it is your object, being an idle man, not too much addicted to abstruse philosophy^ to study them, ^ pour vous distraire,' as the French would say." " I neither hate nor love the sex. Why should I ? I seek my twin soul, and I like to look upon lovely woman, in the hope of finding her. It may be to-morrow, it may be a thousand years hence, or it may be never ! But why do I say never ? There is no never ! I shall find my counter- part soul some day. And then ! Ah ! then — what then ? Happiness — great happiness, unspeakable happiness — ab- sorption, annihilation of self, and complete beatitude of spirit with spirit, never more to be associated with vile body." "Vile body ! Is not body as divine as soul ? " " Not quite. Is the violin on which you play as divine as the player ? Is the eye superior to what it sees ? Is the ear better than music ? Is the tool superiorto him who uses it ? Is the perishable greater than the imperishable ? " The belief of Mr. Rameses in the twin soul was his craze, his hobby, his eccentricity. I will not call it his madness. After all, what did it signify ? We are all mad, m.ore or less, as ha^ been said over and over again by wils, philosophers, and poits ; and if I had asked my secret soul VOL. I. 4 so THE TWIN SOUL. about it, and my secret soul had replied truthfully, as the soul always does, I should have been informed by my soul, that I too might be afflicted with one per cent, of insanity ; that I live in a glass-house, and that I ought not to throw pebbles at the glass-house of Mr. Rameses. " I see," continued he, noticing perhaps a slight shadow of doubt and perplexity on my face, " that you do not wholly share my ideas with regard to the twin soul that every man and woman in this world has to find, under heavy penalty — the penalty of being unhappy until the death of the body ; unhappy, because soul and body are both incomplete until the meeting of the predestined pair, who, being a pair, are yet one. Too often they never meet. Hence the miserable marriages that are contracted every day by ill-assorted bodies, and still worse assorted souls ; and hence the ill-favoured, imperfect, vicious and wicked children that come into the world that would be better without them." " I do not see anything in your theory but a poetical dream, which, after all, means nothing but t he necessity of sympathy in love and marriage. Without sympathy, love and true happmess are impossible." CONCERNING TWIN SOULS. 51 " Very trite and old ; excuse me for saying so," said Mr. Rameses. "Sympathy is common enough, just as antipathy is. There are many sympathies to enjoy in the world, and many antipathies to suffer ; but there is only one t\vin soul for every man and woman. And the twin souls are fated to meet sooner or later. If not in youth, in age ; if not in this stage of existence, in another ; if not in this poor little planet, the earth, in some other and greater member of the sidereal system ; if not in globular time, in infinite eternity. It is my fate to search for my twin soul, and I must continue the search till I either succeed or die — die in the body, to revive again in the soul elsewhere." " I hope, Mr. Rameses," said I, " that when you look for the twin soul among the three daughters, for instance, of the Lord Stoney-Stratford, or at the house of the fascinating widow, or the professional beauty you speak of, you will not let them know what you are seeking, lest they should laugh." " Well, if they laugh," replied Mr. Rameses, " I shall be spared the trouble of further search in their direction, as one who would laugh on so solemn a subject, cannot be my twin soul. Nevertheless, I shall not explain my philosophy to any woman whatever, or to any man, or any cynicil 4* UNIVERSITY 0^ IU.IN01S LIBRARY 52 THE TWIN SOUL. derider of mysteries ; and if I have explained it to you, it is because I think you are really a searcher after wisdom, and that you do not despise theories merely because they may appear to be extravagant, or because the densely respect- able, and the still more densely stupid, people who boast of what they call their ' com.mon-sense,' may agree to laugh at them. But I will not attempt to discuss the matter just now, or inflict my theories upon you in a hasty visit, when your mind may be pre-occupied. When we are alone to- gether at The Rookery, amid your books, with the mummy in the corner, and we have exhausted the subject of the weather, and of the dreary politics of your nation — politics that savour more of the narrow-mindedness of a parish than of the broader interests of the wide world, of which that parish is but a small part — we may indulge in speculations on the unseen and the unknown. Such speculations, I must confess, have a singular fascination for my mind." "And for mine too, if not carried to excess. I some- times think, when I am tempted to let my imagination run away with my experience, that I am about as foolish as a gold-fish, imprisoned in a vase of water (to him and his comrades in captivity the only known world) would be if COXCERXIXG TIVIX SOULS. 53 he were to launch out into speculations about my library, about my country, about Europe, Asia, and America, or about the sun and the moon. Or, again, I often think that I am even more presumptuous in attempting to fathom infinitude and eternity than the animalcule in a drop of water would be, if he thought he were a philosopher or a metaphysician, a positivist or a Comtist, and began to speculate on the scheme of the Universe." "The reflection is natural," said Mr. Rameses ; "but suppose an animalcule, that has escaped from the drop of water, or a fish that has been liberated from the glass vase, and seen the world ! / am that animalcule ! / am that fish ! I have been privileged to pass the boundaries. I have seen, and I have known." " Ah ! my friend," said I, " seeing is nothing. The eye is the greatest of deceivers. I have seen much, but I know nothing. To see is not necessarily to understand or to know. I have seen the moon, and the stars, but what do I know about them ? Nothing ! nothing ! nothing ! " As we thus spoke, a letter, brought by special messenger, was delivered to me by my serving-maid, for I have no man-servant in the house, only a butler and a coachman, 54 THE TWIN SOUL. who confine themselves, by my express desire, to their own special business. I prefer neat-handed Phillises in my household to men-servants. The missive conveyed an in- vitation to myself and Miss De Vere from Lord Stoney- Stratford to meet Mr. Rameses. Though the notice was short, I at once decided on accepting the invitation, to the apparent joy of my visitor, to whom I handed the letter. " I hope I shall sit next to you at the dinner-table," he said ; " I hate to be placed with a fair fool, or with a silent, a solemn, or an unknown man, on either side of me, with neither of whom I can converse, except about the weather, for fear if I talked on any other subject, I might tread on the theological, the political, the artistic, or perhaps the social coat-tails of my neighbour. Why, in the name of all that is wonderful, are large dinner-parties given to bring people together who may not have a single feeHng in common ? I like a dinner-party, not exceeding eight or nine people of both sexes, who know what to talk about, and who can accompany, by intellectual intercourse, the vulgar pleasure, or rather the necessity^ of eating and drink- ing. I would as soon be a pig, and eat swill out of a trough, as eat my dinner without the civilising sauce of intel- CONCERXIXG TIVIX SOULS. 55 lectual conversation. If I cannot find other society at dinner, I will dine with a book, with the wisdom, the wit, or the poetry of which I can sympathise, and in which, if I do not altogether sympathise, I can find something or other to stir my thought by suggestion." " My soul," said I, " is twin with yours as far as that idea is concerned." And with this remark our conversation ended.