This trade of mine I don't know, can't be sure But there was something in it, tricks and all! They were tricks, true, but what I mean to add Is also true. First, don't it strike you, sir? -- We're taught is, there's a world beside this world, With spirits, not mankind, for tenantry; That much within that world once sojourned here, That all upon this world will travel there, And therefore that we, bodily here below, In learning what may be the ways o' the world In watching how things go in the old world, Fit for the novel state,- old loves, grown pure, Old interests understood aright, they watch! That's all, do what we do, but noblier done, Use plate, whereas we eat our meals off delf, (To use a figure.) Concede that, and I ask Next, what may be the mode of intercourse Between us men here, and those once-men there? First comes the Bible's speech; then, history you know, All that we sucked in with our mothers' milk, Till it's found bone of bone and flesh of flesh. See now, we start with the miraculous, And know it used to be, at all events : What's the first step we take, and can't but take, My brother's spirit may appear to me." Go tell your teacher that! What's his reply? O'er his brow late so luminous with faith? "Such things have been," says he, "and there's no doubt Such things may be: but I advise mistrust Of eyes, ears, stomach, and, most of all, your brain, Just as in Saul's time; only, different: find it out! I want to know, then, what's so natural As that a person born into this world, For his own allotment, his especial share Whether grass be green or red,—“No kind of eye "Give him forthwith a paint-box!" Just the same Was I born... "medium," you won't let me say, Well, seer of the supernatural - Everywhen, everyhow, and everywhere, — Will that do? I and all such boys of course Started with the same stock of Bible-truth; Only, what in the rest you style their sense, Instinct, blind reasoning but imperative, This, betimes, taught them the old world had one law And ours another: "New world, new laws,” cried they : "None but old laws, seen everywhere at work,” The Jews' way, still a working way to me. This could not last long: soon enough I found Not a whit: what projects the billiard-balls? "A cue," you answer: "Yes, a cue,” said I; "But what hand, off the cushion, moved the cue? What unseen agency, outside the world, Prompted its puppets to do this and that, Put cakes and shoes and slates into their mind, Just so I reason, in sober earnest still, About the greater godsends, what you call life. The serious gains and losses of my What do I know or care about your world Inside a raree-show and a market-mob Gathered about it: that's the use of things. As taper, also, timepiece, weather-glass, And almanac? Are stars not set for signs When we should shear our sheep, sow corn, prune trees? The Bible says so. Well, I add one use To all the acknowledged uses, and declare It warns me," Go, nor lose another day, And have your hair cut, Sludge!" You laugh: and why? Were such a sign too hard for God to give? No: but Sludge seems too little for such grace: When you and good men gape at Providence, |