Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-04-14
Talfs and Skttthes.
FROM THE LIPS OF THE DEAD.
OR, THE SOUTHERN SOLDIER AND HIS AT.
FIANCED.
CONTINUED from Yesterday

gu are cruel, she Sdlu again.
mo, only perhaps too earnest. have
thought greatly on this subject. We
have often spoken of it here as we stood
and watched the slow whirl of the con-
stellations, longing to solve these great
and unscrutable mysteries"
"But never thus-it was never you and
l, she cried piteously.
land now it is YOU and |, and perhaps
in my death you will learn the solution.
for be assured, if die, and in no way you
at once become aware of my love and
care surrounding you, you may know. the
world may know. that until the great day
when we shall all stand before God, there
can be no communication of departed
spirits with those they have left behind
at would be worth dying to satisfy the
hungry hearts that have ached with this
question since Eve wept over her MUIR
dered boy: Can the dead return p There
are sects that say they believe it, but have
never been able to prove or give anthem
tic record of such return that is accepted
by the world; neither can thev give any
clear official statement of disclosures of
sufficient moment to impress one with the
belief that they emanated from one who
elias seen the mysteries hid
Under Egypt's pyramid,
BY those eyelds fixed and close
Now she knows what Rhameses knows
IF it can be given, if it can be told |
will give it to you. Do YOU give it to
others. And equally if it is not gwen.
Silence will be an answer as convincing
and irrefragable. 1t will then be your
mission to assign their proper position to
those who aspire to powers of meditation,
betwixt the living and the dead Be fear
less and unflinching, for in establishing
this truth, YOU earn the gratitude of mil
lions. When they demand whence you
received authority to declare such solemn
and tremendous truths say From the lips
of the dead
A strange parting this for lovers but
after all this were lett ample store of un-
sparing moments, no longer TO be averted
of keen abandonment to the piteous
wrench of separation, to vows of fidelity.
and all the sweet vain liturgy of lovers.
Six months after this parting the lover
fell, MORALLY wounded, picked off by a
sharpshooter during reconnaissance. As
he lay dying in the arms of trusted
friend he gasped:
Tell her-tell her-my promise-l am
coming-'and so expired, with the strange
energy of that resolve strong on him,
even in his death hour.
/ Was it from the tender prescience
which love gives. that the lover thus
sought to temper the tumutuous grief
he knew his death would bring upon a
strong and unframed nature. helpless
against sorrow because so ignorant of it,
by thus bequeahing tangible motive tor
instant energy, to which she would
promptly respond? Or was it the pas
sionate jealousy which even from the
grave would reach out for and cry out
for, and hold its own, by this shadowy and
strange partnership
Or was it truly a righteous desire to
benefit humanity, by exposing those ghast-
ly tamperings with aching hearts, now
practised by those who profess to be brok-
ers and agents in the strange intercourse
between mind and matter?
Be that as it may. This was solemn
compact betwixt the living and the dead.
and as such a girl resolved to keep it
religiously.
After the heavy blow bad fallen, and
been endured somehow -ah, God! how is
it such grief is lived-by the helpless and
unreasoning young, through the first
ghast!v and torturing weeks brought in
n moment face to face with an agony from
which there is no escape, and OF which
habit alone can render one tolerant. A
habit of agony. to be acquired as one ac-
quires a new language, a clamp screwed
on by fate to train your feeble soul into a
new bent, which i. never removed
until the warped and alien muscles
Al.
taken off you would not know it. 1t sleeps
with YOU and rises with YOU; is with YOU
in the commonest avocatonS OF daily life.
as in The sacredest cries of despair, till the
habit has become YOUR nature, and you
are one with lifelong sorrow, at that
dreadful novitiate, while YOU are learning
that il is possible tc live and support such
grietr'
"You tell me time will bring relief y
means the tender and tortured one; but
how long a time-a month pa year
give me some date when this anguish
shall cease"
You are sienced at once, and the words
of comfort die on Your lips. How can you
tell-poor worm - how or when tina,
writing soul shall win through the fur.
naceP
All her books and poems failed to helr
her now-experience that teaches pa
tience. she had none; lie there. stepped
in agony and live. she could not. So,
putting aside as Tar as possible. the dear
est and happiest memories of her lover,
till they could be better faced and borne,
she concentrated all her faculties on the
instructions of that last interview. and es-
saved to put herself in the state of mental
training and comprehension, necessary to
carry out the strange bequeSt.
She had, through all these weary nights
and days of alternate mute despair and
reckless, passionate protest; of humble
cries Tor help and bitter rebellion against
an unjust fate; OF wild wailiues and dumb
endurance, oh! CHASTITY gamut, whose
notes were all tried on her tortured heart.
and Il. yet no gracious or healing chord
had been struck-through all this. her in
ner consciousness was greedilv on the
alert. but in no way did she become aware
of new love and care surrounding her. =
though she listened and watched for some
sign. Not even in her dreams. though ii
seemed incredible that a thought so con.
stantlv present in waking hours could