POST MORTEM.*
THIS curious little book comes into the world without the name of the author, and with a title of its own ghastly enough to pre- judice the reader of ordinary nerves against it. The first thing that has to be said is that the words are to be understood literally, and not in their conventional sense, and that we have not to assist at any physical study of mortal humiliation and overthrow, when we open these pages ; but to enter, by help of a certainly original if somewhat strange imagination, into the experiences of a spirit set free from the body, in the state that ensues after death.
There is no subject so full of interest to every one, without ex- ception, who either reads or thinks—for the condition which we must all pass into, one time or another, which some regard with exultant hope, and some with deadly fear, but the most of us with a tremulous reluctance and curiosity which expects no information, and yet cannot refrain from following every research —is almost the only one which affects all, and is of equal im- portance to old and young, to prince and peasant. That unseen, into which one unwary step at any moment may suddenly launch us, without chart or guide—or, still more terrible, may launch those that are dearest to U8, so that they shall be, in the twinkling of an eye, beyond our reach and lose the power of communication with us, as we say, "for ever "—nothing in the world can equal it as a subject of inquiry, if we could but find anyhow a loophole through which to spy into it, a feasible means of finding anything out. And human specula- tion is never weary of this subject. With a wonderful perse- verance, touching in its vague helplessness, yet sometimes cruel in its efforts, human nature hangs about the last steps of those who are departing upon that unknown way, hoping, perhaps, when the everlasting doors open, to obtain a glance beyond, or, at least, by the demeanour of the traveller, to divine how it appears to him when he falters upon the threshold. And very strange are the painful revelations which we owe to imagination alone. There appeared in one of the magazines not very long since a harrowing realisation of what might ensue, did one of the favourite and dearest dreams of humanity prove true, and were the spirits of our lost relatives permitted to find their happiness in bearing us company still and watching over us, though themselves unseen. This, if we remember rightly, was called "Lost," and described the experi- ences of a wife who, after her release from the body, continues a strange, unseen inhabitant in her husband's house, to console him and soothe his sorrow. Why, if this was to be her sole mission, she was removed from the flesh at all, is a mystery of which no solution is attempted, and it is one which must in- evitably dash the hopes of any reasonable mourner, when trying to build upon this possibility. After a short interval of for- lorn sweetness in finding him still amenable to her influence, though unaware what it is, a terrible enlightenment begins to steal upon the disembodied wife. She discovers that her consolations have done their work too well, that her husband has outlived his grief, and that all that is left for her to do is to watch his return to the enjoyments of life, and selection of another living woman to fill her place. Thus disabused of its supreme delusion, the unhappy spirit flies wildly forth into space and night We do not know whether this curious sketch was in- tended to show how untenable is the theory which turns the departed into mere ministrants of the living, more or less dependent for their happiness still upon the accidents of this life. Probably it proved a great deal more than it had any purpose of proving. It is almost impossible to imagine that in such circumstances any degree of spiritual elevation would raise the spirit above a pang, or not to feel that the mere fact of withdrawal from this sphere must imply some new existence, and not a mere subsidiary, sympathetic clinging to the life that has come to an end.
The author of Post Morton makes a real attempt to enter
• Post Mortals. Edinburgh and London : W. Blackwood and Sons. 1891.
into the shadows, and follow in imagination the course of a soul when freed from the bonds of the flesh, and removed from everything familiar and known ; and though he has not very much to teach, there is a great deal that is original and genuine in the weird picture he sets before us. The strange phantasma- goria of existence into which the departing soul steps, as into a
dream, seems to us a new development of imagination alto- gether. In such speculations generally, the soul is conscious of some great change, and all the solemn questions of religion are instantly brought to bear upon it in a manner which it is very hard for flesh and blood to conceive ; indeed, this initial diffi- culty meets us on the very threshold, when we turn our thoughts towards the unseen. It is possible to follow the very good or the very bad into an instant and solemn realisation of either happiness or despair, and the sudden perfecting of their highly developed being one way or other does not confound us. But when an ordinary, frivolous, light-hearted, or feather-brained mortal suddenly steps across that boundary, we find ourselves pulled up in the effort to contemplate their new condition, by an abso- lute incapacity to associate anything solemn, final, terrible,. with the trifling human creature which an hour ago, perhaps,. was of so little account. Post Morten& is the first speculation of the End with which we are acquainted which recognises this impossibility. We must quote, in the first place, the.
author's description of his own death, in which the reader will at once see the curious moderation of tone and subdued grasp of conception which characterise this singular study throughout. He discovers, by "certain whispers which it. was supposed I was unable to hear, and from certain glances of curiosity or commiseration which it was supposed I was- unable to see," that he was near death ; and is struck with a terror of annihilation, which, however, is subdued by his own reflections, and by certain passages of Scripture read at his bed- side. The moment of departure is thus described :—
" Presently, my mind began to dwell not only upon happiness. which was to come, but upon happiness which I was actually enjoy- ing. I saw long-forgotten forms, playmates, schoolfellows, com- panions of my youth and of my old age, who one and all smiled upon me. They did not smile with any compassion—that I no longer felt. that I needed—but with that sort of kindness which is exchanged by people who are equally happy. I saw my mother, father, and sisters,. all of whom I had survived. They did not speak, yet they com- municated to me their unaltered and unalterable affection. At about the time when they appeared, I made an effort to realise my bodily situation—that is, I endeavoured to connect my soul with the body which lay on the bed in my house. The endeavour failed; I was dead."
The soul thus insensibly, yet happily, released from the body,.
finds itself, without any break of consciousness or change of being, in a curious dream-world, having no more apparent con- nection with its own moral needs or final destiny than a dream bears to our natural life. This unknown region is full of strange- but unconnected incidents and scenery, with sudden changes, un- accounted for and incomprehensible, which yet in no way confuse- the visionary traveller, who accepts everything and takes all for granted with that astonishing impartiality and calm which we- all are conscious of in our dreams. He finds himself in a long gallery, hung with curious objects of all kinds, which he looks- at with this unintrprise,d placidity, though he is aware they are extraordinary, and coming to a billiard-table, at which nobody is playing, takes up a ball and rolls it along, upon which the- gallery lengthens into endless space, and becomes one long billiard-table, down which the ball rolls interminably. "Alter this I found myself standing on a quay, by the side of a quiet.
river." We quote these not because they are details of any im- portance, but to show how truly the writer has caught that wonderful inconsequence and acquiescence of the dreamer which is one of the most curious mental phenomena in the world. He- says, "In the world, had I been exposed to such perplexity, I should have certainly believed that I was either mad or bewitched;, but here I was troubled with no such fears, and did not even feel any curiosity as to the cause of phenomena before me.'r By-and-by, incidents of a more startling character come in, but always in the same fragmentary way, into the maze. He is met by what he dimly realises to be temptation, and resists it—he finds himself pursued, he cannot tell why, and undergoes agonies of fear, but emerges again and again into brighter scenes—he has glimpses of paradise and of hell, prays, and is delivered ; then plunges once again into vague horrors and conflicts, in which only dimly now and then he recognises a. moral meaning. We will not pretend to say that this view of the confines of the eternal world throws mach information on the subject ; but as an effort of imagination it is very striking and original, and proves the existence of a quite fresh and on- hackneyed faculty in the writer, who has managed, at least, to present the subject of so many theories and imaginations in a new light, and with a shadowy dimness of atmosphere as dif- ferent from the gloom of Hades as it is from the common day- light, yet full of a weird reality and possibility, in the midst of those mists of the unknown.
The ultimate anticipations of the writer are scarcely more clear
than the phantasma of his disembodied existence, but when his hero, finding a friend among the dim crowd, is roused to a sudden, anxious sense of the necessity of an explanation, here is, at last, the light which is afforded to him :— "Why are you here ? You are here because your transgressions f.nbade you being allowed to enter Paradise forthwith ; your merits were mercifully deemed sufficient to save you from the doom of Hell, and consequently the middle state was your proper portion. The mercy which has so far protected your soul from everlasting tor- ments is generous and comprehensive to a degree which it would be very dangerous that human beings should understand. If they could indeed understand it, a few base wretches might be stimulated to make successful exertions in the cause of their own salvation, bat, on the other hand, many persons who had hitherto been restrained from sin by the dread of hell alone would let loose some of their wicked passions, as soon as they thought that they could do so with- out incurring the one penalty which bad been a definite and in- telligible object of fear to them. But do not presume to think that by a lenient admission into Paradise, or even into this Chaos, your final salvation is positively sure, or your final doom positively averted."
This, then, is the purgatory of this new investigator of the unseen. The wiser spirit goes on to inform him that though "our bodies are sometimes found so vile that they have been handed for a time to the custody of the Devil, but our souls, never fear, are far too precious to be ever submitted to his uncontrolled charge." These words evidently indicate a belief in the universal final redemption of the erring human race, which thus goes on in the spiritual world, contending with its enemies with little more enlightenment than on earth. The instructor adds, however, an explanation of the broken dream- perceptions of the novice. Were he always to retain the recol- lection of what he has just heard, "you would be able to pass every trial and temptation with a glad indifference. You would have the most interested motives for doing right. But alas ! a 'continuous memory, the greatest blessing that can here be en- joyed, is at present denied you." Here the writer furnishes us with the key of his imaginative theory. After this explanation, the soul is cast adrift again in the wild world of risks and tests not understood, to struggle for its life, and make its way amid broken gleams of comprehension and recollection, by instinct, so to speak, of the good or evil in it. The idea is strikingly original, and opens many paths of speculation. When the "continuous memory" is restored, the purgatory is over, and the sufferer reaches the happy islands of Paradise, the vestibule of Heaven.
It would have been better to omit altogether the political views of the anonymous writer from such a singular essay of imagination. The procession of French Revolutionaries whom he meets in the depths of the pit are both out of character and out of date (for his death is supposed to take place in 1759). Later on, when the narrator has long entered into happiness, a new arrival reaches Paradise, who had "quitted the world during the latter 'part of the nineteenth century, and, wonderful to relate, he was the sole representative of that period in the world's history." When this individual arrives, he discourses at length, in terms far from complimentary, upon the unpar- donable sins of our present age, about which, to be sure, there are different opinions. The writer would have done well to confine himself to the region in which he has really found a new outlet of imagination. His strictures upon the actual are somewhat foolish. His flight into the unseen has a force of fancy and originality which make his little book well worthy the attention of those who are curious in such weird imagi- nations.
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