Ombre

“ Think upon your lust, your perjury, inhumanity, and hypocrisy! Think upon the innocent blood which cries to the Throne of God for vengeance, and then hope for mercy! Then dream of heaven, and sigh for worlds of light, and realms of peace and pleasure! Absurd! Open your eyes, Ambrosio, and be prudent. Hell is your lot; You are doomed to eternal perdition; Nought lies beyond your grave but a gulph of devouring flames. ”

“ All Ages, all Degrees unsluice their Eyes;
And Heav'n, and Earth resound with Murmurs, Groans, and Cries.
Matrons and Maidens beat their Breasts, and tear
Their Habits, and root up their scatter'd Hair:
The wretched Father, Father now no more,
With Sorrow sunk, lies prostrate on the Floor,
Deforms his hoary Locks with Dust obscene,
And curses Age, and loaths a Life prolong'd with Pain. ”

“ The God of Nature did his Soul inspire,
Or Earth, but new divided from the Sky,
And, pliant, still, retain'd th' Ætherial Energy:
Which wise Prometheus temper'd into Paste,
And mixt with living Streams the Godlike Image cast.
Thus, while the mute Creation downward bend
Their Sight, and to their earthly Mother tend,
Man looks aloft; and with erected Eyes
Beholds his own hereditary Skies.
From such rude Principles our Form began;
And Earth was metamorphos'd into Man. ”

“ I often long to be that mummy you have in the Great Hospital, the one with the short nose and thick lips. When you looked at me spirit and flesh would grow one with delight, and I should come to life, and grow round and soft and warm again, and talk to you of Thebes, and you would be enchanted with me—you could not help it then. I should be so old, so very old, and genuine! ”

“ To them who dare nothing is impossible. Rely upon me, and you may yet be happy. The time is come, Ambrosio, when regard for your comfort and tranquillity compels me to reveal a part of my History, with which you are still unacquainted. Listen, and do not interrupt me: Should my confession disgust you, remember that in making it my sole aim is to satisfy your wishes, and restore that peace to your heart which at present has abandoned it. ”

“ The region of shapes called Life, with shadows behind and before—
Shadows voiceless as Death, and dark as the sunless tomb,—
Shapes whose anguish and strife seem a glimpse of Hell's grim shore—
Shadows that gave them life and shadows that hail them home.
Great is the hour, O Soul, and great is the wonder to see!
Thou art alone with God as he writes on the future's page
Two words in letters of fire— (one Doom,—one Mystery,—
Alpha the last, and the first Omega) and names it an Age.
[December 31, 1900.]
[21]
A CLOWN'S PRELUDE.
Behold! ”

“ He believed in a different way from the people rather than in different objects; the essentially true and supreme God was in his view doubtless the world-soul, but every manifestation of the primitive God was in its turn divine, the stars above all, but also the earth, the vine, the soul of the illustrious mortal whom the people honoured as a hero, and in fact every departed spirit of a former man. ”

“ But in Obed's quiet and unpretending narrative he recognized the presence of a heroic soul; one which in the midst of the most chivalrous, the most absolute, and the most devotion--in the midst of the most utter abnegation of self--could still maintain the serenest calm and the most complete presence of mind in the face of awful danger. Every point in that story produced an effect on the mind of the listener, and roused his fullest sympathy. ”

“ But we shall endeavour to prove, that of all Funeral-Ceremonies, Embalming is the chief and most useful, without which, all the rest are but vain, expensive and insignificant Customs. |Why the Body is to be taken Care of.| We are not ignorant some may object why the Body should be so much taken Care of, since by Death there is a separation made of the Soul, that more noble Part being fled, while the baser only is left. ”

“ Now to help the Body that it may be freed from the Abominate, it must take the Assimulate of the lothing Abominate, which is risen in the Body as a Sude or Seething, and introduce it into the Dying of the Fire, and bring it out in the Love-Desire from the Curse of the Vanity; now this is no otherwise effected, but as the true Life dies to the dark vanity. ”

“ And in every detail of your life, if no ultimate purpose redeemed it, there was a quality of greyness, of desolation, that could never be described, but which you could feel like a physical pang at your heart. Life, if the grave really ends it, is monstrous and dreadful. ”

“ In the name of God, the giver, forgiver, rich in love, praise be to the name of Ormazd, the God with the name, 'Who always was, always is, and always will be'; the heavenly amongst the heavenly, with the name 'From whom alone is derived rule.' Ormazd is the greatest ruler, mighty, wise, creator, supporter, refuge, defender, completer of good works, overseer, pure, good, and just. ”

“ But these men stood aside—one can see them—and gave place not merely to the delicate and the refined, but to the scared woman from the steerage with her toddler by her side, coming through the very gate of Death and out of the mouth of Hell to the imagined Eden of America. ”

“ For even the abysmal moment of creation had marked the world for his prey. Slowly but surely death had closed his cold hands about the earth. The sun flung forth his hot rays and drew more and more of the earth's moisture and dissipated it in space. ”

“ Then naught shall move us, nor wake a single sense, not though earth with sea be mingled, and sea with sky.” There is no hell, he cries, or, like Omar, he says, “Hell is the vision of a soul on fire.” ”

“ Ambrose understands mortality in a wide sense, as including the capacity of any and every sort of change. Immortality, then, in accordance with this definition, would connote perfect absence of change. ”

“ If her sacrifice was accepted, her energy seemed to abandon her, and she was left to the repugnance of human nature for suffering. When she had gone through this trial, by keeping her eyes fixed on her Redeemer in the Garden of Olives, she next had to endure indescribable sufferings of every description, bearing them all with wonderful patience and sweetness. We used to see her remain several days together, motionless and insensible, looking like a dying lamb. ”

“ OF THE OMPHI, AND OF THE WORSHIP UPON HIGH PLACES.
The term Omphi is of great antiquity, and denotes an oracular influence, by which people obtained an insight into the secrets of futurity. I have taken notice with what reverence men in the first ages repaired to rocks and caverns, as to places of particular sanctity. Here they thought that the Deity would most likely disclose himself either by a voice, or a dream, or some other præternatural token. Many, for the same purpose, worshipped upon hills, and on the tops of high mountains ”

“ At a sign Bella entered and stood before the stately presence of the holy man.
An embarrassing silence of some seconds followed. Father Ambrose was the first to break the spell.
"You have done right, my daughter, to come to me so punctually; the ready obedience of the penitent is the first sign of the spirit within which obtains the Divine forgiveness." ”

“ Usefulness marred, peace destroyed, a horrible dread on my mind, a reproving conscience within my breast, I seem now unable even to pray! I have let go the Hand that would so gently have led me; darkness is thick around me; I cannot find my Heavenly Guide! I dread to keep silent, yet dare not speak. Oh, that horrible, blasphemous oath!”
But it is time that the reader should be made acquainted with the circumstances which led to Emmie’s present state of misery. ”

“ Every object breathed of peace and beauty; and as my heart had long since learned to associate the idea of Ormsby with every scene that gave me pleasure, I was meditating on future possibilities of happiness, when the object of my dangerous contemplations suddenly appeared coming towards the place where I sat. ”

“ The animals of creation were keeping watch; the earth, in adoration, seemed to offer incense to the sky, and the amber exhaled from its bosom fell back upon it in the form of dew, as prayers fall back upon those who pray. ”

“ What obdurate Hearts and pitiless Eyes can then bear such a miserable Object, when Embalming so easily prevents it, by rendring the Body sweet and decorous, retaining still its natural Form, Feature and Shape? Again, if we consider the natural and innate Desire most People have of being bury’d in their own Tombs and Countries, |Necessary for Transporting Bodies.| we shall find there is a necessity of Embalming such Bodies, the better to convey those that die in Foreign Parts to their Native Soil. ”

“ Well, once upon a time in the glorious springtime of the world, Ormuzd the Blessed, in the fair gardens of Paradise, conceived in his heart the thought of fashioning and sending forth into the world a hero who should be mightier and more illustrious than any of the sons of men. ”

“ And could anything be more terrifying than the thought that the glorious Orb, the maker of day and generator of all beauty, should be destined to hurl from its shining centre death and destruction upon the planet it had from creation vivified and warmed! ”

“ At Ascension the heavy and clear crystals of Saint Ambrose filled with their luminous water the tiny basin of the catkins; the fire of rubies and garnets lighted up again with the crimson hymn and scarlet sequence of Pentecost the "Veni Creator" and "Veni Spiritus." ”

“ Ambrose, 'I have not lived so as to be ashamed to live among you; nor do I fear to die, because we have a gracious God.' During these days he laboured to compose two works well worthy to be remembered, besides the lessons we had from him, and singing of Psalms ”

“ How many golden leaves are hurled into the mire of sin, and upon how much marvellous beauty the heavy foot of worldly scorn is stamped forever! How many pretty little amber leaves drift on through the cold wide world, until their beauty is spent, and until wrecked and faded they lay themselves down by the withered blades to die. ”

“ Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely? Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came upon him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years ”

“ We may perhaps vainly please our selves with having the Picture of our deceas’d Friend, which nevertheless consists but of a few Lights and Shadows, or it may be we have his Statue, which however wants the natural Complection and Air of his Person: ’Tis true Pictures or Statues may preserve in our Minds our Friends Memories, and so in some measure redeem them from the Injuries of Oblivion, yet will they still but very faintly and imperfectly represent that Body, to which Embalming gives a real Presence, and which may at any Time be essay’d by our Senses. ”

“ When they die, they'll go to the Place of the Gone Ones, and have oomphel in the sky, and they will live forever in new bodies, but when we die, we just die, period. So they'll pity us and politely try to hide their condescension toward us. ”

“ You and I and every man and woman in this world whom sin has known—alas! that there should be so many—have looked into his marble face, have felt the touch of his pitiless hands, and the cold despair of his unloving embrace. For there is Death spiritual and Death physical, and many of us who bear no traces of our past in the present of to-day, have fought our grim battle with the death—the—death——”
And then my father’s words died away upon his lips, and the whole congregation knew what had already thrown me into an agony of terror. ”

“ He cannot surely have a drop of blood within his veins, who would not feel it boil with indignation to witness such a sight. And yet their fate was envied by the others, who glided through the world like mummies, in the springtime of their days, and hourly, slowly faded into death. ”

“ It was the custom of the wind clan of the Omahas to flap their overalls to start a breeze, while a sorcerer of New Britain desirous of appeasing the wind god throws burnt lime into the air, and towards the point of the compass he wishes to make a prosperous journey, chanting meanwhile a song. ”

“ La Mort ridiculement coiffée de diverses plumes flottantes, & vêtue d’une espèce de mante, emmène hors de son couvent une Abbesse qu’elle tire de toutes ses forces par son scapulaire. La révérendissime Mère quitte à regret la vie & les honneurs dont elle jouit, & exprime par l’altération de ses traits & par ses cris, l’effroi que la Mort a jeté dans son âme. ”

“ Now when the heavenly Body, and also the earthly, do thus yield unto these three Murtherers, then appears the Image of John and Mary by the Cross as a Type; for the young Man's Life, and also the Virgin's in the young Man, has freely surrendered, and given forth itself: And now the two Properties, viz. the divine and human, divide themselves in the Form of each Power, which the Artist may see if he has the eyes and Understanding thereunto. ”

“ Her skinny lips, rapidly moving to and fro, and her dark withered, bony, and cadaverous features, gave her more the appearance of a living mummy or a resurrection from the charnel-house than aught instinct with the common attributes of humanity. ”

“ One thinks that embalming was supposed to keep the soul in the body until after the funeral judgment and interment, but that, when the corpse was laid in its final receptacle, the soul proceeded to accompany the sun in its daily and nocturnal circuit, or to transmigrate through various animals and deities. ”