



Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.









THE LIFE EVERLASTING

A REALITY OF ROMANCE

BY MARIE CORELLI

AUTHOR OF THELMA, ETC.





CONTENTS

          AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE
     I.   THE HEROINE BEGINS HER STORY
    II.   THE FAIRY SHIP
   III.   THE ANGEL OF A DREAM
    IV.   A BUNCH OF HEATHER
     V.   AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
    VI.   RECOGNITION
   VII.   MEMORIES
  VIII.   VISIONS
    IX.   DOUBTFUL DESTINY
     X.   STRANGE ASSOCIATIONS
    XI.   ONE WAY OF LOVE
   XII.   A LOVE-LETTER
  XIII.   THE HOUSE OF ASELZION
   XIV.   CROSS AND STAR
    XV.   A FIRST LESSON
   XVI.   SHADOW AND SOUND
  XVII.   THE MAGIC BOOK
 XVIII.   DREAMS WITHIN A DREAM
   XIX.   THE UNKNOWN DEEP
    XX.   INTO THE LIGHT




THE LIFE EVERLASTING

A REALITY OF ROMANCE




AUTHOR'S PROLOGUE


In the Gospels of the only Divine Friend this world has ever had or
ever will have, we read of a Voice, a 'Voice in the Wilderness.' There
have been thousands of such Voices;--most of them ineffectual. All
through the world's history their echoes form a part of the universal
record, and from the very beginning of time they have sounded forth
their warnings or entreaties in vain. The Wilderness has never cared to
hear them. The Wilderness does not care to hear them now.

Why, then, do I add an undesired note to the chorus of rejected appeal?
How dare I lift up my voice in the Wilderness, when other voices, far
stronger and sweeter, are drowned in the laughter of fools and the
mockery of the profane? Truly, I do not know. But I am sure that I am
not moved by egotism or arrogance. It is simply out of love and pity
for suffering human kind that I venture to become another Voice
discarded--a voice which, if heard at all, may only serve to awaken the
cheap scorn and derision of the clowns of the piece.

Yet, should this be so, I would not have it otherwise, I have never at
any time striven to be one with the world, or to suit my speech
pliantly to the conventional humour of the moment. I am often attacked,
yet am not hurt; I am equally often praised, and am not elated. I have
no time to attend to the expression of opinions, which, whether good or
bad, are to me indifferent. And whatever pain I have felt or feel, in
experiencing human malice, has been, and is, in the fact that human
malice should exist at all,--not for its attempted wrong towards
myself. For I, personally speaking, have not a moment to waste among
the mere shadows of life which are not Life itself. I follow the
glory,--not the gloom.

So whether you, who wander in darkness of your own making, care to come
towards the little light which leads me onward, or whether you prefer
to turn away from me altogether into your self-created darker depths,
is not my concern. I cannot force you to bear me company. God Himself
cannot do that, for it is His Will and Law that each human soul shall
shape its own eternal future. No one mortal can make the happiness or
salvation of another. I, like yourselves, am in the 'Wilderness,'--but
I know that there are ways of making it blossom like the rose!
Yet,--were all my heart and all my love outpoured upon you, I could not
teach you the Divine transfiguring charm,--unless you, equally with all
your hearts and all your love, resolutely and irrevocably WILLED to
learn.

Nevertheless, despite your possible indifference,--your often sheer
inertia--I cannot pass you by, having peace and comfort for myself
without at least offering to share that peace and comfort with you.
Many of you are very sad,--and I would rather you were happy. Your ways
of living are trivial and unsatisfactory--your so-called 'pleasant'
vices lead you into unforeseen painful perplexities--your ideals of
what may be best for your own enjoyment and advancement fall far short
of your dreams,--your amusements pall on your over-wearied
senses,--your youth hurries away like a puff of thistledown on the
wind,--and you spend all your time feverishly in trying to live without
understanding Life. Life, the first of all things, the essence of all
things,--Life which is yours to hold and to keep, and to RE-CREATE over
and over again in your own persons,--this precious jewel you throw
away, and when it falls out of your possession by your own act, you
think such an end was necessary and inevitable. Poor unhappy mortals!
So self-sufficient, so proud, so ignorant! Like some foolish rustic,
who, finding a diamond, sees no difference between it and a bit of
glass, you, with the whole Universe sweeping around you in mighty
beneficent circles of defensive, protective and ever re-creative
power,--power which is yours to use and to control--imagine that the
entire Cosmos is the design of mere blind unintelligent Chance, and
that the Divine Life which thrills within you serves no purpose save to
lead you to Death! Most wonderful and most pitiful it is that such
folly, such blasphemy should still prevail,--and that humanity should
still ascribe to the Almighty Creator less wisdom and less love than
that with which He has endowed His creatures. For the very first lesson
in the beginning of knowledge is that Life is the essential Being of
God, and that each individual intelligent outcome of Life is deathless
as God Himself.

The 'Wilderness' is wide,--and within it we all find ourselves,--some
wandering far astray--some crouching listlessly among shadows, too
weary to move at all--others, sauntering along in idle indifference,
now and then vaguely questioning how soon and where the journey will
end,--and few ever discovering that it is not a 'Wilderness' at all,
but a garden of sweet sights and sounds, where every day should be a
glory and every night a benediction. For when the veil of mere
Appearances has been lifted we are no longer deceived into accepting
what Seems for what Is. The Reality of Life is Happiness;--the Delusion
of Life, which we ourselves create by improper balance and imperfect
comprehension of our own powers, must needs cause Sorrow, because in
such self-deception we only dimly see the truth, just as a person born
blind may vaguely guess at the beauty of bright day. But for the Soul
that has found Itself, there are no more misleading lights or shadows
between its own everlastingness and the everlastingness of God.

All the world over there are religions of various kinds, more or less
suited to the various types and races of humanity. Most of these forms
of faith have been evolved from the brooding brain of Man himself, and
have nothing 'divine,' in them. In the very early ages nearly all the
religious creeds were mere methods for terrorising the ignorant and the
weak--and some of them were so revolting, so bloodthirsty and brutal,
that one cannot now read of them without a shudder of repulsion.
Nevertheless, from the very first dawn of his intelligence, man appears
always to have felt the necessity of believing in something stronger
and more lasting than himself,--and his first gropings for truth led
him to evolve desperate notions of something more cruel, more
relentless, and more wicked than himself, rather than ideals of
something more beautiful, more just, more faithful and more loving than
he could be. The dawn of Christianity brought the first glimmering
suggestion that a gospel of love and pity might be more serviceable in
the end to the needs of the world, than a ruthless code of slaughter
and vengeance--though history shows us that the annals of Christianity
itself are stained with crime and shamed by the shedding of innocent
blood. Only in these latter days has the world become faintly conscious
of the real Force working behind and through all things--the soul of
the Divine, or the Psychic element, animating and inspiring all visible
and invisible Nature. This soul of the Divine--this Psychic element,
however, is almost entirely absent from the teaching of the Christian
creed to-day, with the result that the creed itself is losing its
power. I venture to say that a very small majority of the millions of
persons worshipping in the various forms of the Christian Church really
and truly believe what they publicly profess. Clergy and laity alike
are tainted with this worst of all hypocrisies--that of calling God to
witness their faith when they know they are faithless. It may be asked
how I dare to make such an assertion? I dare, because I know! It would
be impossible to the people of this or any other country to honestly
believe the Christian creed, and yet continue to live as they do. Their
lives give the lie to their avowed religion, and it is this daily
spectacle of the daily life of governments, trades, professions and
society which causes me to feel that the general aspect of Christendom
at the present day, with all its Churches and solemn observances, is
one of the most painful and profound hypocrisy. You who read this
page,--(possibly with indignation) you call yourself a Christian, no
doubt. But ARE you? Do you truly think that when death shall come to
you it is really NOT death, but the simple transition into another and
better life? Do you believe in the actual immortality of your soul, and
do you realise what it means? You do? You are quite sure? Then, do you
live as one convinced of it? Are you quite indifferent to the riches
and purely material advantages of this world?--are you as happy in
poverty as in wealth, and are you independent of social esteem? Are you
bent on the very highest and most unselfish ideals of life and conduct?
I do not say you are not; I merely ask if you ARE. If your answer is in
the affirmative, do not give the lie to your creed by your daily
habits, conversation and manners; for this is what thousands of
professing Christians do, and the clergy are by no means exempt.

I know very well, of course, that I must not expect your appreciation,
or even your attention, in matters purely spiritual. The world is too
much with you, and you become obstinate of opinion and rooted in
prejudice. Nevertheless, as I said before, this is not my concern. Your
moods are not mine, and with your prejudices I have nothing to do. My
creed is drawn from Nature--Nature, just, invincible, yet
tender--Nature, who shows us that Life, as we know it now, at this very
time and in this very world, is a blessing so rich in its as yet unused
powers and possibilities, that it may be truly said of the greater
majority of human beings that scarce one of them has ever begun to
learn HOW to live.

Shakespeare, the greatest human exponent of human nature at its best
and worst,--the profound Thinker and Artist who dealt boldly with the
facts of good and evil as they truly are,--and did not hesitate to
contrast them forcibly, without any of the deceptive 'half-tones' of
vice and virtue which are the chief stock-in-trade of such modern
authors as we may call 'degenerates,'--makes his Hamlet exclaim:--

    "What a piece of work is man!--how noble in
     reason!--how infinite in faculty!--in form and moving
     how express and admirable!--in action how like an
     angel!--in apprehension how like a god!"

Let us consider two of these designations in particular: 'How infinite
in faculty!'--and 'In apprehension how like a god!' The sentences are
prophetic, like so many of Shakespeare's utterances. They foretell the
true condition of the Soul of Man when it shall have discovered its
capabilities. 'Infinite in faculty'--that is to say--Able to do all it
shall WILL to do. There is no end to this power,--no hindrance in
either earth or heaven to its resolute working--no stint to the
life-supplies on which it may draw unceasingly. And--'in apprehension
how like a god!' Here the word 'apprehension' is used in the sense of
attaining knowledge,--to learn, or to 'apprehend' wisdom. It means, of
course, that if the Soul's capability of 'apprehending' or learning the
true meaning and use of every fact and circumstance which environs its
existence, were properly perceived and applied, then the 'Image of God'
in which the Creator made humanity, would become the veritable likeness
of the Divine.

But, as this powerful and infinite faculty of apprehension is seldom if
ever rightly understood, and as Man generally concentrates his whole
effort upon ministering to his purely material needs, utterly ignoring
and wilfully refusing to realise those larger claims which are purely
spiritual, he presents the appearance of a maimed and imperfect
object,--a creature who, having strong limbs, declines to use the same,
or who, possessing incalculable wealth, crazily considers himself a
pauper. Jesus Christ, whom we may look upon as a human Incarnation of
Divine Thought, an outcome and expression of the 'Word' or Law of God,
came to teach us our true position in the scale of the great Creative
and Progressive Purpose,--but in the days of His coming men would not
listen,--nor will they listen even now. They say with their mouths, but
they do not believe with their hearts, that He rose from the dead,--and
they cannot understand that, as a matter of fact, He never died, seeing
that death for Him (as for all who have mastered the inward
constitution and commingling of the elements) was impossible. His real
LIFE was not injured or affected by the agony on the Cross, or by His
three days' entombment; the one was a torture to His physical frame,
which to the limited perception of those who watched Him 'die,' as they
thought, appeared like a dissolution of the whole Man,--the other was
the mere rest and silence necessary for what is called the'miracle' of
the Resurrection, but which was simply the natural rising of the same
Body, the atoms of which were re-invested and made immortal by the
imperishable Spirit which owned and held them in being. The whole life
and so-called 'death' of Christ was and is a great symbolic lesson to
mankind of the infinite power of THAT within us which we call
SOUL,--but which we may perhaps in these scientific days term an
eternal radio-activity,--capable of exhaustless energy and of
readjustment to varying conditions. Life is all Life. There is no such
thing as Death in its composition,--and the intelligent comprehension
of its endless ways and methods of change and expression, is the Secret
of the Universe.

It appears to be generally accepted that we are not to know this
Secret,--that it is too vast and deep for our limited capacities,--and
that even if we did know it, it would be of no use to us, as we are
bound hard and fast by certain natural and elemental laws over which we
have no control. Old truisms are re-stated and violently
asserted--namely, that our business is merely to be born, to live,
breed and arrange things as well as we can for those who come after us,
and then to die, and there an end,--a stupid round of existence not one
whit higher than that of the silkworm. Is it for such a monotonous,
commonplace way of life and purpose as this, that humanity has been
endowed with 'infinite faculty'? Is it for such poor aims and ends as
these that we are told in the legended account of the beginning of
things, to 'Replenish the earth and subdue it'? There is great meaning
in that command--'Subdue it!' The business of each one of us who has
come into the knowledge and possession of his or her own Soul, is to
'subdue' the earth,--that is, to hold it and all it contains under
subjection,--not to allow Its forces, whether interior or exterior, to
subdue the Soul. But it may perhaps be said:--"We do not yet understand
all the forces with which we have to contend, and in this way they
master us." That may be so,--but if it is so with any of you, it is
quite your own fault. Your own fault, I say,--for there is no power,
human or divine, that compels you to remain in ignorance. Each one of
you has a master--talisman and key to all locked doors. No State
education can do for you what you might do for yourselves, if you only
had the WILL. It is your own choice entirely if you elect to live in
subjection to the earth, instead of placing the earth under subjection
to your dominance.

Then, again, you have been told to 'Replenish the earth'--as well as to
subdue it. In these latter days, through a cupidity as amazing as
criminal, you are not'replenishing' so much as impoverishing the
earth, and think you that no interest will be exacted for your reckless
plunder? You mistake! You complain of the high taxes imposed upon you
by your merely material and ephemeral Governments,--but you forget that
the Everlasting Government of all Worlds demands an even higher rate of
compensation for such wrong or injurious uses as you make of this
world, which was and is intended to serve as a place of training for
the development and perfection of the whole human race, but which,
owing to personal greed and selfishness, is too often turned into a
mere grave for the interment of faulty civilisations.

In studying the psychic side of life it should be well and distinctly
understood that THERE IS AN EVER LIVING SPIRIT WITHIN EACH ONE OF
US;--a Spirit for which there is no limited capacity and no
unfavourable surroundings. Its capacity is infinite as God,--and its
surroundings are always made by Itself. It is its own Heaven,--and once
established within that everlasting centre, it radiates from the Inward
to the Outward, thus making its own environment, not only now but for
ever. It is its own Life,--and in the active work of perpetually
re-generating and re-creating itself, knows nothing of Death.

                         *     *     *
                            *     *
                               *

I must now claim the indulgence of those among my readers who possess
the rare gift of patience, for anything that may seem too personal in
the following statement which I feel it almost necessary to make on the
subject of my own "psychic" creed. I am so often asked if I believe
this or that, if I am "orthodox," if I am a sceptic, materialist or
agnostic, that I should like, if possible, to make things clear between
myself and these enquirers. Therefore I may say at once that my belief
in God and the immortality of the Soul is absolute,--but that I did not
attain to the faith I hold without hard training and bitter suffering.
This need not be dwelt upon, being past. I began to write when I was
too young to know anything of the world's worldly ways, and when I was
too enthusiastic and too much carried away by the splendour and beauty
of the spiritual ideal to realise the inevitable derision and scorn
which are bound to fall upon untried explorers into the mysteries of
the unseen; yet it was solely on account of a strange psychical
experience which chanced to myself when I stood upon the threshold of
what is called 'life' that I found myself producing my first book, "A
Romance of Two Worlds." It was a rash experiment, but it was the direct
result of an initiation into some few of the truths behind the veil of
the Seeming Real. I did not then know why I was selected for such an
'initiation'--and I do not know even now. It arose quite naturally out
of a series of ordinary events which might happen to anyone. I was not
compelled or persuaded into it, for, being alone in the world and more
or less friendless, I had no opportunity to seek advice or assistance
from any person as to the course of life or learning I should pursue.
And I learned what I did learn because of my own unwavering intention
and WILL to be instructed.

I should here perhaps explain the tenor of the instruction which was
gradually imparted to me in just such measures of proportion as I was
found to be receptive. The first thing I was taught was how to bring
every feeling and sense into close union with the spirit of Nature.
Nature, I was told, is the reflection of the working-mind of the
Creator--and any opposition to that working-mind on the part of any
living organism It has created cannot but result in disaster. Pursuing
this line of study, a wonderful vista of perpetual revealment was
opened to me. I saw how humanity, moved by gross egoism, has in every
age of the world ordained laws and morals for itself which are the very
reverse of Nature's teaching--I saw how, instead of helping the wheel
of progress and wisdom onward, man reverses it by his obstinacy and
turns it backward even on the very point of great attainment--and I was
able to perceive how the sorrows and despairs of the world are caused
by this one simple fact--Man working AGAINST Nature--while Nature, ever
divine and invincible, pursues her God-appointed course, sweeping her
puny opponents aside and inflexibly carrying out her will to the end.
And I learned how true it is that if Man went WITH her instead of
AGAINST her, there would be no more misunderstanding of the laws of the
Universe, and that where there is now nothing but discord, all would be
divinest harmony.

My first book, "A Romance of Two Worlds," was an eager, though crude,
attempt to explain and express something of what I myself had studied
on some of these subjects, though, as I have already said, my mind was
unformed and immature, and, therefore, I was not permitted to disclose
more than a glimmering of the light I was beginning to perceive. My own
probation--destined to be a severe one--had only just been entered
upon; and hard and fast limits were imposed on me for a certain time. I
was forbidden, for example, to write of radium, that wonderful
'discovery' of the immediate hour, though it was then, and had been for
a long period, perfectly well known to my instructors, who possessed
all the means of extracting it from substances as yet undreamed of by
latter-day scientists. I was only permitted to hint at it under the
guise of the word 'Electricity'--which, after all, was not so much of a
misnomer, seeing that electric force displays itself in countless
millions of forms. My "Electric Theory of the Universe" in the "Romance
of Two Worlds" foreran the utterance of the scientist who in the
"Hibbert Journal" for January, 1905, wrote as follows:--"The last years
have seen the dawn of a revolution in science as great as that which in
the sphere of religion overthrew the many gods and crowned the One.
Matter, as we have understood it, there is none, nor probably anywhere
the individual atom. The so-called atoms are systems of ELECTRONIC
corpuscles, bound together by their mutual forces too firmly for any
human contrivance completely to sunder them,--alike in their electric
composition, differing only in the rhythms of their motion. ELECTRICITY
is all things, and all things are ELECTRIC."

THIS WAS PRECISELY MY TEACHING IN THE FIRST BOOK I EVER WROTE. I was
ridiculed for it, of course,--and I was told that there was no
'spiritual' force in electricity. I differ from this view; but
'radio-activity' is perhaps the better, because the truer term to
employ in seeking to describe the Germ or Embryo of the Soul, for--as
scientists have proved--"Radium is capable of absorbing from
surrounding bodies SOME UNKNOWN FORM OF ENERGY which it can render
evident as heat and light." This is precisely what the radio-activity
in each individual soul of each individual human being is ordained to
do,--to absorb an 'unknown form of energy which it can render evident
as heat and light.' Heat and Light are the composition of Life;--and
the Life which this radio-activity of Soul generates IN itself and OF
itself, can never die. Or, as I wrote in "A Romance of Two Worlds
"--"Like all flames, this electric (or radiant) spark can either be
fanned into a fire, or allowed to escape in air,--IT CAN NEVER BE
DESTROYED." And again, from the same book: "All the wonders of Nature
are the result of LIGHT AND HEAT ALONE." Paracelsus, as early as about
1526, made guarded mention of the same substance or quality, describing
it thus:--"The more of the humour of life it has, the more of the
spirit of life abounds in that life." Though truly this vital
radio-active force lacks all fitting name. To material science radium,
or radium chloride, is a minute salt crystal, so rare and costly to
obtain that it may be counted as about three thousand times the price
of gold in the market. But of the action of PURE radium, the knowledge
of ordinary scientific students is nil. They know that an infinitely
small spark of radium salt will emit heat and light continuously
without any combustion or change in its own structure. And I would here
quote a passage from a lecture delivered by one of our prominent
scientists in 1904. "Details concerning the behaviour of several
radio-active bodies were detected, as, for example, their activity was
not constant; it gradually grew in strength, BUT THE GROWN PORTION OF
THE ACTIVITY COULD BE BLOWN AWAY, AND THE BLOWN AWAY PART RETAINED ITS
ACTIVITY ONLY FOR A TIME. It decayed in a few days or weeks,--WHEREAS
THE RADIUM ROSE IN STRENGTH AGAIN AT THE SAME RATE THAT THE OTHER
DECAYED. And so on constantly. It was as if a NEW FORM of matter was
constantly being produced, and AS IF THE RADIO-ACTIVITY WAS A
CONCOMITANT OF THE CHANGE OF FORM. It was also found that radium kept
on producing heat de novo so as to keep itself always a fraction of a
degree ABOVE THE SURROUNDING TEMPERATURE; also that it spontaneously
PRODUCED ELECTRICITY."

Does this teach no lesson on the resurrection of the dead? Of the
'blown away part' which decays in a few days or weeks?--of the 'Radia'
or 'Radiance' of the Soul, rising in strength again AT THE SAME RATE
that the other, the Body, or 'grown portion of the activity,' decays?
Of the 'new form of matter' and the 'radio-activity as a concomitant of
the CHANGE OF FORM'? Does not Science here almost unwittingly verify
the words of St. Paul:--"It is sown a natural body; it is raised a
spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual
body"? There is nothing impossible or'miraculous' in such a
consummation, even according to modern material science,--it is merely
the natural action of PURE radio-activity or that etherical composition
for which we have no name, but which we have vaguely called the SOUL
for countless ages.

To multitudes of people this expression 'the Soul' has become
overfamiliar by constant repetition, and conveys little more than the
suggestion of a myth, or the hint of an Imaginary Existence. Now there
is nothing in the whole Universe so REAL as the Vital Germ of the
actual Form and Being of the living, radiant, active Creature within
each one of us,--the creature who, impressed and guided by our Free
Will, works out its own delight or doom. The WILL of each man or woman
is like the compass of a ship,--where it points, the ship goes. If the
needle directs it to the rocks, there is wreck and disaster,--if to the
open sea, there is clear sailing. God leaves the WILL of man at perfect
liberty. His Divine Love neither constrains nor compels. We must
Ourselves learn the ways of Right and Wrong, and having learned, we
must choose. We must injure Ourselves. God will not injure us. We
invite our own miseries. God does not send them. The evils and sorrows
that afflict mankind are of mankind's own making. Even in natural
catastrophes, which ruin cities and devastate countries, it is well to
remember that Nature, which is the MATERIAL EXPRESSION of the mind of
God, will not tolerate too long a burden of human iniquity. Nature
destroys what is putrescent; she covers it up with fresh earth on which
healthier things may find place to grow.

I tried to convey some hint of these truths in my "Romance of Two
Worlds." Some few gave heed,--others wrote to me from all parts of the
world concerning what they called my 'views' on the subjects treated
of,--some asked to be 'initiated' into my 'experience' of the
Unseen,--but many of my correspondents (I say it with regret) were
moved by purely selfish considerations for their own private and
particular advancement, and showed, by the very tone of their letters,
not only an astounding hypocrisy, but also the good opinion they
entertained of their own worthiness, their own capabilities, and their
own great intellectuality, forgetful of the words:--"Except ye become
as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."

Now the spirit of a little child is receptive and trustful. It has no
desire for argument, and it is instinctively confident that it will not
be led into unnecessary difficulty or danger by its responsible
guardians. This is the spirit in which, if we are sincere in our
seeking for knowledge, we should and must approach the deeper
psychological mysteries of Nature. But as long as we interpose the
darkness of personal doubt and prejudice between ourselves and the
Light Eternal no progress can be made,--and every attempt to penetrate
into the Holy of Holies will be met and thrust back by that 'flaming
Sword' which from the beginning, as now, turns every way to guard the
Tree of Life.

Knowing this, and seeing that Self was the stumbling-block with most of
my correspondents, I was anxious to write another book at once, also in
the guise of a romance, to serve as a little lamp of love whereby my
readers might haply discover the real character of the obstacle which
blocked their way to an intelligent Soul-advancement. But the publisher
I had at the time (the late Mr. George Bentley) assured me that if I
wrote another'spiritualistic' book, I should lose the public hearing I
had just gained. I do not know why he had formed this opinion, but as
he was a kindly personal friend, and took a keen interest in my career,
never handing any manuscript of mine over to his'reader,'