_not_ to be seen, sights that are abominable, and
secrets that are unutterable. So shall he read elder truths, sad truths,
grand truths, fearful truths. So shall he rise again _before_ he dies.
And so shall our commission be accomplished which from God we had,--to
plague his heart until he had unfolded the capacities of his spirit."

SAVANNAH-LA-MAR

From 'Confessions of an English Opium-Eater'

God smote Savannah-la-mar, and in one night by earthquake removed her,
with all her towers standing and population sleeping, from the steadfast
foundations of the shore to the coral floors of ocean. And God
said:--"Pompeii did I bury and conceal from men through seventeen
centuries; this city I will bury, but not conceal. She shall be a
monument to men of my mysterious anger, set in azure light through
generations to come; for I will enshrine her in a crystal dome of my
tropic seas." This city therefore, like a mighty galleon with all her
apparel mounted, streamers flying, and tackling perfect, seems floating
along the noiseless depths of ocean; and oftentimes in glassy calms,
through the translucid atmosphere of water that now stretches like an
air-woven awning above the silent encampment, mariners from every clime
look down into her courts and terraces, count her gates, and number the
spires of her churches. She is one ample cemetery, and has been for many
a year; but in the mighty calms that brood for weeks over tropic
latitudes, she fascinates the eye with a _Fata Morgana_ revelation as of
human life still subsisting, in submarine asylums sacred from the storms
that torment our upper air.

Thither, lured by the loveliness of cerulean depths, by the peace of
human dwellings privileged from molestation, by the gleam of marble
altars sleeping in everlasting sanctity, oftentimes in dreams did I and
the Dark Interpreter cleave the watery veil that divided us from her
streets. We looked into the belfries, where the pendulous bells were
waiting in vain for the summons which should awaken their marriage
peals; together we touched the mighty organ keys, that sang no
_jubilates_ for the ear of Heaven, that sang no requiems for the ear of
human sorrow; together we searched the silent nurseries, where the
children were all asleep, and had been asleep through five generations.
"They are waiting for the heavenly dawn," whispered the Interpreter to
himself: "and when that comes, the bells and the organs will utter a
_jubilate_