by Mark Twain
“Look here,” says I, “do you know what you’re doing?”
“Well, what am I doing?”
“You are making heaven pretty comfortable in one way, but you are playing the mischief with it in another.”
“How d’you mean?”
“Well,” I says, “take a young mother that’s lost her child, and—”
“’Sh!” he says. “Look!”
It was a woman. Middle-aged, and had grizzled hair. She was walking slow, and her head was bent down, and her wings hanging limp and droopy; and she looked ever so tired, and was crying, poor thing! She passed along by, with her head down, that way, and the tears running down her face, and didn’t see us. Then Sandy said, low and gentle, and full of pity:
“She’s hunting for her child! No, found it, I reckon. Lord, how she’s changed! But I recognized her in a minute, though it’s twenty-seven years since I saw her. A young mother she was, about twenty-two or four, or along there; and blooming and lovely and sweet—oh, just a flower! And all her heart and all her soul was wrapped up in her child, her little girl, two years old. And it died, and she went wild with grief, just wild! Well, the only comfort she had was that she’d see her child again, in heaven—‘never more to part,’ she said, and kept on saying it over and over, ‘never more to part.’ And the words made her happy; yes, they did; they made her joyful; and when I was dying, twenty-seven years ago, she told me to find her child the first thing, and say she was coming—‘soon, soon, very soon, she hoped and believed!’”
“Why, it’s pitiful, Sandy.”
He didn’t say anything for a while, but sat looking at the ground, thinking. Then he says, kind of mournful:
“And now she’s come!”
“Well? Go on.”
“Stormfield, maybe she hasn’t found the child, but I think she has. Looks so to me. I’ve seen cases before. You see, she’s kept that child in her head just the same as it was when she jounced it in her arms a little chubby thing. But here it didn’t elect to stay a child. No, it elected to grow up, which it did. And in these twenty-seven years it has learned all the deep scientific learning there is to learn, and is studying and studying and learning and learning more and more, all the time, and don’t give a damn for anything but learning; just learning, and discussing gigantic problems with people like herself.”
“Well?”
“Stormfield, don’t you see? Her mother knows cranberries, and how to tend them, and pick them, and put them up, and market them; and not another blamed thing! Her and her daughter can’t be any more company for each other now than mud turtle and bird o’ paradise. Poor thing, she was looking for a baby to jounce; I think she’s struck a disappintment.”
“Sandy, what will they do—stay unhappy forever in heaven?”
“No, they’ll come together and get adjusted by and by. But not this year, and not next. By and by.”
2
I had been having considerable trouble with my wings. The day after I helped the choir I made a dash or two with them, but was not lucky. First off, I flew thirty yards, and then fouled an Irishman and brought him down—brought us both down, in fact. Next, I had a collision with a Bishop—and bowled him down, of course. We had some sharp words, and I felt pretty cheap, to come banging into a grave old person like that, with a million strangers looking on and smiling to themselves.
I saw I hadn’t got the hang of the steering, and so couldn’t rightly tell where I was going to bring up when I started. I went afoot the rest of the day, and let my wings hang. Early next morning I went to a private place to have some practice. I got up on a pretty high rock, and got a good start, and went swooping down, aiming for a bush a little over three hundred yards off; but I couldn’t seem to calculate for the wind, which was about two points abaft my beam. I could see I was going considerable to looard of the bush, so I worked my starboard wing slow and went ahead strong on the port one, but it wouldn’t answer; I could see I was going to broach to, so I slowed down on both, and lit. I went back to the rock and took another chance at it. I aimed two or three points to starboard of the bush—yes, more than that—enough so as to make it nearly a head-wind. I done well enough, but made pretty poor time. I could see, plain enough, that on a head-wind, wings was a mistake. I could see that a body could sail pretty close to the wind, but he couldn’t go in the wind’s eye. I could see that if I wanted to go a-visiting any distance from home, and the wind was ahead, I might have to wait days, maybe, for a change; and I could see, too, that these things could not be any use at all in a gale; if you tried to run before the wind, you would make a mess of it, for there isn’t any way to shorten sail—like reefing, you know—you have to take it all in—shut your feathers down flat to your sides. That would land you, of course. You could lay to, with your head to the wind—that is the best you could do, and right hard work you’d find it, too. If you tried any other game, you would founder, sure.
I judge it was about a couple of weeks or so after this that I dropped old Sandy McWilliams a note one day—it was a Tuesday—and asked him to come over and take his manna and quails with me next day; and the first thing he did when he stepped in was to twinkle his eye in a sly way, and say,—
“Well, Cap, what you done with your wings?”
I saw in a minute that there was some sarcasm done up in that rag somewheres, but I never let on. I only says,—
“Gone to the wash.”
“Yes,” he says, in a dry sort of way, “they mostly go to the wash—about this time—I’ve often noticed it. Fresh angels are powerful neat. When do you look for ’em back?”
“Day after to-morrow,” says I.
He winked at me, and smiled.
Says I,—
“Sandy, out with it. Come—no secrets among friends. I notice you don’t ever wear wings—and plenty others don’t. I’ve been making an ass of myself—is that it?”
“That is about the size of it. But it is no harm. We all do it at first. It’s perfectly natural. You see, on earth we jumped to such foolish conclusions as to things up here. In the pictures we always saw the angels with wings on—and that was all right; but we jumped to the conclusion that that was their way of getting around—and that was all wrong. The wings ain’t anything but a uniform, that’s all. When they are in the field—so to speak—they always wear them; you never see an angel going with a message anywhere without his wings, any more than you would see a military officer presiding at a court-martial without his uniform, or a postman delivering letters, or a policeman walking his beat, in plain clothes. But they ain’t to fly with! The wings are for show, not for use. Old experienced angels are like officers of the regular army—they dress plain, when they are off duty. New angels are like the militia—never shed the uniform—always fluttering and floundering around in their wings, butting people down, flapping here, and there, and everywhere, always imagining they are attracting the admiring eye—well, they just think they are the very most important people in heaven. And when you see one of them come sailing around with one wing tipped up and t’other down, you make up your mind he is saying to himself: ‘I wish Mary Ann in Arkansaw could see me now. I reckon she’d wish she hadn’t shook me.’ No, they’re just for show, that’s all—only just for show.”
“I judge you’ve got it about right, Sandy,” says I.
“Why, look at it yourself,” says he. “You ain’t built for wings—no man is. You know what a grist of years it took you to come here from the earth—and yet you were booming along faster than any cannon-ball could go. Suppose you had to fly that distance with your wings—wouldn’t eternity have been over before you got here? Certainly. Well, angels have to go to the earth every day—millions of them—to appear in visions to dying children and good people, you know—it’s the heft of their business. They appear with their wings, of course, because they are on official service, and because the dying persons wouldn’t know they were angels if they hadn’t wings—but do you reckon they fly with them? It stands
to reason they don’t. The wings would wear out before they got half-way; even the pinfeathers would be gone; the wing frames would be as bare as kite sticks before the paper is pasted on. The distances in heaven are billions of times greater; angels have to go all over heaven every day; could they do it with their wings alone? No, indeed; they wear the wings for style, but they travel any distance in an instant by wishing. The wishing-carpet of the Arabian Nights was a sensible idea—but our earthly idea of angels flying these awful distances with their clumsy wings was foolish.
“Our young saints, of both sexes, wear wings all the time—blazing red ones, and blue and green, and gold, and variegated, and rainbowed, and ring-streaked-and-striped ones—and nobody finds fault. It is suitable to their time of life. The things are beautiful, and they set the young people off. They are the most striking and lovely part of their outfit—a halo don’t begin.”
“Well,” says I, “I’ve tucked mine away in the cupboard, and I allow to let them lay there till there’s mud.”
“Yes—or a reception.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, you can see one to-night if you want to. There’s a barkeeper from Jersey City going to be received.”
“Go on—tell me about it.”
“This barkeeper got converted at a Moody and Sankey meeting, in New York, and started home on the ferryboat, and there was a collision and he got drowned. He is of a class that thinks all heaven goes wild with joy when a particularly hard lot like him is saved; they think all heaven turns out hosannahing to welcome them; they think there isn’t anything talked about in the realms of the blest but their case, for that day. This barkeeper thinks there hasn’t been such another stir here in years, as his coming is going to raise.— And I’ve always noticed this peculiarity about a dead barkeeper—he not only expects all hands to turn out when he arrives, but he expects to be received with a torchlight procession.”
“I reckon he is disappointed, then.”
“No, he isn’t. No man is allowed to be disappointed here. Whatever he wants, when he comes—that is, any reasonable and unsacrilegious thing—he can have. There’s always a few millions or billions of young folks around who don’t want any better entertainment than to fill up their lungs and swarm out with their torches and have a high time over a barkeeper. It tickles the barkeeper till he can’t rest, it makes a charming lark for the young folks, it don’t do anybody any harm, it don’t cost a rap, and it keeps up the place’s reputation for making all comers happy and content.”
“Very good. I’ll be on hand and see them land the barkeeper.”
“It is manners to go in full dress. You want to wear your wings, you know, and your other things.”
“Which ones?”
“Halo, and harp, and palm branch, and all that.”
“Well,” says I, “I reckon I ought to be ashamed of myself, but the fact is I left them laying around that day I resigned from the choir. I haven’t got a rag to wear but this robe and the wings.”
“That’s all right. You’ll find they’ve been raked up and saved for you. Send for them.”
“I’ll do it, Sandy. But what was it you was saying about unsacrilegious things, which people expect to get, and will be disappointed about?”
“Oh, there are a lot of such things that people expect and don’t get. For instance, there’s a Brooklyn preacher by the name of Talmage, who is laying up a considerable disappointment for himself. He says, every now and then in his sermons, that the first thing he does when he gets to heaven, will be to fling his arms around Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and kiss them and weep on them. There’s millions of people down there on earth that are promising themselves the same thing. As many as sixty thousand people arrive here every single day, that want to run straight to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and hug them and weep on them. Now mind you, sixty thousand a day is a pretty heavy contract for those old people. If they were a mind to allow it, they wouldn’t ever have anything to do, year in and year out, but stand up and be hugged and wept on thirty-two hours in the twenty-four. They would be tired out and as wet as muskrats all the time. What would heaven be, to them? It would be a mighty good place to get out of—you know that, yourself. Those are kind and gentle old Jews, but they ain’t any fonder of kissing the emotional high-lights of Brooklyn than you be. You mark my words, Mr. T.’s endearments are going to be declined, with thanks. There are limits to the privileges of the elect, even in heaven. Why, if Adam was to show himself to every new comer that wants to call and gaze at him and strike him for his autograph, he would never have time to do anything else but just that. Talmage has said he is going to give Adam some of his attentions, as well as A., I. and J. But he will have to change his mind about that.”
“Do you think Talmage will really come here?”
“Why, certainly, he will; but don’t you be alarmed; he will run with his own kind, and there’s plenty of them. That is the main charm of heaven—there’s all kinds here—which wouldn’t be the case if you let the preachers tell it. Anybody can find the sort he prefers, here, and he just lets the others alone, and they let him alone. When the Deity builds a heaven, it is built right, and on a liberal plan.”
Sandy sent home for his things, and I sent for mine, and about nine in the evening we begun to dress. Sandy says,—
“This is going to be a grand time for you, Stormy. Like as not some of the patriarchs will turn out.”
“No, but will they?”
“Like as not. Of course they are pretty exclusive. They hardly ever show themselves to the common public. I believe they never turn out except for an eleventh-hour convert. They wouldn’t do it then, only earthly tradition makes a grand show pretty necessary on that kind of an occasion.”
“Do they all turn out, Sandy?”
“Who?—all the patriarchs? Oh, no—hardly ever more than a couple. You will be here fifty thousand years—maybe more—before you get a glimpse of all the patriarchs and prophets. Since I have been here, Job has been to the front once, and once Ham and Jeremiah both at the same time. But the finest thing that has happened in my day was a year or so ago; that was Charles Peace’s reception—him they called ‘the Bannercross Murderer’—an Englishman. There were four patriarchs and two prophets on the Grand Stand that time—there hasn’t been anything like it since Captain Kidd came; Abel was there—the first time in twelve hundred years. A report got around that Adam was coming; well, of course, Abel was enough to bring a crowd, all by himself, but there is nobody that can draw like Adam. It was a false report, but it got around, anyway, as I say, and it will be a long day before I see the like of it again. The reception was in the English department, of course, which is eight hundred and eleven million miles from the New Jersey line. I went, along with a good many of my neighbors, and it was a sight to see, I can tell you. Flocks came from all the departments. I saw Esquimaux there, and Tartars, Negroes, Chinamen—people from everywhere. You see a mixture like that in the Grand Choir, the first day you land here, but you hardly ever see it again. There were billions of people; when they were singing or hosannahing, the noise was wonderful; and even when their tongues were still the drumming of the wings was nearly enough to burst your head, for all the sky was as thick as if it was snowing angels. Although Adam was not there, it was a great time anyway, because we had three archangels on the Grand Stand—it is a seldom thing that even one comes out.”
“What did they look like, Sandy?”
“Well, they had shining faces, and shining robes, and wonderful rainbow wings, and they stood eighteen feet high, and wore swords, and held their heads up in a noble way, and looked like soldiers.”
“Did they have halos?”
“No—anyway, not the hoop kind. The archangels and the upper-class patriarchs wear a finer thing than that. It is a round, solid, splendid glory of gold, that is blinding to look at. You have often seen a patriarch in a picture, on earth, with that thing on—you remember it?—he looks as if he had his head in a brass pl
atter. That don’t give you the right idea of it at all—it is much more shining and beautiful.”
“Did you talk with those archangels and patriarchs, Sandy?
“Who—I? Why, what can you be thinking about, Stormy? I ain’t worthy to speak to such as they.”
“Is Talmage?”
“Of course not. You have got the same mixed-up idea about these things that everybody has down there. I had it once, but I got over it. Down there they talk of the heavenly King—and that is right—but then they go right on speaking as if this was a republic and everybody was on a dead level with everybody else, and privileged to fling his arms around anybody he comes across, and be hail-fellow-well-met with all the elect, from the highest down. How tangled up and absurd that is! How are you going to have a republic under a king? How are you going to have a republic at all, where the head of the government is absolute, holds his place forever, and has no parliament, no council to meddle or make in his affairs, nobody voted for, nobody elected, nobody in the whole universe with a voice in the government, nobody asked to take a hand in its matters, and nobody allowed to do it? Fine republic, ain’t it?”
