TOM CLARK AND HIS WIFE,

THEIR DOUBLE DREAMS, AND THE CURIOUS THINGS THAT BEFELL THEM THEREIN; BEING THE ROSICRUCIAN'S STORY.

BY DR. P. B. RANDOLPH,

"THE DUMAS OF AMERICA,"

AUTHOR OF "WAA, GU-MAH," "PRE-ADAMITE MAN," "DEALINGS WITH THE DEAD," "IT ISN'T ALL RIGHT," "THE UNVEILING OF SPIRITISM," "THE GRAND SECRET," "HUMAN LOVE—A PHYSICAL SUBSTANCE," ETC., ETC., ETC.

NEW YORK:
SINCLAIR TOUSEY, 121 NASSAU STREET.
1863.

CONTENTS

PART I. THE MAN.
PART II. THE DOUBLE DREAM.
PART III. THE MAGIC SPELL.
PART IV. THE DREAM OF BETSEY CLARK.
PART V. TOM CLARK DREAMS AGAIN.
PART VI. WHAT BECAME OF THOMAS CLARK.
PART VII. BETSEY CLARK IN DREAM-LAND.

From SINCLAIR TOUSEY
By DR. P. B. RANDOLPH,

Dear Charles T——s:

Since we parted at the "Golden Gate," the weight of a world has rested on your shoulders, and I have suffered much, in my journeyings up and down the world, as wearily I wandered over Zahara's burning sands and among the shrines and monuments of Egypt, Syria, and Araby the blessed; separated in body, but united in soul, we have each sought knowledge, and, I trust, gained wisdom. Our work is just begun. One portion of that work consists in the endeavor to unmask villainy, and vindicate the sanctity and perpetuity of marriage. In this little work I have tried to do this, and believe that if the magic talisman herein recommended as a sovereign balm for the strifes and ills of wedlock, be faithfully used, that the great married world will adopt your motto and my own, and become convinced that in spite of much contrary seeming "WE MAY BE HAPPY YET!"

To you, and to such this book is

Affectionately dedicated by your friend and the world's,

P. B. RANDOLPH.

THE ROSICRUCIAN'S STORY.

PART I.

THE MAN.

He used to pace rapidly up and down the deck for a minute or two, and then, suddenly striking his forehead, as if a new thought were just pangfully coming into being at the major foci of his soul, he would throw himself prone upon one of the after seats of the old "Uncle Sam," the steamer in which we were going from San Francisco to Panama, and there he would lie, apparently musing, and evidently enjoying some sort of interior life, but whether that life was one of reverie, dream, or disembodiedness, was a mystery to us all, and would have remained so, but that on being asked, he very complaisantly satisfied our doubts, by informing us that on such occasion he, in spirit, visited a place not laid down in ordinary charts, and the name of which was the realm of "Wotchergifterno," which means in English, "Violinist's Meadow" (very like "Fiddler's Green"). When not pacing the deck, or reclining, or gazing at the glorious sunsets on the sea, or the still more gorgeous sun-risings on the mountains, he was in the habit of—catching flies; which flies he would forthwith proceed to dissect and examine by means of a microscope constructed of a drop of water in a bent broom wisp. Gradually the man became quite a favorite with both passengers and officers of the ship, and not a day passed but a crowd of ladies and gentlemen would gather around him to listen to the stories he would not merely recite, but compose as he went along, each one containing a moral of more than ordinary significance. It was apparent from the first that the man was some sort of a mystic, a dreamer, or some such out-of-the-ordinary style of person, because everything he said or did bore an unmistakable ghostly impress. He was sorrowful withal, at times, and yet no one on the ship had a greater or more humorous flow of spirits. In the midst, however, of his brightest sallies, he would suddenly stop short, as if at that moment his listening soul had caught the jubilant cry of angels when God had just pardoned some sinful, storm-tossed human soul.

One day, during the progress of a long and interesting conversation on the nature of that mysterious thing called the human soul, and in which our fellow passenger had, as usual, taken a leading part, with the endeavor to elicit, as well as impart, information, he suddenly changed color, turned almost deathly pale, and for full five minutes, perhaps more, looked straight into the sky, as if gazing upon the awful and ineffable mysteries of that weird Phantom-land which intuition demonstrates, but cold reason utterly rejects or challenges for tangible proof. Long and steadily gazed the man; and then he shuddered—shuddered as if he had just received some fearful solution of the problem near his heart. And I shuddered also—in pure sympathy with what I could not fairly understand. At length he spoke; but with bated breath, and in tones so low, so deep, so solemn, that it seemed as though a dead, and not a living man, gave utterance to the sounds: "Lara! Lara! Ah, Lovely! would that I had gone then—that I were with thee now!" and he relapsed into silence.

Surprised, both at his abruptness, change of manner and theme—for ten minutes before, and despite the solemnity of the conversational topic, he had been at a fever heat of fun and hilarity—I asked him what he meant. Accustomed, as we had been, to hear him break in upon the most grave and dolorous talk with a droll observation which instantly provoked the most unrestrainable, hilarious mirth; used, as we had been to hear him perpetrate a joke, and set us all in a roar in the very midst of some heart-moving tale of woe, whereat our eyes had moistened, and our pulses throbbed tumultuously, yet I was not, even by all this, prepared for the singular characteristic now presented. In reply to my question, he first wiped away an involuntary tear, as if ashamed of his weakness; then raised his head, and exclaimed:

"Lara! Lara! The Beautiful One!"

"What of her?" asked Colbert, who sat opposite him, and who was deeply moved at his evident distress, and whose curiosity, as that of us all, was deeply piqued.

"Listen," said he, "and I will tell you;" and then, while we eagerly drank in his words, and strove to drink in their strange and wondrous meaning (first warning us that what he was about to say was but the text of something to be thereafter told), he leaned back upon the taffrail, and while the steamer gently plowed her way toward Acapulco and far-off Panama, said:

"Fleshless, yet living, I