t the very gold and red of the leaves hint
to us that the sweet sad time will return again and find us maybe riper?

_October, 1886._

_BEHIND THE VEIL_.

"Men of all castes, if they fulfil their assigned duties, enjoy in
heaven the highest imperishable bliss. Afterwards, when a man who has
fulfilled his duties returns to this world, he obtains, by virtue of a
remainder of merit, birth in a distinguished family, beauty of form,
beauty of complexion, strength, aptitude for learning, wisdom, wealth,
and the gift of fulfilling the laws of his caste or order. Therefore in
both worlds he dwells in happiness, rolling like a wheel from one world
to the other." Thus the Brahmans have settled the problem of the life
that follows the life on earth. Those strange and subtle men seem to
have reasoned themselves into a belief in dreams, and they speak with
cool confidence, as though they were describing scenes as vivid and
material as are the crowds in a bazaar. There is no hesitation for them;
they describe the features of the future existence with the dry
minuteness of a broker's catalogue. The Wheel of Life rolls, and far
above the weary cycle of souls Buddha rests in an attitude of
benediction; he alone has achieved Nirvana--he alone is aloof from gods
and men. The yearning for immortality has in the case of the Brahman
passed into certainty, and he describes his heavens and his hells as
though the All-wise had placed no dim veil between this world and the
world beyond. Most arithmetically minute are all the Brahman's
pictures, and he never stops to hint at a doubt. His hells are
twenty-two in number, each applying a new variety of physical and moral
pain. We men of the West smile at the grotesque dogmatism of the
Orientals; and yet we have no right to smile. In our way we are as keen
about the great question as the Brahmans are, and for us the problem of
problems may be stated in few words--"Is there a future life?" All our
philosophy, all our laws, all our hopes and fears are concerned with
that paralyzing question, and we differ from the Hindoo only in that we
affect an extravagant uncertainty, while he sincerely professes an
absolute certainty. The cultured Western man pretends to dismiss the
problem with a shrug; he labels himself as an agnostic or by some other
vague definition, and he is fond of proclaiming his idea that he knows
and can know nothing. That is a pretence. When the philosopher says that
he does n