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+Project Gutenberg's The Child of the Dawn, by Arthur Christopher Benson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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+
+Title: The Child of the Dawn
+
+Author: Arthur Christopher Benson
+
+Release Date: May 31, 2005 [EBook #15964]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHILD OF THE DAWN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
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+
+
+                         THE CHILD OF THE DAWN
+
+                     By ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON
+
+                 FELLOW OF MAGDALENE COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE
+
+      [Greek: ędu ti tharsaleais ton makron teiein bion elpisin]
+
+Author of THE UPTON LETTERS, FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW, BESIDE STILL WATERS,
+THE ALTAR FIRE, THE SCHOOLMASTER, AT LARGE, THE GATE OF DEATH, THE
+SILENT ISLE, JOHN RUSKIN, LEAVES OF THE TREE, CHILD OF THE DAWN, PAUL
+THE MINSTREL
+
+                                 1912
+
+
+
+
+To MY BEST AND DEAREST FRIEND
+HERBERT FRANCIS WILLIAM TATHAM
+IN LOVE AND HOPE
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+I think that a book like the following, which deals with a subject so
+great and so mysterious as our hope of immortality, by means of an
+allegory or fantasy, needs a few words of preface, in order to clear
+away at the outset any misunderstandings which may possibly arise in a
+reader's mind. Nothing is further from my wish than to attempt any
+philosophical or ontological exposition of what is hidden behind the
+veil of death. But one may be permitted to deal with the subject
+imaginatively or poetically, to translate hopes into visions, as I have
+tried to do.
+
+The fact that underlies the book is this: that in the course of a very
+sad and strange experience--an illness which lasted for some two years,
+involving me in a dark cloud of dejection--I came to believe
+practically, instead of merely theoretically, in the personal
+immortality of the human soul. I was conscious, during the whole time,
+that though the physical machinery of the nerves was out of gear, the
+soul and the mind remained, not only intact, but practically unaffected
+by the disease, imprisoned, like a bird in a cage, but perfectly free in
+themselves, and uninjured by the bodily weakness which enveloped them.
+This was not all. I was led to perceive that I had been living life
+with an entirely distorted standard of values; I had been ambitious,
+covetous, eager for comfort and respect, absorbed in trivial dreams and
+childish fancies. I saw, in the course of my illness, that what really
+mattered to the soul was the relation in which it stood to other souls;
+that affection was the native air of the spirit; and that anything which
+distracted the heart from the duty of love was a kind of bodily
+delusion, and simply hindered the spirit in its pilgrimage.
+
+It is easy to learn this, to attain to a sense of certainty about it,
+and yet to be unable to put it into practice as simply and frankly as
+one desires to do! The body grows strong again and reasserts itself; but
+the blessed consciousness of a great possibility apprehended and grasped
+remains.
+
+There came to me, too, a sense that one of the saddest effects of
+what is practically a widespread disbelief in immortality, which
+affects many people who would nominally disclaim it, is that we think
+of the soul after death as a thing so altered as to be practically
+unrecognisable--as a meek and pious emanation, without qualities or aims
+or passions or traits--as a sort of amiable and weak-kneed sacristan in
+the temple of God; and this is the unhappy result of our so often making
+religion a pursuit apart from life--an occupation, not an atmosphere; so
+that it seems impious to think of the departed spirit as interested in
+anything but a vague species of liturgical exercise.
+
+I read the other day the account of the death-bed of a great statesman,
+which was written from what I may call a somewhat clerical point of
+view. It was recorded with much gusto that the dying politician took no
+interest in his schemes of government and cares of State, but found
+perpetual solace in the repetition of childish hymns. This fact had, or
+might have had, a certain beauty of its own, if it had been expressly
+stated that it was a proof that the tired and broken mind fell back upon
+old, simple, and dear recollections of bygone love. But there was
+manifest in the record a kind of sanctimonious triumph in the extinction
+of all the great man's insight and wisdom. It seemed to me that the
+right treatment of the episode was rather to insist that those great
+qualities, won by brave experience and unselfish effort, were only
+temporarily obscured, and belonged actually and essentially to the
+spirit of the man; and that if heaven is indeed, as we may thankfully
+believe, a place of work and progress, those qualities would be actively
+and energetically employed as soon as the soul was freed from the
+trammels of the failing body.
+
+Another point may also be mentioned. The idea of transmigration and
+reincarnation is here used as a possible solution for the extreme
+difficulties which beset the question of the apparently fortuitous
+brevity of some human lives. I do not, of course, propound it as
+literally and precisely as it is here set down--it is not a forecast of
+the future, so much as a symbolising of the forces of life--but _the
+renewal of conscious experience_, in some form or other, seems to be the
+only way out of the difficulty, and it is that which is here indicated.
+If life is a probation for those who have to face experience and
+temptation, how can it be a probation for infants and children, who die
+before the faculty of moral choice is developed? Again, I find it very
+hard to believe in any multiplication of human souls. It is even more
+difficult for me to believe in the creation of new souls than in the
+creation of new matter. Science has shown us that there is no actual
+addition made to the sum of matter, and that the apparent creation of
+new forms of plants or animals is nothing more than a rearrangement of
+existing particles--that if a new form appears in one place, it merely
+means that so much matter is transferred thither from another place. I
+find it, I say, hard to believe that the sum total of life is actually
+increased. To put it very simply for the sake of clearness, and
+accepting the assumption that human life had some time a beginning on
+this planet, it seems impossible to think that when, let us say, the two
+first progenitors of the race died, there were but two souls in heaven;
+that when the next generation died there were, let us say, ten souls in
+heaven; and that this number has been added to by thousands and
+millions, until the unseen world is peopled, as it must be now, if no
+reincarnation is possible, by myriads of human identities, who, after
+a single brief taste of incarnate life, join some vast community of
+spirits in which they eternally reside. I do not say that this latter
+belief may not be true; I only say that in default of evidence, it seems
+to me a difficult faith to hold; while a reincarnation of spirits, if
+one could believe it, would seem to me both to equalise the inequalities
+of human experience, and give one a lively belief in the virtue and
+worth of human endeavour. But all this is set down, as I say, in a
+tentative and not in a philosophical form.
+
+And I have also in these pages kept advisedly clear of Christian
+doctrines and beliefs; not because I do not believe wholeheartedly in
+the divine origin and unexhausted vitality of the Christian revelation,
+but because I do not intend to lay rash and profane hands upon the
+highest and holiest of mysteries.
+
+I will add one word about the genesis of the book. Some time ago I
+wrote a number of short tales of an allegorical type. It was a curious
+experience. I seemed to have come upon them in my mind, as one comes
+upon a covey of birds in a field. One by one they took wings and flew;
+and when I had finished, though I was anxious to write more tales, I
+could not discover any more, though I beat the covert patiently to
+dislodge them.
+
+This particular tale rose unbidden in my mind. I was never conscious
+of creating any of its incidents. It seemed to be all there from the
+beginning; and I felt throughout like a man making his way along a road,
+and describing what he sees as he goes. The road stretched ahead of me;
+I could not see beyond the next turn at any moment; it just unrolled
+itself inevitably and, I will add, very swiftly to my view, and was thus
+a strange and momentous experience.
+
+I will only add that the book is all based upon an intense belief in
+God, and a no less intense conviction of personal immortality and
+personal responsibility. It aims at bringing out the fact that our life
+is a very real pilgrimage to high and far-off things from mean and
+sordid beginnings, and that the key of the mystery lies in the frank
+facing of experience, as a blessed process by which the secret purpose
+of God is made known to us; and, even more, in a passionate belief in
+Love, the love of friend and neighbour, and the love of God; and in the
+absolute faith that we are all of us, from the lowest and most degraded
+human soul to the loftiest and wisest, knit together with chains of
+infinite nearness and dearness, under God, and in Him, and through Him,
+now and hereafter and for evermore.
+
+A.C.B.
+
+THE OLD LODGE, MAGDALENE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, _January_, 1912.
+
+
+
+
+The Child of the Dawn
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Certainly the last few moments of my former material, worn-out life, as
+I must still call it, were made horrible enough for me. I came to, after
+the operation, in a deadly sickness and ghastly confusion of thought. I
+was just dimly conscious of the trim, bare room, the white bed, a figure
+or two, but everything else was swallowed up in the pain, which filled
+all my senses at once. Yet surely, I thought, it is all something
+outside me? ... my brain began to wander, and the pain became a thing.
+It was a tower of stone, high and blank, with a little sinister window
+high up, from which something was every now and then waved above the
+house-roofs.... The tower was gone in a moment, and there was a heap
+piled up on the floor of a great room with open beams--a granary,
+perhaps. The heap was of curved sharp steel things like sickles:
+something moved and muttered underneath it, and blood ran out on the
+floor. Then I was instantly myself, and the pain was with me again; and
+then there fell on me a sense of faintness, so that the cold sweat-drops
+ran suddenly out on my brow. There came a smell of drugs, sharp and
+pungent, on the air. I heard a door open softly, and a voice said, "He
+is sinking fast--they must be sent for at once." Then there were more
+people in the room, people whom I thought I had known once, long ago;
+but I was buried and crushed under the pain, like the thing beneath the
+heap of sickles. There swept over me a dreadful fear; and I could see
+that the fear was reflected in the faces above me; but now they were
+strangely distorted and elongated, so that I could have laughed, if only
+I had had the time; but I had to move the weight off me, which was
+crushing me. Then a roaring sound began to come and go upon the air,
+louder and louder, faster and faster; the strange pungent scent came
+again; and then I was thrust down under the weight, monstrous,
+insupportable; further and further down; and there came a sharp bright
+streak, like a blade severing the strands of a rope drawn taut and
+tense; another and another; one was left, and the blade drew near....
+
+I fell suddenly out of the sound and scent and pain into the most
+incredible and blessed peace and silence. It would have been like a
+sleep, but I was still perfectly conscious, with a sense of unutterable
+and blissful fatigue; a picture passed before me, of a calm sea, of vast
+depth and clearness. There were cliffs at a little distance, great
+headlands and rocky spires. I seemed to myself to have left them, to
+have come down through them, to have embarked. There was a pale light
+everywhere, flushed with rose-colour, like the light of a summer dawn;
+and I felt as I had once felt as a child, awakened early in the little
+old house among the orchards, on a spring morning; I had risen from my
+bed, and leaning out of my window, filled with a delightful wonder,
+I had seen the cool morning quicken into light among the dewy
+apple-blossoms. That was what I felt like, as I lay upon the moving
+tide, glad to rest, not wondering or hoping, not fearing or expecting
+anything--just there, and at peace.
+
+There seemed to be no time in that other blessed morning, no need to
+do anything. The cliffs, I did not know how, faded from me, and the
+boundless sea was about me on every side; but I cannot describe the
+timelessness of it. There are no human words for it all, yet I must
+speak of it in terms of time and space, because both time and space
+were there, though I was not bound by them.
+
+And here first I will say a few words about the manner of speech I shall
+use. It is very hard to make clear, but I think I can explain it in an
+image. I once walked alone, on a perfect summer day, on the South Downs.
+The great smooth shoulders of the hills lay left and right, and, in
+front of me, the rich tufted grass ran suddenly down to the plain, which
+stretched out before me like a map. I saw the fields and woods, the
+minute tiled hamlet-roofs, the white roads, on which crawled tiny carts.
+A shepherd, far below, drove his flock along a little deep-cut lane
+among high hedges. The sounds of earth came faintly and sweetly up,
+obscure sounds of which I could not tell the origin; but the tinkling of
+sheep-bells was the clearest, and the barking of the shepherd-dog. My
+own dog sat beside me, watching my face, impatient to be gone. But at
+the barking he pricked up his ears, put his head on one side, and
+wondered, I saw, where that companionable sound came from. What he made
+of the scene I do not know; the sight of the fruitful earth, the homes
+of men, the fields and waters, filled me with an inexpressible emotion,
+a wide-flung hope, a sense of the immensity and intricacy of life. But
+to my dog it meant nothing at all, though he saw just what I did. To him
+it was nothing but a great excavation in the earth, patched and streaked
+with green. It was not then the scene itself that I loved; that was only
+a symbol of emotions and ideas within me. It touched the spring of a
+host of beautiful thoughts; but the beauty and the sweetness were the
+contribution of my own heart and mind.
+
+Now in the new world in which I found myself, I approached the thoughts
+of beauty and loveliness direct, without any intervening symbols at all.
+The emotions which beautiful things had aroused in me upon earth were
+all there, in the new life, but not confused or blurred, as they had
+been in the old life, by the intruding symbols of ugly, painful, evil
+things. That was all gone like a mist. I could not think an evil or an
+ugly thought.
+
+For a period it was so with me. For a long time--I will use the words
+of earth henceforth without any explanation--I abode in the same calm,
+untroubled peace, partly in memory of the old days, partly in the new
+visions. My senses seemed all blended in one sense; it was not sight or
+hearing or touch--it was but an instant apprehension of the essence of
+things. All that time I was absolutely alone, though I had a sense of
+being watched and tended in a sort of helpless and happy infancy. It was
+always the quiet sea, and the dawning light. I lived over the scenes of
+the old life in a vague, blissful memory. For the joy of the new life
+was that all that had befallen me had a strange and perfect
+significance. I had lived like other men. I had rejoiced, toiled,
+schemed, suffered, sinned. But it was all one now. I saw that each
+influence had somehow been shaping and moulding me. The evil I had done,
+was it indeed evil? It had been the flowering of a root of bitterness,
+the impact of material forces and influences. Had I ever desired it?
+Not in my spirit, I now felt. Sin had brought me shame and sorrow, and
+they had done their work. Repentance, contrition--ugly words! I laughed
+softly at the thought of how different it all was from what I had
+dreamed. I was as the lost sheep found, as the wayward son taken home;
+and should I spoil my joy with recalling what was past and done with for
+ever? Forgiveness was not a process, then, a thing to be sued for and to
+be withheld; it was all involved in the glad return to the breast of God.
+
+What was the mystery, then? The things that I had wrought, ignoble,
+cruel, base, mean, selfish--had I ever willed to do them? It seemed
+impossible, incredible. Were those grievous things still growing,
+seeding, flowering in other lives left behind? Had they invaded,
+corrupted, hurt other poor wills and lives? I could think of them no
+longer, any more than I could think of the wrongs done to myself. Those
+had not hurt me either. Perhaps I had still to suffer, but I could not
+think of that. I was too much overwhelmed with joy. The whole thing
+seemed so infinitely little and far away. So for a time I floated on the
+moving crystal of the translucent sea, over the glimmering deeps, the
+dawn above me, the scenes of the old life growing and shaping themselves
+and fading without any will of my own, nothing within or without me but
+ineffable peace and perfect joy.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I knew quite well what had happened to me; that I had passed through
+what mortals call Death: and two thoughts came to me; one was this.
+There had been times on earth when one had felt sure with a sort of deep
+instinct that one could not really ever die; yet there had been hours of
+weariness and despair when one had wondered whether death would not mean
+a silent blankness. That thought had troubled me most, when I had
+followed to the grave some friend or some beloved. The mouldering form,
+shut into the narrow box, was thrust with a sense of shame and disgrace
+into the clay, and no word or sign returned to show that the spirit
+lived on, or that one would ever find that dear proximity again. How
+foolish it seemed now ever to have doubted, ever to have been troubled!
+Of course it was all eternal and everlasting. And then, too, came a
+second thought. One had learned in life, alas, so often to separate what
+was holy and sacred from daily life; there were prayers, liturgies,
+religious exercises, solemnities, Sabbaths--an oppressive strain, too
+often, and a banishing of active life. Brought up as one had been, there
+had been a mournful overshadowing of thought, that after death, and with
+God, it would be all grave and constrained and serious, a perpetual
+liturgy, an unending Sabbath. But now all was deliciously merged
+together. All of beautiful and gracious that there had been in religion,
+all of joyful and animated and eager that there had been in secular
+life, everything that amused, interested, excited, all fine pictures,
+great poems, lovely scenes, intrepid thoughts, exercise, work, jests,
+laughter, perceptions, fancies--they were all one now; only sorrow and
+weariness and dulness and ugliness and greediness were gone. The
+thought was fresh, pure, delicate, full of a great and mirthful content.
+
+There were no divisions of time in my great peace; past, present, and
+future were alike all merged. How can I explain that? It seems so
+impossible, having once seen it, that it should be otherwise. The day
+did not broaden to the noon, nor fade to evening. There was no night
+there. More than that. In the other life, the dark low-hung days, one
+seemed to have lived so little, and always to have been making
+arrangements to live; so much time spent in plans and schemes, in
+alterations and regrets. There was this to be done and that to be
+completed; one thing to be begun, another to be cleared away; always in
+search of the peace which one never found; and if one did achieve it,
+then it was surrounded, like some cast carrion, by a cloud of poisonous
+thoughts, like buzzing blue-flies. Now at last one lived indeed; but
+there grew up in the soul, very gradually and sweetly, the sense that
+one was resting, growing accustomed to something, learning the ways of
+the new place. I became more and more aware that I was not alone; it was
+not that I met, or encountered, or was definitely conscious of any
+thought that was not my own; but there were motions as of great winds in
+the untroubled calm in which I lay, of vast deeps drawing past me. There
+were hoverings and poisings of unseen creatures, which gave me neither
+awe nor surprise, because they were not in the range of my thought as
+yet; but it was enough to show me that I was not alone, that there was
+life about me, purposes going forward, high activities.
+
+The first time I experienced anything more definite was when suddenly I
+became aware of a great crystalline globe that rose like a bubble out of
+the sea. It was of an incredible vastness; but I was conscious that I
+did not perceive it as I had perceived things upon the earth, but that
+I apprehended it all together, within and without. It rose softly and
+swiftly out of the expanse. The surface of it was all alive. It had
+seas and continents, hills and valleys, woods and fields, like our own
+earth. There were cities and houses thronged with living beings; it was
+a world like our own, and yet there was hardly a form upon it that
+resembled any earthly form, though all were articulate and definite,
+ranging from growths which I knew to be vegetable, with a dumb and
+sightless life of their own, up to beings of intelligence and purpose.
+It was a world, in fact, on which a history like that of our own world
+was working itself out; but the whole was of a crystalline texture, if
+texture it can be called; there was no colour or solidity, nothing but
+form and silence, and I realised that I saw, if not materially yet in
+thought, and recognised then, that all the qualities of matter, the
+sounds, the colours, the scents--all that depends upon material
+vibration--were abstracted from it; while form, of which the idea exists
+in the mind apart from all concrete manifestations, was still present.
+For some time after that, a series of these crystalline globes passed
+through the atmosphere where I dwelt, some near, some far; and I saw in
+an instant, in each case, the life and history of each. Some were still
+all aflame, mere currents of molten heat and flying vapour. Some had the
+first signs of rudimentary life--some, again, had a full and organised
+life, such as ours on earth, with a clash of nations, a stream of
+commerce, a perfecting of knowledge. Others were growing cold, and the
+life upon them was artificial and strange, only achieved by a highly
+intellectual and noble race, with an extraordinary command of natural
+forces, fighting in wonderfully constructed and guarded dwellings
+against the growing deathliness of a frozen world, and with a tortured
+despair in their minds at the extinction which threatened them. There
+were others, again, which were frozen and dead, where the drifting snow
+piled itself up over the gigantic and pathetic contrivances of a race
+living underground, with huge vents and chimneys, burrowing further
+into the earth in search of shelter, and nurturing life by amazing
+processes which I cannot here describe. They were marvellously wise,
+those pale and shadowy creatures, with a vitality infinitely ahead of
+our own, a vitality out of which all weakly or diseased elements had
+long been eliminated. And again there were globes upon which all seemed
+dead and frozen to the core, slipping onwards in some infinite progress.
+But though I saw life under a myriad of new conditions, and with an
+endless variety of forms, the nature of it was the same as ours. There
+was the same ignorance of the future, the same doubts and uncertainties,
+the same pathetic leaning of heart to heart, the same wistful desire
+after permanence and happiness, which could not be there or so attained.
+
+Then, too, I saw wild eddies of matter taking shape, of a subtlety that
+is as far beyond any known earthly conditions of matter as steam is
+above frozen stone. Great tornadoes whirled and poised; globes of
+spinning fire flew off on distant errands of their own, as when the
+heavens were made; and I saw, too, the crash of world with world, when
+satellites that had lost their impetus drooped inwards upon some central
+sun, and merged themselves at last with a titanic leap. All this enacted
+itself before me, while life itself flew like a pulse from system to
+system, never diminished, never increased, withdrawn from one to settle
+on another. All this I saw and knew.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+I thought I could never be satiated by this infinite procession of
+wonders. But at last there rose in my mind, like a rising star, the need
+to be alone no longer. I was passing through a kind of heavenly infancy;
+and just as a day comes when a child puts out a hand with a conscious
+intention, not merely a blind groping, but with a need to clasp and
+caress, or answers a smile by a smile, a word by a purposeful cry, so in
+a moment I was aware of some one with me and near me, with a heart and a
+nature that leaned to mine and had need of me, as I of him. I knew him
+to be one who had lived as I had lived, on the earth that was
+ours,--lived many lives, indeed; and it was then first that I became
+aware that I had myself lived many lives too. My human life, which I had
+last left, was the fullest and clearest of all my existences; but they
+had been many and various, though always progressive. I must not now
+tell of the strange life histories that had enfolded me--they had risen
+in dignity and worth from a life far back, unimaginably elementary and
+instinctive; but I felt in a moment that my new friend's life had been
+far richer and more perfect than my own, though I saw that there were
+still experiences ahead of both of us; but not yet. I may describe his
+presence in human similitudes, a presence perfectly defined, though
+apprehended with no human sight. He bore a name which described
+something clear, strong, full of force, and yet gentle of access, like
+water. It was just that; a thing perfectly pure and pervading, which
+could be stained and troubled, and yet could retain no defilement or
+agitation; which a child could scatter and divide, and yet was
+absolutely powerful and insuperable. I will call him Amroth. Him, I say,
+because though there was no thought of sex left in my consciousness,
+his was a courageous, inventive, masterful spirit, which gave rather
+than received, and was withal of a perfect kindness and directness, love
+undefiled and strong. The moment I became aware of his presence, I felt
+him to be like one of those wonderful, pure youths of an Italian
+picture, whose whole mind is set on manful things, untroubled by the
+love of woman, and yet finding all the world intensely gracious and
+beautiful, full of eager frankness, even impatience, with long, slim,
+straight limbs and close-curled hair. I knew him to be the sort of being
+that painters and poets had been feeling after when they represented or
+spoke of angels. And I could not help laughing outright at the thought
+of the meek, mild, statuesque draped figures, with absurd wings and
+depressing smiles, that encumbered pictures and churches, with whom no
+human communication would be possible, and whose grave and discomfiting
+glance would be fatal to all ease or merriment. I recognised in Amroth
+a mirthful soul, full of humour and laughter, who could not be shocked
+by any truth, or hold anything uncomfortably sacred--though indeed he
+held all things sacred with a kind of eagerness that charmed me. Instead
+of meeting him in dolorous pietistic mood, I met him, I remember, as at
+school or college one suddenly met a frank, smiling, high-spirited youth
+or boy, who was ready at once to take comradeship for granted, and
+walked away with one from a gathering, with an outrush of talk and plans
+for further meetings. It was all so utterly unlike the subdued and
+cautious and sensitive atmosphere of devotion that it stirred us both,
+I was aware, to a delicious kind of laughter. And then came a swift
+interchange of thought, which I must try to represent by speech, though
+speech was none.
+
+"I am glad to find you, Amroth," I said. "I was just beginning to wonder
+if I was not going to be lonely."
+
+"Ah," he said, "one has what one desires here; you had too much to see
+and learn at first to want my company. And yet I have been with you,
+pointing out a thousand things, ever since you came here."
+
+"Was it you," I said, "that have been showing me all this? I thought I
+was alone."
+
+At which Amroth laughed again, a laugh full of content. "Yes," he said,
+"the crags and the sunset--do you not remember? I came down with you,
+carrying you like a child in my arms, while you slept; and then I saw
+you awake. You had to rest a long time at first; you had had much to
+bear--uncertainty--that is what tires one, even more than pain. And I
+have been telling you things ever since, when you could listen."
+
+"Oh," I said, "I have a hundred things to ask you; how strange it is to
+see so much and understand so little!"
+
+"Ask away," said Amroth, putting an arm through mine.
+
+"I was afraid," I said, "that it would all be so different--like a
+catechism 'Dost thou believe--is this thy desire?' But instead it seems
+so entirely natural and simple!"
+
+"Ah," he said, "that is how we bewilder ourselves on earth. Why, it is
+hard to say! But all the real things remain. It is all just as
+surprising and interesting and amusing and curious as it ever was: the
+only things that are gone--for a time, that is--are the things that are
+ugly and sad. But they are useful too in their way, though you have no
+need to think of them now. Those are just the discipline, the training."
+
+"But," I said, "what makes people so different from each other down
+there--so many people who are sordid, grubby, quarrelsome, cruel,
+selfish, spiteful? Only a few who are bold and kind--like you, for
+instance?"
+
+"No," he said, answering the thought that rose in my mind, "of course I
+don't mind--I like compliments as well as ever, if they come naturally!
+But don't you see that all the little poky, sensual, mean, disgusting
+lives are simply those of spirits struggling to be free; we begin by
+being enchained by matter at first, and then the stream runs clearer.
+The divine things are imagination and sympathy. That is the secret."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Once I said:
+
+"Which kind of people do you find it hardest to help along?"
+
+"The young people," said Amroth, with a smile.
+
+"Youth!" I said. "Why, down below, we think of youth as being so
+generous and ardent and imitative! We speak of youth as the time to
+learn, and form fine habits; if a man is wilful and selfish in
+after-life, we say that it was because he was too much indulged in
+childhood--and we attach great importance to the impressions of youth."
+
+"That is quite right," said Amroth, "because the impressions of youth
+are swift and keen; but of course, here, age is not a question of years
+or failing powers. The old, here, are the wise and gracious and patient
+and gentle; the youth of the spirit is stupidity and unimaginativeness.
+On the one hand are the stolid and placid, and on the other are the
+brutal and cruel and selfish and unrestrained."
+
+"You confuse me greatly," I said; "surely you do not mean that spiritual
+life and progress are a matter of intellectual energy?"
+
+"No, not at all," said he; "the so-called intellectual people are often
+the most stupid and youngest of all. The intellect counts for nothing:
+that is only a kind of dexterity, a pretty game. The imagination is what
+matters."
+
+"Worse and worse!" I said. "Does salvation belong to poets and
+novelists?"
+
+"No, no," said Amroth, "that is a game too! The imagination I speak of
+is the power of entering into other people's minds and hearts, of
+putting yourself in their place--of loving them, in fact. The more you
+know of people, the better chance there is of loving them; and you can
+only find your way into their minds by imaginative sympathy. I will
+tell you a story which will show you what I mean. There was once a
+famous writer on earth, of whose wisdom people spoke with bated breath.
+Men went to see him with fear and reverence, and came away, saying, 'How
+wonderful!' And this man, in his age, was waited upon by a little maid,
+an ugly, tired, tiny creature. People used to say that they wondered he
+had not a better servant. But she knew all that he liked and wanted,
+where his books and papers were, what was good for him to do. She did
+not understand a word of what he said, but she knew both when he had
+talked too much, and when he had not talked enough, so that his mind was
+pent up in itself, and he became cross and fractious. Now, in reality,
+the little maid was one of the oldest and most beautiful of spirits. She
+had lived many lives, each apparently humbler than the last. She never
+grumbled about her work, or wanted to amuse herself. She loved the silly
+flies that darted about her kitchen, or brushed their black heads on
+the ceiling; she loved the ivy tendrils that tapped on her window in the
+breeze. She did not go to church, she had no time for that; or if she
+had gone, she would not have understood what was said, though she would
+have loved all the people there, and noticed how they looked and sang.
+But the wise man himself was one of the youngest and stupidest of
+spirits, so young and stupid that he had to have a very old and wise
+spirit to look after him. He was eaten up with ideas and vanity, so that
+he had no time to look at any one or think of anybody, unless they
+praised him. He has a very long pilgrimage before him, though he wrote
+pretty songs enough, and his mortal body, or one of them, lies in the
+Poets' Corner of the Abbey, and people come and put wreaths there with
+tears in their eyes."
+
+"It is very bewildering," I said, "but I see a little more than I did.
+It is all a matter of feeling, then? But it seems hard on people that
+they should be so dull and stupid about it all,--that the truth should
+lie so close to their hand and yet be so carefully concealed."
+
+"Oh, they grow out of dulness!" he said, with a movement of his hand;
+"that is what experience does for us--it is always going on; we get
+widened and deepened. Why," he added, "I have seen a great man, as they
+called him, clever and alert, who held a high position in the State. He
+was laid aside by a long and painful illness, so that all his work was
+put away. He was brave about it, too, I remember; but he used to think
+to himself how sad and wasteful it was, that when he was most energetic
+and capable he should be put on the shelf--all the fine work he might
+have done interrupted; all the great speeches he would have made
+unuttered. But as a matter of fact, he was then for the first time
+growing fast, because he had to look into the minds and hearts of all
+sorrowful and disappointed people, and to learn that what we do matters
+so little, and that what we are matters so much. When he did at last
+get back to the world, people said, 'What a sad pity to see so fine a
+career spoilt!' But out of all the years of all his lives, those years
+had been his very best and richest, when he sat half the day feeble in
+the sun, and could not even look at the papers which lay beside him, or
+when he woke in the grey mornings, with the thought of another miserable
+day of idleness and pain before him."
+
+I said, "Then is it a bad thing to be busy in the world, because it
+takes off your mind from the things which matter?"
+
+"No," said Amroth, "not a bad thing at all: because two things are going
+on. Partly the framework of society and life is being made, so that men
+are not ground down into that sordid struggle, when little experience is
+possible because of the drudgery which clouds all the mind. Though even
+that has its opportunities! And all depends, for the individual, upon
+how he is doing his work. If he has other people in mind all the time,
+and does his work for them, and not to be praised for it, then all is
+well. But if he is thinking of his credit and his position, then he does
+not grow at all; that is pomposity--a very youthful thing indeed; but
+the worst case of all is if a man sees that the world must be helped and
+made, and that one can win credit thus, and so engages in work of that
+kind, and deals in all the jargon of it, about using influence and
+living for others, when he is really thinking of himself all the time,
+and trying to keep the eyes of the world upon him. But it is all growth
+really, though sometimes, as on the beach when the tide is coming in,
+the waves seem to draw backward from the land, and poise themselves in a
+crest of troubled water."
+
+"But is a great position in the world," I said, "whether inherited or
+attained, a dangerous thing?"
+
+"Nothing is _dangerous_, child," he said. "You must put all that out of
+your mind. But men in high posts and stations are often not progressing
+evenly, only in great jogs and starts. They learn very often, with a
+sudden surprise, which is not always painful, and sometimes is very
+beautiful and sweet, that all the ceremony and pomp, the great house,
+the bows and the smiles, mean nothing at all--absolutely nothing, except
+the chance, the opportunity of not being taken in by them. That is the
+use of all pleasures and all satisfactions--the frame of mind which made
+the old king say, 'Is not this great Babylon, which I have
+builded?'--they are nothing but the work of another class in the great
+school of life. A great many people are put to school with
+self-satisfaction, that they may know the fine joy of humiliation, the
+delight of learning that it is not effectiveness and applause that
+matters, but love and peacefulness. And the great thing is that we
+should feel that we are growing, not in hardness or indifference, nor
+necessarily even in courage or patience, but in our power to feel and
+our power to suffer. As love multiplies, suffering must multiply too.
+The very Heart of God is full of infinite, joyful, hopeful suffering;
+the whole thing is so vast, so slow, so quiet, that the end of suffering
+is yet far off. But when we suffer, we climb fast; the spirit grows old
+and wise in faith and love; and suffering is the one thing we cannot
+dispense with, because it is the condition of our fullest and purest
+life."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+I said suddenly, "The joy of this place is not the security of it, but
+the fact that one has not to think about security. I am not afraid of
+anything that may happen, and there is no weariness of thought. One does
+not think till one is tired, but till one has finished thinking."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "that was the misery of the poor body!"
+
+"And yet I used to think," I said, "in the old days that I was grateful
+to the body for many pleasant things it gave me--breathing the air,
+feeling the sun, eating and drinking, games and exercise, and the
+strange thing one called love."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "all those things have to be made pleasant, or to
+appear so; otherwise no one could submit to the discipline at all; but
+of course the pleasure only got in the way of the thought and of the
+happiness; it was not what one saw, tasted, smelt, felt, that one
+desired, but the real thing behind it; even the purest thing of all, the
+sight and contact of one whom one loved, let us say, with no sensual
+passion at all, but with a perfectly pure love; what a torment that
+was--desiring something which one could not get, the real fusion of
+feeling and thought! But the poor body was always in the way then,
+saying, 'Here am I--please me, amuse me.'"
+
+"But then," I said, "what is the use of all that? Why should the pure,
+clear, joyful, sleepless life I now feel be tainted and hampered and
+drugged by the body? I don't feel that I am losing anything by losing
+the body."
+
+"No, not losing," said Amroth, "but, happy though you are, you are not
+gaining things as fast now--it is your time of rest and refreshment--but
+we shall go back, both of us, to the other life again, when the time
+comes: and the point is this, that we have got to win the best things
+through trouble and struggle."
+
+"But even so," I said, "there are many things I do not understand--the
+child that opens its eyes upon the world and closes them again; the
+young child that suffers and dies, just when it is the darling of the
+home; and at the other end of the scale, the helpless, fractious
+invalid, or the old man who lives in weariness, wakeful and tortured,
+and who is glad just to sit in the sun, indifferent to every one and
+everything, past feeling and hoping and thinking--or, worst of all, the
+people with diseased minds, whose pain makes them suspicious and
+malignant. What is the meaning of all this pain, which seems to do
+people nothing but harm, and makes them a burden to themselves and
+others too?"
+
+"Oh," said he, "it is difficult enough; but you must remember that we
+are all bound up with the hearts and lives of others; the child that
+dies in its helplessness has a meaning for its parents; the child that
+lives long enough to be the light of its home, that has a significance
+deep enough; and all those who have to tend and care for the sick, to
+lighten the burden and the sorrow for them, that has a meaning surely
+for all concerned? The reason why we feel as we do about broken lives,
+why they seem so utterly purposeless, is because we have the proportion
+so wrong. We do not really, in fact, believe in immortality, when we are
+bound in the body--some few of us do, and many of us say that we do. But
+we do not realise that the little life is but one in a great chain of
+lives, that each spirit lives many times, over and over. There is no
+such thing as waste or sacrifice of life. The life is meant to do just
+what it does, no more and no less; bound in the body, it all seems so
+long or so short, so complete or so incomplete; but now and here we can
+see that the whole thing is so endless, so immense, that we think no
+more of entering life, say, for a few days, or entering it for ninety
+years, than we should think of counting one or ninety water-drops in the
+river that pours in a cataract over the lip of the rocks. Where we do
+lose, in life, is in not taking the particular experience, be it small
+or great, to heart. We try to forget things, to put them out of our
+minds, to banish them. Of course it is very hard to do otherwise, in a
+body so finite, tossed and whirled in a stream so infinite; and thus we
+are happiest if we can live very simply and quietly, not straining to
+multiply our uneasy activities, but just getting the most and the best
+out of the elements of life as they come to us. As we get older in
+spirit, we do that naturally; the things that men call ambitions and
+schemes are the signs of immaturity; and when we grow older, those slip
+off us and concern us no more; while the real vitality of feeling and
+emotion runs ever more clear and strong."
+
+"But," I said, "can one revive the old lives at will? Can one look back
+into the long range of previous lives? Is that permitted?"
+
+"Yes, of course it is permitted," said Amroth, smiling; "there are no
+rules here; but one does not care to do it overmuch. One is just glad it
+is all done, and that one has learnt the lesson. Look back if you
+like--there are all the lives behind you."
+
+I had a curious sensation--I saw myself suddenly a stalwart savage,
+strangely attired for war, near a hut in a forest clearing. I was going
+away somewhere; there were other huts at hand; there was a fire, in the
+side of a mound, where some women seemed to be cooking something and
+wrangling over it; the smoke went up into the still air. A child came
+out of the hut, and ran to me. I bent down and kissed it, and it clung
+to me. I was sorry, in a dim way, to be going out--for I saw other
+figures armed too, standing about the clearing. There was to be fighting
+that day, and though I wished to fight, I thought I might not return.
+But the mind of myself, as I discerned it, was full of hurtful, cruel,
+rapacious thoughts, and I was sad to think that this could ever have
+been I.
+
+"It is not very nice," said Amroth with a smile; "one does not care to
+revive that! You were young then, and had much before you."
+
+Another picture flashed into the mind. Was it true? I was a woman, it
+seemed, looking out of a window on the street in a town with high, dark
+houses, strongly built of stone: there was a towered gate at a little
+distance, with some figures drawing up sacks with a pulley to a door in
+the gate. A man came up behind me, pulled me roughly back, and spoke
+angrily; I answered him fiercely and shrilly. The room I was in seemed
+to be a shop or store; there were barrels of wine, and bags of corn. I
+felt that I was busy and anxious--it was not a pleasant retrospect.
+
+"Yet you were better then," said Amroth "you thought little of your
+drudgery, and much of your children."
+
+Yes, I had had children, I saw. Their names and appearance floated
+before me. I had loved them tenderly. Had they passed out of my life? I
+felt bewildered.
+
+Amroth laid a hand on my arm and smiled again. "No, you came near to
+some of them again. Do you not remember another life in which you loved
+a friend with a strange love, that surprised you by its nearness? He had
+been your child long before; and one never quite loses that."
+
+I saw in a flash the other life he spoke of. I was a student, it seemed,
+at some university, where there was a boy of my own age, a curious,
+wilful, perverse, tactless creature, always saying and doing the wrong
+thing, for whom I had felt a curious and unreasonable responsibility. I
+had always tried to explain him to other people, to justify him; and he
+had turned to me fop help and companionship in a singular way. I saw
+myself walking with him in the country, expostulating, gesticulating;
+and I saw him angry and perplexed.... The vision vanished.
+
+"But what becomes of all those whom we have loved?" I said; "it cannot
+be as if we had never loved them."
+
+"No, indeed," said Amroth, "they are all there or here; but there lies
+one of the great mysteries which we cannot yet attain to. We shall be
+all brought together some time, closely and perfectly; but even now, in
+the world of matter, the spirit half remembers; and when one is
+strangely and lovingly drawn to another soul, when that love is not of
+the body, and has nothing of passion in it, then it is some close
+ancient tie reasserting itself. Do you not know how old and remote some
+of our friendships seemed--so much older and larger than could be
+accounted for by the brief days of companionship? That strange hunger
+for the past of one we love is nothing but the faint memory of what has
+been. Indeed, when you have rested happily a little longer, you will
+move farther afield, and you will come near to spirits you have loved.
+You cannot bear it yet, though they are all about you; but one regains
+the spiritual sense slowly after a life like yours."
+
+"Can I revisit," I said, "the scene of my last life--see and know what
+those I loved are doing and feeling?"
+
+"Not yet," said Amroth; "that would not profit either you or them. The
+sorrow of earth would not be sorrow, it would have no cleansing power,
+if the parted spirit could return at once. You do not guess, either, how
+much of time has passed already since you came here--it seems to you
+like yesterday, no doubt, since you last suffered death. To meet loss
+and sorrow upon earth, without either comfort or hope, is one of the
+finest of lessons. When we are there, we must live blindly, and if we
+here could make our presence known at once to the friends we leave
+behind, it would be all too easy. It is in the silence of death that its
+virtue lies."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I do not desire to return. This is all too wonderful. It
+is the freshness and sweetness of it all that comes home to me. I do
+not desire to think of the body, and, strange to say, if I do think of
+it, the times that I remember gratefully are those when the body was
+faint and weary. The old joys and triumphs, when one laughed and loved
+and exulted, seem to me to have something ugly about them, because one
+was content, and wished things to remain for ever as they were. It was
+the longing for something different that helped me; the acquiescence was
+the shame."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+One day I said to Amroth, "What a comfort it is to find that there is no
+religion here!"
+
+"I know what you mean," he said. "I think it is one of the things that
+one wonders at most, to remember into how very small and narrow a thing
+religion was made, and how much that was religious was never supposed to
+be so."
+
+"Yes," I said, "as I think of it now, it seems to have been a game
+played by a few players, a game with a great many rules."
+
+"Yes," he said, "it was a game often enough; but of course the mischief
+of it was, that when it was most a game it most pretended to be
+something else--to contain the secret of life and all knowledge."
+
+"I used to think," I said, "that religion was like a noble and generous
+boy with the lyrical heart of a poet, made by some sad chance into a
+king, surrounded by obsequious respect and pomp and etiquette, bound by
+a hundred ceremonious rules, forbidden to do this and that, taught to
+think that his one duty was to be magnificently attired, to acquire
+graceful arts of posture and courtesy, subtly and gently prevented from
+obeying natural and simple impulses, made powerless--a crowned slave; so
+that, instead of being the freest and sincerest thing in the world, it
+became the prisoner of respectability and convention, just a part of the
+social machine."
+
+"That was only one side of it," said Amroth. "It was often where it was
+least supposed to be."
+
+"Yes," I said, "as far as I resent anything now, I resent the conversion
+of so much religion from an inspiring force into a repressive force. One
+learnt as a child to think of it, not as a great moving flood of energy
+and joy, but as an awful power apart from life, rejoicing in petty
+restrictions, and mainly concerned with creating an unreal atmosphere of
+narrow piety, hostile to natural talk and laughter and freedom. God's
+aid was invoked, in childhood, mostly when one was naughty and
+disobedient, so that one grew to think of Him as grim, severe,
+irritable, anxious to interfere. What wonder that one lost all wish to
+meet God and all natural desire to know Him! One thought of Him as
+impossible to please except by behaving in a way in which it was not
+natural to behave; and one thought of religion as a stern and dreadful
+process going on somewhere, like a law-court or a prison, which one had
+to keep clear of if one could. Yet I hardly see how, in the interests of
+discipline, it could have been avoided. If only one could have begun at
+the other end!"
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "but that is because religion has fallen so much
+into the hands of the wrong people, and is grievously misrepresented.
+It has too often come to be identified, as you say, with human law, as a
+power which leaves one severely alone, if one behaves oneself, and which
+punishes harshly and mechanically if one outsteps the limit. It comes
+into the world as a great joyful motive; and then it becomes identified
+with respectability, and it is sad to think that it is simply from the
+fact that it has won the confidence of the world that it gains its awful
+power of silencing and oppressing. It becomes hostile to frankness and
+independence, and puts a premium on caution and submissiveness; but that
+is the misuse of it and the degradation of it; and religion is still the
+most pure and beautiful thing in the world for all that; the doctrine
+itself is fine and true in a way, if one can view it without impatience;
+it upholds the right things; it all makes for peace and order, and even
+for humility and just kindliness; it insists, or tries to insist, on the
+fact that property and position and material things do not matter, and
+that quality and method do matter. Of course it is terribly distorted,
+and gets into the hands of the wrong people--the people who want to keep
+things as they are. Now the Gospel, as it first came, was a perfectly
+beautiful thing--the idea that one must act by tender impulse, that one
+must always forgive, and forget, and love; that one must take a natural
+joy in the simplest things, find every one and everything interesting
+and delightful ... the perfectly natural, just, good-humoured,
+uncalculating life--that was the idea of it; and that one was not to be
+superior to the hard facts of the world, not to try to put sorrow or
+pain out of sight, but to live eagerly and hopefully in them and through
+them; not to try to school oneself into hardness or indifference, but to
+love lovable things, and not to condemn or despise the unlovable. That
+was indeed a message out of the very heart of God. But of course all the
+acrid divisions and subdivisions of it come, not from itself, but from
+the material part of the world, that determines to traffic with the
+beautiful secret, and make it serve its turn. But there are plenty of
+true souls within it all, true teachers, faithful learners--and the
+world cannot do without it yet, though it is strangely fettered and
+bound. Indeed, men can never do without it, because the spiritual force
+is there; it is full of poetry and mystery, that ageless brotherhood of
+saints and true-hearted disciples; but one has to learn that many that
+claim its powers have them not, while many who are outside all
+organisations have the secret."
+
+"Yes," I said, "all that is true and good; it is the exclusive claim and
+not the inclusive which one regrets. It is the voice which says, 'Accept
+my exact faith, or you have no part in the inheritance,' which is wrong.
+The real voice of religion is that which says, 'You are my brother and
+my sister, though you know it not.' And if one says, 'We are all at
+fault, we are all far from the truth, but we live as best we can,
+looking for the larger hope and for the dawn of love,' that is the
+secret. The sacrament of God is offered and eaten at many a social meal,
+and the Spirit of Love finds utterance in quiet words from smiling lips.
+One cannot teach by harsh precept, only by desirable example; and the
+worst of the correct profession of religion is that it is often little
+more than taking out a licence to disapprove."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "you are very near a great truth. The mistake we
+make is like the mistake so often made on earth in matters of human
+government--the opposing of the individual to the State, as if the State
+were something above and different to the individual--like the old
+thought of the Spirit moving on the face of the waters. The individual
+is the State; and it is the same with the soul and God. God is not above
+the soul, seeing and judging, apart in isolation. The Spirit of God is
+the spirit of humanity, the spirit of admiration, the spirit of love. It
+matters little what the soul admires and loves, whether it be a flower
+or a mountain, a face or a cause, a gem or a doctrine. It is that
+wonderful power that the current of the soul has of setting towards
+something that is beautiful: the need to admire, to worship, to love. A
+regiment of soldiers in the street, a procession of priests to a
+sanctuary, a march of disordered women clamouring for their rights--if
+the idea thrills you, if it uplifts you, it matters nothing whether
+other people dislike or despise or deride it--it is the voice of God for
+you. We must advance from what is merely brilliant to what is true; and
+though in the single life many a man seems to halt at a certain point,
+to have tied up his little packet of admirations once and for all, there
+are other lives where he will pass on to further loves, his passion
+growing more intense and pure. We are not limited by our circle, by our
+generation, by our age; and the things which youthful spirits are
+divining and proclaiming as great and wonderful discoveries, are often
+being practised and done by silent and humble souls. It is not the
+concise or impressive statement of a truth that matters, it is the
+intensity of the inner impulse towards what is high and true which
+differentiates. The more we live by that, the less are we inclined to
+argue and dispute about it. The base, the impure desire is only the
+imperfect desire; if it is gratified, it reveals its imperfections, and
+the soul knows that not there can it stay; but it must have faced and
+tested everything. If the soul, out of timidity and conventionality,
+says 'No' to its eager impulses, it halts upon its pilgrimage. Some of
+the most grievous and shameful lives on earth have been fruitful enough
+in reality. The reason why we mourn and despond over them is, again,
+that we limit our hope to the single life. There is time for everything;
+we must not be impatient. We must despair of nothing and of no one; the
+true life consists not in what a man's reason approves or disapproves,
+not in what he does or says, but in what he sees. It is useless to
+explain things to souls; they must experience them to apprehend them.
+The one treachery is to speak of mistakes as irreparable, and of sins as
+unforgivable. The sin against the Spirit is to doubt the Spirit, and the
+sin against life is not to use it generously and freely; we are happiest
+if we love others well enough to give our life to them; but it is better
+to use life for ourselves than not to use it at all."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+One day I said to Amroth, "Are there no rules of life here? It seems
+almost too good to be true, not to be found fault with and censured and
+advised and blamed."
+
+"Oh," said Amroth, laughing, "there are plenty of _rules_, as you call
+them; but one feels them, one is not told them; it is like breathing and
+seeing."
+
+"Yes," I replied, "yet it was like that, too, in the old days; the
+misery was when one suddenly discovered that when one was acting in what
+seemed the most natural way possible, it gave pain and concern to some
+one whom one respected and even loved. One knew that one's action was
+not wrong, and yet one desired to please and satisfy one's friends; and
+so one fell back into conventional ways, not because one liked them but
+because other people did, and it was not worth while making a fuss--it
+was a sort of cowardice, I suppose?"
+
+"Not quite," said Amroth; "you were more on the right lines than the
+people who interfered with you, no doubt; but of course the truth is
+that our principles ought to be used, like a stick, to support
+ourselves, not like a rod to beat other people with. The most difficult
+people to teach, as you will see hereafter, are the self-righteous
+people, whose lives are really pure and good, but who allow their
+preferences about amusements, occupations, ways of life, to become
+matters of principle. The worst temptation in the world is the habit of
+influence and authority, the desire to direct other lives and to conform
+them to one's own standard. The only way in which we can help other
+people is by loving them; by frightening another out of something which
+he is apt to do and of which one does not approve, one effects
+absolutely nothing: sin cannot be scared away; the spirit must learn to
+desire to cast it away, because it sees that goodness is beautiful and
+fine; and this can only be done by example, never by precept."
+
+"But it is the entire absence of both that puzzles me here," I said.
+"Nothing to do and a friend to talk to; it's a lazy business, I think."
+
+Amroth looked at me with amusement. "It's a sign," he said, "if you feel
+that, that you are getting rested, and ready to move on; but you will be
+very much surprised when you know a little more about the life here. You
+are like a baby in a cradle at present; when you come to enter one of
+our communities here, you will find it as complicated a business as you
+could wish. Part of the difficulty is that there are no rules, to use
+your own phrase. It is real democracy, but it is not complicated by any
+questions of property, which is the thing that clogs all political
+progress in the world below. There is nothing to scheme for, no
+ambitions to gratify, nothing to gain at the expense of others; the only
+thing that matters is one's personal relation to others; and this is
+what makes it at once so simple and so complex. But I do not think it is
+of any use to tell you all this; you will see it in a flash, when the
+time comes. But it may be as well for you to remember that there will be
+no one to command you or compel you or advise you. Your own heart and
+spirit will be your only guides. There is no such thing as compulsion or
+force in heaven. Nothing can be done to you that you do not choose or
+allow to be done."
+
+"Yes," I said, "it is the blessed and beautiful sense of freedom from
+all ties and influences and fears that is so utterly blissful."
+
+"But this is not all," said Amroth, shaking his head with a smile.
+"This is a time of rest for you, but things are very different elsewhere.
+When you come to enter heaven itself, you will be constantly surprised.
+There are labour and fear and sorrow to be faced; and you must not
+think it is a place for drifting pleasantly along. The moral struggle
+is the same--indeed it is fiercer and stronger than ever, because there
+is no bodily languor or fatigue to distract. There are choices to be
+made, duties to perform, evil to be faced. The bodily temptations
+are absent, but there is still that which lay behind the bodily
+frailties--curiosity, love of sensation, excitement, desire; the strong
+duality of nature--the knowledge of duty on the one hand and the
+indolent shrinking from performance--that is all there; there is the
+same sense of isolation, and the same need for patient endeavour as upon
+earth. All that one gets is a certain freedom of movement; one is not
+bound to places and employments by the material ties of earth; but you
+must not think that it is all to be easy and straightforward. We can
+each of us by using our wills shorten our probation, by not resisting
+influences, by putting our hearts and minds in unison with the will of
+God for us; and that is easier in heaven than upon earth, because there
+is less to distract us. But on the other hand, there is more temptation
+to drift, because there are no material consequences to stimulate us.
+There are many people on earth who exercise a sort of practical virtue
+simply to avoid material inconveniences, while there is no such motive
+in heaven; I say all this not to disturb your present tranquillity,
+which it is your duty now to enjoy, but just to prepare you. You must be
+prepared for effort and for endeavour, and even for strife. You must use
+right judgment, and, above all, common sense; one does not get out of
+the reach of that in heaven!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+These are only some of the many talks I had with Amroth. They ranged
+over a great many subjects and thoughts. What I cannot indicate,
+however, is the lightness and freshness of them; and above all, their
+entire frankness and amusingness. There were times when we talked like
+two children, revived old simple adventures of life--he had lived far
+more largely and fully than I had done--and I never tired of hearing the
+tales of his old lives, so much more varied and wonderful than my own.
+Sometimes we merely told each other stories out of our imaginations and
+hearts. We even played games, which I cannot describe, but they were
+like the games of earth. We seemed at times to walk and wander together;
+but I had a sense all this time that I was, so to speak, in hospital,
+being tended and cared for, and not allowed to do anything wearisome or
+demanding effort. But I became more and more aware of other spirits
+about me, like birds that chirp and twitter in the ivy of a tower, or in
+the thick bushes of a shrubbery. Amroth told me one day that I must
+prepare for a great change soon, and I found myself wondering what it
+would be like, half excited about it, and half afraid, unwilling as I
+was to lose the sweet rest, and the dear companionship of a friend who
+seemed like the crown and sum of all hopes of friendship. Amroth became
+utterly dear to me, and it was a joy beyond all joys to feel his happy
+and smiling nature bent upon me, hour by hour, in sympathy and
+understanding and love. He said to me laughingly once that I had much of
+earth about me yet, and that I must soon learn not to bend my thoughts
+so exclusively one way and on one friend.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I am not fit for heaven yet! I believe I am jealous; I
+cannot bear to think that you will leave me, or that any other soul
+deserves your attention."
+
+"Oh," he said lightly, "this is my business and delight now--but you
+will soon have to do for others what I am doing for you. You like this
+easy life at present, but you can hardly imagine how interesting it is
+to have some one given you for your own, as you were given to me. It is
+the delight of motherhood and fatherhood in one; and when I was allowed
+to take you away out of the room where you lay--I admit it was not a
+pleasant scene--I felt just like a child who is given a kitten for its
+very own."
+
+"Well," I said, "I have been a very satisfactory pet--I have done little
+else but purr." I felt his eyes upon me in a wonderful nearness of love;
+and then I looked up and I saw that we were not alone.
+
+It was then that I first perceived that there could be grief in heaven.
+I say "first perceived," but I had known it all along. But by Amroth's
+gentle power that had been for a time kept away from me, that I might
+rest and rejoice.
+
+The form before me was that of a very young and beautiful woman--so
+beautiful that for a moment all my thought seemed to be concentrated
+upon her. But I saw, too, that all was not well with her. She was not at
+peace with herself, or her surroundings. In her great wide eyes there
+was a look of pain, and of rebellious pain. She was attired in a robe
+that was a blaze of colour; and when I wondered at this, for it was
+unlike the clear hues, pearly grey and gold, and soft roseate light that
+had hitherto encompassed me, the voice of Amroth answered my unuttered
+question, and said, "It is the image of her thought." Her slim white
+hands moved aimlessly over the robe, and seemed to finger the jewels
+which adorned it. Her lips were parted, and anything more beautiful than
+the pure curves of her chin and neck I had seldom seen, though she
+seemed never to be still, as Amroth was still, but to move restlessly
+and wearily about. I knew by a sort of intuition that she was unaware
+of Amroth and only aware of myself. She seemed startled and surprised at
+the sight of me, and I wondered in what form I appeared to her; in a
+moment she spoke, and her voice was low and thrilling.
+
+"I am so glad," she said in a half-courteous, half-distracted way, "to
+find some one in the place to whom I can speak. I seem to be always
+moving in a crowd, and yet to see no one--they are afraid of me, I
+think; and it is not what I expected, not what I am used to. I am in
+need of help, I feel, and yet I do not know what sort of help it is that
+I want. May I stay with you a little?"
+
+"Why, yes," I said; "there is no question of 'may' here."
+
+She came up to me with a sort of proud confidence, and looked at me
+fixedly. "Yes," she said, "I see that I can trust you; and I am tired of
+being deceived!" Then she added with a sort of pettishness, "I have
+nowhere to go, nothing to do--it is all dull and cold. On earth it was
+just the opposite. I had only too much attention and love.... Oh, yes,"
+she added with a strange glance, "it was what you would probably call
+sinful. The only man I ever loved did not care for me, and I was loved
+by many for whom I did not care. Well, I had my pleasures, and I suppose
+I must pay for them. I do not complain of that. But I am determined not
+to give way: it is unjust and cruel. I never had a chance. I was always
+brought up to be admired from the first. We were rich at my home, and in
+society--you understand? I made what was called a good match, and I
+never cared for my husband, but amused myself with other people; and it
+was splendid while it lasted: then all kinds of horrible things
+happened--scenes, explanations, a lawsuit--it makes me shudder to
+remember it all; and then I was ill, I suppose, and suddenly it was all
+over, and I was alone, with a feeling that I must try to take up with
+all kinds of tiresome things--all the things that bored me most. But now
+it may be going to be better; you can tell me where I can find people,
+perhaps? I am not quite unpresentable, even here? No, I can see that in
+your face. Well, take me somewhere, show me something, find something
+for me to do in this deadly place. I seem to have got into a perpetual
+sunset, and I am so sick of it all."
+
+I felt very helpless before this beautiful creature who seemed so
+troubled and discontented. "No," said the voice of Amroth beside me, "it
+is of no use to talk; let her talk to you; let her make friends with you
+if she can."
+
+"That's better," she said, looking at me. "I was afraid you were going
+to be grave and serious. I felt for a minute as if I was going to be
+confirmed."
+
+"No," I said, "you need not be disturbed; nothing will be done to you
+against your wish. One has but to wish here, or to be willing, and the
+right thing happens."
+
+She came close to me as I said this, and said, "Well, I think I shall
+like you, if only you can promise not to be serious." Then she turned,
+and stood for a moment disconsolate, looking away from me.
+
+All this while the atmosphere around me had been becoming lighter and
+clearer, as though a mist were rising. Suddenly Amroth said, "You will
+have to go with her for a time, and do what you can. I must leave you
+for a little, but I shall not be far off; and if you need me, I shall be
+at hand. But do not call for me unless you are quite sure you need me."
+He gave me a hand-clasp and a smile, and was gone.
+
+Then, looking about me, I saw at last that I was in a place. Lonely and
+bare though it was, it seemed to me very beautiful. It was like a grassy
+upland, with rocky heights to left and right. They were most delicate in
+outline, those crags, like the crags in an old picture, with sharp,
+smooth curves, like a fractured crystal. They seemed to be of a creamy
+stone, and the shadows fell blue and distinct. Down below was a great
+plain full of trees and waters, all very dim. A path, worn lightly in
+the grass, lay at my feet, and I knew that we must descend it. The girl
+with me--I will call her Cynthia--was gazing at it with delight. "Ah,"
+she said, "I can see clearly now. This is something like a real place,
+instead of mist and light. We can find people down here, no doubt; it
+looks inhabited out there." She pointed with her hand, and it seemed to
+me that I could see spires and towers and roofs, of a fine and airy
+architecture, at the end of a long horn of water which lay very blue
+among the woods of the plain. It puzzled me, because I had the sense
+that it was all unreal, and, indeed, I soon perceived that it was the
+girl's own thought that in some way affected mine. "Quick, let us go,"
+she said; "what are we waiting for?"
+
+The descent was easy and gradual. We came down, following the path, over
+the hill-shoulders. A stream of clear water dripped among stones; it
+all brought back to me with an intense delight the recollection of long
+days spent among such hills in holiday times on earth, but all without
+regret; I only wished that an old and dear friend of mine, with whom I
+had often gone, might be with me. He had quitted life before me, and I
+knew somehow or hoped that I should before long see him; but I did not
+wish things to be otherwise; and, indeed, I had a strange interest in
+the fretful, silly, lovely girl with me, and in what lay before us. She
+prattled on, and seemed to be recovering her spirits and her confidence
+at the sights around us. If I could but find anything that would draw
+her out of her restless mood into the peace of the morning! She had a
+charm for me, though her impatience and desire for amusement seemed
+uninteresting enough; and I found myself talking to her as an elder
+brother might, with terms of familiar endearment, which she seemed to be
+grateful for. It was strange in a way, and yet it all appeared natural.
+The more we drew away from the hills, the happier she became. "Ah," she
+said once, "we have got out of that hateful place, and now perhaps we
+may be more comfortable,"--and when we came down beside the stream to a
+grove of trees, and saw something which seemed like a road beneath us,
+she was delighted. "That's more like it," she said, "and now we may find
+some real people perhaps,"--she turned to me with a smile--"though you
+are real enough too, and very kind to me; but I still have an idea that
+you are a clergyman, and are only waiting your time to draw a moral."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Now before I go on to tell the tale of what happened to us in the valley
+there were two very curious things that I observed or began to observe.
+
+The first was that I could not really see into the girl's thought. I
+became aware that though I could see into the thought of Amroth as
+easily and directly as one can look into a clear sea-pool, with all its
+rounded pebbles and its swaying fringes of seaweed, there was in the
+girl's mind a centre of thought to which I was not admitted, a fortress
+of personality into which I could not force my way. More than that. When
+she mistrusted or suspected me, there came a kind of cloud out from the
+central thought, as if a turbid stream were poured into the sea-pool,
+which obscured her thoughts from me, though when she came to know me
+and to trust me, as she did later, the cloud was gradually withdrawn;
+and I perceived that there must be a perfect sacrifice of will, an
+intention that the mind should lie open and unashamed before the thought
+of one's friend and companion, before the vision can be complete. With
+Amroth I desired to conceal nothing, and he had no concealment from me.
+But with the girl it was different. There was something in her heart
+that she hid from me, and by no effort could I penetrate it; and I saw
+then that there is something at the centre of the soul which is our very
+own, and into which God Himself cannot even look, unless we desire that
+He should look; and even if we desire that He should look into our
+souls, if there is any timidity or shame or shrinking about us, we
+cannot open our souls to Him. I must speak about this later, when the
+great and wonderful day came to me, when I beheld God and was beheld by
+Him. But now, though when the girl trusted me I could see much of her
+thought, the inmost cell of it was still hidden from me.
+
+And then, too, I perceived another strange thing; that the landscape in
+which we walked was very plain to me, but that she did not see the same
+things that I saw. With me, the landscape was such as I had loved most
+in my last experience of life; it was a land to me like the English
+hill-country which I loved the best; little fields of pasture mostly,
+with hedgerow ashes and sycamores, and here and there a clear stream of
+water running by the wood-ends. There were buildings, too, low
+white-walled farms, roughly slated, much-weathered, with evidences of
+homely life, byre and barn and granary, all about them. These sloping
+fields ran up into high moorlands and little grey crags, with the trees
+and thickets growing in the rock fronts. I could not think that people
+lived in these houses and practised agriculture, though I saw with
+surprise and pleasure that there were animals about, horses and sheep
+grazing, and dogs that frisked in and out. I had always believed and
+hoped that animals had their share in the inheritance of light, and now
+I thought that this was a proof that it was indeed so, though I could
+not be sure of it, because I realised that it might be but the thoughts
+of my mind taking shape, for, as I say, I was gradually aware that the
+girl did not see what I saw. To her it was a different scene, of some
+southern country, because she seemed to see vineyards, and high-walled
+lanes, hill-crests crowded with houses and crowned with churches, such
+as one sees at a distance in the Campagna, where the plain breaks into
+chestnut-clad hills. But this difference of sight did not make me feel
+that the scene was in any degree unreal; it was the idea of the
+landscape which we loved, its pretty associations and familiar features,
+and the mind did the rest, translating it all into a vision of scenes
+which had given us joy on earth, just as we do in dreams when we are in
+the body, when the sleeping mind creates sights which give us pleasure,
+and yet we have no knowledge that we are ourselves creating them. So we
+walked together, until I perceived that we were drawing near to the town
+which we had discerned.
+
+And now we became aware of people going to and fro. Sometimes they
+stopped and looked upon us with smiles, and even greetings; and
+sometimes they went past absorbed in thought.
+
+Houses appeared, both small wayside abodes and larger mansions with
+sheltered gardens. What it all meant I hardly knew; but just as we have
+perfectly decided tastes on earth as to what sort of a house we like and
+why we like it, whether we prefer high, bright rooms, or rooms low and
+with subdued light, so in that other country the mind creates what it
+desires.
+
+Presently the houses grew thicker, and soon we were in a street--the
+town to my eyes was like the little towns one sees in the Cotswold
+country, of a beautiful golden stone, with deep plinths and cornices,
+with older and simpler buildings interspersed. My companion became
+strangely excited, glancing this way and that. And presently, as if we
+were certainly expected, there came up to us a kindly and grave person,
+who welcomed us formally to the place, and said a few courteous words
+about his pleasure that we should have chosen to visit it.
+
+I do not know how it was, but I did not wholly trust our host. His mind
+was hidden from me; and indeed I began to have a sense, not of evil,
+indeed, or of oppression, but a feeling that it was not the place
+appointed for me, but only where my business was to lie for a season. A
+group of people came up to us and welcomed my companion with great
+cheerfulness, and she was soon absorbed in talk.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Now before I come to tell this next part of my story, there are several
+things which seem in want of explanation. I speak of people as looking
+old and young, and of there being relations between them such as
+fatherly and motherly, son-like and lover-like. It bewildered me at
+first, but I came to guess at the truth. It would seem that in the
+further world spirits do preserve for a long time the characteristics of
+the age at which they last left the earth; but I saw no very young
+children anywhere at first, though I came afterwards to know what befell
+them. It seemed to me that, in the first place I visited, the only
+spirits I saw were of those who had been able to make a deliberate
+choice of how they would live in the world and which kind of desires
+they would serve; it is very hard to say when this choice takes place
+in the world below, but I came to believe that, early or late, there
+does come a time when there is an opening out of two paths before each
+human soul, and when it realises that a choice must be made. Sometimes
+this is made early in life; but sometimes a soul drifts on, guileless in
+a sense, though its life may be evil and purposeless, not looking
+backwards or forwards, but simply acting as its nature bids it act. What
+it is that decides the awakening of the will I hardly know; it is all a
+secret growth, I think; but the older that the spirit is, in the sense
+of spiritual experience, the earlier in mortal life that choice is made;
+and this is only another proof of one of the things which Amroth showed
+me, that it is, after all, imagination which really makes the difference
+between souls, and not intellect or shrewdness or energy; all the real
+things of life--sympathy, the power of entering into fine relations,
+however simple they may be, with others, loyalty, patience, devotion,
+goodness--seem to grow out of this power of imagination; and the reason
+why the souls of whom I am going to speak were so content to dwell where
+they were, was simply that they had no imagination beyond, but dwelt
+happily among the delights which upon earth are represented by sound and
+colour and scent and comeliness and comfort. This was a perpetual
+surprise to me, because I saw in these fine creatures such a faculty of
+delicate perception, that I could not help believing again and again
+that their emotions were as deep and varied too; but I found little by
+little, that they were all bent, not on loving, and therefore on giving
+themselves away to what they loved, but in gathering in perceptions and
+sensations, and finding their delight in them; and I realised that what
+lies at the root of the artistic nature is its deep and vital
+indifference to anything except what can directly give it delight, and
+that these souls, for all their amazing subtlety and discrimination, had
+very little hold on life at all, except on its outer details and
+superficial harmonies; and that they were all very young in experience,
+and like shallow waters, easily troubled and easily appeased; and that
+therefore they were being dealt with like children, and allowed full
+scope for all their little sensitive fancies, until the time should come
+for them to go further yet. Of course they were one degree older than
+the people who in the world had been really immersed in what may be
+called solid interests and serious pursuits--science, politics,
+organisation, warfare, commerce--all these spirits were very youthful
+indeed, and they were, I suppose, in some very childish nursery of God.
+But what first bewildered me was the finding of the earthly proportions
+of things so strangely reversed, the serious matters of life so utterly
+set aside, and so much made of the things which many people take no sort
+of trouble about, as companionships and affections, which are so often
+turned into a matter of mere propinquity and circumstance. But of this
+I shall have to speak later in its place.
+
+Now it is difficult to describe the time I spent in the land of delight,
+because it was all so unlike the life of the world, and yet was so
+strangely like it. There was work going on there, I found, but the
+nature of it I could not discern, because that was kept hidden from me.
+Men and women excused themselves from our company, saying they must
+return to their work; but most of the time was spent in leisurely
+converse about things which I confess from the first did not interest
+me. There was much wit and laughter, and there were constant games and
+assemblies and amusements. There were feasts of delicious things, music,
+dramas. There were books read and discussed; it was just like a very
+cultivated and civilised society. But what struck me about the people
+there was that it was all very restless and highly-strung, a perpetual
+tasting of pleasures, which somehow never pleased. There were two people
+there who interested me most. One was a very handsome and courteous
+man, who seemed to desire my company, and spoke more freely than the
+rest; the other a young man, who was very much occupied with the girl,
+my companion, and made a great friendship with her. The elder of the
+two, for I must give them names, shall be called Charmides, which seems
+to correspond with his stately charm, and the younger may be known as
+Lucius.
+
+I sat one day with Charmides, listening to a great concert of stringed
+and wind instruments, in a portico which gave on a large sheltered
+garden. He was much absorbed in the music, which was now of a brisk and
+measured beauty, and now of a sweet seriousness which had a very
+luxurious effect upon my mind. "It is wonderful to me," said Charmides,
+as the last movement drew to a close of liquid melody, "that these
+sounds should pass into the heart like wine, heightening and uplifting
+the thought--there is nothing so beautiful as the discrimination of
+mood with which it affects one, weighing one delicate phrase against
+another, and finding all so perfect."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I can understand that; but I must confess that there
+seems to me something wanting in the melodies of this place. The music
+which I loved in the old days was the music which spoke to the soul of
+something further yet and unattainable; but here the music seems to have
+attained its end, and to have fulfilled its own desire."
+
+"Yes," said Charmides, "I know that you feel that; your mind is very
+clear to me, up to a certain point; and I have sometimes wondered why
+you spend your time here, because you are not one of us, as your friend
+Cynthia is."
+
+I glanced, as he spoke, to where Cynthia sat on a great carved settle
+among cushions, side by side with Lucius, whispering to him with a
+smile.
+
+"No," I said, "I do not think I have found my place yet, but I am here,
+I think, for a purpose, and I do not know what that purpose is."
+
+"Well," he said, "I have sometimes wondered myself. I feel that you may
+have something to tell me, some message for me. I thought that when I
+first saw you; but I cannot quite perceive what is in your mind, and I
+see that you do not wholly know what is in mine. I have been here for a
+long time, and I have a sense that I do not get on, do not move; and yet
+I have lived in extreme joy and contentment, except that I dread to
+return to life, as I know I must return. I have lived often, and always
+in joy--but in life there are constantly things to endure, little things
+which just ruffle the serenity of soul which I desire, and which I may
+fairly say I here enjoy. I have loved beauty, and not intemperately; and
+there have been other people--men and women--whom I have loved, in a
+sense; but the love of them has always seemed a sort of interruption to
+the life I desired, something disordered and strained, which hurt me,
+and kept me away from the peace I desired--from the fine weighing of
+sounds and colours, and the pleasure of beautiful forms and lines; and I
+dread to return to life, because one cannot avoid love and sorrow, and
+mean troubles, which waste the spirit in vain."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I can understand what you feel very well, because I too
+have known what it is to desire to live in peace and beauty, not to be
+disturbed or fretted; but the reason, I think, why it is dangerous, is
+not because life becomes too _easy_. That is not the danger at all--life
+is never easy, whatever it is! But the danger is that it grows too
+solemn! One is apt to become like a priest, always celebrating holy
+mysteries, always in a vision, with no time for laughter, and disputing,
+and quarrelling, and being silly and playing. It is the poor body again
+that is amiss. It is like the camel, poor thing; it groans and weeps,
+but it goes on. One cannot live wholly in a vision; and life does not
+become more simple so, but more complicated, for one's time and energy
+are spent in avoiding the sordid and the tiresome things which one
+cannot and must not avoid. I remember, in an illness which I had, when I
+was depressed and fanciful, a homely old doctor said to me, 'Don't be
+too careful of yourself: don't think you can't bear this and that--go
+out to dinner--eat and drink rather too much!' It seemed to be coarse
+advice, but it was wise."
+
+"Yes," said Charmides, "it was wise; but it is difficult to feel it so
+at the time. I wonder! I think perhaps I have made the mistake of being
+too fastidious. But it seemed so fine a goal that one had in sight, to
+chasten and temper all one's thoughts to what was beautiful--to judge
+and distinguish, to choose the right tones and harmonies, to be always
+rejecting and refining. It had its sorrows, of course. How often in the
+old days one came in contact with some gracious and beautiful
+personality, and flung oneself into close relations; and then one began
+to see this and that flaw. There were lapses in tact, petulances,
+littlenesses; one's friend did not rightly use his beautiful mind; he
+was jealous, suspicious, trivial, petty; it ended in disillusionment.
+Instead of taking him as a passenger on one's vessel, and determining to
+live at peace, to overlook, to accommodate, one began to watch for an
+opportunity of putting him down courteously at some stopping-place; and
+instead of being grateful for his friendship, one was vexed with him for
+disappointing one. We must speak more of these things. I seem to feel
+the want of something commoner and broader in my thoughts; but in this
+place it is hard to change."
+
+"Will you forgive me then," I said, "if I ask you plainly what this
+place is? It seems very strange to me, and yet I think I have been here
+before."
+
+Charmides looked at me with a smile. "It has been called," he said, "by
+many ugly names, and men have been unreasonably afraid of it. It is the
+place of satisfied desire, and, as you see, it is a comfortable place
+enough. The theologians in their coarse way call it Hell, though that is
+a word which is forbidden here; it is indeed a sort of treason to use
+the word, because of its unfortunate association--and you can see with
+your own eyes that I have done wrong even to speak of it."
+
+I looked round, and saw indeed that a visible tremor had fallen on the
+groups about us; it was as though a cold cloud, full of hail and
+darkness, had floated over a sunny sky. People were hurrying out of the
+garden, and some were regarding us askance and with frowns of
+disapproval. In a moment or two we were left alone.
+
+"I have been indiscreet," said Charmides, "but I feel somehow in a
+rebellious mood; and indeed it has long seemed absurd to me that you
+should be unaware of the fact, and so obviously guileless! But I will
+speak no more of this to-day. People come and go here very strangely,
+and I have sometimes wondered if it would not soon be time for me to go;
+but it would be idle to pretend that I have not been happy here."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+What Charmides had told me filled me with great astonishment; it seemed
+to me strange that I had not perceived the truth before. It made me feel
+that I had somehow been wasting time. I was tempted to call Amroth to my
+side, but I remembered what he had said, and I determined to resist the
+impulse. I half expected to find that our strange talk, and the very
+obvious disapproval of our words, had made some difference to me. But it
+was not the case. I found myself treated with the same smiling welcome
+as before, and indeed with an added kind of gentleness, such as older
+people give to a child who has been confronted with some hard fact of
+life, such as a sorrow or an illness. This in a way disconcerted me; for
+in the moment when I had perceived the truth, there had come over me the
+feeling that I ought in some way to bestir myself to preach, to warn,
+to advise. But the idea of finding any sort of fault with these
+contented, leisurely, interested people, seemed to me absurd, and so I
+continued as before, half enjoying the life about me, and half bored by
+it. It seemed so ludicrous in any way to pity the inhabitants of the
+place, and yet I dimly saw that none of them could possibly continue
+there. But I soon saw that there was no question of advice, because I
+had nothing to advise. To ask them to be discontented, to suffer, to
+inquire, seemed as absurd as to ask a man riding comfortably in a
+carriage to get out and walk; and yet I felt that it was just that which
+they needed. But one effect the incident had; it somehow seemed to draw
+me more to Cynthia. There followed a time of very close companionship
+with her. She sought me out, she began to confide in me, chattering
+about her happiness and her delight in her surroundings, as a child
+might chatter, and half chiding me, in a tender and pretty way, for not
+being more at ease in the place. "You always seem to me," she said, "as
+if you were only staying here, while I feel as if I could live here for
+ever. Of course you are very kind and patient about it all, but you are
+not at home--and I don't care a bit about your disapproval now." She
+talked to me much about Lucius, who seemed to have a great attraction
+for her. "He is all right," she said. "There is no nonsense about
+him,--we understand each other; I don't get tired of him, and we like
+the same things. I seem to know exactly what he feels about everything;
+and that is one of the comforts of this place, that no one asks
+questions or makes mischief; one can do just as one likes all the time.
+I did not think, when I was alive, that there could be anything so
+delightful as all this ahead of me."
+
+"Do you never think--?" I began, but she put her hand to my lips, like a
+child, to stop me, and said, "No, I never think, and I never mean to
+think, of all the old hateful things. I never wilfully did any harm; I
+only liked the people who liked me, and gave them all they asked--and
+now I know that I did right, though in old days serious people used to
+try to frighten me. God is very good to me," she went on, smiling, "to
+allow me to be happy in my own way."
+
+While we talked thus, sitting on a seat that overlooked the great
+city--I had never seen it look so stately and beautiful, so full of all
+that the heart could desire--Lucius himself drew near to us, smiling,
+and seated himself the other side of Cynthia. "Now is not this
+heavenly?" she said; "to be with the two people I like best--for you are
+a faithful old thing, you know--and not to be afraid of anything
+disagreeable or tiresome happening--not to have to explain or make
+excuses, what could be better?"
+
+"Yes," said Lucius, "it is happy enough," and he smiled at me in a
+friendly way. "The pleasantest point is that one can _wait_ in this
+charming place. In the old days, one was afraid of a hundred
+things--money, weather, illness, criticism. One had to make love in a
+hurry, because one missed the beautiful hour; and then there was the
+horror of growing old. But now if Cynthia chooses to amuse herself with
+other people, what do I care? She comes back as delightful as ever, and
+it is only so much more to be amused about. One is not even afraid of
+being lazy, and as for those ugly twinges of what one called
+conscience--which were only a sort of rheumatism after all--that is all
+gone too; and the delight of finding that one was right after all, and
+that there were really no such things as consequences!"
+
+I became aware, as Lucius spoke thus, in all his careless beauty, of a
+vague trouble of soul. I seemed to foresee a kind of conflict between
+myself and him. He felt it too, I was aware; for he drew Cynthia to him,
+and said something to her; and presently they went off laughing, like a
+pair of children, waving a farewell to me. I experienced a sense of
+desolation, knowing in my mind that all was not well, and yet feeling so
+powerless to contend with happiness so strong and wide.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+Presently I wandered off alone, and went out of the city with a sudden
+impulse. I thought I would go in the opposite direction to that by which
+I had entered it. I could see the great hills down which Cynthia and I
+had made our way in the dawn; but I had never gone in the further
+direction, where there stretched what seemed to be a great forest. The
+whole place lay bathed in a calm light, all unutterably beautiful. I
+wandered long by streams and wood-ends, every corner that I turned
+revealing new prospects of delight. I came at last to the edge of the
+forest, the mouths of little open glades running up into it, with fern
+and thorn-thickets. There were deer here browsing about the dingles,
+which let me come close to them and touch them, raising their heads from
+the grass, and regarding me with gentle and fearless eyes. Birds sang
+softly among the boughs, and even fluttered to my shoulder, as if
+pleased to be noticed. So this was what was called on earth the place of
+torment, a place into which it seemed as if nothing of sorrow or pain
+could ever intrude!
+
+Just on the edge of the wood stood a little cottage, surrounded by a
+quiet garden, bees humming about the flowers, the scents of which came
+with a homely sweetness on the air. But here I saw something which I did
+not at first understand. This was a group of three people, a man and a
+woman and a boy of about seventeen, beside the cottage porch. They had a
+rustic air about them, and the same sort of leisurely look that all the
+people of the land wore. They were all three beautiful, with a simple
+and appropriate kind of beauty, such as comes of a contented sojourn in
+the open air. But I became in a moment aware that there was a disturbing
+element among them. The two elders seemed to be trying to persuade the
+boy, who listened smilingly enough, but half turned away from them, as
+though he were going away on some errand of which they did not approve.
+They greeted me, as I drew near, with the same cordiality as one
+received everywhere, and the man said, "Perhaps you can help us, sir,
+for we are in a trouble?" The woman joined with a murmur in the request,
+and I said I would gladly do what I could; while I spoke, the boy
+watched me earnestly, and something drew me to him, because I saw a look
+that seemed to tell me that he was, like myself, a stranger in the
+place. Then the man said, "We have lived here together very happily a
+long time, we three--I do not know how we came together, but so it was;
+and we have been more at ease than words can tell, after hard lives in
+the other world; and now this lad here, who has been our delight, says
+that he must go elsewhere and cannot stay with us; and we would persuade
+him if we could; and perhaps you, sir, who no doubt know what lies
+beyond the fields and woods that we see, can satisfy him that it is
+better to remain."
+
+While he spoke, the other two had drawn near to me, and the eyes of the
+woman dwelt upon the boy with a look of intent love, while the boy
+looked in my face anxiously and inquiringly. I could see, I found, very
+deep into his heart, and I saw in him a need for further experience, and
+a desire to go further on; and I knew at once that this could only be
+satisfied in one way, and that something would grow out of it both for
+himself and for his companions. So I said, as smilingly as I could, "I
+do not indeed know much of the ways of this place, but this I know, that
+we must go where we are sent, that no harm can befall us, and that we
+are never far away from those whom we love. I myself have lately been
+sent to visit this strange land; it seems only yesterday since I left
+the mountains yonder, and yet I have seen an abundance of strange and
+beautiful things; we must remember that here there is no sickness or
+misfortune or growing old; and there is no reason, as there often seemed
+to be on earth, why we should fight against separation and departure. No
+one can, I think, be hindered here from going where he is bound. So I
+believe that you will let the boy go joyfully and willingly, for I am
+sure of this, that his journey holds not only great things for himself,
+but even greater things for both of you in the future. So be content and
+let him depart."
+
+At this the woman said, "Yes, that is right, the stranger is right, and
+we must hinder the child no longer. No harm can come of it, but only
+good; perhaps he will return, or we may follow him, when the day comes
+for that."
+
+I saw that the old man was not wholly satisfied with this. He shook his
+head and looked sadly on the boy; and then for a time we sat and talked
+of many things. One thing that the old man said surprised me very
+greatly. He seemed to have lived many lives, and always lives of labour;
+he had grown, I gathered from his simple talk, to have a great love of
+the earth, the lives of flocks and herds, and of all the plants that
+grew out of the earth or flourished in it. I had thought before, in a
+foolish way, that all this might be put away from the spirit, in the
+land where there was no need of such things; but I saw now that there
+was a claim for labour, and a love of common things, which did not
+belong only to the body, but was a real desire of the spirit. He spoke
+of the pleasures of tending cattle, of cutting fagots in the forest
+woodland among the copses, of ploughing and sowing, with the breath of
+the earth about one; till I saw that the toil of the world, which I had
+dimly thought of as a thing which no one would do if they were not
+obliged, was a real instinct of the spirit, and had its counterpart
+beyond the body. I had supposed indeed that in a region where all
+troublous accidents of matter were over and done with, and where there
+was no need of bodily sustenance, there could be nothing which
+resembled the old weary toil of the body; but now I saw gladly that this
+was not so, and that the primal needs of the spirit outlast the visible
+world. Though my own life had been spent mostly among books and things
+of the mind, I knew well the joys of the countryside, the blossoming of
+the orchard-close, the high-piled granary, the brightly-painted waggon
+loaded with hay, the creaking of the cider-press, the lowing of cattle
+in the stall, the stamping of horses in the stable, the mud-stained
+implements hanging in the high-roofed, cobwebbed barn. I had never known
+why I loved these things so well, and had invented many fancies to
+explain it; but now I saw that it was the natural delight in work and
+increase; and that the love which surrounded all these things was the
+sign that they were real indeed, and that in no part of life could they
+be put away. And then there came on me a sort of gentle laughter at the
+thought of how much of the religion of the world spent itself on bidding
+the heart turn away from vanities, and lose itself in dreams of wonders
+and doctrines, and what were called higher and holier things than barns
+and byres and sheep-pens. Yet the truth had been staring me in the face
+all the time, if only I could have seen it; that the sense of constraint
+and unreality that fell upon one in religious matters, when some curious
+and intricate matter was confusedly expounded, was perfectly natural and
+wholesome; and that the real life of man lay in the things to which one
+returned, on work-a-day mornings, with such relief--the acts of life,
+the work of homestead, library, barrack, office, and class-room, the
+sight and sound of humanity, the smiles and glances and unconsidered
+words.
+
+When we had sat together for a time, the boy made haste to depart. We
+three went with him to the edge of the wood, where a road passed up
+among the oaks. The three embraced and kissed and said many loving
+words; and then to ease the anxieties of the two, I said that I would
+myself set the boy forward on his way, and see him well bestowed. They
+thanked me, and we went together into the wood, the two lovingly waving
+and beckoning, and the boy stepping blithely by my side.
+
+I asked him whether he was not sorry to go and leave the quiet place and
+the pair that loved him. He smiled and said that he knew he was not
+leaving them at all, and that he was sure that they would soon follow;
+and that for himself the time had come to know more of the place. I
+learned from him that his last life had been an unhappy one, in a
+crowded street and a slovenly home, with much evil of talk and act about
+him; he had hated it all, he said, but for a little sister that he had
+loved, who had kissed and clasped him, weeping, when he lay dying of a
+miserable disease. He said that he thought he should find her, which
+made part of his joy of going; that for a long while there had come to
+him a sense of her remembrance and love; and that he had once sent his
+thought back to earth to find her, and she was in much grief and care;
+and that then all these messages had at once ceased, and he knew that
+she had left the body. He was a merry boy, full of delight and laughter,
+and we went very cheerfully together through the sunlit wood, with its
+green glades and open spaces, which seemed all full of life and
+happiness, creatures living together in goodwill and comfort. I saw in
+this journey that all things that ever lived a conscious life in one of
+the innumerable worlds had a place and life of their own, and a time of
+refreshment like myself. What I could not discern was whether there was
+any interchange of lives, whether the soul of the tree could become an
+animal, or the animal progress to be a man. It seemed to me that it was
+not so, but that each had a separate life of its own. But I saw how
+foolish was the fancy that I had pursued in old days, that there was a
+central reservoir of life, into which at death all little lives were
+merged; I was yet to learn how strangely all life was knit together,
+but now I saw that individuality was a real and separate thing, which
+could not be broken or lost, and that all things that had ever enjoyed a
+consciousness of the privilege of separate life had a true dignity and
+worth of existence; and that it was only the body that had made
+hostility necessary; that though the body could prey upon the bodies of
+animal and plant, yet that no soul could devour or incorporate any other
+soul. But as yet the merging of soul in soul through love was unseen and
+indeed unsuspected by me.
+
+Now as we went in the wood, the boy and I, it came into my mind in a
+flash that I had seen a great secret. I had seen, I knew, very little of
+the great land yet--and indeed I had been but in the lowest place of
+all: and I thought how base and dull our ideas had been upon earth of
+God and His care of men. We had thought of Him dimly as sweeping into
+His place of torment and despair all poisoned and diseased lives, all
+lives that had clung to the body and to the pleasures of the body, all
+who had sinned idly, or wilfully, or proudly; and I saw now that He used
+men far more wisely and lovingly than thus. Into this lowest place
+indeed passed all sad, and diseased, and unhappy spirits: and instead of
+being tormented or accursed, all was made delightful and beautiful for
+them there, because they needed not harsh and rough handling, but care
+and soft tendance. They were not to be frightened hence, or to live in
+fear and anguish, but to live deliciously according to their wish, and
+to be drawn to perceive in some quiet manner that all was not well with
+them; they were to have their heart's desire, and learn that it could
+not satisfy them; but the only thing that could draw them thence was the
+love of some other soul whom they must pursue and find, if they could.
+It was all so high and reasonable and just that I could not admire it
+enough. I saw that the boy was drawn thence by the love of his little
+sister, who was elsewhere; and that the love and loss of the boy would
+presently draw the older pair to follow him and to leave the place of
+heart's delight. And then I began to see that Cynthia and Charmides and
+Lucius were being made ready, each at his own time, to leave their
+little pleasures and ordered lives of happiness, and to follow
+heavenwards in due course. Because it was made plain to me that it was
+the love and worship of some other soul that was the constraining force;
+but what the end would be I could not discern.
+
+And now as we went through the wood, I began to feel a strange elation
+and joy of spirit, severe and bracing, very different from my languid
+and half-contented acquiescence in the place of beauty; and now the
+woods began to change their kind; there were fewer forest trees now, but
+bare heaths with patches of grey sand and scattered pines; and there
+began to drift across the light a grey vapour which hid the delicate
+hues and colours of the sunlight, and made everything appear pale and
+spare. Very soon we came out on the brow of a low hill, and saw, all
+spread out before us, a place which, for all its dulness and darkness,
+had a solemn beauty of its own. There were great stone buildings very
+solidly made, with high chimneys which seemed to stream with smoke; we
+could see men, as small as ants, moving in and out of the buildings; it
+seemed like a place of manufacture, with a busy life of its own. But
+here I suddenly felt that I could go no further, but must return. I
+hoped that I should see the grim place again, and I desired with all my
+soul to go down into it, and see what eager life it was that was being
+lived there. And the boy, I saw, felt this too, and was impatient to
+proceed. So we said farewell with much tenderness, and the boy went down
+swiftly across the moorland, till he met some one who was coming out of
+the city, and conferred a little with him; and then he turned and waved
+his hand to me, and I waved my hand from the brow of the hill, envying
+him in my heart, and went back in sorrow into the sunshine of the wood.
+
+And as I did so I had a great joy, because I saw Amroth come suddenly
+running to me out of the wood, who put his arm through mine, and walked
+with me. Then I told him of all I had seen and thought, while he smiled
+and nodded and told me it was much as I imagined. "Yes," he said, "it is
+even so. The souls you have seen in this fine country here are just as
+children who are given their fill of pleasant things. Many of them have
+come into the state in which you see them from no fault of their own,
+because their souls are young and ignorant. They have shrunk from all
+pain and effort and tedium, like a child that does not like his lessons.
+There is no thought of punishment, of course. No one learns anything of
+punishment except a cowardly fear. We never advance until we have the
+will to advance, and there is nothing in mere suffering, unless we learn
+to bear it gently for the sake of love. On earth it is not God but man
+who is cruel. There is indeed a place of sorrow, which you will see when
+you can bear the sight, where the self-righteous and the harsh go for a
+time, and all those who have made others suffer because they believed in
+their own justice and insight. You will find there all tyrants and
+conquerors, and many rich men, who used their wealth heedlessly; and
+even so you will be surprised when you see it. But those spirits are the
+hardest of all to help, because they have loved nothing but their own
+virtue or their own ambition; yet you will see how they too are drawn
+thence; and now that you have had a sight of the better country, tell me
+how you liked it."
+
+"Why," I said, "it is plain and austere enough; but I felt a great
+quickening of spirit, and a desire to join in the labours of the place."
+
+Amroth smiled, and said, "You will have little share in that. You will
+find your task, no doubt, when you are strong enough; and now you must
+go back and make unwilling holiday with your pleasant friends, you have
+not much longer to stay there; and surely"--he laughed as he spoke--"you
+can endure a little more of those pretty concerts and charming talk of
+art and its values and pulsations!"
+
+"I can endure it," I said, laughing, "for it does me good to see you and
+to hear you; but tell me, Amroth, what have you been about all this
+time? Have you had a thought of me?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Amroth, laughing. "I don't forget you, and I love
+your company; but I am a busy man myself, and have something pleasanter
+to do than to attend these elegant receptions of yours--at which,
+indeed, I have sometimes thought you out of place."
+
+As we thus talked we came to the forest lodge. The old pair came running
+out to greet me, and I told them that the boy was well bestowed. I could
+see in the woman's face that she would soon follow him, and even the
+old man had a look that I had not seen in him before; and here Amroth
+left me, and I returned to the city, where all was as peaceable as
+before.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+But when I saw Cynthia, as I presently did, she too was in a different
+mood. She had positively missed me, and told me so with many
+endearments. I was not to remain away so long. I was useful to her.
+Charmides had become tiresome and lost in thought, but Lucius was as
+sweet as ever. Some new-comers had arrived, all pleasant enough. She
+asked me where I had been, and I told her all the story. "Yes, that is
+beautiful enough," she said, "but I hate all this breaking up and going
+on. I am sure I do not wish for any change." She made a grimace of
+disgust at the idea of the ugly town I had seen, and then she said that
+she would go with me some time to look at it, because it would make her
+happier to return to her peace; and then she went off to tell Lucius.
+
+I soon found Charmides, and I told him my adventures. "That is a
+curious story," he said. "I like to think of people caring for each
+other so; that is picturesque! These simple emotions are interesting.
+And one likes to think that people who have none of the finer tastes
+should have something to fall back upon--something hot and strong, as we
+used to say."
+
+"But," I said, "tell me this, Charmides, was there never any one in the
+old days whom you cared for like that?"
+
+"I thought so often enough," said he, a little peevishly, "but you do
+not know how much a man like myself is at the mercy of little things! An
+ugly hand, a broken tooth, a fallen cheek ... it seems little enough,
+but one has a sort of standard. I had a microscopic eye, you know, and a
+little blemish was a serious thing to me. I was always in search of
+something that I could not find; then there were awkward strains in the
+characters of people--they were mean or greedy or selfish, and all my
+pleasure was suddenly dashed. I am speaking," he went on, "with a
+strange candour! I don't defend it or excuse it, but there it was. I did
+once, as a child, I believe, care for one person--an old nurse of
+mine--in the right way. Dear, how good she was to me! I remember once
+how she came all the way, after she had left us, to see me on my way
+through town. She just met me at a railway station, and she had bought a
+little book which she thought might amuse me, and a bag of oranges--she
+remembered that I used to like oranges. I recollect at the time thinking
+it was all very touching and devoted; but I was with a friend of mine,
+and had not time to say much. I can see her old face, smiling, with
+tears in her eyes, as we went off. I gave the book and the oranges away,
+I remember, to a child at the next station. It is curious how it all
+comes back to me now; I never saw her again, and I wish I had behaved
+better. I should like to see her again, and to tell her that I really
+cared! I wonder if that is possible? But there is really so much to do
+here and to enjoy; and there is no one to tell me where to go, so that I
+am puzzled. What is one to do?"
+
+"I think that if one desires a thing enough here, Charmides," I said,
+"one is in a fair way to obtain it. Never mind! a door will be opened.
+But one has got to care, I suppose; it is not enough to look upon it as
+a pretty effect, which one would just like to put in its place with
+other effects--'Open, sesame'--do you remember? There is a charm at
+which all doors fly open, even here!"
+
+"I will talk to you more about this," said Charmides, "when I have had
+time to arrange my thoughts a little. Who would have supposed that an
+old recollection like that would have disturbed me so much? It would
+make a good subject for a picture or a song."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+It was on one of these days that Amroth came suddenly upon me, with a
+very mirthful look on his face, his eyes sparkling like a man struggling
+with hidden laughter. "Come with me," he said; "you have been so dutiful
+lately that I am alarmed for your health." Then we went out of the
+garden where I was sitting, and we were suddenly in a street. I saw in a
+moment that it was a real street, in the suburb of an English town;
+there were electric trams running, and rows of small trees, and an open
+space planted with shrubs, with asphalt paths and ugly seats. On the
+other side of the road was a row of big villas, tasteless, dreary,
+comfortable houses, with meaningless turrets and balconies. I could not
+help feeling that it was very dismal that men and women should live in
+such places, think them neat and well-appointed, and even grow to love
+them. We went into one of these houses; it was early in the morning, and
+a little drizzle was falling, which made the whole place seem very
+cheerless. In a room with a bow-window looking on the road there were
+three persons. An old man was reading a paper in an arm-chair by the
+fire, with his back to the light. He looked a nice old man, with his
+clear skin and white hair; opposite him was an old lady in another
+chair, reading a letter. With his back to the fire stood a man of about
+thirty-five, sturdy-looking, but pale, and with an appearance of being
+somewhat overworked. He had a good face, but seemed a little
+uninteresting, as if he did not feed his mind. The table had been spread
+for breakfast, and the meal was finished and partly cleared away. The
+room was ugly and the furniture was a little shabby; there was a glazed
+bookcase, full of dull-looking books, a sideboard, a table with writing
+materials in the window, and some engravings of royal groups and
+celebrated men.
+
+The younger man, after a moment, said, "Well, I must be off." He nodded
+to his father, and bent down to kiss his mother, saying, "Take care of
+yourself--I shall be back in good time for tea." I had a sense that he
+was using these phrases in a mechanical way, and that they were
+customary with him. Then he went out, planting his feet solidly on the
+carpet, and presently the front door shut. I could not understand why we
+had come to this very unemphatic party, and examined the whole room
+carefully to see what was the object of our visit. A maid came in and
+removed the rest of the breakfast things, leaving the cloth still on the
+table, and some of the spoons and knives, with the salt-cellars, in
+their places. When she had finished and gone out, there was a silence,
+only broken by the crackling of the paper as the old man folded it.
+Presently the old lady said: "I wish Charles could get his holiday a
+little sooner; he looks so tired, and he does not eat well. He does
+stick so hard to his business."
+
+"Yes, dear, he does," said the old man, "but it is just the busiest
+time, and he tells me that they have had some large orders lately. They
+are doing very well, I understand."
+
+There was another silence, and then the old lady put down her letter,
+and looked for a moment at a picture, representing a boy, a large
+photograph a good deal faded, which hung close to her--underneath it was
+a small vase of flowers on a bracket. She gave a little sigh as she did
+this, and the old man looked at her over the top of his paper. "Just
+think, father," she said, "that Harry would have been thirty-eight this
+very week!"
+
+The old man made a comforting sort of little noise, half sympathetic and
+half deprecatory. "Yes, I know," said the old lady, "but I can't help
+thinking about him a great deal at this time of the year. I don't
+understand why he was taken away from us. He was always such a good
+boy--he would have been just like Charles, only handsomer--he was always
+handsomer and brighter; he had so much of your spirit! Not but what
+Charles has been the best of sons to us--I don't mean that--no one could
+be better or more easy to please! But Harry had a different way with
+him." Her eyes filled with tears, which she brushed away. "No," she
+added, "I won't fret about him. I daresay he is happier where he is--I
+am sure he is--and thinking of his mother too, my bonny boy, perhaps."
+
+The old man got up, put his paper down, went across to the old lady, and
+gave her a kiss on the brow. "There, there," he said soothingly, "we may
+be sure it's all for the best;" and he stood looking down fondly at her.
+Amroth crossed the room and stood beside the pair, with a hand on the
+shoulder of each. I saw in an instant that there was an unmistakable
+likeness between the three; but the contrast of the marvellous
+brilliance and beauty of Amroth with the old, world-wearied,
+simple-minded couple was the most extraordinary thing to behold. "Yes, I
+feel better already," said the old lady, smiling; "it always does me
+good to say out what I am feeling, father; and then you are sure to
+understand."
+
+The mist closed suddenly in upon the scene, and we were back in a moment
+in the garden with its porticoes, in the radiant, untroubled air. Amroth
+looked at me with a smile that was full, half of gaiety and half of
+tenderness. "There," he said, "what do you think of that? If all had
+gone well with me, as they say on earth, that is where I should be now,
+going down to the city with Charles. That is the prospect which to the
+dear old people seems so satisfactory compared with this! In that house
+I lay ill for some weeks, and from there my body was carried out. And
+they would have kept me there if they could--and I myself did not want
+to go. I was afraid. Oh, how I envied Charles going down to the city
+and coming back for tea, to read the magazines aloud or play backgammon.
+I am afraid I was not as nice as I should have been about all that--the
+evenings were certainly dull!"
+
+"But what do you feel about it now?" I said. "Don't you feel sorry for
+the muddle and ignorance and pathos of it all? Can't something be done
+to show everybody what a ghastly mistake it is, to get so tied down to
+the earth and the things of earth?"
+
+"A mistake?" said Amroth. "There is no such thing as a mistake. One
+cannot sorrow for their grief, any more than one can sorrow for the
+child who cries out in the tunnel and clasps his mother's hand. Don't
+you see that their grief and loss is the one beautiful thing in those
+lives, and all that it is doing for them, drawing them hither? Why, that
+is where we grow and become strong, in the hopeless suffering of love. I
+am glad and content that my own stay was made so brief. I wish it could
+be shortened for the three--and yet I do not, because they will gain so
+wonderfully by it. They are mounting fast; it is their very ignorance
+that teaches them. Not to know, not to perceive, but to be forced to
+believe in love, that is the point."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I see that; but what about the lives that are broken and
+poisoned by grief, in a stupor of pain--or the souls that do not feel it
+at all, except as a passing shadow--what about them?"
+
+"Oh," said Amroth lightly, "the sadder the dream the more blessed the
+awakening; and as for those who cannot feel--well, it will all come to
+them, as they grow older."
+
+"Yes," I said, "it has done me good to see all this--it makes many
+things plain; but can you bear to leave them thus?"
+
+"Leave them!" said Amroth. "Who knows but that I shall be sent to help
+them away, and carry them, as I carried you, to the crystal sea of
+peace? The darling mother, I shall be there at her awakening. They are
+old spirits, those two, old and wise; and there is a high place
+prepared for them."
+
+"But what about Charles?" I said.
+
+Amroth smiled. "Old Charles?" he said. "I must admit that he is not a
+very stirring figure at present. He is much immersed in his game of
+finance, and talks a great deal in his lighter moments about the
+commercial prospects of the Empire and the need of retaliatory tariffs.
+But he will outgrow all that! He is a very loyal soul, but not very
+adventurous just now. He would be sadly discomposed by an affection
+which came in between him and his figures. He would think he wanted a
+change--and he will have a thorough one, the good old fellow, one of
+these days. But he has a long journey before him."
+
+"Well," I said, "there are some surprises here! I am afraid I am very
+youthful yet."
+
+"Yes, dear child, you are very ingenuous," said Amroth, "and that is a
+great part of your charm. But we will find something for you to do
+before long! But here comes Charmides, to talk about the need of
+exquisite pulsations, and their symbolism--though I see a change in him
+too. And now I must go back to business. Take care of yourself, and I
+will be back to tea." And Amroth flashed away in a very cheerful mood.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+There were many things at that time that were full of mystery, things
+which I never came to understand. There was in particular a certain sort
+of people, whom one met occasionally, for whom I could never wholly
+account. They were unlike others in this fact, that they never appeared
+to belong to any particular place or community. They were both men and
+women, who seemed--I can express it in no other way--to be in the
+possession of a secret so great that it made everything else trivial and
+indifferent to them. Not that they were impatient or contemptuous--it
+was quite the other way; but to use a similitude, they were like
+good-natured, active, kindly elders at a children's party. They did not
+shun conversation, but if one talked with them, they used a kind of
+tender and gentle irony, which had something admiring and complimentary
+about it, which took away any sense of vexation or of baffled curiosity.
+It was simply as though their concern lay elsewhere; they joined in
+anything with a frank delight, not with any touch of condescension. They
+were even more kindly and affectionate than others, because they did not
+seem to have any small problems of their own, and could give their whole
+attention and thought to the person they were with. These inscrutable
+people puzzled me very much. I asked Amroth about them once.
+
+"Who are these people," I said, "whom one sometimes meets, who are so
+far removed from all of us? What are they doing here?"
+
+Amroth smiled. "So you have detected them!" he said. "You are quite
+right, and it does your observation credit. But you must find it out for
+yourself. I cannot explain, and if I could, you would not understand me
+yet."
+
+"Then I am not mistaken," I said, "but I wish you would give me a
+hint--they seem to know something more worth knowing than all beside."
+
+"Exactly," said Amroth. "You are very near the truth; it is staring you
+in the face; but it would spoil all if I told you. There is plenty about
+them in the old books you used to read--they have the secret of joy."
+And that is all that he would say.
+
+It was on a solitary ramble one day, outside of the place of delight,
+that I came nearer to one of these people than I ever did at any other
+time. I had wandered off into a pleasant place of grassy glades with
+little thorn-thickets everywhere. I went up a small eminence, which
+commanded a view of the beautiful plain with its blue distance and the
+enamelled green foreground of close-grown coverts. There I sat for a
+long time lost in pleasant thought and wonder, when I saw a man drawing
+near, walking slowly and looking about him with a serene and delighted
+air. He passed not far from me, and observing me, waved a hand of
+welcome, came up the slope, and greeting me in a friendly and open
+manner, asked if he might sit with me for a little.
+
+"This is a pleasant place," he said, "and you seem very agreeably
+occupied."
+
+"Yes," I said, looking into his smiling face, "one has no engagements
+here, and no need of business to fill the time--but indeed I am not sure
+that I am busy enough." As I spoke I was regarding him with some
+curiosity. He was a man of mature age, with a strong, firm-featured
+face, healthy and sunburnt of aspect, and he was dressed, not as I was
+for ease and repose, but with the garments of a traveller. His hat,
+which was large and of some soft grey cloth, was pushed to his back, and
+hung there by a cord round his neck. His hair was a little grizzled, and
+lay close-curled to his head; in his strong and muscular hand he carried
+a stick. He smiled again at my words, and said:
+
+"Oh, one need not trouble about being busy until the time comes; that
+is a feeling one inherits from the life of earth, and I am sure you have
+not left it long. You have a very fresh air about you, as if you had
+rested, and rested well."
+
+"Yes, I have rested," I said; "but though I am content enough, there is
+something unquiet in me, I am afraid!"
+
+"Ah!" he said, "there is that in all of us, and it would not be well
+with us if there were not. Will you tell me a little about yourself?
+That is one of the pleasures of this life here, that we have no need to
+be cautious, or to fear that we shall give ourselves away."
+
+I told him my adventures, and he listened with serious attention.
+
+"Ah, that is all very good," he said at last, "but you must not be in
+any hurry; it is a great thing that ideas should dawn upon us
+gradually--one gets the full truth of them so. It was the hurry of life
+which was so bewildering--the shocks, the surprises, the ugly
+reflections of one's conduct that one saw in other lives--the corners
+one had to turn. Things, indeed, come suddenly even here, but one is led
+up to them gently enough; allowed to enter the sea for oneself, not
+soused and ducked in it. You will need all the strength you can store up
+for what is before you, and I can see in your face that you are storing
+up strength--but the weariness is not quite gone out of your mind."
+
+He was silent for a little, musing, till I said, "Will you not tell me
+some of your own adventures? I am sure from your look that you have
+them; and you are a pilgrim, it seems. Where are you bound?"
+
+"Oh," he said lightly, "I am not one of the people who have
+adventures--just the journey and the talk beside the way."
+
+"But," I said, "I have seen some others like you, and I am puzzled about
+it. You seem, if I may say so--I do not mean anything disrespectful or
+impertinent--to be like the gipsies whom one meets in quiet country
+places, with a secret knowledge of their own, a pride too great to be
+worth expressing, not anxious about life, not weary or dissatisfied,
+caring not for localities or possessions, but with a sort of eager
+pleasure in freedom and movement."
+
+He laughed. "Yes," he said, "you are right! I am no doubt a sort of
+nomad, as you say, detached from life perhaps. I don't know that it is
+desirable; there is a great deal to be said for living in the same place
+and loving the same things. Most people are happier so, and learn what
+they have to learn in that manner."
+
+"Yes," I said, "that is true and beautiful--the same old house, the same
+trees and pastures, the stream and the water-plants that hide it, the
+blue hills beyond the nearer wood--the dear familiar things; but even so
+the road which passes through the fields, over the bridge, up the
+covert-side ... it leads somewhere, and the heart on sunny days leaps up
+to follow it! Talking with you here, I feel a hunger for something wider
+and more free; your voice has the sound of the wind, with the secret
+knowledge of strange hill-tops and solitary seas! Sometimes the heart
+settles down upon what it knows and loves, but sometimes it reaches out
+to all the love and beauty hidden in the world, and in the waters beyond
+the world, and would embrace it all if it could. The faces one sees as
+one passes through unfamiliar cities or villages, how one longs to talk,
+to question, to ask what gave them the look they wear.... And you, if I
+may say it, seem to have passed beyond the need of wanting or desiring
+anything ... but I must not talk thus to a stranger; you must forgive
+me."
+
+"Forgive you?" said the stranger; "that is only an earthly phrase--the
+old terror of indiscretion and caution. What are we here for but to get
+acquainted with one another--to let our inmost thoughts talk together?
+In the world we are bounded by time and space, and we have the terror of
+each other's glances and exteriors to contend with. We make friends on
+earth in spite of our limitations; but in heaven we get to know each
+other's hearts; and that blessing goes back with us to the dim fields
+and narrow houses of the earth. I see plainly enough that you are not
+perfectly happy; but one can only win content through discontent. Where
+you are now, you are not in accord with the souls about you. Never mind
+that! There are beautiful spirits within reach of your hand and heart; a
+little clouded by mistaking the quality of joy, no doubt, but great and
+everlasting for all that. You must try to draw near to them, and find
+spirits to love. Do you not remember in the days of earth how one felt
+sometimes in an unfamiliar place--among a gathering of strangers--at
+church perhaps, or at some school which one visited, where one saw the
+young faces, which showed so clearly, before the world had stamped
+itself in frowns and heaviness upon them, the quality of the soul
+within? Don't you remember the feeling at such times of how many there
+were in the world whom one might love, if one had leisure and
+opportunity and energy? Well, there is no need to resist that, or to
+deplore it here; one may go where one's will inclines one, and speak as
+one's heart tells one to speak. I think you are perhaps too conscious of
+waiting for something. Your task lies ahead of you, but the work of love
+can begin at once and anywhere."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I feel that now and here. Will you not tell me something
+of yourself in return? I cannot read your mind clearly--it is occupied
+with something I cannot grasp--what is your work in heaven?"
+
+"Oh," he said lightly, "that is easy enough, and yet you would not
+understand it. I have been led through the shadow of fear, and I have
+passed out on the other side. And my duty is to release others from
+fear, as far as I can. It is the darkest shadow of all, because it
+dwells in the unknown. Pain, without it, is no suffering at all; indeed
+pain is almost a pleasure, when one knows what it is doing for one. But
+fear is the doubt whether pain or suffering are really helping us; and
+just as memory never has any touch of fear about it, so hope may
+likewise have done with fear."
+
+"But how did you learn this?" I said.
+
+"Only by fearing to the uttermost," he replied. "The power--it is not
+courage, because that only defies fear--cannot be given one; it must be
+painfully won. You remember the blessing of the pure in heart, that they
+shall see God? There would be little hope in that promise for the soul
+that knew itself to be impure, if it were not for the other side of
+it--that the vision of God, which is the most terrible of all things,
+can give purity to the most sin-stained soul. In that vision, all desire
+and all fear have an end, because there is nothing left either to desire
+or to dread. That vision we may delay or hasten. We may delay it, if we
+allow our prudence, or our shame, or our comfort, to get in the way: we
+may hasten it, if we cast ourselves at every moment of our pilgrimage
+upon the mercy and the love of God. His one desire is that we should be
+satisfied; and if He seems to put obstacles in our way, to keep us
+waiting, to permit us to be miserable, that is only that we may learn to
+cast ourselves into love and service--which is the one way to His heart.
+But now I must be going, for I have said all that you can bear. Will you
+remember this--not to reserve yourself, not to think others unworthy or
+hostile, but to cast your love and trust freely and lavishly, everywhere
+and anywhere? We must gather nothing, hold on to nothing, just give
+ourselves away at every moment, flowing like the stream into every
+channel that is open, withholding nothing, retaining nothing. I see," he
+added, "very great and beautiful things ahead of you, and very sad and
+painful things as well. But you are close to the light, and it is
+breaking all about you with a splendour which you cannot guess."
+
+He rose up, he took my hand in his own and laid the other on my brow,
+and I felt his heart go out to mine and gather me to him, as a child is
+gathered to a father's arms. And then he went silently and lightly upon
+his way.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+The time moved on quietly enough in the land of delight. I made
+acquaintance with quite a number of the soft-voiced contented folk.
+Sometimes it interested me to see the change coming upon one or another,
+a wonder or a desire that made them sit withdrawn and abstracted, and
+breaking with a sort of effort out of the dreamful mood. Then they would
+leave us, sometimes quite suddenly, sometimes with courteous adieus.
+New-comers, too, kept arriving, to be made pleasantly at home. I found
+myself seeing more of Cynthia. She was much with Lucius, and they seemed
+as gay as ever, but I saw that she was sometimes puzzled. She said to me
+one day as we sat together, "I wish you would tell me what this is all
+about? I do not want to change it, and I am very happy, but isn't it all
+rather pointless? I believe you have some secret you are keeping from
+me." She was sitting close beside me, like a child, resting her head on
+my arm, and she took my hand in both of hers.
+
+"No," I said, "I am keeping nothing from you, pretty child! I could not
+explain to you what is in my mind, and it would spoil your pleasure if I
+could. It is all right, and you will see in good time."
+
+"I hate to be put off like that," she said. "You are not really
+interested in me; and you do not trust me; you do not care about the
+things I care about, and if you are so superior, you ought to explain to
+me why."
+
+"Well," I said, "I will try to explain. Do you ever remember having been
+very happy in a place, and having been obliged to leave it, always
+hoping to return; and then when you did return, finding that, though
+nothing was changed, you were yourself changed, and could not, even if
+you would, have taken up the old life again?"
+
+"Yes," said Cynthia, musing, "I remember that sort of thing happening
+once, about a house where I stayed as a child. It seemed so stupid and
+dull when I went back that I wondered how I could ever have really liked
+it."
+
+"Well," I said, "it is the same sort of thing here. I am only here for a
+time, and though I do not know where I am going or when, I think I shall
+not be here much longer."
+
+At this Cynthia did what she had never done before--she kissed me. Then
+she said, "Don't speak of such disagreeable things. I could not get on
+without you. You are so convenient, like a comfortable old arm-chair."
+
+"What a compliment!" I said. "But you see that you don't like my
+explanation. Why trouble about it? You have plenty of time. Is Lucius
+like an arm-chair, too?"
+
+"No," she said, "he is exciting, like a new necklace--and Charmides, he
+is exciting too, in a way, but rather too fine for me, like a
+ball-dress!"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I noticed that your own taste in dress is different of
+late. This is a much simpler thing than what you came in."
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, "it doesn't seem worth while to dress up now. I
+have made my friends, and I suppose I am getting lazy."
+
+We said little more, but she did not seem inclined to leave me, and was
+more with me for a time. I actually heard her tell Lucius once that she
+was tired, at which he laughed, not very pleasantly, and went away.
+
+But my own summons came to me so unexpectedly that I had but little time
+to make my farewell.
+
+I was sitting once in a garden-close watching a curious act proceeding,
+which I did not quite understand. It looked like a religious ceremony; a
+man in embroidered robes was being conducted by some boys in white
+dresses through the long cloister, carrying something carefully wrapped
+up in his arms, and I heard what sounded like an antique hymn of a fine
+stiff melody, rapidly sung.
+
+There had been nothing quite like this before, and I suddenly became
+aware that Amroth was beside me, and that he had a look of anger in his
+face. "You had better not look at this," he said to me; "it might not be
+very helpful, as they say."
+
+"Am I to come with you?" I said. "That is well--but I should like to say
+a word to one or two of my friends here."
+
+"No, not a word!" said Amroth quickly. He looked at me with a curious
+look, in which he seemed to be measuring my strength and courage. "Yes,
+that will do!" he added. "Come at once--don't be surprised--it will be
+different from what you expect."
+
+He took me by the arm, and we hurried from the place; one or two of the
+people who stood by looked at us in lazy wonder. We walked in silence
+down a long alley, to a great gate that I had often passed in my
+strolls. It was a barred iron gate, of a very stately air, with high
+stone gateposts. I had never been able to find my outward way to this,
+and there was a view from it of enchanting beauty, blue distant woods
+and rolling slopes. Amroth came quickly to the gate, seemed to unlock
+it, and held it open for me to pass. "One word," he said with his most
+beautiful smile, his eyes flashing and kindling with some secret
+emotion, "whatever happens, do not be _afraid_! There is nothing
+whatever to fear, only be prepared and wait." He motioned me through,
+and I heard him close the gate behind me.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+I was alone in an instant, and in terrible pain--pain not in any part of
+me, but all around and within me. A cold wind of a piercing bitterness
+seemed to blow upon me; but with it came a sense of immense energy and
+strength, so that the pain became suddenly delightful, like the
+stretching of a stiffened limb. I cannot put the pain into exact words.
+It was not attended by any horror; it seemed a sense of infinite grief
+and loss and loneliness, a deep yearning to be delivered and made free.
+I felt suddenly as though everything I loved had gone from me,
+irretrievably gone and lost. I looked round me, and I could discern
+through a mist the bases of some black and sinister rocks, that towered
+up intolerably above me; in between them were channels full of stones
+and drifted snow. Anything more stupendous than those black-ribbed
+crags, those toppling precipices, I had never seen. The wind howled
+among them, and sometimes there was a noise of rocks cast down. I knew
+in some obscure way that my path lay there, and my heart absolutely
+failed me. Instead of going straight to the rocks, I began to creep
+along the base to see whether I could find some easier track. Suddenly
+the voice of Amroth said, rather sharply, in my ear, "Don't be silly!"
+This homely direction, so peremptorily made, had an instantaneous
+effect. If he had said, "Be not faithless," or anything in the copybook
+manner, I should have sat down and resigned myself to solemn despair.
+But now I felt a fool and a coward as well.
+
+So I addressed myself, like a dog who hears the crack of a whip, to the
+rocks.
+
+It would be tedious to relate how I clambered and stumbled and agonised.
+There did not seem to me the slightest use in making the attempt, or the
+smallest hope of reaching the top, or the least expectation of finding
+anything worth finding. I hated everything I had ever seen or known;
+recollections of old lives and of the quiet garden I had left came upon
+me with a sort of mental nausea. This was very different from the
+amiable and easy-going treatment I had expected. Yet I did struggle on,
+with a hideous faintness and weariness--but would it never stop? It
+seemed like years to me, my hands frozen and wetted by snow and dripping
+water, my feet bruised and wounded by sharp stones, my garments
+strangely torn and rent, with stains of blood showing through in places.
+Still the hideous business continued, but progress was never quite
+impossible. At one place I found the rocks wholly impassable, and
+choosing the broader of two ledges which ran left and right, I worked
+out along the cliff, only to find that the ledge ran into the
+precipices, and I had to retrace my steps, if the shuffling motions I
+made could be so called. Then I took the harder of the two, which
+zigzagged backwards and forwards across the rocks. At one place I saw a
+thing which moved me very strangely. This was a heap of bones, green,
+slimy, and ill-smelling, with some tattered rags of cloth about them,
+which lay in a heap beneath a precipice. The thought that a man could
+fall and be killed in such a place moved me with a fresh misery. What
+that meant I could not tell. Were we not away from such things as
+mouldering flesh and broken bones? It seemed not; and I climbed madly
+away from them. Quite suddenly I came to the top, a bleak platform of
+rock, where I fell prostrate on my face and groaned.
+
+"Yes, that was an ugly business," said the voice of Amroth beside me,
+"but you got through it fairly well. How do you feel?"
+
+"I call it a perfect outrage," I said. "What is the meaning of this
+hateful business?"
+
+"The meaning?" said Amroth; "never mind about the meaning. The point is
+that you are here!"
+
+"Oh," I said, "I have had a horrible time. All my sense of security is
+gone from me. Is one indeed liable to this kind of interruption,
+Amroth?"
+
+"Of course," said Amroth, "there must be some tests; but you will be
+better very soon. It is all over for the present, I may tell you, and
+you will soon be able to enjoy it. There is no terror in past
+suffering--it is the purest joy."
+
+"Yes, I used to say so and think so," I said, closing my eyes. "But this
+was different--it was horrible! And the time it lasted, and the despair
+of it! It seems to have soaked into my whole life and poisoned it."
+
+Amroth said nothing for a minute, but watched me closely.
+
+Presently I went on. "And tell me one thing. There was a ghastly thing I
+saw, some mouldering bones on a ledge. Can people indeed fall and die
+there?"
+
+"Perhaps it was only a phantom," said Amroth, "put there like the
+sights in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, the fire that was fed secretly with
+oil, and the robin with his mouth full of spiders, as an encouragement
+for wayfarers!"
+
+"But that," I said, "would be too horrible for anything--to turn the
+terrors of death into a sort of conjuring trick--a dramatic
+entertainment, to make one's flesh creep! Why, that was the misery of
+some of the religion taught us in old days, that it seemed often only
+dramatic--a scene without cause or motive, just displayed to show us the
+anger or the mercy of God, so that one had the miserable sense that much
+of it was a spectacular affair, that He Himself did not really suffer or
+feel indignation, but thought it well to feign emotions, like a
+schoolmaster to impress his pupils.--and that people too were not
+punished for their own sakes, to help them, but just to startle or
+convince others."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "I was only jesting, and I see that my jests were
+out of place. Of course what you saw was real--there are no pretences
+here. Men and women do indeed suffer a kind of death--the second
+death--in these places, and have to begin again; but that is only for a
+certain sort of self-confident and sin-soaked person, whose will needs
+to be roughly broken. There are certain perverse sins of the spirit
+which need a spiritual death, as the sins of the body need a bodily
+death. Only thus can one be born again."
+
+"Well," I said, "I am amazed--but now what am I to do? I am fit for
+nothing, and I shall be fit for nothing hereafter."
+
+"If you talk like this," said Amroth, "you will only drive me away.
+There are certain things that it is better not to confess to one's
+dearest friend, not even to God. One must just be silent about them, try
+to forget them, hope they can never happen again. I tell you, you will
+soon be all right; and if you are not you will have to see a physician.
+But you had better not do that unless you are obliged."
+
+This made me feel ashamed of myself, and the shame took off my thoughts
+from what I had endured; but I could do nothing but lie aching and
+panting on the rocks for a long time, while Amroth sat beside me in
+silence.
+
+"Are you vexed?" I said after a long pause.
+
+"No, no, not vexed," said Amroth, "but I am not sure whether I have not
+made a mistake. It was I who urged that you might go forward, and I
+confess I am disappointed at the result. You are softer than I thought."
+
+"Indeed I am not," I said. "I will go down the rocks and come up again,
+if that will satisfy you."
+
+"Come, that is a little better," said Amroth, "and I will tell you now
+that you did well--better indeed at the time than I expected. You did
+the thing in very good time, as we used to say."
+
+By this time I felt very drowsy, and suddenly dropped off into a
+sleep--such a deep and dreamless sleep, to descend into which was like
+flinging oneself into a river-pool by a bubbling weir on a hot and dusty
+day of summer.
+
+I awoke suddenly with a pressure on my arm, and, waking up with a sense
+of renewed freshness, I saw Amroth looking at me anxiously. "Do not
+say anything," he said. "Can you manage to hobble a few steps? If you
+cannot, I will get some help, and we shall be all right--but there may
+be an unpleasant encounter, and it is best avoided." I scrambled to my
+feet, and Amroth helped me a little higher up the rocks, looking
+carefully into the mist as he did so. Close behind us was a steep rock
+with ledges. Amroth flung himself upon them, with an agile scramble or
+two. Then he held his hand down, lying on the top; I took it, and,
+stiffened as I was, I contrived to get up beside him. "That is right,"
+he said in a whisper. "Now lie here quietly, don't speak a word, and
+just watch."
+
+I lay, with a sense of something evil about. Presently I heard the sound
+of voices in the mist to the left of us; and in an instant there loomed
+out of the mist the form of a man, who was immediately followed by three
+others. They were different from all the other spirits I had yet
+seen--tall, lean, dark men, very spare and strong. They looked carefully
+about them, mostly glancing down the cliff, and sometimes conferred
+together. They were dressed in close-fitting dark clothes, which seemed
+as if made out of some kind of skin or untanned leather, and their whole
+air was sinister and terrifying. They passed quite close beneath us, so
+that I saw the bald head of one of them, who carried a sort of hook in
+his hands.
+
+When they got to the place where my climb had ended, they stopped and
+examined the stones carefully: one of them clambered a few feet down the
+cliff. Then he came back and seemed to make a brief report, after which
+they appeared undecided what to do; they even looked up at the rock
+where we lay; but while they did this, another man, very similar, came
+hurriedly out of the mist, said something to the group, and they all
+disappeared very quickly into the darkness the same way they had come.
+Then there was a silence. I should have spoken, but Amroth put a finger
+on his lips. Presently there came a sound of falling stones, and after
+that there broke out among the rocks below a horrible crying, as of a
+man in sore straits and instant fear. Amroth jumped quickly to his feet.
+"This will not do," he said. "Stay here for me." And then leaping down
+the rock, he disappeared, shouting words of help--"Hold on--I am
+coming."
+
+He came back some little time afterwards, and I saw that he was not
+alone. He had with him an old stumbling man, evidently in the last
+extremity of terror and pain, with beads of sweat on his brow and blood
+running down from his hands. He seemed dazed and bewildered. And Amroth
+too looked ruffled and almost weary, as I had never seen him look. I
+came down the rock to meet them. But Amroth said, "Wait here for me; it
+has been a troublesome business, and I must go and bestow this poor
+creature in a place of safety--I will return." He led the old man away
+among the rocks, and I waited a long time, wondering very heavily what
+it was that I had seen.
+
+When Amroth came back to the rock he was fresh and smiling again: he
+swung himself up, and sat by me, with his hands clasped round his knees.
+Then he looked at me, and said, "I daresay you are surprised? You did
+not expect to see such terrors and dangers here? And it is a great
+mystery."
+
+"You must be kind," I said, "and explain to me what has happened."
+
+"Well," said Amroth, "there is a large gang of men who infest this
+place, who have got up here by their agility, and can go no further,
+who make it their business to prevent all they can from coming up. I
+confess that it is the hardest thing of all to understand why it is
+allowed; but if you expect all to be plain sailing up here, you are
+mistaken. One needs to be wary and strong. They do much harm here, and
+will continue to do it."
+
+"What would have happened if they had found us here?" I said.
+
+"Nothing very much," said Amroth; "a good deal of talk no doubt, and
+some blows perhaps. But it was well I was with you, because I could have
+summoned help. They are not as strong as they look either--it is mostly
+fear that aids them."
+
+"Well, but _who_ are they?" I said.
+
+"They are the most troublesome crew of all," said Amroth, "and come
+nearest to the old idea of fiends--they are indeed the origin of that
+notion. To speak plainly, they are men who have lived virtuous lives,
+and have done cruel things from good motives. There are some kings and
+statesmen among them, but they are mostly priests and schoolmasters,
+I imagine--people with high ideals, of course! But they are not
+replenished so fast as they used to be, I think. Their difficulty is
+that they can never see that they are wrong. Their notion is that this
+is a bad place to come to, and that people are better left in ignorance
+and bliss, obedient and submissive. A good many of them have given up
+the old rough methods, and hang about the base of the cliff, dissuading
+souls from climbing: they do the most harm of all, because if one does
+turn back here, it is long before one may make a new attempt. But enough
+of this," he added; "it makes me sick to think of them--the old fellow
+you saw with me had an awful fright--he was nearly done as it was! But I
+see you are feeling stronger, and I think we had better be going. One
+does not stay here by choice, though the place has a beauty of its own.
+And now you will have an easier time for awhile."
+
+We descended from our rock, and Amroth led the way, through a long
+cleft, with rocks, very rough and black, on either side, and fallen
+fragments under foot. It was steep at first; but soon the rocks grew
+lower; and we came out presently on to a great desolate plain, with
+stones lying thickly about, among a coarse kind of grass. At each step I
+seemed to grow stronger, and walked more lightly, and in the thin fine
+air my horrors left me, though I still had a dumb sense of suffering
+which, strange to say, I found it almost pleasant to resist. And so we
+walked for a time in friendly silence, Amroth occasionally indicating
+the way. The hill began to slope downwards very slowly, and the wind to
+subside. The mist drew off little by little, till at last I saw ahead of
+us a great bare-looking fortress with high walls and little windows, and
+a great blank tower over all.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+We were received at the guarded door of the fortress by a porter, who
+seemed to be well acquainted with Amroth. Within, it was a big, bare
+place, with, stone-arched cloisters and corridors, more like a monastery
+than a castle. Amroth led me briskly along the passages, and took me
+into a large room very sparely furnished, where an elderly man sat
+writing at a table with his back to the light. He rose when we entered,
+and I had a sudden sense that I was coming to school again, as indeed I
+was. Amroth greeted him with a mixture of freedom and respect, as a
+well-loved pupil might treat an old schoolmaster. The man himself was
+tall and upright, and serious-looking, but for a twinkle of humour that
+lurked in his eye; yet I felt he was one who expected to be obeyed. He
+took Amroth into the embrasure of a window, and talked with him in low
+tones. Then he came back to me and asked me a few questions of which I
+did not then understand the drift--but it seemed a kind of very informal
+examination. Then he made us a little bow of dismissal, and sat down at
+once to his writing without giving us another look. Amroth took me out,
+and led me up many stone stairs, along whitewashed passages, with narrow
+windows looking out on the plain, to a small cell or room near the top
+of the castle. It was very austerely furnished, but it had a little door
+which took us out on the leads, and I then saw what a very large place
+the fortress was, consisting of several courts with a great central
+tower.
+
+"Where on earth have we got to now?" I said.
+
+"Nowhere '_on earth_,'" said Amroth. "You are at school again, and you
+will find it very interesting, I hope and expect, but it will be hard
+work. I will tell you plainly that you are lucky to be here, because if
+you do well, you will have the best sort of work to do."
+
+"But what am I to do, and where am I to go?" I said. "I feel like a new
+boy, with all sorts of dreadful rules in the background."
+
+"That will all be explained to you," said Amroth. "And now good-bye for
+the present. Let me hear a good report of you," he added, with a
+parental air, "when I come again. What would not we older fellows give
+to be back here!" he added with a half-mocking smile. "Let me tell you,
+my boy, you have got the happiest time of your life ahead of you. Well,
+be a credit to your friends!"
+
+He gave me a nod and was gone. I stood for a little looking out rather
+desolately into the plain. There came a brisk tap at my door, and a man
+entered. He greeted me pleasantly, gave me a few directions, and I
+gathered that he was one of the instructors. "You will find it hard
+work," he said; "we do not waste time here. But I gather that you have
+had rather a troublesome ascent, so you can rest a little. When you are
+required, you will be summoned."
+
+When he left me, I still felt very weary, and lay down on a little couch
+in the room, falling presently asleep. I was roused by the entry of a
+young man, who said he had been sent to fetch me: we went down along the
+passages, while he talked pleasantly in low tones about the arrangements
+of the place. As we went along the passages, the doors of the cells kept
+opening, and we were joined by young men and women, who spoke to me or
+to each other, but all in the same subdued voices, till at last we
+entered a big, bare, arched room, lit by high windows, with rows of
+seats, and a great desk or pulpit at the end. I looked round me in great
+curiosity. There must have been several hundred people present, sitting
+in rows. There was a murmur of talk over the hall, till a bell suddenly
+sounded somewhere in the castle, a door opened, a man stepped quickly
+into the pulpit, and began to speak in a very clear and distinct tone.
+
+The discourse--and all the other discourses to which I listened in the
+place--was of a psychological kind, dealing entirely with the relations
+of human beings with each other, and the effect and interplay of
+emotions. It was extremely scientific, but couched in the simplest
+phraseology, and made many things clear to me which had formerly been
+obscure. There is nothing in the world so bewildering as the selective
+instinct of humanity, the reasons which draw people to each other, the
+attractive power of similarity and dissimilarity, the effects of class
+and caste, the abrupt approaches of passion, the influence of the body
+on the soul and of the soul on the body. It came upon me with a shock of
+surprise that while these things are the most serious realities in the
+world, and undoubtedly more important than any other thing, little
+attempt is made by humanity to unravel or classify them. I cannot here
+enter into the details of these instructions, which indeed would be
+unintelligible, but they showed me at first what I had not at all
+apprehended, namely the proportionate importance and unimportance of all
+the passions and emotions which regulate our relations with other souls.
+These discourses were given at regular intervals, and much of our time
+was spent in discussing together or working out in solitude the details
+of psychological problems, which we did with the exactness of chemical
+analysis.
+
+What I soon came to understand was that the whole of psychology is ruled
+by the most exact and immutable laws, in which there is nothing
+fortuitous or abnormal, and that the exact course of an emotion can be
+predicted with perfect certainty if only all the data are known.
+
+One of the most striking parts of these discourses was the fact that
+they were accompanied by illustrations. I will describe the first of
+these which I saw. The lecturer stopped for an instant and held up his
+hand. In the middle of one of the side-walls of the room was a great
+shallow arched recess. In this recess there suddenly appeared a scene,
+not as though it were cast by a lantern on the wall, but as if the wall
+were broken down, and showed a room beyond.
+
+In the room, a comfortably furnished apartment, there sat two people, a
+husband and wife, middle-aged people, who were engaged in a miserable
+dispute about some very trivial matter. The wife was shrill and
+provocative, the husband curt and contemptuous. They were obviously not
+really concerned about the subject they were discussing--it only formed
+a ground for disagreeable personalities. Presently the man went out,
+saying harshly that it was very pleasant to come back from his work, day
+after day, to these scenes; to which the woman fiercely retorted that it
+was all his own fault; and when he was gone, she sat for a time
+mechanically knitting, with the tears trickling down her cheeks, and
+every now and then glancing at the door. After which, with great
+secrecy, she helped herself to some spirits which she took from a
+cupboard.
+
+The scene was one of the most vulgar and debasing that can be described
+or imagined; and it was curious to watch the expressions on the faces of
+my companions. They wore the air of trained doctors or nurses, watching
+some disagreeable symptoms, with a sort of trained and serene
+compassion, neither shocked nor grieved. Then the situation was
+discussed and analysed, and various suggestions were made which were
+dealt with by the lecturer, in a way which showed me that there was much
+for us to master and to understand.
+
+There were many other such illustrations given. They were, I discovered,
+by no means imaginary cases, projected into our minds by a kind of
+mental suggestion, but actual things happening upon earth. We saw many
+strange scenes of tragedy, we had a glimpse of lunatic asylums and
+hospitals, of murder even, and of evil passions of anger and lust. We
+saw scenes of grief and terror; and, stranger still, we saw many things
+that were being enacted not on the earth, but upon other planets, where
+the forms and appearances of the creatures concerned were fantastic and
+strange enough, but where the motive and the emotion were all perfectly
+clear. At times, too, we saw scenes that were beautiful and touching,
+high and heroic beyond words. These seemed to come rather by contrast
+and for encouragement; for the work was distinctly pathological, and
+dealt with the disasters and complications of emotions, as a rule,
+rather than with their glories and radiances. But it was all incredibly
+absorbing and interesting, though what it was to lead up to I did not
+quite discern. What struck me was the concentration of effort upon human
+emotion, and still more the fact that other hopes and passions, such as
+ambition and acquisitiveness, as well as all material and economic
+problems, were treated as infinitely insignificant, as just the
+framework of human life, only interesting in so far as the baser and
+meaner elements of circumstance can just influence, refining or
+coarsening, the highest traits of character and emotion.
+
+We were given special cases, too, to study and consider, and here I had
+the first inkling of how far it is possible for disembodied spirits to
+be in touch with those who are still in the body.
+
+As far as I can see, no direct intellectual contact is possible, except
+under certain circumstances. There is, of course, a great deal of
+thought-vibration taking place in the world, to which the best analogy
+is wireless telegraphy. There exists an all-pervading emotional medium,
+into which every thought that is tinged with emotion sends a ripple.
+Thoughts which are concerned with personal emotion send the firmest
+ripple into this medium, and all other thoughts and passions affect it,
+not in proportion to the intensity of the thought, but to the nature of
+the thought. The scale is perfectly determined and quite unalterable;
+thus a thought, however strong and intense, which is concerned with
+wealth or with personal ambition sends a very little ripple into the
+medium, while a thought of affection is very noticeable indeed, and more
+noticeable in proportion as it is purer and less concerned with any kind
+of bodily passion. Thus, strange to say, the thought of a father for a
+child is a stronger thought than that of a lover for his beloved. I do
+not know the exact scale of force, which is as exact as that of chemical
+values--and of course such emotions are apt to be complex and intricate;
+but the purer and simpler the thought is, the greater is its force.
+Perhaps the prayers that one prays for those whom one loves send the
+strongest ripple of all. If it happens that two of these ripples of
+personal emotion are closely similar, a reflex action takes place; and
+thus is explained the phenomenon which often takes place, the sudden
+sense of a friend's personality, if that friend, in absence, writes one
+a letter, or bends his mind intently upon one. It also explains the way
+in which some national or cosmic emotion suddenly gains simultaneous
+force, and vibrates in thousands of minds at the same time.
+
+The body, by its joys and sufferings alike, offers a great obstruction
+to these emotional waves. In the land of spirits, as I have indicated,
+an intention of congenial wills gives an instantaneous perception; but
+this seems impossible between an embodied spirit and a disembodied
+spirit. The only communication which seems possible is that of a vague
+emotion; and it seems quite impossible for any sort of intellectual idea
+to be directly communicated by a disembodied spirit to an embodied
+spirit.
+
+On the other hand, the intellectual processes of an embodied spirit are
+to a certain extent perceptible by a disembodied spirit; but there is a
+condition to this, and that is that some emotional sympathy must have
+existed between the two on earth. If there is no such sympathy, then the
+body is an absolute bar.
+
+I could look into the mind of Amroth and see his thought take shape, as
+I could look into a stream, and see a fish dart from a covert of weed.
+But with those still in the body it is different. And I will therefore
+proceed to describe a single experience which will illustrate my point.
+
+I was ordered to study the case of a former friend of my own who was
+still living upon earth. Nothing was told me about him, but, sitting in
+my cell, I put myself into communication with him upon earth. He had
+been a contemporary of mine at the university, and we had many interests
+in common. He was a lawyer; we did not very often meet, but when we did
+meet it was always with great cordiality and sympathy. I now found him
+ill and suffering from overwork, in a very melancholy state. When I
+first visited him, he was sitting alone, in the garden of a little
+house in the country. I could see that he was ill and sad; he was making
+pretence to read, but the book was wholly disregarded.
+
+When I attempted to put my mind into communication with his, it was very
+difficult to see the drift of his thoughts. I was like a man walking in
+a dense fog, who can just discern at intervals recognisable objects as
+they come within his view; but there was no general prospect and no
+distance. His mind seemed a confused current of distressing memories;
+but there came a time when his thought dwelt for a moment upon myself;
+he wished that I could be with him, that he might speak of some of his
+perplexities. In that instant, the whole grew clearer, and little by
+little I was enabled to trace the drift of his thoughts. I became aware
+that though he was indeed suffering from overwork, yet that his enforced
+rest only removed the mental distraction of his work, and left his mind
+free to revive a whole troop of painful thoughts. He had been a man of
+strong personal ambitions, and had for twenty years been endeavouring to
+realise them. Now a sense of the comparative worthlessness of his aims
+had come upon him. He had despised and slighted other emotions; and his
+mind had in consequence drifted away like a boat into a bitter and
+barren sea. He was a lonely man, and he was feeling that he had done ill
+in not multiplying human emotions and relations. He reflected much upon
+the way in which he had neglected and despised his home affections,
+while he had formed no ties of his own. Now, too, his career seemed to
+him at an end, and he had nothing to look forward to but a maimed and
+invalided life of solitude and failure. Many of his thoughts I could not
+discern at all--the mist, so to speak, involved them--while many were
+obscure to me. When he thought about scenes and people whom I had never
+known, the thought loomed shapeless and dark; but when he thought, as he
+often did, about his school and university days, and about his home
+circle, all of which scenes were familiar to me, I could read his mind
+with perfect clearness. At the bottom of all lay a sense of deep
+disappointment and resentment. He doubted the justice of God, and blamed
+himself but little for his miseries. It was a sad experience at first,
+because he was falling day by day into more hopeless dejection; while he
+refused the pathetic overtures of sympathy which the relations in whose
+house he was--a married sister with her husband and children--offered
+him. He bore himself with courtesy and consideration, but he was so much
+worn with fatigue and despondency that he could not take any initiative.
+But I became aware very gradually that he was learning the true worth
+and proportion of things--and the months which passed so heavily for him
+brought him perceptions of the value of which he was hardly aware. Let
+me say that it was now that the incredible swiftness of time in the
+spiritual region made itself felt for me. A month of his sufferings
+passed to me, contemplating them, like an hour.
+
+I found to my surprise that his thoughts of myself were becoming more
+frequent; and one day when he was turning over some old letters and
+reading a number of mine, it seemed to me that his spirit almost
+recognised my presence in the words which came to his lips, "It seems
+like yesterday!" I then became blessedly aware that I was actually
+helping him, and that the very intentness of my own thought was
+quickening his own.
+
+I discussed the whole case very closely and carefully with one of our
+instructors, who set me right on several points and made the whole state
+of things clear to me.
+
+I said to him, "One thing bewilders me; it would almost seem that a
+man's work upon earth constituted an interruption and a distraction from
+spiritual influences. It cannot surely be that people in the body should
+avoid employment, and give themselves to secluded meditation? If the
+soul grows fast in sadness and despondency, it would seem that one
+should almost have courted sorrow on earth; and yet I cannot believe
+that to be the case."
+
+"No," he said, "it is not the case; the body has here to be considered.
+No amount of active exertion clouds the eye of the soul, if only the
+motive of it is pure and lofty, and if the soul is only set patiently
+and faithfully upon the true end of life. The body indeed requires due
+labour and exercise, and the soul can gain health and clearness thereby.
+But what does cloud the spirit is if it gives itself wholly up to narrow
+personal aims and ambitions, and uses friendship and love as mere
+recreations and amusements. Sickness and sorrow are not, as we used to
+think, fortuitous things; they are given to those who need them, as high
+and rich opportunities; and they come as truly blessed gifts, when they
+break a man's thought off from material things, and make him fall back
+upon the loving affections and relations of life. When one re-enters
+the world, a woman's life is sometimes granted to a spirit, because a
+woman by circumstance and temperament is less tempted to decline upon
+meaner ambitions and interests than a man; but work and activity are no
+hindrances to spiritual growth, so long as the soul waits upon God, and
+desires to learn the lessons of life, rather than to enforce its own
+conclusions upon others."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I see that. What, then, is the great hindrance in the
+life of men?"
+
+"Authority," he said, "whether given or taken. That is by far the
+greatest difficulty that a soul has to contend with. The knowledge of
+the true conditions of life is so minute and yet so imperfect, when one
+is in the body, that the man or woman who thinks it a duty to
+disapprove, to correct, to censure, is in the gravest danger. In the
+first place it is so impossible to disentangle the true conditions of
+any human life; to know how far those failures which are lightly called
+sins are inherited instincts of the body, or the manifestation of
+immaturity of spirit. Complacency, hard righteousness, spiritual
+security, severe judgments, are the real foes of spiritual growth; and
+if a man is in a position to enforce his influence and his will upon
+others, he can fall very low indeed, and suspend his own growth for a
+very long and sad period. It is not the criticism or the analysis of
+others which hurts the soul, so long as it remains modest and sincere
+and conscious of its own weaknesses. It is when we indulge in secure or
+compassionate comparisons of our own superior worth that we go
+backwards."
+
+This was but one of the many cases which I had to investigate. I do not
+say that this is the work of all spirits in the other world--it is not
+so; there are many kinds of work and occupation. This was the one now
+allotted to me; but I did become aware of the intense and loving
+interest which is bent upon the souls of the living by those who are
+departed. There is not a soul alive who is not being thus watched and
+tended, and helped, as far as help is possible; for no one is ever
+forced or compelled or frightened into truth, only drawn and wooed by
+love and care.
+
+I must say a word, too, of the great and noble friendships which I
+formed at this period of my existence. We were not free to make many of
+these at a time. Love seems to be the one thing that demands an entire
+concentration, and though in the world of spirits I became aware that
+one could be conscious of many of the thoughts of those about me
+simultaneously, yet the emotion of love, in the earlier stages, is
+single and exclusive.
+
+I will speak of two only. There were a young man and a young woman who
+were much associated with me at that time, whom I will call Philip and
+Anna. Philip was one of the most beautiful of all the spirits I ever
+came near. His last life upon earth had been a long one, and he had been
+a teacher. I used to tell him that I wished I had been under him as a
+pupil, to which he replied, laughing, that I should have found him very
+uninteresting. He said to me once that the way in which he had always
+distinguished the two kinds of teachers on earth had been by whether
+they were always anxious to teach new books and new subjects, or went on
+contentedly with the old. "The pleasure," he said, "was in the teaching,
+in making the thought clear, in tempting the boys to find out what they
+knew all the time; and the oftener I taught a subject the better I liked
+it; it was like a big cog-wheel, with a number of little cog-wheels
+turning with it. But the men who were always wanting to change their
+subjects were the men who thought of their own intellectual interest
+first, and very little of the small interests revolving upon it." The
+charm of Philip was the charm of extreme ingenuousness combined with
+daring insight. He never seemed to be shocked or distressed by anything.
+He said one day, "It was not the sensual or the timid or the
+ill-tempered boys who used to make me anxious. Those were definite
+faults and brought definite punishment; it was the hard-hearted,
+virtuous, ambitious, sensible boys, who were good-humoured and
+respectable and selfish, who bothered me; one wanted to shake them as a
+terrier shakes a rat--but there was nothing to get hold of. They were a
+credit to themselves and to their parents and to the school; and yet
+they went downhill with every success."
+
+Anna was a woman of singularly unselfish and courageous temperament. She
+had been, in the course of her last life upon earth, a hospital nurse;
+and she used to speak gratefully of the long periods when she was
+nursing some anxious case, when she had interchanged day and night,
+sleeping when the world was awake, and sitting with a book or needlework
+by the sick-bed, through the long darkness. "People used to say to me
+that it must be so depressing; but those were my happiest hours, as the
+dark brightened into dawn, when many of the strange mysteries of life
+and pain and death gave up their secrets to me. But of course," she
+added with a smile, "it was all very dim to me. I felt the truth rather
+than saw it; and it is a great joy to me to perceive now what was
+happening, and how the sad, bewildered hours of pain and misery leave
+their blessed marks upon the soul, like the tools of the graver on the
+gem. If only we could learn to plan a little less and to believe a
+little more, how much simpler it would all be!"
+
+These two became very dear to me, and I learnt much heavenly wisdom from
+them in long, quiet conferences, where we spoke frankly of all we had
+felt and known.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+It was at this time, I think, that a great change came over my thoughts,
+or rather that I realised that a great change had gradually taken place.
+Till now, I had been dominated and haunted by memories of my latest life
+upon earth; but at intervals there had visited me a sense of older and
+purer recollections. I cannot describe exactly how it came about--and,
+indeed, the memory of what my heavenly progress had hitherto been, as
+opposed to my earthly experience, was never very clear to me; but I
+became aware that my life in heaven--I will call it heaven for want of a
+better name--was my real continuous life, my home-life, so to speak,
+while my earthly lives had been, to pursue the metaphor, like terms
+which a boy spends at school, in which he is aware that he not only
+learns definite and tangible things, but that his character is hardened
+and consolidated by coming into contact with the rougher facts of
+life--duty, responsibility, friendships, angers, treacheries,
+temptations, routine. The boy returns with gladness to the serener and
+sweeter atmosphere of home; and just in the same way I felt I had
+returned to the larger and purer life of heaven. But, as I say, the
+recollection of my earlier life in heaven, my occupations and
+experience, was never clear to me, but rather as a luminous and haunting
+mist. I questioned Amroth about this once, and he said that this was the
+universal experience, and that the earthly lives one lived were like
+deep trenches cut across a path, and seemed to interrupt the heavenly
+sequence; but that as the spirit grew more pure and wise, the
+consciousness of the heavenly life became more distinct and secure. But
+he added, what I did not quite understand, that there was little need of
+memory in the life of heaven, and that it was to a great extent the
+inheritance of the body. Memory, he said, was to a great extent an
+interruption to life; the thought of past failures and mistakes, and
+especially of unkindnesses and misunderstandings, tended to obscure and
+complicate one's relations with other souls; but that in heaven, where
+activity and energy were untiring and unceasing, one lived far more in
+the emotion and work of the moment, and less in retrospect and prospect.
+What mattered was actual experience and the effect of experience; memory
+itself was but an artistic method of dealing with the past, and
+corresponded to fanciful and delightful anticipations of the future.
+"The truth is," he said, "that the indulgence of memory is to a great
+extent a mere sentimental weakness; to live much in recollection is a
+sign of exhausted and depleted vitality. The further you are removed
+from your last earthly life, the less tempted you will be to recall it.
+The highest spirits of all here," he said, "have no temptation ever to
+revert to retrospect, because the pure energies of the moment are
+all-sustaining and all-sufficing."
+
+The only trace I ever noticed of any memory of my past life in heaven
+was that things sometimes seemed surprisingly familiar to me, and that I
+had the sense of a serene permanence, which possessed and encompassed
+me. Indeed I came to believe that the strange feeling of permanence
+which haunts one upon earth, when one is happy and content, even though
+one knows that everything is changing and shifting around one, and that
+all is precarious and uncertain, is in itself a memory of the serene and
+untroubled continuance of heaven, and a desire to taste it and realise
+it.
+
+Be this as it may, from the time of my finding my settled task and
+ordered place in the heavenly community the memories of my old life upon
+earth began to fade from my thoughts. I could, indeed, always recall
+them by an effort, but there seemed less and less inclination to do so
+the more I became absorbed in my heavenly activities.
+
+One thing I noticed in these days; it surprised me very greatly, till I
+reflected that my surprise was but the consequence of the strange and
+mournful blindness with regard to spiritual things in which we live
+under the dark skies of earth. We have there a false idea that somehow
+or other death takes all the individuality out of a man, obliterating
+all the whims, prejudices, the thorny and unreasonable dislikes and
+fancies, oddities, tempers, roughnesses, and subtlenesses from a
+temperament. Of course there are a good many of these things which
+disappear together with the body, such as the glooms, suspicions, and
+cloudy irritabilities, which are caused by fatigue and malaise, and by
+ill-health generally. But a man's whims and fancies and dislikes do not
+by any means disappear on earth when he is in good health; on the
+contrary, they are often apt to be accentuated and emphasised when he is
+free from pain and care and anxiety, and riding blithely over the waves
+of life. Indeed there are men whom I have known who are never kind or
+sympathetic till they are in some wearing trouble of their own; when
+they are prosperous and cheerful, they are frankly intolerable, because
+their mirth turns to derision and insolence.
+
+But one of the reasons why the heavenly life is apt to appear in
+prospect so wearisome a thing is, because we are brought up to feel that
+the whole character is flattened out and charged with a serene kind of
+priggishness, which takes all the salt out of life. The word "saintly,"
+so terribly misapplied on earth, grows to mean, to many of us, an
+irritating sort of kindness, which treats the interests and animated
+elements of life with a painful condescension, and a sympathy of which
+the basis is duty rather than love. The true sanctification, which I
+came to perceive something of later, is the result of a process of
+endless patience and infinite delay, and the attainment of it implies a
+humility, seven times refined in the fires of self-contempt, in which
+there remains no smallest touch of superiority or aloofness. How utterly
+depressing is the feigned interest of the imperfect human saint in
+matters of mundane concern! How it takes at once both the joy out of
+holiness and the spirit out of human effort! It is as dreary as the
+professional sympathy of the secluded student for the news of athletic
+contests, as the tolerance of the shrewd man of science for the feminine
+logic of religious sentiment!
+
+But I found to my great content that whatever change had passed over the
+spirits of my companions, they had at least lost no fibre of their
+individuality. The change that had passed over them was like the change
+that passes over a young man, who has lived at the University among
+dilettante literary designs and mild sociological theorising, when he
+finds himself plunged into the urgent practical activities of the world.
+Our happiness was the happiness which comes of intense toil, with no
+fatigue to dog it, and from a consciousness of the vital issues which
+we were pursuing. But my companions had still intellectual faults and
+preferences, self-confidence, critical intolerance, boisterousness,
+wilfulness. Stranger still, I found coldness, anger, jealousy, still at
+work. Of course in the latter case reconciliation was easier, both in
+the light of common enthusiasm and, still more, because mental
+communication was so much swifter and easier than it had been on earth.
+There was no need of those protracted talks, those tiresome explanations
+which clever people, who really love and esteem each other, fall into on
+earth--the statements which affirm nothing, the explanations which
+elucidate nothing, because of the intricacies of human speech and the
+fact that people use the same words with such different implications and
+meanings. All those became unnecessary, because one could pierce
+instantaneously into the very essence of the soul, and manifest, without
+the need of expression, the regard and affection which lay beneath the
+cross-currents of emotion. But love and affection waxed and waned in
+heaven as on earth; it was weakened and it was transferred. Few souls
+are so serene on earth as to see with perfect equanimity a friend, whom
+one loves and trusts, becoming absorbed in some new and exciting
+emotion, which may not perhaps obliterate the original regard, but which
+must withdraw from it for a time the energy which fed the flame of the
+intermitted relation.
+
+It was very strange to me to realise the fact that friendships and
+intimacies were formed as on earth, and that they lost their freshness,
+either from some lack of real congeniality or from some divergence of
+development. Sometimes, I may add, our teachers were consulted by the
+aggrieved, sometimes they even intervened unasked.
+
+I will freely confess that this all immensely heightened the interests
+to me of our common life. One could see two spirits drawn together by
+some secret tie of emotion, and one could see some further influence
+strike across and suspend it. One case of this I will mention, which is
+typical of many. There came among us an extremely lively and rather
+whimsical spirit, more like a boy than a man. I wondered at first why he
+was chosen for this work, because he seemed both fitful and even
+capricious; but I gradually realised in him an extraordinary fineness of
+perception, and a swiftness of intuition almost unrivalled. He had a
+power of weighing almost by instinct the constituent elements of
+character, which seemed to me something like the power of tonality in a
+musician, the gift of recognising, by pure faculty, what any notes may
+be, however confusedly jangled on an instrument. It was wonderful to me
+how often his instantaneous judgments proved more sagacious than our
+carefully formed conclusions.
+
+This boy became extraordinarily attractive to an older woman who was one
+of our number, who was solitary and abstracted, and of an intense
+seriousness of devotion to her work. It was evident both that she felt
+his charm intensely and that her disposition was wholly alien to the
+disposition of the boy himself. In fact, she simply bored him. He took
+all that he did lightly, and achieved by an intense momentary
+concentration what she could only achieve by slow reflection. This
+devotion had in it something that was strangely pathetic, because it
+took the form in her of making her wish to conciliate the boy's
+admiration, by treating thoughts and ideas with a lightness and a humour
+to which she could by no means attain, and which made things worse
+rather than better, because she could read so easily, in the thoughts of
+others, the impression that she was attempting a handling of topics
+which she could not in the least accomplish. But advice was useless.
+There it was, the old, fierce, constraining attraction of love, as it
+had been of old, making havoc of comfortable arrangements, attempting
+the impossible; and yet one knew that she would gain by the process,
+that she was opening a door in her heart that had hitherto been closed,
+and learning a largeness of view and sympathy in the process. Her fault
+had ever been, no doubt, to estimate slow and accurate methods too
+highly, and to believe that all was insecure and untrustworthy that was
+not painfully accumulated. Now she saw that genius could accomplish
+without effort or trouble what no amount of homely energy could effect,
+and a new horizon was unveiled to her. But on the boy it did not seem to
+have the right result. He might have learned to extend his sympathy to a
+nature so dumb and plodding; and this coldness of his called down a
+rebuke of what seemed almost undue sternness from one of our teachers.
+It was not given in my presence, but the boy, bewildered by the severity
+which he did not anticipate, coupled indeed with a hint that he must be
+prepared, if he could not exhibit a more elastic sympathy, to have his
+course suspended in favour of some more simple discipline, told me the
+whole matter. "What am I to do?" he said. "I cannot care for Barbara;
+her whole nature upsets me and revolts me. I know she is very good and
+all that, but I simply am not myself when she is by; it is like taking a
+run with a tortoise!"
+
+"Well," I said, "no one expects you to give up all your time to taking
+tortoises for runs; but I suppose that tortoises have their rights, and
+must not be jerked along on their backs, like a sledge."
+
+"Oh," said he, "you are all against me, I know; and I am not sure that
+this place is not rather too solemn for me. What is the good of being
+wiser than the aged, if one has more commandments to keep?"
+
+Things, however, settled down in time. Barbara, I think, must have been
+taken to task as well, because she gave up her attempts at wit; and the
+end of it was that a quiet friendship sprang up between the incongruous
+pair, like that between a wayward young brother and a plain, kindly,
+and elderly sister, of a very fine and chivalrous kind.
+
+It must not be thought that we spent our time wholly in these emotional
+relations. It was a place of hard and urgent work; but I came to realise
+that, just as on earth, institutions like schools and colleges, where a
+great variety of natures are gathered in close and daily contact, are
+shot through and through with strange currents of emotion, which some
+people pay no attention to, and others dismiss as mere sentimentality,
+so it was also bound to be beyond, with this difference, that whereas on
+earth we are shy and awkward with our friendships, and all sorts of
+physical complications intervene, in the other world they assume their
+frank importance. I saw that much of what is called the serious business
+of life is simply and solely necessitated by bodily needs, and is really
+entirely temporary and trivial, while the real life of the soul, which
+underlies it all, stifled and subdued, pent-up uneasily and cramped
+unkindly like a bright spring of water under the superincumbent earth,
+finds its way at last to the light. On earth we awkwardly divide this
+impulse; we speak of the relation of the soul to others and of the
+relation of the soul to God as two separate things. We pass over the
+words of Christ in the Gospel, which directly contradict this, and which
+make the one absolutely dependent on, and conditional on, the other. We
+speak of human affection as a thing which may come in between the soul
+and God, while it is in reality the swiftest access thither. We speak as
+though ambition were itself made more noble, if it sternly abjures all
+multiplication of human tenderness. We speak of a life which sacrifices
+material success to emotion as a failure and an irresponsible affair.
+The truth is the precise opposite. All the ambitions which have their
+end in personal prestige are wholly barren; the ambitions which aim at
+social amelioration have a certain nobility about them, though they
+substitute a tortuous by-path for a direct highway. And the plain truth
+is that all social amelioration would grow up as naturally and as
+fragrantly as a flower, if we could but refine and strengthen and awaken
+our slumbering emotions, and let them grow out freely to gladden the
+little circle of earth in which we live and move.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+It was at this time that I had a memorable interview with the Master of
+the College. He appeared very little among us, though, he occasionally
+gave us a short instruction, in which he summed up the teaching on a
+certain point. He was a man of extraordinary impressiveness, mainly, I
+think, because he gave the sense of being occupied in much larger and
+wider interests. I often pondered over the question why the short,
+clear, rather dry discourses which fell from his lips appeared to be so
+far more weighty and momentous than anything else that was ever said to
+us. He used no arts of exhortation, showed no emotion, seemed hardly
+conscious of our presence; and if one caught his eye as he spoke, one
+became aware of a curious tremor of awe. He never made any appeal to our
+hearts or feelings; but it always seemed as if he had condescended for
+a moment to put aside far bigger and loftier designs in order to drop a
+fruit of ripened wisdom in our way. He came among us, indeed, like a
+statesman rather than like a teacher. The brief interviews we had with
+him were regarded with a sort of terror, but produced, in me at least,
+an almost fanatical respect and admiration. And yet I had no reason to
+suppose that he was not, like all of us, subject to the law of life and
+pilgrimage, though one could not conceive of him as having to enter the
+arena of life again as a helpless child!
+
+On this occasion I was summoned suddenly to his presence. I found him,
+as usual, bent over his work, which he did not intermit, but merely
+motioned me to be seated. Presently he put away his papers from him, and
+turned round upon me. One of the disconcerting things about him was the
+fact that his thought had a peculiarly compelling tendency, and that
+while he read one's mind in a flash, his own thoughts remained very
+nearly impenetrable. On this occasion he commended me for my work and my
+relations with my fellow-students, adding that I had made rapid
+progress. He then said, "I have two questions to ask you. Have you any
+special relations, either with any one whom you have left behind you on
+earth, or with any one with whom you have made acquaintance since you
+quitted it, which you desire to pursue?"
+
+I told him, which was the truth, that since my stay in the College I had
+become so much absorbed in the studies of the place that I seemed to
+have became strangely oblivious of my external friends, but that it was
+more a suspension than a destruction of would-be relations.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I perceive that that is your temperament. It has its
+effectiveness, no doubt, but it also has its dangers; and, whatever
+happens, one ought never to be able to accuse oneself justly of any
+disloyalty."
+
+He seemed to wait for me to speak, whereupon I mentioned a very dear
+friend of my days of earth; but I added that most of those whom I had
+loved best had predeceased me, and that I had looked forward to a
+renewal of our intercourse. I also mentioned the names of Charmides and
+Cynthia, the latter of whom was in memory strangely near to my heart.
+
+He seemed satisfied with this. Then he said, "It is true that we have to
+multiply relationships with others, both in the world and out of it; but
+we must also practise economy. We must not abandon ourselves to passing
+fancies, or be subservient to charm, while if we have made an emotional
+mistake, and have been disappointed with one whom we have taken the
+trouble to win, we must guard such conquests with a close and peculiar
+tenderness. But enough of that, for I have to ask you if there is any
+special work for which you feel yourself disposed. There is a great
+choice of employment here. You may choose, if you will, just to live
+the spiritual life and discharge whatever duties of citizenship you may
+be called upon to perform. That is what most spirits do. I need not
+perhaps tell you"--here he smiled--"that freedom from the body does not
+confer upon any one, as our poor brothers and sisters upon earth seem to
+think, a heavenly vocation. Neither of course is the earthly fallacy
+about a mere absorption in worship a true one--only to a very few is
+that conceded. Still less is this a life of leisure. To be leisurely
+here is permitted only to the wearied, and to those childish creatures
+with whom you have spent some time in their barren security. I do not
+think you are suited for the work of recording the great scheme of life,
+nor do I think you are made for a teacher. You are not sufficiently
+impartial! For mere labour you are not suited; and yet I hardly think
+you would be fit to adopt the most honourable task which your friend
+Amroth so finely fulfils--a guide and messenger. What do you think?"
+
+I said at once that I did not wish to have to make a decision, but that
+I preferred to leave it to him. I added that though I was conscious of
+my deficiencies, I did not feel conscious of any particular capacities,
+except that I found character a very fascinating study, especially in
+connection with the circumstances of life upon earth.
+
+"Very well," he said, "I think that you may perhaps be best suited to
+the work of deciding what sort of life will best befit the souls who are
+prepared to take up their life upon earth again. That is a task of deep
+and infinite concern; it may surprise you," he added, "to learn that
+this is left to the decision of other souls. But it is, of course, the
+goal at which all earthly social systems are aiming, the right
+apportionment of circumstances to temperament, and you must not be
+surprised to find that here we have gone much further in that direction,
+though even here the system is not perfected; and you cannot begin to
+apprehend that fact too soon. It is unfortunate that on earth it is
+commonly believed, owing to the deadening influence of material causes,
+that beyond the grave everything is done with a Divine unanimity. But of
+course, if that were so, further growth and development would be
+impossible, and in view of infinite perfectibility there is yet very
+much that is faulty and incomplete. But I am not sure what lies before
+you; there is something in your temperament which a little baffles me,
+and our plans may have to be changed. Your very absorption in your work,
+your quick power of forgetting and throwing off impressions has its
+dangers. But I will bear in mind what you have said, and you may for the
+present resume your studies, and I will once more commend you; you have
+done well hitherto, and I will say frankly that I regard you as capable
+of useful and honourable work." He bowed in token of dismissal, and I
+went back to my work with unbounded gratitude and enthusiasm.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+Some time after this I was surprised one morning at the sudden entrance
+of Amroth into my cell. He came in with a very bright and holiday
+aspect, and, assuming a paternal air, said that he had heard a very
+creditable account of my work and conduct, and that he had obtained
+leave for me to have an exeat. I suppose that I showed signs of
+impatience at the interruption, for he broke into a laugh, and said,
+"Well, I am going to insist. I believe you are working too hard, and we
+must not overstrain our faculties. It was bad enough, in the old days,
+but then it was generally the poor body which suffered first. But indeed
+it is quite possible to overwork here, and you have the dim air of the
+pale student. Come," he said, "whatever happens, do not become priggish.
+Not to want a holiday is a sign of spiritual pride. Besides, I have
+some curious things to show you."
+
+I got up and said that I was ready, and Amroth led the way like a boy
+out for a holiday. He was brimming over with talk, and told me some
+stories about my friends in the land of delight, interspersing them with
+imitation of their manner and gesture, which made me giggle--Amroth was
+an admirable mimic. "I had hopes of Charmides," he said; "your stay
+there aroused his curiosity. But he has gone back to his absurd tones
+and half-tones, and is nearly insupportable. Cynthia is much more
+sensible, but Lucius is a nuisance, and Charmides, by the way, has
+become absurdly jealous of him. They really are very silly; but I have a
+pleasant plot, which I will unfold to you."
+
+As we went down the interminable stairs, I said to Amroth, "There is a
+question I want to ask you. Why do we have to go and come, up and down,
+backwards and forwards, in this absurd way, as if we were still in the
+body? Why not just slip off the leads, and fly down over the crags like
+a pair of pigeons? It all seems to me so terribly material."
+
+Amroth looked at me with a smile. "I don't advise you to try," he said.
+"Why, little brother, of course we are just as limited here in these
+ways. The material laws of earth are only a type of the laws here. They
+all have a meaning which remains true."
+
+"But," I said, "we can visit the earth with incredible rapidity?"
+
+"How can I explain?" said Amroth. "Of course we can do that, because the
+material universe is so extremely small in comparison. All the stars in
+the world are here but as a heap of sand, like the motes which dance in
+a sunbeam. There is no question of size, of course! But there is such a
+thing as spiritual nearness and spiritual distance for all that. The
+souls who do not return to earth are very far off, as you will sometime
+see. But we messengers have our short cuts, and I shall take advantage
+of them to-day."
+
+We went out of the great door of the fortress, and I felt a sense of
+relief. It was good to put it all behind one. For a long time I talked
+to Amroth about all my doings. "Come," he said at last, "this will never
+do! You are becoming something of a bore! Do you know that your talk is
+very provincial? You seem to have forgotten about every one and
+everything except your Philips and Annas--very worthy creatures, no
+doubt--and the Master, who is a very able man, but not the little
+demigod you believe. You are hypnotised! It is indeed time for you to
+have a holiday. Why, I believe you have half forgotten about me, and yet
+you made a great fuss when I quitted you."
+
+I smiled, frowned, blushed. It was indeed true. Now that he was with me
+I loved him as well, indeed better than ever; but I had not been
+thinking very much about him.
+
+We went over the moorlands in the keen air, Amroth striding cleanly and
+lightly over the heather. Then we began to descend into the valley,
+through a fine forest country, somewhat like the chestnut-woods of the
+Apennines. The view was of incomparable beauty and width. I could see a
+great city far out in the plain, with a river entering it and leaving
+it, like a ribbon of silver. There were rolling ridges beyond. On the
+left rose huge, shadowy, snow-clad hills, rising to one tremendous dome
+of snow.
+
+"Where are you going to take me?" I said to Amroth.
+
+"Never mind," said he; "it's my day and my plan for once. You shall see
+what you shall see, and it will amuse me to hear your ingenuous
+conjectures."
+
+We were soon on the outskirts of the city we had seen, which seemed a
+different kind of place from any I had yet visited. It was built, I
+perceived, upon an exactly conceived plan, of a stately, classical kind
+of architecture, with great gateways and colonnades. There were people
+about, rather silent and serious-looking, soberly clad, who saluted us
+as we passed, but made no attempt to talk to us. "This is rather a
+tiresome place, I always think," said Amroth; "but you ought to see it."
+
+We went along the great street and reached a square. I was surprised at
+the elderly air of all we met. We found ourselves opposite a great
+building with a dome, like a church. People were going in under the
+portico, and we went in with them. They treated us as strangers, and
+made courteous way for us to pass.
+
+Inside, the footfalls fell dumbly upon a great carpeted floor. It was
+very like a great church, except that there was no altar or sign of
+worship. At the far end, under an alcove, was a statue of white marble
+gleaming white, with head and hand uplifted. The whole place had a
+solemn and noble air. Out of the central nave there opened a series of
+great vaulted chapels; and I could now see that in each chapel there
+was a dark figure, in a sort of pulpit, addressing a standing audience.
+There were names on scrolls over the doors of the light iron-work
+screens which separated the chapels from the nave, but they were in a
+language I did not understand.
+
+Amroth stopped at the third of the chapels, and said, "Here, this will
+do." We came in, and as before there was a courteous notice taken of us.
+A man in black came forward, and led us to a high seat, like a pew, near
+the preacher, from which we could survey the crowd. I was struck with
+their look of weariness combined with intentness.
+
+The lecturer, a young man, had made a pause, but upon our taking our
+places, he resumed his speech. It was a discourse, as far as I could
+make out, on the development of poetry; he was speaking of lyrical
+poetry. I will not here reproduce it. I will only say that anything more
+acute, delicate, and discriminating, and, I must add, more entirely
+valueless and pedantic, I do not think I ever heard. It must have
+required immense and complicated knowledge. He was tracing the
+development of a certain kind of dramatic lyric, and what surprised me
+was that he supplied the subtle intellectual connection, the missing
+links, so to speak, of which there is no earthly record. Let me give a
+single instance. He was accounting for a rather sudden change of thought
+in a well-known poet, and he showed that it had been brought about by
+his making the acquaintance of a certain friend who had introduced him
+to a new range of subjects, and by his study of certain books. These
+facts are unrecorded in his published biography, but the analysis of the
+lecturer, done in a few pointed sentences, not only carried conviction
+to the mind, but just, so to speak, laid the truth bare. And yet it was
+all to me incredibly sterile and arid. Not the slightest interest was
+taken in the emotional or psychological side; it was all purely and
+exactly scientific. We waited until the end of the address, which was
+greeted with decorous applause, and the hall was emptied in a moment.
+
+We visited other chapels where the same sort of thing was going on in
+other subjects. It all produced in me a sort of stupefaction, both at
+the amazing knowledge involved, and in the essential futility of it all.
+
+Before we left the building we went up to the statue, which represented
+a female figure, looking upwards, with a pure and delicate beauty of
+form and gesture that was inexpressibly and coldly lovely.
+
+We went out in silence, which seemed to be the rule of the place.
+
+When we came away from the building we were accosted by a very grave and
+courteous person, who said that he perceived that we were strangers, and
+asked if he could be of any service to us, and whether we proposed to
+make a stay of any duration. Amroth thanked him, and said smilingly that
+we were only passing through. The gentleman said that it was a pity,
+because there was much of interest to hear. "In this place," he said
+with a deprecating gesture, "we grudge every hour that is not devoted to
+thought." He went on to inquire if we were following any particular line
+of study, and as our answers were unsatisfactory, he said that we could
+not do better than begin by attending the school of literature. "I
+observed," he said, "that you were listening to our Professor, Sylvanus,
+with attention. He is devoting himself to the development of poetical
+form. It is a rich subject. It has generally been believed that poets
+work by a sort of native inspiration, and that the poetic gift is a sort
+of heightening of temperament. But Sylvanus has proved--I think I may go
+so far as to say this--that this is all pure fancy, and what is worse,
+unsound fancy. It is all merely a matter of heredity, and the apparent
+accidents on which poetical expression depends can be analysed exactly
+and precisely into the most commonplace and simple elements. It is only
+a question of proportion. Now we who value clearness of mind above
+everything, find this a very refreshing thought. The real crown and sum
+of human achievement, in the intellectual domain, is to see things
+clearly and exactly, and upon that clearness all progress depends. We
+have disposed by this time of most illusions; and the same scientific
+method is being strenuously applied to all other processes of human
+endeavour. It is even hinted that Sylvanus has practically proved that
+the imaginative element in literature is purely a taint of barbarism,
+though he has not yet announced the fact. But many of his class are
+looking forward to his final lecture on the subject as to a profoundly
+sensational event, which is likely to set a deep mark upon all our
+conceptions of literary endeavour. So that," he said with a tolerant
+smile, gently rubbing his hands together, "our life here is not by any
+means destitute of the elements of excitement, though we most of us, of
+course, aim at the acquisition of a serene and philosophic temper. But
+I must not delay you," he added; "there is much to see and to hear, and
+you will be welcomed everywhere: and indeed I am myself somewhat closely
+engaged, though in a subject which is not fraught with such polite
+emollience. I attend the school of metaphysics, from which we have at
+last, I hope, eliminated the last traces of that debasing element of
+psychology, which has so long vitiated the exact study of the subject."
+
+He took himself off with a bow, and I gazed blankly at Amroth. "The
+conversation of that very polite person," I said, "is like a bad dream!
+What is this extraordinarily depressing place? Shall I have to undergo a
+course here?"
+
+"No, my dear boy," said Amroth. "This is rather out of your depth. But I
+am somewhat disappointed at your view of the situation. Surely these are
+all very important matters? Your disposition is, I am afraid, incurably
+frivolous! How could people be more worthily employed than in getting
+rid of the last traces of intellectual error, and in referring
+everything to its actual origin? Did not your heart burn within you at
+his luminous exposition? I had always thought you a boy of intellectual
+promise."
+
+"Amroth," I said, "I will not be made fun of. This is the most dreadful
+place I have ever seen or conceived of! It frightens me. The dryness of
+pure science is terrifying enough, but after all that has a kind of
+strange beauty, because it deals either with transcendental ideas of
+mathematical relation, or with the deducing of principle from
+accumulated facts. But here the object appears to be to eliminate the
+human element from humanity. I insist upon knowing where you have
+brought me, and what is going on here."
+
+"Well, then," said Amroth, "I will conceal it from you no longer. This
+is the paradise of thought, where meagre and spurious philosophers, and
+all who have submerged life in intellect, have their reward. It _is_,
+as you say, a very dreary place for children of nature like you and me.
+But I do not suppose that there is a happier or a busier place in all
+our dominions. The worst of it is that it is so terribly hard to get out
+of. It is a blind alley and leads nowhere. Every step has to be
+retraced. These people have to get a very severe dose of homely life to
+do them any good; and the worst of it is that they are so entirely
+virtuous. They have never had the time or the inclination to be anything
+else. And they are among the most troublesome and undisciplined of all
+our people. But I see you have had enough; and unless you wish to wait
+for Professor Sylvanus's sensational pronouncement, we will go
+elsewhere, and have some other sort of fun. But you must not be so much
+upset by these things."
+
+"It would kill me," I said, "to hear any more of these lectures, and if
+I had to listen to much of our polite friend's conversation, I should go
+out of my mind. I would rather fall into the hands of the cragmen! I
+would rather have a stand-up fight than be slowly stifled with
+interesting information. But where do these unhappy people come from?"
+
+"A few come from universities," said Amroth, "but they are not as a rule
+really learned men. They are more the sort of people who subscribe to
+libraries, and belong to local literary societies, and go into a good
+many subjects on their own account. But really learned men are almost
+always more aware of their ignorance than of their knowledge, and
+recognise the vitality of life, even if they do not always exhibit it.
+But come, we are losing time, and we must go further afield."
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+We went some considerable distance, after leaving our intellectual
+friends, through very beautiful wooded country, and as we went we talked
+with much animation about the intellectual life and its dangers. It had
+always, I confess, appeared to me a harmless life enough; not very
+effective, perhaps, and possibly liable to encourage a man in a trivial
+sort of self-conceit; but I had always looked upon that as an
+instinctive kind of self-respect, which kept an intellectual person from
+dwelling too sorely upon the sense of ineffectiveness; as an addiction
+not more serious in its effects upon character than the practice of
+playing golf, a thing in which a leisurely person might immerse himself,
+and cultivate a decent sense of self-importance. But Amroth showed me
+that the danger of it lay in the tendency to consider the intellect to
+be the basis of all life and progress. "The intellectual man," he said,
+"is inclined to confuse his own acute perception of the movement of
+thought with the originating impulse of that movement. But of course
+thought is a thing which ebbs and flows, like public opinion, according
+to its own laws, and is not originated but only perceived by men of
+intellectual ability. The danger of it is a particularly arid sort of
+self-conceit. It is as if the Lady of Shalott were to suppose that she
+created life by observing and rendering it in her magic web, whereas her
+devotion to her task simply isolates her from the contact with other
+minds and hearts, which is the one thing worth having. That is, of
+course, the danger of the artist as well as of the philosopher. They
+both stand aside from the throng, and are so much absorbed in the aspect
+of thought and emotion that they do not realise that they are separated
+from it. They are consequently spared, when they come here, the
+punishment which falls upon those who have mixed greedily, selfishly,
+and cruelly with life, of which you will have a sight before long. But
+that place of punishment is not nearly so sad or depressing a place as
+the paradise of delight, and the paradise of intellect, because the
+sufferers have no desire to stay there, can repent and feel ashamed, and
+therefore can suffer, which is always hopeful. But the artistic and
+intellectual have really starved their capacity for suffering, the one
+by treating all emotion as spectacular, and the other by treating it as
+a puerile interruption to serious things. It takes people a long time to
+work their way out of self-satisfaction! But there is another curious
+place I wish you to visit. It is a dreadful place in a way, but by no
+means consciously unhappy," and Amroth pointed to a great building which
+stood on a slope of the hill above the forest, with a wide and beautiful
+view from it. Before very long we came to a high stone wall with a gate
+carefully guarded. Here Amroth said a few words to a porter, and we went
+up through a beautiful terraced park. In the park we saw little knots of
+people walking aimlessly about, and a few more solitary figures. But in
+each case they were accompanied by people whom I saw to be warders. We
+passed indeed close to an elderly man, rather fantastically dressed, who
+looked possessed with a kind of flighty cheerfulness. He was talking to
+himself with odd, emphatic gestures, as if he were ticking off the
+points of a speech. He came up to us and made us an effusive greeting,
+praising the situation and convenience of the place, and wishing us a
+pleasant sojourn. He then was silent for a moment, and added, "Now there
+is a matter of some importance on which I should like your opinion." At
+this the warder who was with him, a strong, stolid-looking man, with an
+expression at once slightly contemptuous and obviously kind, held up his
+hand and said, "You will, no doubt, sir, remember that you have
+undertaken--" "Not a word, not a word," said our friend; "of course you
+are right! I have really nothing to say to these gentlemen."
+
+We went up to the building, which now became visible, with its long and
+stately front of stone. Here again we were admitted with some
+precaution, and after a few minutes there came a tall and
+benevolent-looking man, to whom Amroth spoke at some length. The man
+then came up to me, said that he was very glad to welcome me, and that
+he would be delighted to show us the place.
+
+We went through fine and airy corridors, into which many doors, as of
+cells, opened. Occasionally a man or a woman, attended by a male or a
+female warder, passed us. The inmates had all the same kind of air--a
+sort of amused dignity, which was very marked. Presently our companion
+opened a door with his key and we went in. It was a small,
+pleasantly-furnished room. Some books, apparently of devotion, lay on
+the table. There was a little kneeling-desk near the window, and the
+room had a half-monastic air about it. When we entered, an elderly man,
+with a very serene face, was looking earnestly into the door of a
+cupboard in the wall, which he was holding open; there was, so far as I
+could see, nothing in the cupboard; but the inmate seemed to be
+struggling with an access of rather overpowering mirth. He bowed to us.
+Our conductor greeted him respectfully, and then said, "There is a
+stranger here who would like a little conversation with you, if you can
+spare the time."
+
+"By all means," said the inmate, with a very ingratiating smile. "It is
+very kind of him to call upon me, and my time is entirely at his
+disposal."
+
+Our conductor said to me that he and Amroth had some brief business to
+transact, and that they would call for me again in a moment. The inmate
+bowed, and seemed almost impatient for them to depart. He motioned me to
+a chair, and the moment they left us he began to talk with great
+animation. He asked me if I was a new inmate, and when I said no, only a
+visitor, he looked at me compassionately, saying that he hoped I might
+some day attain to the privilege. "This," he said, "is the abode of
+final and lasting peace. No one is admitted here unless his convictions
+are of the firmest and most ardent character; it is a reward for
+faithful service. But as our time is short, I must tell you," he said,
+"of a very curious experience I have had this very morning--a spiritual
+experience of the most reassuring character. You must know that I held a
+high official position in the religious world--I will mention no
+details--and I found at an early age, I am glad to say, the imperative
+necessity of forming absolutely impregnable convictions. I went to work
+in the most business-like way. I devoted some years to hard reading and
+solid thought, and I found that the sect to which I belonged was lacking
+in certain definite notes of divine truth, while the weight of evidence
+pointed in the clearest possible manner to the fact that one particular
+section of the Church had preserved absolutely intact the primitive
+faith of the Saints, and was without any shadow of doubt the perfectly
+logical development of the principles of the Gospel. Mine is not a
+nature that can admit of compromise; and at considerable sacrifice of
+worldly prospects I transferred my allegiance, and was instantly
+rewarded by a perfect serenity of conviction which has never faltered.
+
+"I had a friend with whom I had often discussed the matter, who was much
+of my way of thinking. But though I showed him the illogical nature of
+his position, he hung back--whether from material motives or from mere
+emotional associations I will not now stop to inquire. But I could not
+palter with the truth. I expostulated with him, and pointed out to him
+in the sternest terms the eternal distinctions involved. I broke off all
+relations with him ultimately. And after a life spent in the most
+solemn and candid denunciation of the fluidity of religious belief,
+which is the curse of our age, though it involved me in many of the
+heart-rending suspensions of human intercourse with my nearest and
+dearest so plainly indicated in the Gospel, I passed at length, in
+complete tranquillity, to my final rest. The first duty of the sincere
+believer is inflexible intolerance. If a man will not recognise the
+truth when it is plainly presented to him, he must accept the eternal
+consequences of his act--separation from God, and absorption in guilty
+and awestruck regret, which admits of no repentance.
+
+"One of the privileges of our sojourn here is that we have a strange and
+beautiful device--a window, I will call it--which admits one to a sight
+of the spiritual world. I was to-day contemplating, not without pain,
+but with absolute confidence in its justice, the sufferings of some of
+these lost souls, and I observed, I cannot say with satisfaction, but
+with complete submission, the form of my friend, whom my testimony might
+have saved, in eternal misery. I have the tenderest heart of any man
+alive. It has cost me a sore struggle to subdue it--it is more unruly
+even than the will--but you may imagine that it is a matter of deep and
+comforting assurance to reflect that on earth the door, the one door, to
+salvation is clearly and plainly indicated--though few there be that
+find it--and that this signal mercy has been vouchsafed to me. I have
+then the peace of knowing, not only that my choice was right, but that
+all those to whom the truth is revealed have the power to choose it. I
+am a firm believer in the uncovenanted mercies vouchsafed to those who
+have not had the advantages of clear presentment, but for the
+deliberately unfaithful, for all sinners against light, the sentence is
+inflexible."
+
+He closed his eyes, and a smile played over his features.
+
+I found it very difficult to say anything in answer to this monologue;
+but I asked my companion whether he did not think that some clearer
+revelation might be made, after the bodily death, to those who for some
+human frailty were unable to receive it.
+
+"An intelligent question," said my companion, "but I am obliged to
+answer in the negative. Of course the case is different for those who
+have accepted the truth loyally, even if their record is stained by the
+foulest and most detestable of crimes. It is the moral and intellectual
+adhesion that matters; that once secured, conduct is comparatively
+unimportant, if the soul duly recurs to the medicine of penitence and
+contrition so mercifully provided. I have the utmost indulgence for
+every form of human frailty. I may say that I never shrank from contact
+with the grossest and vilest forms of continuous wrong-doing, so long as
+I was assured that the true doctrines were unhesitatingly and
+submissively accepted. A soul which admits the supremacy of authority
+can go astray like a sheep that is lost, but as long as it recognises
+its fold and the authority of the divine law, it can be sought and
+found.
+
+"The little window of which I spoke has given me indubitable testimony
+of this. There was a man I knew in the flesh, who was regarded as a
+monster of cruelty and selfishness. He ill-treated his wife and misused
+his children; his life was spent in gross debauchery, and his conduct on
+several occasions outstepped the sanctions of legality. He was a forger
+and an embezzler. I do not attempt to palliate his faults, and there
+will be a heavy reckoning to pay. But he made his submission at the
+last, after a long and prostrating illness; and I have ocular
+demonstration of the fact that, after a mercifully brief period of
+suffering, he is numbered among the blest. That is a sustaining
+thought."
+
+He then with much courtesy invited me to partake of some refreshment,
+which I gratefully declined. Once or twice he rose, and opening the
+little cupboard door, which revealed nothing but a white wall, he drank
+in encouragement from some hidden sight. He then invited me to kneel
+with him, and prayed fervently and with some emotion that light might be
+vouchsafed to souls on earth who were in darkness. Just as he concluded,
+Amroth appeared with our conductor. The latter made a courteous inquiry
+after my host's health and comfort. "I am perfectly happy here," he
+said, "perfectly happy. The attentions I receive are indeed more than I
+deserve; and I am specially grateful to my kind visitor, whose
+indulgence I must beg for my somewhat prolonged statement--but when one
+has a cause much at heart," he added with a smile, "some prolixity is
+easily excused."
+
+As we re-entered the corridor, our conductor asked me if I would care to
+pay any more visits. "The case you have seen," he said, "is an extremely
+typical and interesting one."
+
+"Have you any hope," said Amroth, "of recovery?"
+
+"Of course, of course," said our conductor with a smile. "Nothing is
+hopeless here; our cures are complete and even rapid; but this is a
+particularly obstinate one!"
+
+"Well," said Amroth, "would you like to see more?"
+
+"No," I said, "I have seen enough. I cannot now bear any more."
+
+Our conductor smiled indulgently.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it is bewildering at first; but one sees wonderful
+things here! This is our library," he added, leading us to a great airy
+room, full of books and reading-desks, where a large number of inmates
+were sitting reading and writing. They glanced up at us with friendly
+and contented smiles. A little further on we came to another cell,
+before which our conductor stopped, and looked at me. "I should like,"
+he said, "if you are not too tired, just to take you in here; there is
+a patient, who is very near recovery indeed, in here, and it would do
+him good to have a little talk with a stranger."
+
+I bowed, and we went in. A man was sitting in a chair with his head in
+his hands. An attendant was sitting near the window reading a book. The
+patient, at our entry, removed his hands from his face and looked up,
+half impatiently, with an air of great suffering, and then slowly rose.
+
+"How are you feeling, dear sir?" said our conductor quietly.
+
+"Oh," said the man, looking at us, "I am better, much better. The light
+is breaking in, but it is a sore business, when I was so strong in my
+pride."
+
+"Ah," said our guide, "it is indeed a slow process; but happiness and
+health must be purchased; and every day I see clearly that you are
+drawing nearer to the end of your troubles--you will soon be leaving us!
+But now I want you kindly to bestir yourself, and talk a little to this
+friend of ours, who has not been long with us, and finds the place
+somewhat, bewildering. You will be able to tell him something of what is
+passing in your mind; it will do you good to put it into words, and it
+will be a help to him."
+
+"Very well," said the man gravely, "I will do my best." And the others
+withdrew, leaving me with the man. When they had gone, the man asked me
+to be seated, and leaning his head upon his hand he said, "I do not know
+how much you know and how little, so I will tell you that I left the
+world very confident in a particular form of faith, and very much
+disposed to despise and even to dislike those who did not agree with me.
+I had lived, I may say, uprightly and purely, and I will confess that I
+even welcomed all signs of laxity and sinfulness in my opponents,
+because it proved what I believed, that wrong conduct sprang naturally
+from wrong belief. I came here in great content, and thought that this
+place was the reward of faithful living. But I had a great shock. I was
+very tenderly attached to one whom I left on earth, and the severest
+grief of my life was that she did not think as I did, but used to plead
+with me for a wider outlook and a larger faith in the designs of God.
+She used to say to me that she felt that God had different ways of
+saving different people, and that people were saved by love and not by
+doctrine. And this I combated with all my might. I used to say,
+'Doctrine first, and love afterwards,' to which she often said, 'No,
+love is first!'
+
+"Well, some time ago I had a sight of her; she had died, and entered
+this world of ours. She was in a very different place from this, but she
+thought of me without ceasing, and her desire prevailed. I saw her,
+though I was hidden from her, and looked into her heart, and discerned
+that the one thing which spoiled her joy was that I was parted from her.
+
+"And after that I had no more delight in my security. I began to suffer
+and to yearn. And then, little by little, I began to see that it is
+love after all which binds us together, and which draws us to God; but
+my difficulty is this, that I still believe that my faith is true; and
+if that is true, then other faiths cannot be true also, and then I fall
+into sad bewilderment and despair." He stopped and looked at me fixedly.
+
+"But," I said, "if I may carry the thought further, might not all be
+true? Two men may be very unlike each other in form and face and
+thought--yet both are very man. It would be foolish arguing, if a man
+were to say, 'I am indeed a man, and because my friend is unlike
+me--taller, lighter-complexioned, swifter of thought--therefore he
+cannot be a man.' Or, again, two men may travel by the same road, and
+see many different things, yet it is the same road they have both
+travelled; and one need not say to the other, 'You cannot have travelled
+by the same road, because you did not see the violets on the bank under
+the wood, or the spire that peeped through the trees at the folding of
+the valleys--and therefore you are a liar and a deceiver!' If one
+believes firmly in one's own faith, one need not therefore say that all
+who do not hold it are perverse and wilful. There is no excuse, indeed,
+for not holding to what we believe to be true, but there is no excuse
+either for interfering with the sincere belief of another, unless one
+can persuade him he is wrong. Is not the mistake to think that one holds
+the truth in its entirety, and that one has no more to learn and to
+perceive? I myself should welcome differences of faith, because it shows
+me that faith is a larger thing even than I know. What another sees may
+be but a thought that is hidden from me, because the truth may be seen
+from a different angle. To complain that we cannot see it all is as
+foolish as when the child is vexed because it cannot see the back of the
+moon. And it seems to me that our duty is not to quarrel with others who
+see things that we do not see, but to rejoice with them, if they will
+allow us, and meanwhile to discern what is shown to us as faithfully as
+we can."
+
+The man heard me with a strange smile. "Yes," he said, "you are
+certainly right, and I bless the goodness that sent you hither; but when
+you are gone, I doubt that I shall fall back into my old perplexities,
+and say to myself that though men may see different parts of the same
+thing, they cannot see the same thing differently."
+
+"I think," I said, "that even that is possible, because on earth things
+are often mere symbols, and clothe themselves in material forms; and it
+is the form which deludes us. I do not myself doubt that grace flows
+into us by very different channels. We may not deny the claim of any one
+to derive grace from any source or symbol that he can. The only thing we
+may and must dare to dispute is the claim that only by one channel may
+grace flow. But I think that the words of the one whom you loved, of
+whom you spoke, are indeed true, and that the love of each other and of
+God is the force which draws us, by whatever rite or symbol or doctrine
+it may be interpreted. That, as I read it, is the message of Christ, who
+gave up all things for utter love."
+
+As I said this, our guide and Amroth entered the cell. The man rose up
+quickly, and drawing me apart, thanked me very heartily and with tears
+in his eyes; and so we said farewell. When we were outside, I said to
+the guide, "May I ask you one question? Would it be of use if I remained
+here for a time to talk with that poor man? It seemed a relief to him to
+open his heart, and I would gladly be with him and try to comfort him."
+
+The guide shook his head kindly. "No," he said, "I think not. I
+recognise your kindness very fully--but a soul like this must find the
+way alone; and there is one who is helping him faster than any of us can
+avail to do; and besides," he added, "he is very near indeed to his
+release."
+
+So we went to the door, and said farewell; and Amroth and I went
+forward. Then I said to him as we went down through the terraced garden,
+and saw the inmates wandering about, lost in dreams, "This must be a sad
+place to live in, Amroth!"
+
+"No, indeed," said he, "I do not think that there are any happier than
+those who have the charge here. When the patients are in the grip of
+this disease, they are themselves only too well content; and it is a
+blessed thing to see the approach of doubt and suffering, which means
+that health draws near. There is no place in all our realm where one
+sees so clearly and beautifully the instant and perfect mercy of God,
+and the joy of pain." And so we passed together out of the guarded gate.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+"Well," said Amroth, with a smile, as we went out into the forest, "I am
+afraid that the last two visits have been rather a strain. We must find
+something a little less serious; but I am going to fill up all your
+time. You had got too much taken up with your psychology, and we must
+not live too much on theory, and spin problems, like the spider, out of
+our own insides; but we will not spend too much time in trudging over
+this country, though it is well worth it. Did you ever see anything more
+beautiful than those pine-trees on the slope there, with the blue
+distance between their stems? But we must not make a business of
+landscape-gazing like our friend Charmides! We are men of affairs, you
+and I. Come, I will show you a thing. Shut your eyes for a minute and
+give me your hand. Now!"
+
+A sudden breeze fanned my face, sweet and odorous, like the wind out of
+a wood. "Now," said Amroth, "we have arrived! Where do you think we
+are?"
+
+The scene had changed in an instant. We were in a wide, level country,
+in green water-meadows, with a full stream brimming its grassy banks, in
+willowy loops. Not far away, on a gently rising ground, lay a long,
+straggling village, of gabled houses, among high trees. It was like the
+sort of village that you may find in the pleasant Wiltshire countryside,
+and the sight filled me with a rush of old and joyful memories.
+
+"It is such a relief," I said, "to realise that if man is made in the
+image of God, heaven is made in the image of England!"
+
+"That is only how you see it, child," said Amroth. "Some of my own
+happiest days were spent at Tooting: would you be surprised if I said
+that it reminded me of Tooting?"
+
+"I am surprised at nothing," I said. "I only know that it is all very
+considerate!"
+
+We entered the village, and found a large number of people, mostly
+young, going cheerfully about all sorts of simple work. Many of them
+were gardening, and the gardens were full of old-fashioned flowers,
+blooming in wonderful profusion. There was an air of settled peace about
+the place, the peace that on earth one often dreamed of finding, and
+indeed thought one had found on visiting some secluded place--only to
+discover, alas! on a nearer acquaintance, that life was as full of
+anxieties and cares there as elsewhere. There were one or two elderly
+people going about, giving directions or advice, or lending a helping
+hand. The workers nodded blithely to us, but did not suspend their work.
+
+"What surprises me," I said to Amroth, "is to find every one so much
+occupied wherever we go. One heard so much on earth about craving for
+rest, that one grew to fancy that the other life was all going to be a
+sort of solemn meditation, with an occasional hymn."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Amroth, "it was the body that was tired--the soul is
+always fresh and strong--but rest is not idleness. There is no such
+thing as unemployment here, and there is hardly time, indeed, for all we
+have to do. Every one really loves work. The child plays at working, the
+man of leisure works at his play. The difference here is that work is
+always amusing--there is no such thing as drudgery here."
+
+We walked all through the village, which stretched far away into the
+country. The whole place hummed like a beehive on a July morning. Many
+sang to themselves as they went about their business, and sometimes a
+couple of girls, meeting in the roadway, would entwine their arms and
+dance a few steps together, with a kiss at parting. There was a sense of
+high spirits everywhere. At one place we found a group of children
+sitting in the shade of some trees, while a woman of middle age told
+them a story. We stood awhile to listen, the woman giving us a pleasant
+nod as we approached. It was a story of some pleasant adventure, with
+nothing moral or sentimental about it, like an old folk-tale. The
+children were listening with unconcealed delight.
+
+When we had walked a little further, Amroth said to me, "Come, I will
+give you three guesses. Who do you think, by the light of your
+psychology, are all these simple people?" I guessed in vain. "Well, I
+see I must tell you," he said. "Would it surprise you to learn that most
+of these people whom you see here passed upon earth for wicked and
+unsatisfactory characters? Yet it is true. Don't you know the kind of
+boys there were at school, who drifted into bad company and idle ways,
+mostly out of mere good-nature, went out into the world with a black
+mark against them, having been bullied in vain by virtuous masters, the
+despair of their parents, always losing their employments, and often
+coming what we used to call social croppers--untrustworthy, sensual,
+feckless, no one's enemy but their own, and yet preserving through it
+all a kind of simple good-nature, always ready to share things with
+others, never knowing how to take advantage of any one, trusting the
+most untrustworthy people; or if they were girls, getting into trouble,
+losing their good name, perhaps living lives of shame in big
+cities--yet, for all that, guileless, affectionate, never excusing
+themselves, believing they had deserved anything that befell them? These
+were the sort of people to whom Christ was so closely drawn. They have
+no respectability, no conventions; they act upon instinct, never by
+reason, often foolishly, but seldom unkindly or selfishly. They give all
+they have, they never take. They have the faults of children, and the
+trustful affection of children. They will do anything for any one who is
+kind to them and fond of them. Of course they are what is called
+hopeless, and they use their poor bodies very ill. In their last stages
+on earth they are often very deplorable objects, slinking into
+public-houses, plodding raggedly and dismally along highroads, suffering
+cruelly and complaining little, conscious that they are universally
+reprobated, and not exactly knowing why. They are the victims of
+society; they do its dirty work, and are cast away as offscourings. They
+are really youthful and often beautiful spirits, very void of offence,
+and needing to be treated as children. They live here in great
+happiness, and are conscious vaguely of the good and great intention of
+God towards them. They suffer in the world at the hands of cruel,
+selfish, and stupid people, because they are both humble and
+disinterested. But in all our realms I do not think there is a place of
+simpler and sweeter happiness than this, because they do not take their
+forgiveness as a right, but as a gracious and unexpected boon. And
+indeed the sights and sounds of this place are the best medicine for
+crabbed, worldly, conventional souls, who are often brought here when
+they are drawing near the truth."
+
+"Yes," I said, "this is just what I wanted. Interesting as my work has
+lately been, it has wanted simplicity. I have grown to consider life too
+much as a series of cases, and to forget that it is life itself that one
+must seek, and not pathology. This is the best sight I have seen, for it
+is so far removed from all sense of judgment. The song of the saints may
+be sometimes of mercy too."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+"And now," said Amroth, "that we have been refreshed by the sight of
+this guileless place, and as our time is running short, I am going to
+show you something very serious indeed. In fact, before I show it you I
+must remind you carefully of one thing which I shall beg you to keep in
+mind. There is nothing either cruel or hopeless here; all is implacably
+just and entirely merciful. Whatever a soul needs, that it receives; and
+it receives nothing that is vindictive or harsh. The ideas of punishment
+on earth are hopelessly confused; we do not know whether we are
+revenging ourselves for wrongs done to us, or safeguarding society, or
+deterring would-be offenders, or trying to amend and uplift the
+criminal. We end, as a rule, by making every one concerned, whether
+punisher or punished, worse. We encourage each other in vindictiveness
+and hypocrisy, we cow and brutalise the transgressor. We rescue no one,
+we amend nothing. And yet we cannot read the clear signs of all this.
+The milder our methods of punishment become, the less crime is there to
+punish. But instead of being at once kind and severe, which is perfectly
+possible, we are both cruel and sentimental. Now, there is no such thing
+as sentiment here, just as there is no cruelty. There is emotion in full
+measure, and severity in full measure; no one is either pettishly
+frightened or mildly forgiven; and the joy that awaits us is all the
+more worth having, because it cannot be rashly enjoyed or reached by any
+short cuts; but do not forget, in what you now see, that the end is
+joy."
+
+He spoke so solemnly that I was conscious of overmastering curiosity,
+not unmixed with awe. Again the way was abbreviated. Amroth took me by
+the hand and bade me close my eyes. The breeze beat upon my face for a
+moment. When I opened my eyes, we were on a bare hillside, full of
+stones, in a kind of grey and chilly haze which filled the air. Just
+ahead of us were some rough enclosures of stone, overlooked by a sort of
+tower. They were like the big sheepfolds which I have seen on northern
+wolds, into which the sheep of a whole hillside can be driven for
+shelter. We went round the wall, which was high and strong, and came to
+the entrance of the tower, the door of which stood open. There seemed to
+be no one about, no sign of life; the only sound a curious wailing note,
+which came at intervals from one of the enclosures, like the crying of a
+prisoned beast. We went up into the tower; the staircase ended in a bare
+room, with four apertures, one in each wall, each leading into a kind of
+balcony. Amroth led the way into one of the balconies, and pointed
+downwards. We were looking down into one of the enclosures which lay
+just at our feet, not very far below. The place was perfectly bare, and
+roughly flagged with stones. In the corner was a rough thatched shelter,
+in which was some straw. But what at once riveted my attention was the
+figure of a man, who half lay, half crouched upon the stones, his head
+in his hands, in an attitude of utter abandonment. He was dressed in a
+rough, weather-worn sort of cloak, and his whole appearance suggested
+the basest neglect; his hands were muscular and knotted; his ragged grey
+hair streamed over the collar of his cloak. While we looked at him, he
+drew himself up into a sitting posture, and turned his face blankly upon
+the sky. It was, or had been, a noble face enough, deeply lined, and
+with a look of command upon it; but anything like the hopeless and utter
+misery of the drawn cheeks and staring eyes I had never conceived. I
+involuntarily drew back, feeling that it was almost wrong to look at
+anything so fallen and so wretched. But Amroth detained me.
+
+"He is not aware of us," he said, "and I desire you to look at him."
+
+Presently the man rose wearily to his feet, and began to pace up and
+down round the walls, with the mechanical movements of a caged animal,
+avoiding the posts of the shelter without seeming to see them, and then
+cast himself down again upon the stones in a paroxysm of melancholy. He
+seemed to have no desire to escape, no energy, except to suffer. There
+was no hope about it all, no suggestion of prayer, nothing but blank and
+unadulterated suffering.
+
+Amroth drew me back into the tower, and motioned me to the next
+balcony. Again I went out. The sight that I saw was almost more terrible
+than the first, because the prisoner here, penned in a similar
+enclosure, was more restless, and seemed to suffer more acutely. This
+was a younger man, who walked swiftly and vaguely about, casting glances
+up at the wall which enclosed him. Sometimes he stopped, and seemed to
+be pursuing some dreadful train of solitary thought; he gesticulated,
+and even broke out into mutterings and cries--the cries that I had heard
+from without. I could not bear to look at this sight, and coming back,
+besought Amroth to lead me away. Amroth, who was himself, I perceived,
+deeply moved, and stood with lips compressed, nodded in token of assent.
+We went quickly down the stairway, and took our way up the hill among
+the stones, in silence. The shapes of similar enclosures were to be seen
+everywhere, and the indescribable blankness and grimness of the scene
+struck a chill to my heart.
+
+From the top of the ridge we could see the same bare valleys stretching
+in all directions, as far as the eye could see. The only other building
+in sight was a great circular tower of stone, far down in the valley,
+from which beat the pulse of some heavy machinery, which gave the sense,
+I do not know how, of a ghastly and watchful life at the centre of all.
+
+"That is the Tower of Pain," said Amroth, "and I will spare you the
+inner sight of that. Only our very bravest and strongest can enter there
+and preserve any hope. But it is well for you to know it is there, and
+that souls have to enter it. It is thence that all the pain of countless
+worlds emanates and vibrates, and the governor of the place is the most
+tried and bravest of all the servants of God. Thither we must go, for
+you shall have sight of him, though you shall not enter."
+
+We went down the hill with all the speed we might, and, I will confess
+it, with the darkest dismay I have ever experienced tugging at my heart.
+We were soon at the foot of the enormous structure. Amroth knocked at
+the gate, a low door, adorned with some vague and ghastly sculptures,
+things like worms and huddled forms drearily intertwined. The door
+opened, and revealed a fiery and smouldering light within. High up in
+the tower a great wheel whizzed and shivered, and moving shadows
+crossed and recrossed the firelit walls.
+
+But the figure that came out to us--how shall I describe him? It was the
+most beautiful and gracious sight of all that I saw in my pilgrimage. He
+was a man of tall stature, with snow-white, silvery hair and beard,
+dressed in a dark cloak with a gleaming clasp of gold. But for all his
+age he had a look of immortal youth. His clear and piercing eye had a
+glance of infinite tenderness, such as I had never conceived. There were
+many lines upon his brow and round his eyes, but his complexion was as
+fresh as that of a child, and he stepped as briskly as a youth. We bowed
+low to him, and he reached out his hands, taking Amroth's hand and mine
+in each of his. His touch had a curious thrill, the hand that held mine
+being firm and smooth and wonderfully warm.
+
+"Well, my children," he said in a clear, youthful voice, "I am glad to
+see you, because there are few who come hither willingly; and the old
+and weary are cheered by the sight of those that are young and strong.
+Amroth I know. But who are you, my child? You have not been among us
+long. Have you found your work and place here yet?" I told him my story
+in a few words, and he smiled indulgently. "There is nothing like being
+at work," he said. "Even my business here, which seems sad enough to
+most people, must be done; and I do it very willingly. Do not be
+frightened, my child," he said to me suddenly, drawing me nearer to him,
+and folding my arm beneath his own. "It is only on earth that we are
+frightened of pain; it spoils our poor plans, it makes us fretful and
+miserable, it brings us into the shadow of death. But for all that, as
+Amroth knows, it is the best and most fruitful of all the works that the
+Father does for man, and the thing dearest to His heart. We cannot
+prosper till we suffer, and suffering leads us very swiftly into joy and
+peace. Indeed this Tower of Pain, as it is called, is in fact nothing
+but the Tower of Love. Not until love is touched with pain does it
+become beautiful, and the joy that comes through pain is the only real
+thing in the world. Of course, when my great engine here sends a thrill
+into a careless life, it comes as a dark surprise; but then follow
+courage and patience and wonder, and all the dear tendance of Love. I
+have borne it all myself a hundred times, and I shall bear it again if
+the Father wills it. But when you leave me here, do not think of me as
+of one who works, grim and indifferent, wrecking lives and destroying
+homes. It is but the burning of the weeds of life; and it is as needful
+as the sunshine and the rain. Pain does not wander aimlessly, smiting
+down by mischance and by accident; it comes as the close and dear
+intention of the Father's heart, and is to a man as a trumpet-call from
+the land of life, not as a knell from the land of death. And now, dear
+children, you must leave me, for I have much to do. And I will give
+you," he added, turning to me, "a gift which shall be your comfort, and
+a token that you have been here, and seen the worst and the best that
+there is to see."
+
+He drew from under his cloak a ring, a circlet of gold holding a red
+stone with a flaming heart, and put it on my finger. There pierced
+through me a pang intenser than any I had ever experienced, in which all
+the love and sorrow I had ever known seemed to be suddenly mingled, and
+which left behind it a perfect and intense sense of joy.
+
+"There, that is my gift," he said, "and you shall have an old man's
+loving blessing too, for it is that, after all, that I live for." He
+drew me to him and kissed me on the brow, and in a moment he was gone.
+
+We walked away in silence, and for my part with an elation of spirit
+which I could hardly control, a desire to love and suffer, and do and be
+all that the mind of man could conceive. But my heart was too full to
+speak.
+
+"Come," said Amroth presently, "you are not as grateful as I had
+hoped--you are outgrowing me! Come down to my poor level for an instant,
+and beware of spiritual pride!" Then altering his tone he said, "Ah,
+yes, dear friend, I understand. There is nothing in the world like it,
+and you were most graciously and tenderly received--but the end is not
+yet."
+
+"Amroth," I said, "I am like one intoxicated with joy. I feel that I
+could endure anything and never make question of anything again. How
+infinitely good he was to me--like a dear father!"
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "he is very like the Father "--and he smiled at me a
+mysterious smile.
+
+"Amroth," I said, bewildered, "you cannot mean--?"
+
+"No, I mean nothing," said Amroth, "but you have to-day looked very far
+into the truth, farther than is given to many so soon; but you are a
+child of fortune, and seem to please every one. I declare that a little
+more would make me jealous."
+
+Presently, catching sight of one of the enclosures hard by, I said to
+Amroth, "But there are some questions I must ask. What has just
+happened had put it mostly out of my head. Those poor suffering souls
+that we saw just now--it is well, with them, I am sure, so near the
+Master of the Tower--he does not forget them, I am sure--but who are
+they, and what have they done to suffer so?"
+
+"I will tell you," said Amroth, "for it is a dark business. Those two
+that you have seen--well, you will know one of them by name and fame,
+and of the other you may have heard. The first, that old shaggy-haired
+man, who lay upon the stones, that was ----"
+
+He mentioned a name that was notorious in Europe at the time of my life
+on earth, though he was then long dead; a ruthless and ambitious
+conqueror, who poured a cataract of life away, in wars, for his own
+aggrandisement. Then he mentioned another name, a statesman who pursued
+a policy of terrorism and oppression, enriched himself by barbarous
+cruelty exercised in colonial possessions, and was famous for the
+calculated libertinism of his private life.
+
+"They were great sinners," said Amroth, "and the sorrows they made and
+flung so carelessly about them, beat back upon them now in a surge of
+pain. These men were strangely affected, each of them, by the smallest
+sight or sound of suffering--a tortured animal, a crying child; and yet
+they were utterly ruthless of the pain that they did not see. It was a
+lack, no doubt, of the imagination of which I spoke, and which makes all
+the difference. And now they have to contemplate the pain which they
+could not imagine; and they have to learn submission and humility. It is
+a terrible business in a way--the loneliness of it! There used to be an
+old saying that the strongest man was the man that was most alone. But
+it was just because these men practised loneliness on earth that they
+have to suffer so. They used others as counters in a game, they had
+neither friend nor beloved, except for their own pleasure. They depended
+upon no one, needed no one, desired no one. But there are many others
+here who did the same on a small scale--selfish fathers and mothers who
+made homes miserable; boys who were bullies at school and tyrants in the
+world, in offices, and places of authority. This is the place of
+discipline for all base selfishness and vile authority, for all who have
+oppressed and victimised mankind."
+
+"But," I said, "here is my difficulty. I understand the case of the
+oppressors well enough; but about the oppressed, what is the justice of
+that? Is there not a fortuitous element there, an interruption of the
+Divine plan? Take the case of the thousands of lives wasted by some
+brutal conqueror. Are souls sent into the world for that, to be driven
+in gangs, made to fight, let us say, for some abominable cause, and
+then recklessly dismissed from life?"
+
+"Ah," said Amroth, "you make too much of the dignity of life! You do not
+know how small a thing a single life is, not as regards the life of
+mankind, but in the life of one individual. Of course if a man had but
+one single life on earth, it would be an intolerable injustice; and that
+is the factor which sets all straight, the factor which most of us, in
+our time of bodily self-importance, overlook. These oppressors have no
+power over other lives except what God allows, and bewildered humanity
+concedes. Not only is the great plan whole in the mind of God, but every
+single minutest life is considered as well. In the very case you spoke
+of, the little conscript, torn from his home to fight a tyrant's
+battles, hectored and ill-treated, and then shot down upon some crowded
+battle-field, that is precisely the discipline which at that point of
+time his soul needs, and the blessedness of which he afterwards
+perceives; sometimes discipline is swift and urgent, sometimes it is
+slow and lingering: but all experience is exactly apportioned to the
+quality of which each soul is in need. The only reason why there seems
+to be an element of chance in it, is that the whole thing is so
+inconceivably vast and prolonged; and our happiness and our progress
+alike depend upon our realising at every moment that the smallest joy
+and the most trifling pleasure, as well as the tiniest ailment or the
+most subtle sorrow, are just the pieces of experience which we are meant
+at that moment to use and make our own. No one, not even God, can force
+us to understand this; we have to perceive it for ourselves, and to live
+in the knowledge of it."
+
+"Yes," I said, "it is true, all that. My heart tells me so; but it is
+very wonderful and mysterious, all the same. But, Amroth, I have seen
+and heard enough. My spirit desires with all its might to be at its own
+work, hastening on the mighty end. Now, I can hold no more of wonders.
+Let me return."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "you are right! These wonders are so familiar to me
+that I forget, perhaps, the shock with which they come to minds unused
+to them. Yet there are other things which you must assuredly see, when
+the time comes; but I must not let you bite off a larger piece than you
+can swallow."
+
+He took me by the hand; the breeze passed through my hair; and in an
+instant we were back at the fortress-gate, and I entered the beloved
+shelter, with a grateful sense that I was returning home.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+I returned, as I said, with a sense of serene pleasure and security to
+my work; but that serenity did not last long. What I had seen with
+Amroth, on that day of wandering, filled me with a strange restlessness,
+and a yearning for I knew not what. I plunged into my studies with
+determination rather than ardour, and I set myself to study what is the
+most difficult problem of all--the exact limits of individual
+responsibility. I had many conversations on the point with one of my
+teachers, a young man of very wide experience, who combined in an
+unusual way a close scientific knowledge of the subject with a peculiar
+emotional sympathy. He told me once that it was the best outfit for the
+scientific study of these problems, when the heart anticipated the
+slower judgment of the mind, and set the mind a goal, so to speak, to
+work up to; though he warned me that the danger was that the mind was
+often reluctant to abandon the more indulgent claims of the heart; and
+he advised me to mistrust alike scientific conclusions and emotional
+inferences.
+
+I had a very memorable conversation with him on the particular question
+of responsibility, which I will here give.
+
+"The mistake," I said to him, "of human moralists seems to me to be,
+that they treat all men as more or less equal in the matter of moral
+responsibility. How often," I added, "have I heard a school preacher
+tell boys that they could not all be athletic or clever or popular, but
+that high principle and moral courage were things within the reach of
+all. Whereas the more that I studied human nature, the more did the
+power of surveying and judging one's own moral progress, and the power
+of enforcing and executing the dictates of the conscience, seem to me
+faculties, like other faculties. Indeed, it appears to me," I said,
+"that on the one hand there are people who have a power of moral
+discrimination, when dealing with the retrospect of their actions, but
+no power of obeying the claims of principle, when confronted with a
+situation involving moral strain; while on the other hand there seem to
+me to be some few men with a great and resolute power of will, capable
+of swift decision and firm action, but without any instinct for morality
+at all."
+
+"Yes," he said, "you are quite right. The moral sense is in reality a
+high artistic sense. It is a power of discerning and being attracted by
+the beauty of moral action, just as the artist is attracted by form and
+colour, and the musician by delicate combinations of harmonies and the
+exquisite balance of sound. You know," he said, "what a suspension is in
+music--it is a chord which in itself is a discord, but which depends for
+its beauty on some impending resolution. It is just so with moral
+choice. The imagination plays a great part in it. The man whose
+morality is high and profound sees instinctively the approaching
+contingency, and his act of self-denial or self-forgetfulness depends
+for its force upon the way in which it will ultimately combine with
+other issues involved, even though at the moment that act may seem to be
+unnecessary and even perverse."
+
+"But," I said, "there are a good many people who attain to a sensible,
+well-balanced kind of temperance, after perhaps a few failures, from a
+purely prudential motive. What is the worth of that?"
+
+"Very small indeed," said my teacher. "In fact, the prudential morality,
+based on motives of health and reputation and success, is a thing that
+has often to be deliberately unlearnt at a later stage. The strange
+catastrophes which one sees so often in human life, where a man by one
+act of rashness, or moral folly, upsets the tranquil tenor of his
+life--a desperate love-affair, a passion of unreasonable anger, a piece
+of quixotic generosity--are often a symptom of a great effort of the
+soul to free itself from prudential considerations. A good thing done
+for a low motive has often a singularly degrading and deforming
+influence on the soul. One has to remember how terribly the heavenly
+values are obscured upon earth by the body, its needs and its desires;
+and current morality of a cautious and sensible kind is often worse than
+worthless, because it produces a kind of self-satisfaction, which is the
+hardest thing to overcome."
+
+"But," I said, "in the lives of some of the greatest moralists, one so
+often sees, or at all events hears it said, that their morality is
+useless because it is unpractical, too much out of the reach of the
+ordinary man, too contemptuous of simple human faculties. What is one to
+make of that?"
+
+"It is a difficult matter," he replied; "one does indeed, in the lives
+of great moralists, see sometimes that their work is vitiated by
+perverse and fantastic preferences, which they exalt out of all
+proportion to their real value. But for all that, it is better to be on
+the side of the saints; for they are gifted with the sort of instinctive
+appreciation of the beauty of high morality of which I spoke.
+Unselfishness, purity, peacefulness seem to them so beautiful and
+desirable that they are constrained to practise them. While controversy,
+bitterness, cruelty, meanness, vice, seem so utterly ugly and repulsive
+that they cannot for an instant entertain even so much as a thought of
+them."
+
+"But if a man sees that he is wanting in this kind of perception," I
+said, "what can he do? How is he to learn to love what he does not
+admire and to abhor what he does not hate? It all seems so fatalistic,
+so irresistible."
+
+"If he discerns his lack," said my teacher with a smile, "he is probably
+not so very far from the truth. The germ of the sense of moral beauty is
+there, and it only wants patience and endeavour to make it grow. But it
+cannot be all done in any single life, of course; that is where the
+human faith fails, in its limitations of a man's possibilities to a
+single life."
+
+"But what is the reason," I said, "why the morality, the high austerity
+of some persons, who are indubitably high-minded and pure-hearted, is so
+utterly discouraging and even repellent?"
+
+"Ah," he said, "there you touch on a great truth. The reason of that is
+that these have but a sterile sort of connoisseur-ship in virtue. Virtue
+cannot be attained in solitude, nor can it be made a matter of private
+enjoyment. The point is, of course, that it is not enough for a man to
+be himself; he must also give himself; and if a man is moral because of
+the delicate pleasure it brings him--and the artistic pleasure of
+asceticism is a very high one--he is apt to find himself here in very
+strange and distasteful company. In this, as in everything, the only
+safe motive is the motive of love. The man who takes pleasure in using
+influence, or setting a lofty example, is just as arid a dilettante as
+the musician who plays, or the artist who paints, for the sake of the
+applause and the admiration he wins; he is only regarding others as so
+many instruments for registering his own level of complacency. Every
+one, even the least complicated of mankind, must know the exquisite
+pleasure that comes from doing the simplest and humblest service to one
+whom he loves; how such love converts the most menial office into a
+luxurious joy; and the higher that a man goes, the more does he discern
+in every single human being with whom he is brought into contact a soul
+whom he can love and serve. Of course it is but an elementary pleasure
+to enjoy pleasing those whom we regard with some passion of affection,
+wife or child or friend, because, after all, one gains something oneself
+by that. But the purest morality of all discerns the infinitely lovable
+quality which is in the depth of every human soul, and lavishes its
+tenderness and its grace upon it, with a compassion that grows and
+increases, the more unthankful and clumsy and brutish is the soul which
+it sets out to serve."
+
+"But," I said, "beautiful as that thought is--and I see and recognise
+its beauty--it does limit the individual responsibility very greatly.
+Surely a prudential morality, the morality which is just because it
+fears reprisal, and is kind because it anticipates kindness, is better
+than none at all? The morality of which you speak can only belong to the
+noblest human creatures."
+
+"Only to the noblest," he said; "and I must repeat what I said before,
+that the prudential morality is useless, because it begins at the wrong
+end, and is set upon self throughout. I must say deliberately that the
+soul which loves unreasonably and unwisely, which even yields itself to
+the passion of others for the pleasure it gives rather than for the
+pleasure it receives--the thriftless, lavish, good-natured,
+affectionate people, who are said to make such a mess of their
+lives--are far higher in the scale of hope than the cautiously
+respectable, the prudently kind, the selfishly pure. There must be no
+mistake about this. One must somehow or other give one's heart away, and
+it is better to do it in error and disaster than to treasure it for
+oneself. Of course there are many lives on earth--and an increasing
+number as the world develops--which are generous and noble and
+unselfish, without any sacrifice of purity or self-respect. But the
+essence of morality is giving, and not receiving, or even practising;
+the point is free choice, and not compulsion; and if one cannot give
+_because_ one loves, one must give _until_ one loves."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+But all my speculations were cut short by a strange event which happened
+about this time. One day, without any warning, the thought of Cynthia
+darted urgently and irresistibly into my mind. Her image came between me
+and all my tasks; I saw her in innumerable positions and guises, but
+always with her eyes bent on me in a pitiful entreaty. After
+endeavouring to resist the thought for a little as some kind of fantasy,
+I became suddenly convinced that she was in need of me, and in urgent
+need. I asked for an interview with our Master, and told him the story;
+he heard me gravely, and then said that I might go in search of her; but
+I was not sure that he was wholly pleased, and he bent his eyes upon me
+with a very inquiring look. I hesitated whether or not to call Amroth to
+my aid, but decided that I had better not do so at first. The question
+was how to find her; the great crags lay between me and the land of
+delight; and when I hurried out of the college, the thought of the
+descent and its dangers fairly unmanned me. I knew, however, of no other
+way. But what was my surprise when, on arriving at the top, not far from
+the point where Amroth had greeted me after the ascent, I saw a little
+steep path, which wound itself down into the gulleys and chimneys of the
+black rocks. I took it without hesitation, and though again and again it
+seemed to come to an end in front of me, I found that it could be traced
+and followed without serious difficulty. The descent was accomplished
+with a singular rapidity, and I marvelled to find myself at the
+crag-base in so brief a time, considering the intolerable tedium of the
+ascent. I rapidly crossed the intervening valley, and was very soon at
+the gate of the careless land. To my intense joy, and not at all to my
+surprise, I found Cynthia at the gate itself, waiting for me with a
+look of expectancy. She came forwards, and threw herself passionately
+into my arms, murmuring words of delight and welcome, like a child.
+
+"I knew you would come," she said. "I am frightened--all sorts of
+dreadful things have happened. I have found out where I am--and I seem
+to have lost all my friends. Charmides is gone, and Lucius is cruel to
+me--he tells me that I have lost my spirits and my good looks, and am
+tiresome company."
+
+I looked at her--she was paler and frailer-looking than when I left her;
+and she was habited very differently, in simpler and graver dress. But
+she was to my eyes infinitely more beautiful and dearer, and I told her
+so. She smiled at that, but half tearfully; and we seated ourselves on a
+bench hard by, looking over the garden, which was strangely and
+luxuriantly beautiful.
+
+"You must take me away with you at once," she said. "I cannot live here
+without you. I thought at first, when you went, that it was rather a
+relief not to have your grave face at my shoulder,"--here she took my
+face in her hands--"always reminding me of something I did not want, and
+ought to have wanted--but oh, how I began to miss you! and then I got so
+tired of this silly, lazy place, and all the music and jokes and
+compliments. But I am a worthless creature, and not good for anything. I
+cannot work, and I hate being idle. Take me anywhere, _make_ me do
+something, beat me if you like, only force me to be different from what
+I am."
+
+"Very well," I said. "I will give you a good beating presently, of
+course, but just let me consider what will hurt you most, silly child!"
+
+"That is it," she said. "I want to be hurt and bruised, and shaken as my
+nurse used to shake me, when I was a naughty child. Oh dear, oh dear,
+how wretched I am!" and poor Cynthia laid her head on my shoulder and
+burst into tears.
+
+"Come, come," I said, "you must not do that--I want my wits about me;
+but if you cry, you will simply make a fool of me--and this is no time
+for love-making."
+
+"Then you do really _care_", said Cynthia in a quieter tone. "That is
+all I want to know! I want to be with you, and see you every hour and
+every minute. I can't help saying it, though it is really very
+undignified for me to be making love to you. I did many silly things on
+earth, but never anything quite so feeble as that!"
+
+I felt myself fairly bewildered by the situation. My psychology did not
+seem to help me; and here at least was something to love and rescue. I
+will say frankly that, in my stupidity and superiority, I did not really
+think of loving Cynthia in the way in which she needed to be loved. She
+was to me, with all my grave concerns and problems, as a charming and
+intelligent child, with whom I could not even speak of half the thoughts
+which absorbed me. So I just held her in my arms, and comforted her as
+best I could; but what to do and where to bestow her I could not tell.
+I saw that her time to leave the place of desire had come, but what she
+could turn to I could not conceive.
+
+Suddenly I looked up, and saw Lucius approaching, evidently in a very
+angry mood.
+
+"So this is the end of all our amusement?" he said, as he came near.
+"You bring Cynthia here in your tiresome, condescending way, you live
+among us like an almighty prig, smiling gravely at our fun, and then you
+go off when it is convenient to yourself; and then, when you want a
+little recreation, you come and sit here in a corner and hug your
+darling, when you have never given her a thought of late. You _know_
+that is true," he added menacingly.
+
+"Yes," I said, "it is true! I went of my own will, and I have come back
+of my own will; and you have all been out of my thoughts, because I have
+had much work to do. But what of that? Cynthia wants me and I have come
+back to her, and I will do whatever she desires. It is no good
+threatening me, Lucius--there is nothing you can do or say that will
+have the smallest effect on me."
+
+"We will see about that," said Lucius. "None of your airs here! We are
+peaceful enough when we are respectfully and fairly treated, but we have
+our own laws, and no one shall break them with impunity. We will have no
+half-hearted fools here. If you come among us with your damned
+missionary airs, you shall have what I expect you call the crown of
+martyrdom."
+
+He whistled loud and shrill. Half-a-dozen men sprang from the bushes and
+flung themselves upon me. I struggled, but was overpowered, and dragged
+away. The last sight I had was of Lucius standing with a disdainful
+smile, with Cynthia clinging to his arm; and to my horror and disgust
+she was smiling too.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+I had somehow never expected to be used with positive violence in the
+world of spirits, and least of all in that lazy and good-natured place.
+Considering, too, the errand on which I had come, not for my own
+convenience but for the sake of another, my treatment seemed to me very
+hard. What was still more humiliating was the fact that my spirit seemed
+just as powerless in the hands of these ruffians as my body would have
+been on earth. I was pushed, hustled, insulted, hurt. I could have
+summoned Amroth to my aid, but I felt too proud for that; yet the
+thought of the cragmen, and the possibility of the second death, did
+visit my mind with dismal iteration. I did not at all desire a further
+death; I felt very much alive, and full of interest and energy. Worst
+of all was my sense that Cynthia had gone over to the enemy. I had been
+so loftily kind with her, that I much resented having appeared in her
+sight as feeble and ridiculous. It is difficult to preserve any dignity
+of demeanour or thought, with a man's hand at one's neck and his knee in
+one's back: and I felt that Lucius had displayed a really Satanical
+malignity in using this particular means of degrading me in Cynthia's
+sight, and of regaining his own lost influence.
+
+I was thrust and driven before my captors along an alley in the garden,
+and what added to my discomfiture was that a good many people ran
+together to see us pass, and watched me with decided amusement. I was
+taken finally to a little pavilion of stone, with heavily barred
+windows, and a flagged marble floor. The room was absolutely bare, and
+contained neither seat nor table. Into this I was thrust, with some
+obscene jesting, and the door was locked upon me.
+
+The time passed very heavily. At intervals I heard music burst out
+among the alleys, and a good many people came to peep in upon me
+with an amused curiosity. I was entirely bewildered by my position,
+and did not see what I could have done to have incurred my punishment.
+But in the solitary hours that followed I began to have a suspicion
+of my fault. I had found myself hitherto the object of so much attention
+and praise, that I had developed a strong sense of complacency and
+self-satisfaction. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that there was even
+more behind, but I could not, by interrogating my mind and searching out
+my spirits, make out clearly what it was; yet I felt I was having a
+sharp lesson; and this made me resolve that I would ask for no kind of
+assistance from Amroth or any other power, but that I would try to meet
+whatever fell upon me with patience, and extract the full savour of my
+experience.
+
+I do not know how long I spent in the dismal cell. I was in some
+discomfort from the handling I had received, and in still greater
+dejection of mind. Suddenly I heard footsteps approaching. Three of my
+captors appeared, and told me roughly to go with them. So, a pitiable
+figure, I limped along between two of them, the third following behind,
+and was conducted through the central piazza of the place, between two
+lines of people who gave way to the most undisguised merriment, and even
+shouted opprobrious remarks at me, calling me spy and traitor and other
+unpleasant names. I could not have believed that these kind-mannered and
+courteous persons could have exhibited, all of a sudden, such frank
+brutality, and I saw many of my own acquaintance among them, who
+regarded me with obvious derision.
+
+I was taken into a big hall, in which I had often sat to hear a concert
+of music. On the dais at the upper end were seated a number of dignified
+persons, in a semicircle, with a very handsome and stately old man in
+the centre on a chair of state, whose face was new to me. Before this
+Court I was formally arraigned; I had to stand alone in the middle of
+the floor, in an open space. Two of my captors stood on each side of me;
+while the rest of the court was densely packed with people, who greeted
+me with obvious hostility.
+
+When silence was procured, the President said to me, with a show of
+great courtesy, that he could not disguise from himself that the charge
+against me was a serious one; but that justice would be done to me,
+fully and carefully. I should have ample opportunity to excuse myself.
+He then called upon one of those who sat with him to state the case
+briefly, and call witnesses and after that he promised I might speak for
+myself.
+
+A man rose from one of the seats, and, pleading somewhat rhetorically,
+said that the object of the great community, to which so many were proud
+to belong, was to secure to all the utmost amount of innocent
+enjoyment, and the most entire peace of mind; that no pressure was put
+upon any one who decided to stay there, and to observe the quiet customs
+of the place; but that it was always considered a heinous and
+ill-disposed thing to attempt to unsettle any one's convictions, or to
+attempt, by using undue influence, to bring about the migration of any
+citizen to conditions of which little was known, but which there was
+reason to believe were distinctly undesirable.
+
+"We are, above all," he said, "a religious community; our rites and our
+ceremonies are privileges open to all; we compel no one to attend them;
+all that we insist is that no one, by restless innovation or cynical
+contempt, should attempt to disturb the emotions of serene
+contemplation, distinguished courtesy, and artistic feeling, for which
+our society has been so long and justly celebrated."
+
+This was received with loud applause, indulgently checked by the
+President. Some witnesses were then called, who testified to the
+indifference and restlessness which I had on many occasions manifested.
+It was brought up against me that I had provoked a much-respected member
+of the community, Charmides, to utter some very treasonous and
+unpleasant language, and that it was believed that the rash and unhappy
+step, which he had lately taken, of leaving the place, had been entirely
+or mainly the result of my discontented and ill-advised suggestion.
+
+Then Lucius himself, wearing an air of extreme gravity and even
+despondency, was called, and a murmur of sympathy ran through the
+audience. Lucius, apparently struggling with deep emotion, said that he
+bore me no actual ill-will; that on my first arrival he had done his
+best to welcome me and make me feel at home; that it was probably known
+to all that I had been accompanied by an accomplished and justly popular
+lady, whom I had openly treated with scanty civility and undisguised
+contempt. That he had himself, under the laws of the place, contracted
+a close alliance with my unhappy protégée, and that their union had been
+duly accredited; but that I had lost no opportunity of attempting to
+undermine his happiness, and to maintain an unwholesome influence over
+her. That I had at last left the place myself, with a most uncivil
+abruptness; during the interval of absence my occupations were believed
+to have been of the most dubious character: it was more than suspected,
+indeed, that I had penetrated to places, the very name of which could
+hardly be mentioned without shame and consternation. That my associates
+had been persons of the vilest character and the most brutal
+antecedents; and at last, feeling in need of distraction, I had again
+returned with the deliberate intention of seducing his unhappy partner
+into accompanying me to one or other of the abandoned places I had
+visited. He added that Cynthia had been so much overcome by her emotion,
+and her natural compassion for an old acquaintance, that he had
+persuaded her not to subject herself to the painful strain of an
+appearance in public; but that for this action he threw himself upon the
+mercy of the Court, who would know that it was only dictated by
+chivalrous motives.
+
+At this there was subdued applause, and Lucius, after adding a few
+broken words to the effect that he lived only for the maintenance of
+order, peace, and happiness, and that he was devoted heart and soul to
+the best interests of the community, completely broke down, and was
+assisted from his place by friends.
+
+The whole thing was so malignant and ingenious a travesty of what had
+happened, that I was entirely at a loss to know what to say. The
+President, however, courteously intimated that though the case appeared
+to present a good many very unsatisfactory features, yet I was entirely
+at liberty to justify myself if I could, and, if not, to make
+submission; and added that I should be dealt with as leniently as
+possible.
+
+I summoned up my courage as well as I might. I began by saying that I
+claimed no more than the liberty of thought and action which I knew the
+Court desired to concede. I said that my arrival at the place was
+mysterious even to myself, and that I had simply acted under orders in
+accompanying Cynthia, and in seeing that she was securely bestowed. I
+said that I had never incited any rebellion, or any disobedience to laws
+of the scope of which I had never been informed. That I had indeed
+frankly discussed matters of general interest with any citizen who
+seemed to desire it; that I had been always treated with marked
+consideration and courtesy; and that, as far as I was aware, I had
+always followed the same policy myself. I said that I was sincerely
+attached to Cynthia, but added that, with all due respect, I could no
+longer consider myself a member of the community. I had transferred
+myself elsewhere under direct orders, with my own entire concurrence,
+and that I had since acted in accordance with the customs and
+regulations of the community to which I had been allotted. I went on to
+say that I had returned under the impression that my presence was
+desired by Cynthia, and that I must protest with all my power against
+the treatment I had received. I had been arrested and imprisoned with
+much violence and contumely, without having had any opportunity of
+hearing what my offence was supposed to have been, or having had any
+semblance of a trial, and that I could not consider that my usage had
+been consistent with the theory of courtesy, order, or justice so
+eloquently described by the President.
+
+This onslaught of mine produced an obvious revulsion in my favour. The
+President conferred hastily with his colleagues, and then said that my
+arrest had indeed been made upon the information of Lucius, and with the
+cognisance of the Court; but that he sincerely regretted that I had any
+complaint of unhandsome usage to make, and that the matter would be
+certainly inquired into. He then added that he understood from my words
+that I desired to make a complete submission, and that in that case I
+should be acquitted of any evil intentions. My fault appeared to be that
+I had yielded too easily to the promptings of an ill-balanced and
+speculative disposition, and that if I would undertake to disturb no
+longer the peace of the place, and to desist from all further tampering
+with the domestic happiness of a much-respected pair, I should be
+discharged with a caution, and indeed be admitted again to the
+privileges of orderly residence.
+
+"And I will undertake to say," he added, "that the kindness and courtesy
+of our community will overlook your fault, and make no further reference
+to a course of conduct which appears to have been misguided rather than
+deliberately malevolent. We have every desire not to disturb in any way
+the tranquillity which it is, above all things, our desire to maintain.
+May I conclude, then, that this is your intention?"
+
+"No, sir," I said, "certainly not! With all due respect to the Court,
+I cannot submit to the jurisdiction. The only privilege I claim is the
+privilege of an alien and a stranger, who in a perfectly peaceful
+manner, and with no seditious intent, has re-entered this land, and has
+thereupon been treated with gross and unjust violence. I do not for a
+moment contest the right of this community to make its own laws and
+regulations, but I do contest its right to fetter the thought and the
+liberty of speech of all who enter it. I make no submission. The Lady
+Cynthia came here under my protection, and if any undue influence has
+been used, it has been used by Lucius, whom I treated with a confidence
+he has abused. And I here appeal to a higher power and a higher court,
+which may indeed permit this unhappy community to make its own
+regulations, but will not permit any gross violation of elementary
+justice."
+
+I was carried away by great indignation in the course of my words, which
+had a very startling effect. A large number of the audience left the
+hall in haste. The judge grew white to the lips, whether with anger or
+fear I did not know, said a few words to his neighbour, and then with a
+great effort to control himself, said to me:
+
+"You put us, sir, by your words, in a very painful position. You do not
+know the conditions under which we live--that is evident--and
+intemperate language like yours has before now provoked an invasion of
+our peace of a most undesirable kind. I entreat you to calm yourself, to
+accept the apologies of the Court for the incidental and indeed
+unjustifiable violence with which you were treated. If you will only
+return to your own community, the nature of which I will not now stay to
+inquire, you may be assured that you will be conducted to our gates with
+the utmost honour. Will you pledge yourself as a gentleman, and, as I
+believe I am right in saying, as a Christian, to do this?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "upon one condition: that I may have an interview with
+the Lady Cynthia, and that she may be free to accompany me, if she
+wishes."
+
+The President was about to reply, when a sudden and unlooked-for
+interruption occurred. A man in a pearly-grey dress, with a cloak
+clasped with gold, came in at the end of the hall, and advanced with
+rapid steps and a curiously unconcerned air up the hall. The judges rose
+in their places with a hurried and disconcerted look. The stranger came
+up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and bade me presently follow him.
+Then he turned to the President, and said in a clear, peremptory voice:
+
+"Dissolve the Court! Your powers have been grossly and insolently
+exceeded. See that nothing of this sort occurs again!" and then,
+ascending the dais, he struck the President with his open hand hard upon
+the cheek.
+
+The President gave a stifled cry and staggered in his place, and then,
+covering his face with his hands, went out at a door on the platform,
+followed by the rest of the Council in haste. Then the man came down
+again, and motioned me to follow him. I was not prepared for what
+happened. Outside in the square was a great, pale, silent crowd, in the
+most obvious and dreadful excitement and consternation. We went rapidly,
+in absolute stillness, through two lines of people, who watched us with
+an emotion I could not quite interpret, but it was something very like
+hatred.
+
+"Follow me quickly," said my guide; "do not look round!" and, as we
+went, I heard the crowd closing up in a menacing way behind us. But we
+walked straight forward, neither slowly nor hurriedly but at a
+deliberate pace, to the gateway which opened on the cliffs. At this
+point I saw a confusion in the crowd, as though some one were being kept
+back, and in the forefront of the throng, gesticulating and arguing,
+was Lucius himself, with his back to us. Just as we reached the gate I
+heard a cry; and from the crowd there ran Cynthia, with her hair
+unbound, in terror and faintness. Our guide opened the gate, and
+motioned us swiftly through, turning round to face the crowd, which now
+ran in upon us. I saw him wave his arm; and then he came quickly through
+the gate and closed it. He looked at us with a smile. "Don't be afraid,"
+he said; "that was a dangerous business. But they cannot touch us here."
+As he said the word, there burst from the gardens behind us a storm of
+the most hideous and horrible cries I had ever heard, like the howling
+of wild beasts. Cynthia clung to me in terror, and nearly swooned in my
+arms. "Never mind," said the guide; "they are disappointed, and no
+wonder. It was a near thing; but, poor creatures, they have no
+initiative; their life is not a fortifying one; and besides, they will
+have forgotten all about it to-morrow. Rut we had better not stop here.
+There is no use in facing disagreeable things, unless one is obliged."
+And he led the way down the valley.
+
+When we had got a little farther off, our guide told us to sit down and
+rest. Cynthia was still very much frightened, speechless with excitement
+and agitation, and, like all impulsive people, regretting her decision.
+I saw that it was useless to say anything to her at present. She sat
+wearily enough, her eyes closed, and her hands clasped. Our guide looked
+at me with a half-smile, and said:
+
+"That was rather an unpleasant business! It is astonishing how excited
+those placid and polite people can get if they think their privileges
+are being threatened. But really that Court was rather too much. They
+have tried it before with some success, and it is a clever trick. But
+they have had a lesson to-day, and it will not need to be repeated for a
+while."
+
+"You arrived just at the right moment," I said, "and I really cannot
+express how grateful I am to you for your help."
+
+"Oh," he said, "you were quite safe. It was just that touch of temper
+that saved you; but I was hard by all the time, to see that things did
+not go too far."
+
+"May I ask," I said, "exactly what they could have done to me, and what
+their real power is?"
+
+"They have none at all," he said. "They could not really have done
+anything to you, except imprison you. What helps them is not their own
+power, which is nothing, but the terror of their victims. If you had not
+been frightened when you were first attacked, they could not have
+overpowered you. It is all a kind of playacting, which they perform with
+remarkable skill. The Court was really an admirable piece of drama--they
+have a great gift for representation."
+
+"Do you mean to say," I said, "that they were actually aware that they
+had no sort of power to inflict any injury upon me?"
+
+"They could have made it very disagreeable for you," he said, "if they
+had frightened you, and kept you frightened. As long as that lasted,
+you would have been extremely uncomfortable. But as you saw, the moment
+you defied them they were helpless. The part played by Lucius was really
+unpardonable. I am afraid he is a great rascal."
+
+Cynthia faintly demurred to this. "Never mind," said the guide
+soothingly, "he has only shown you his good side, of course; and I don't
+deny that he is a very clever and attractive fellow. But he makes no
+progress, and I am really afraid that he will have to be transferred
+elsewhere; though there is indeed one hope for him."
+
+"Tell me what that is," said Cynthia faintly.
+
+"I don't think I need do that," said our friend, "you know better than
+I; and some day, I think, when you are stronger, you will find the way
+to release him."
+
+"Ah, you don't know him as I do," said Cynthia, and relapsed into
+silence; but did not withdraw her hand from mine.
+
+"Well," said our guide after a moment's pause, "I think I have done all
+I can for the time being, and I am wanted elsewhere."
+
+"But will you not advise me what to do next?" I said. "I do not see my
+way clear."
+
+"No," said the guide rather drily, "I am afraid I cannot do that. That
+lies outside my province. These delicate questions are not in my line. I
+will tell you plainly what I am. I am just a messenger, perhaps more
+like a policeman," he added, smiling, "than anything else. I just go and
+appear when I am wanted, if there is a row or a chance of one. Don't
+misunderstand me!" he said more kindly. "It is not from any lack of
+interest in you or our friend here. I should very much like to know what
+step you will take, but it is simply not my business: our duties here
+are very clearly defined, and I can just do my job, and nothing more."
+
+He made a courteous salute, and walked off without looking back, leaving
+on me the impression of a young military officer, perfectly courteous
+and reliable, not inclined to cultivate his emotions or to waste words,
+but absolutely effective, courageous, and dutiful.
+
+"Well," I said to Cynthia with a show of cheerfulness, "what shall we do
+next? Are you feeling strong enough to go on?"
+
+"I am sure I don't know," said Cynthia wearily. "Don't ask me. I have
+had a great fright, and I begin to wish I had stayed behind. How
+uncomfortable everything is! Why can one never have a moment's peace?
+There," she said to me, "don't be vexed, I am not blaming you; but I
+hated you for not showing more fight when those men set on you, and I
+hated Lucius for having done it; you must forgive me! I am sure you only
+did what was kind and right--but I have had a very trying time, and I
+don't like these bothers. Let me alone for a little, and I daresay I
+shall be more sensible."
+
+I sat by her in much perplexity, feeling singularly helpless and
+ineffective; and in a moment of weakness, not knowing what to do, I
+wished that Amroth were near me, to advise me; and to my relief saw him
+approaching, but also realised in a flash that I had acted wrongly, and
+that he was angry, as I had never seen him before.
+
+He came up to us, and bending down to Cynthia with great tenderness,
+took her hand, and said, "Will you stay here quietly a little, Cynthia,
+and rest? You are perfectly safe now, and no one will come near you. We
+two shall be close at hand; but we must have a talk together, and see
+what can be done."
+
+Cynthia smiled and released me. Amroth beckoned me to withdraw with him.
+When we had got out of earshot, he turned upon me very fiercely, and
+said, "You have made a great mess of this business."
+
+"I know it," I said feebly, "but I cannot for the life of me see where I
+was wrong."
+
+"You were wrong from beginning to end," he said. "Cannot you see that,
+whatever this place is, it is not a sentimental place? It is all this
+wretched sentiment that has done the mischief. Come," he added, "I have
+an unpleasant task before me, to unmask you to yourself. I don't like
+it, but I must do it. Don't make it harder for me."
+
+"Very good," I said, rather angrily too. "But allow me to say this
+first. This is a place of muddle. One is worked too hard, and shown too
+many things, till one is hopelessly confused. But I had rather have your
+criticism first, and then I will make mine."
+
+"Very well!" said Amroth facing me, looking at me fixedly with his blue
+eyes, and his nostrils a little distended. "The mischief lies in your
+temperament. You are precocious, and you are volatile. You have had
+special opportunities, and in a way you have used them well, but your
+head has been somewhat turned by your successes. You came to that place
+yonder, with Cynthia, with a sense of superiority. You thought yourself
+too good for it, and instead of just trying to see into the minds and
+hearts of the people you met, you despised them; instead of learning,
+you tried to teach. You took a feeble interest in Cynthia, made a pet of
+her; then, when I took you away, you forgot all about her. Even the
+great things I was allowed to show you did not make you humble. You took
+them as a compliment to your powers. And so when you had your chance to
+go back to help Cynthia, you thought out no plan, you asked no advice.
+You went down in a very self-sufficient mood, expecting that everything
+would be easy."
+
+"That is not true," I said. "I was very much perplexed."
+
+"It is only too true," said Amroth; "you enjoyed your perplexity; I
+daresay you called it faith to yourself! It was that which made you
+weak. You lost your temper with Lucius, you made a miserable fight of
+it--and even in prison you could not recognise that you were in fault.
+You did better at the trial--I fully admit that you behaved well
+there--but the fault is in this, that this girl gave you her heart and
+her confidence, and you despised them. Your mind was taken up with other
+things; a very little more, and you would be fit for the intellectual
+paradise. There," he said, "I have nearly done! You may be angry if you
+will, but that is the truth. You have a wrong idea of this place. It is
+not plain sailing here. Life here is a very serious, very intricate,
+very difficult business. The only complications which are removed are
+the complications of the body; but one has anxious and trying
+responsibilities all the same, and you have trifled with them. You must
+not delude yourself. You have many good qualities. You have some
+courage, much ingenuity, keen interests, and a good deal of
+conscientiousness; but you have the makings of a dilettante, the
+readiness to delude yourself that the particular little work you are
+engaged in is excessively and peculiarly important. You have got the
+proportion all wrong."
+
+I had a feeling of intense anger and bitterness at all this; but as he
+spoke, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes, and I saw that Amroth was
+right. I wrestled with myself in silence.
+
+Presently I said, "Amroth, I believe you are right, though I think at
+this moment that you have stated all this rather harshly. But I do see
+that it can be no pleasure to you to state it, though I fear I shall
+never regain my pleasure in your company."
+
+"There," said Amroth, "that is sentiment again!"
+
+This put me into a great passion.
+
+"Very well," I said, "I will say no more. Perhaps you will just be good
+enough to tell me what I am to do with Cynthia, and where I am to go,
+and then I will trouble you no longer."
+
+"Oh," said Amroth with a sneer, "I have no doubt you can find some very
+nice semidetached villas hereabouts. Why not settle down, and make the
+poor girl a little mote worthy of yourself?"
+
+At this I turned from him in great anger, and left him standing where he
+was. If ever I hated any one, I hated Amroth at that moment. I went back
+to Cynthia.
+
+"I have come back to you, dear," I said. "Can you trust me and go with
+me? No one here seems inclined to help us, and we must just help each
+other."
+
+At which Cynthia rose and flung herself into my arms.
+
+"That was what I wanted all along," she said, "to feel that I could be
+of use too. You will see how brave I can be. I can go anywhere with you
+and do anything, because I think I have loved you all the time."
+
+"And you must forgive me, Cynthia," I said, "as well. For I did not know
+till this moment that I loved you, but I know it now; and I shall love
+you to the end."
+
+As I said these words I turned, and saw Amroth smiling from afar; then
+with a wave of the hand to us, he turned and passed out of our sight.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+Left to ourselves, Cynthia and I sat awhile in silence, hand in hand,
+like children, she looking anxiously at me. Our talk had broken down all
+possible reserve between us; but what was strange to me was that I felt,
+not like a lover with any need to woo, but as though we two had long
+since been wedded, and had just come to a knowledge of each other's
+hearts. At last we rose; and strange and bewildering as it all was, I
+think I was perhaps happier at this time than at any other time in the
+land of light, before or after.
+
+And let me here say a word about these strange unions of soul that take
+place in that other land. There is there a whole range of affections,
+from courteous tolerance to intense passion. But there is a peculiar
+bond which springs up between pairs of people, not always of different
+sex, in that country. My relation with Amroth had nothing of that
+emotion about it. That was simply like a transcendental essence of
+perfect friendship; but there was a peculiar relation, between pairs of
+souls, which seems to imply some curious duality of nature, of which
+earthly passion is but a symbol. It is accompanied by an absolute
+clearness of vision into the inmost soul and being of the other.
+Cynthia's mind was as clear to me in those days as a crystal globe might
+be which one could hold in one's hand, and my mind was as clear to her.
+There is a sense accompanying it almost of identity, as if the other
+nature was the exact and perfect complement of one's own; I can explain
+this best by an image. Think of a sphere, let us say, of alabaster,
+broken into two pieces by a blow, and one piece put away or mislaid. The
+first piece, let us suppose, stands in its accustomed place, and the
+owner often thinks in a trivial way of having it restored. One day,
+turning over some lumber, he finds the other piece, and wonders if it
+is not the lost fragment. He takes it with him, and sees on applying it
+that the fractures correspond exactly, and that joined together the
+pieces complete the sphere.
+
+Even so did Cynthia's soul fit into mine. But I grew to understand later
+the words of the Gospel--"they neither marry nor are given in marriage."
+These unions are not permanent, any more than they are really permanent
+on earth. On earth, owing to material considerations such as children
+and property, a marriage is looked upon as indissoluble. But this takes
+no account of the development of souls; and indeed many of the unions of
+earth, the passion once over, do grow into a very noble and beautiful
+friendship. But sometimes, even on earth, it is the other way; and
+passion once extinct, two natures often realise their dissimilarities
+rather than their similarities; and this is the cause of much
+unhappiness. But in the other land, two souls may develop in quite
+different ways and at a different pace. And then this relation may also
+come quietly and simply to an end, without the least resentment or
+regret, and is succeeded invariably by a very tender and true
+friendship, each being sweetly and serenely content with all that has
+been given or received; and this friendship is not shaken or fretted,
+even if both of the lovers form new ties of close intimacy. Some natures
+form many of these ties, some few, some none at all. I believe that, as
+a matter of fact, each nature has its counterpart at all times, but does
+not always succeed in finding it. But the union, when it comes, seems to
+take precedence of all other emotions and all other work. I did not know
+this at the time; but I had a sense that my work was for a time over,
+because it seemed quite plain to me that as yet Cynthia was not in the
+least degree suited to the sort of work which I had been doing.
+
+We walked on together for some time, in a happy silence, though quiet
+communications of a blessed sort passed perpetually between us without
+any interchange of word. Our feet moved along the hillside, away from
+the crags, because I felt that Cynthia had no strength to climb them;
+and I wondered what our life would be.
+
+Presently a valley opened before us, folding quietly in among the hills,
+full of a golden haze; and it seemed to me that our further way lay down
+it. It fell softly and securely into a further plain, the country being
+quite unlike anything I had as yet seen--a land of high and craggy
+mountains, the lower parts of them much overgrown with woods; the valley
+itself widened out, and passed gently among the hills, with here and
+there a lake. Dotted all about the mountain-bases, at the edges of the
+woods, were little white houses, stone-walled and stone-tiled, with
+small gardens; and then the place seemed to become strangely familiar
+and homelike; and I became aware that I was coming home: the same
+thought occurred to Cynthia; and at last, when we turned a corner of
+the road, and saw lying a little back from the road a small house, with
+a garden in front of it, shaded by a group of sycamores, we darted
+forwards with a cry of delight to the home that was indeed our own. The
+door stood open as though we were certainly expected. It was the
+simplest little place, just a pair of rooms very roughly and plainly
+furnished. And there we embraced with tears of joy.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+The time that I spent in the valley home with Cynthia is the most
+difficult to describe of all my wanderings; because, indeed, there is
+nothing to describe. We were always together. Sometimes we wandered high
+up among the woods, and came out on the bleak mountain-heads. Sometimes
+we sat within and talked; and by a curious provision there were
+phenomena there that were more like changes of weather, and interchange
+of day and night, than at any other place in the heavenly country.
+Sometimes the whole valley would be shrouded with mists, sometimes it
+would be grey and overcast, sometimes the light was clear and radiant,
+but through it all there beat a pulse of light and darkness; and I do
+not know which was the more desirable--the hours when we walked in the
+forests, with the wind moving softly in the leaves overhead like a
+falling sea, or those calm and silent nights when we seemed to sleep and
+dream, or when, if I waked, I could hear Cynthia's breath coming and
+going evenly as the breath of a tired child. It seemed like the essence
+of human passion, the end that lovers desire, and discern faintly behind
+and beyond the accidents of sense and contact, like the sounding of a
+sweet chord, without satiety or fever of the sense.
+
+I learnt many strange and beautiful secrets of the human heart in those
+days: what the dreams of womanhood are--how wholly different from the
+dreams of man, in which there is always a combative element. The soul of
+Cynthia was like a silent cleft among the hills, which waits, in its own
+still content, until the horn of the shepherd winds the notes of a chord
+in the valley below; and then the cleft makes answer and returns an airy
+echo, blending the notes into a harmony of dulcet utterance. And she
+too, I doubt not, learnt something from my soul, which was eager and
+inventive enough, but restless and fugitive of purpose. And then there
+came a further joy to us. That which is fatherly and motherly in the
+world below is not a thing that is lost in heaven; and just as the love
+of man and woman can draw down and imprison a soul in a body of flesh,
+so in heaven the dear intention of one soul to another brings about a
+yearning, which grows day by day in intensity, for some further outlet
+of love and care.
+
+It was one quiet misty morning that, as we sat together in tranquil
+talk, we heard faltering steps within our garden. We had seen, let me
+say, very little of the other inhabitants of our valley. We had
+sometimes seen a pair of figures wandering at a distance, and we had
+even met neighbours and exchanged a greeting. But the valley had no
+social life of its own, and no one ever seemed, so far as we knew, to
+enter any other dwelling, though they met in quiet friendliness. Cynthia
+went to the door and opened it; then she darted out, and, just when I
+was about to follow, she returned, leading by the hand a tiny child, who
+looked at us with an air of perfect contentment and simplicity.
+
+"Where on earth has this enchanting baby sprung from?" said Cynthia,
+seating the child upon her lap, and beginning to talk to it in a
+strangely unintelligible language, which the child appeared to
+understand perfectly.
+
+I laughed. "Out of our two hearts, perhaps," I said. At which Cynthia
+blushed, and said that I did not understand or care for children. She
+added that men's only idea about children was to think how much they
+could teach them.
+
+"Yes," I said, "we will begin lessons to-morrow, and go on to the Latin
+Grammar very shortly."
+
+At which Cynthia folded the child in her arms, to defend it, and
+reassured it in a sentence which is far too silly to set down here.
+
+I think that sometimes on earth the arrival of a first child is a very
+trying time for a wedded pair. The husband is apt to find his wife's
+love almost withdrawn from him, and to see her nourishing all kinds of
+jealousies and vague ambitions for her child. Paternity is apt to be a
+very bewildered and often rather dramatic emotion. But it was not so
+with us. The child seemed the very thing we had been needing without
+knowing it. It was a constant source of interest and delight; and in
+spite of Cynthia's attempts to keep it ignorant and even fatuous, it did
+develop a very charming intelligence, or rather, as I soon saw, began to
+perceive what it already knew. It soon overwhelmed us with questions,
+and used to patter about the garden with me, airing all sorts of
+delicious and absurd fancies. But, for all that, it did seem to make an
+end of the first utter closeness of our love. Cynthia after this seldom
+went far afield, and I ranged the hills and woods alone; but it was all
+absurdly and continuously happy, though I began to wonder how long it
+could last, and whether my faculties and energies, such as they were,
+could continue thus unused. And I had, too, in my mind that other scene
+which I had beheld, of how the boy was withdrawn from the two old people
+in the other valley. Was it always thus, I wondered? Was it so, that
+souls were drawn upwards in ceaseless pilgrimage, loving and passing on,
+and leaving in the hearts of those who stayed behind a longing
+unassuaged, which was presently to draw them onwards from the peace
+which they loved perhaps too well?
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+The serene life came all to an end very suddenly, and with no warning.
+One day I had been sitting with Cynthia, and the child was playing on
+the floor with some little things--stones, bits of sticks, nuts--which
+it had collected. It was a mysterious game too, accompanied with much
+impressive talk and gesticulations, much emphatic lecturing of
+recalcitrant pebbles, with interludes of unaccountable laughter. We had
+been watching the child, when Cynthia leaned across to me and said:
+
+"There is something in your mind, dear, which I cannot quite see into.
+It has been there for a long time, and I have not liked to ask you about
+it. Won't you tell me what it is?"
+
+"Yes, of course," I said; "I will tell you anything I can."
+
+"It has nothing to do with me," said Cynthia, "nor with the child; it
+is about yourself, I think; and it is not altogether a happy thought."
+
+"It is not unhappy," I said, "because I am very happy and very
+well-content. It is just this, I think. You know, don't you, how I was
+being employed, before I came back, God be praised, to find you? I was
+being trained, very carefully and elaborately trained, I won't say to
+help people, but to be of use in a way. Well, I have been wondering why
+all that was suspended and cut short, just when I seemed to be finishing
+my training. I have been much happier here than I ever was before, of
+course. Indeed I have been so happy that I have sometimes thought it
+almost wrong that any one should have so much to enjoy. But I am
+puzzled, because the other work seems thrown away. If you wonder whether
+I want to leave our life here and go back to the other, of course I do
+not; but I have felt idle, and like a boy turned down from a high class
+at school to a low one."
+
+"That is not very complimentary to me!" said Cynthia, laughing. "Suppose
+we say a boy who has been working too hard for his health, and has been
+given a long holiday?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "that is better. It is as if a clerk was told that he
+need not attend his office, but stay at home; and though it is pleasant
+enough, he feels as if he ought to be at his work, that he appreciates
+his home all the more when he can't sit reading the paper all the
+morning, and that he does not love his home less, but rather more,
+because he is away all the day."
+
+"Yes," said Cynthia, "that is sensible enough; and I am amazed sometimes
+that you can be so good and patient about it all--so content to be so
+much with me and baby here; but I don't think it is quite--what shall I
+say?--quite healthy either!"
+
+"Well," I said, "I have no wish to change; and here, I am glad to think,
+there is never any doubt about what one is meant to do."
+
+And so the subject dropped.
+
+How little I thought then that this was to be the end of the old scene,
+and that the curtain was to draw up so suddenly upon a new one.
+
+But the following morning I had been wandering contentedly enough in the
+wood, watching the shafts of light strike in among the trees, upon the
+glittering fronds of the ferns, and thinking idly of all my strange
+experiences. I came home, and to my surprise, as I came to the door,
+I heard talk going on inside. I went hastily in, and saw that Cynthia
+was not alone. She was sitting, looking very grave and serious, and
+wonderfully beautiful--her beauty had grown and increased in a
+marvellous way of late. And there were two men, one sitting in a chair
+near her and regarding her with a look of love; it was Lucius; and I saw
+at a glance that he was strangely changed. He had the same spirited and
+mirthful look as of old, but there was something there which I had
+never seen before--the look of a man who had work of his own, and had
+learned something of the perplexity and suffering of responsibility. The
+other was Amroth, who was looking at the two with an air of
+irrepressible amusement. When I entered, Lucius rose, and Amroth said to
+me:
+
+"Here I am again, you see, and wondering whether you can regain the
+pleasure you once were kind enough to take in my company?"
+
+"What nonsense!" I said rather shamefacedly. "How often have I blushed
+in secret to think of that awful remark. But I was rather harried, you
+must admit."
+
+Amroth came across to me and put his arm through mine.
+
+"I forgive you," he said, "and I will admit that I was very provoking;
+but things were in a mess, and, besides, it was very inconvenient for me
+to be called away at that moment from my job!"
+
+But Lucius came up to me and said:
+
+"I have come to apologise to you. My behaviour was hideous and horrible.
+I won't make any excuses, and I don't suppose you can ever forget what I
+did. I was utterly and entirely in the wrong."
+
+"Thank you, Lucius," I said. "But please say no more about it. My own
+behaviour on that occasion was infamous too. And really we need not go
+back on all that. The whole affair has become quite an agreeable
+reminiscence. It is a pleasure, when it is all over, to have been
+thoroughly and wholesomely shown up, and to discover that one has been a
+pompous and priggish ass. And you and Amroth between you did me that
+blessed turn. I am not quite sure which of you I hated most. But I may
+say one thing, and that is that I am heartily glad to see you have left
+the land of delight."
+
+"It was a tedious place really," said Lucius, "but one felt bound in
+honour to make the best of it. But indeed after that day it was
+horrible. And I wearied for a sight of Cynthia! But you seem to have
+done very well for yourselves here. May I venture to say frankly how
+well she is looking, and you too? But I am not going to interrupt you.
+I have got my billet, I am thankful to say. It is not a very exalted one,
+but it is better than I deserve; and I shall try to make up for wasted
+time."
+
+"Hear, hear!" said Amroth; "a very creditable sentiment, to be sure!"
+
+Lucius smiled and blushed. Then he said:
+
+"I never was much of a hand at expressing myself correctly; but you know
+what I mean. Don't take the wind out of my sails!"
+
+And then Amroth turned to me, and said suddenly:
+
+"And now I have something else to tell you, and not wholly good news; so
+I will just say it at once, without beating about the bush. You are to
+come with us too."
+
+Cynthia looked up suddenly with a glance of pale inquiry. Amroth took
+her hand.
+
+"No, dear child," he said, "you are not to accompany him. You must stay
+here awhile, until the child is grown. But don't look like that! There
+is no such thing as separation here, or anywhere. Don't make it harder
+for us all. It is unpleasant of course; but, good heavens, what would
+become of us all if it were not for that! How dull we should be without
+suffering!"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Cynthia, "I know--and I will say nothing against it.
+But--" and she burst into tears.
+
+"Come, come," said Amroth cheerfully, "we must not go back to the old
+days, and behave as if there were partings and funerals. I will give you
+five minutes alone to say good-bye. Lucius, we must start," and, turning
+to me, he said, "Meet us in five minutes by the oak-tree in the road."
+
+They went out, Lucius kissing Cynthia's hand in silence.
+
+Cynthia came up to me and put her arms round my neck and her cheek to
+mine. We sobbed, I fear, like two children.
+
+"Don't forget me, dearest," she said.
+
+"My darling, what a word!" I said.
+
+"Oh, how happy we have been together!" she said.
+
+"Yes, and shall be happier still," I said.
+
+And then with more words and signs of love, too sacred even to be
+written down, we parted. It was over. I looked back once, and saw my
+darling gather the child to her heart, and look up once more at me. Then
+I closed the door; something seemed to surge up in my heart and
+overwhelm me; and then the ring on my finger sent a sharp pang through
+my whole frame, which recalled me to myself. And I say it with all the
+strength of my spirit, I saw how joyful a thing it was to suffer and
+grieve. I came down to the oak. The two were waiting in silence, and
+Lucius seemed to be in tears. Amroth put his arm through mine.
+
+"Come, brother," he said, "that was a bad business; I won't pretend
+otherwise; but these things had better come swiftly."
+
+"Yes," said Lucius, "but it is a cruel affair, and I can't say
+otherwise. Why cannot God leave us alone?"
+
+"Lucius," said Amroth very gravely, "here you may say and think as you
+will--and the thoughts of the heart are best uttered. But one must not
+blaspheme."
+
+"No, no," said Lucius, "I was wrong. I ought not to have spoken so. And
+indeed I know in my heart that somehow, far off, it is well. But I was
+thinking," he said, turning to me, and grasping my hand in both of his
+own, "not of you, but of Cynthia. I am glad with all my heart that you
+took her from me, and have made her happy. But what miserable creatures
+we all are; and how much more miserable we should be if we were not
+miserable!"
+
+And then we started. It was a dreary hour that, full of deep and gnawing
+pain. I pictured to myself Cynthia at every moment, what she was doing
+and thinking; how swiftly the good days had flown; how perfectly happy
+I had been; and so my wretched silent reverie went on.
+
+"I must say," said Amroth at length, breaking a dismal silence, "that
+this is very tedious. Can't you take some interest? I have very
+disagreeable things to do, but that is no reason why I should be bored
+as well!" And he then set himself to talk with much zest of all my old
+friends and companions, telling me how each was faring. Charmides, it
+seemed, had become a very accomplished architect and designer; Philip
+was a teacher at the College. And he went on until, in spite of my
+heaviness, I felt the whole of life beginning to widen and vibrate all
+about me, and a sense almost of shame creeping into my mind that I had
+become so oblivious of all the other friendships and relations I had
+formed. I forced myself to talk and to ask questions, and found myself
+walking more briskly. It was not very long before we parted with Lucius.
+He was left at the doors of a great barrack-like like building, and
+Amroth told me he was to be employed as an officer, very much in the
+same way as the young man who was sent to conduct me away from the
+trial; and I felt what a good officer Lucius would make--smart, prompt,
+polite, and not in the least sentimental.
+
+So we went on together rather gloomily; and then Amroth let me look for
+a little deep into his heart; and I saw that it was filled with a kind
+of noble pity for me in my suffering; but behind the pity lay that
+blissful certainty which made Amroth so light-hearted, that it was just
+so, through suffering, that one became wise; and he could no more think
+of it as irksome or sad than a jolly undergraduate thinks of the
+training for a race or the rowing in the race as painful, but takes it
+all with a kind of high-hearted zest, and finds even the nervousness an
+exciting thing, life lived at high pressure in a crowded hour.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+And thus we came ourselves to a new place, though I took but little note
+of all we passed, for my mind was bent inward upon itself and upon
+Cynthia. The place was a great solid stone building, in many courts,
+with fine tree-shaded fields all about; a school, it seemed to me, with
+boys and girls going in and out, playing games together. Amroth told me
+that children were bestowed here who had been of naturally fine and
+frank dispositions, but who had lived their life on earth under foul and
+cramped conditions, by which they had been fretted rather than tainted.
+It seemed a very happy and busy place. Amroth took me into a great room
+that seemed a sort of library or common-room. There was no one there,
+and I was glad to sit and rest; when suddenly the door opened, and a man
+came in with outstretched hands and a smile of welcome. I looked up,
+and it was none but the oldest and dearest friend of my last life, who
+had died before me. He had been a teacher, a man of the simplest and
+most guileless life, whose whole energy and delight was given to
+teaching and loving the young. The surprising thing about him had always
+been that he could meet one, after a long silence or a suspension of
+intercourse, as simply and easily as if one had but left him the day
+before; and it was just the same here. There was no effusiveness of
+greeting--we just fell at once into the old familiar talk.
+
+"You are just the same," I said to him, looking at the burly figure, the
+big, almost clumsy, head, and the irradiating smile. His great charm had
+always been an entire unworldliness and absence of ambition.
+
+He smiled at this and said:
+
+"Yes, I am afraid I am too easy-going." He had never cared to talk about
+himself, and now he said, "Well, yes, I go along in my old prosy way.
+It is just like the old schooldays, with half the difficulties gone. Of
+course the children are not always good, but that makes it the more
+amusing; and one can see much more easily what they are thinking of and
+dreaming about."
+
+I found myself telling him my adventures, which he heard with the same
+quiet attention and I was sure that he would never forget a single
+point--he never forgot anything in the old days.
+
+"Yes," he said at the end, "that's a wonderful story. You always had the
+trouble of the adventures, and I had the fun of hearing them."
+
+He asked me what I was now going to do, and I said that I had not the
+least idea.
+
+"Oh, that will be all right," he said.
+
+It was all so comfortable and simple, so obvious indeed, that I laughed
+to think of the bitter and miserable reveries I had indulged in when he
+was taken from me, and when the stay of my life seemed gone. The whole
+incident seemed to give me back a touch of the serenity which I had
+lost, and I saw how beautifully this joy of meeting had been planned for
+me, when I wanted it most. Presently he said that he must go off for a
+lesson, and asked me to come with him and see the children. We went into
+a big class-room, where some boys and girls were assembling. Here he was
+exactly the same as ever; no sentiment, but just a kind of bluff
+paternal kindness. The lesson was most informal--a good deal of
+questioning and answering; it was a biographical lecture, but devoted,
+I saw, in a simple way, to tracing the development of the hero's
+character. "What made him do that?" was a constant question. The answers
+were most ingenious and extraordinarily lively; but the order was
+perfect. At the end he called up two or three children who had shown
+some impatience or jealousy in the lesson, and said a few half-humorous
+words to them, with an air of affectionate interest.
+
+"They are jolly little creatures," he said when they had all gone out.
+
+"Yes," I said, with a sigh, "I do indeed envy you. I wish I could be set
+to something of the kind."
+
+"Oh, no, you don't," he said; "this is too simple for you! You want
+something more artistic and more psychological. This would bore you to
+extinction."
+
+We walked all round the place, saw the games going on, and were
+presently joined by Amroth, who seemed to be on terms of old
+acquaintanceship with my friend. I was surprised at this, and he said:
+
+"Why, yes, Amroth had the pleasure of bringing me here too. Things are
+done here in groups, you know; and Amroth knows all about our lot. It is
+very well organised, much better than one perceives at first. You
+remember how you and I drifted to school together, and the set of boys
+we found ourselves with--my word, what young ruffians some of us were!
+Well, of course all that had been planned, though we did not know it."
+
+"What!" said I; "the evil as well as the good?"
+
+The two looked at each other and smiled.
+
+"That is not a very real distinction," said Amroth. "Of course the poor
+bodies got in the way, as always; there was some fizzing and some
+precipitation, as they say in chemistry. But you each of you gave and
+received just what you were meant to give and receive; though these are
+complicated matters, like the higher mathematics; and we must not talk
+of them to-day. If one can escape the being shocked at things and yet be
+untainted by them, and, on the other hand, if one can avoid pomposity
+and yet learn self-respect, that is enough. But you are tired to-day,
+and I want you just to rest and be refreshed."
+
+Presently Amroth asked me if I should like to stay there awhile, and I
+most willingly consented.
+
+"You want something to do," he said, "and you shall have some light
+employment."
+
+That same day, before Amroth left me, I had a curious talk with him.
+
+I said to him: "Let me ask you one question. I had always had a sort of
+hope that when I came to the land of spirits, I should have a chance of
+seeing and hearing something of some of the great souls of earth. I had
+dimly imagined a sort of reception, where one could wander about and
+listen to the talk of the men one had admired and longed to see--Plato,
+let me say, and Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and Shelley--some of the
+immortals. But I don't seem to have seen anything of them--only just
+ordinary and simple people."
+
+Amroth laughed.
+
+"You do say the most extraordinarily ingenuous things," he said. "In the
+first place, of course, we have quite a different scale of values here.
+People do not take rank by their accomplishments, but by their power of
+loving. Many of the great men of earth--and this is particularly the
+case with writers and artists--are absolutely nothing here. They had, it
+is true, a fine and delicate brain, on which they played with great
+skill; but half the artists of the world are great as artists, simply
+because they do not care. They perceive and they express; but they would
+not have the heart to do it at all, if they really cared. Some of them,
+no doubt, were men of great hearts, and they have their place and work.
+But to claim to see all the highest spirits together is as absurd as if
+you called on a doctor in London at eleven o'clock and expected to meet
+all the great physicians at his house, intent on general conversation.
+Some of the great people, indeed, you have met, and they were very
+simple persons on earth. The greatest person you have hitherto seen was
+a butler on earth--the master of your College. And if it does not shock
+your aristocratic susceptibilities too much, the President of this place
+kept a small shop in a country village. But one of the teachers here
+was actually a marquis in the world! Does that uplift you? He teaches
+the little girls how to play cricket, and he is a very good dancer.
+Perhaps you would like to be introduced to him?"
+
+"Don't treat me as a child," I said, rather pettishly.
+
+"No, no," said Amroth, "it isn't that. But you are one of those
+impressible people; and they always find it harder to disentangle
+themselves from the old ideas."
+
+I spent a long and happy time in the school. I was given a little
+teaching to do, and found it perfectly enchanting. Imagine children with
+everything greedy and sensual gone, with none of the crossness or
+spitefulness that comes of fatigue or pressure, but with all the
+interesting passions of humanity, admiration, keenness, curiosity, and
+even jealousy, emulation, and anger, all alive and active in them. They
+were not angelic children at all, neither meek nor mild. But they were
+generous and affectionate, and it was easy to evoke these feelings. The
+one thing absent from the whole place was any touch of sentimentality,
+which arises from natural affections suppressed into a giggling kind of
+secrecy. They expressed affection loudly and frankly, just as they
+expressed indignation and annoyance. All the while I kept Cynthia in my
+heart; she was ever before me in a thousand sweet postures and with
+innumerable glances. But I saw much of my sturdy and wholesome-minded
+old friend; and the sore pain of parting faded away out of my heart, and
+left me with nothing but the purest and deepest love, which helped me in
+all I did or said, and made me patient and tender-hearted. And thus the
+period sped not unhappily away, though I had my times of agony and
+despair.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+I became aware at this time, very gradually and even solemnly, that some
+crisis of my life was approaching. How the monition came to me I hardly
+know; I felt like a man wandering in the dark, with eyes strained and
+hands outstretched, who is dimly aware of some great object, tree or
+haystack or house, looming up ahead of him, which he cannot directly
+see, but of which he is yet conscious by the vibration of some sixth
+sense. The wonder came by degrees to overshadow my thoughts with a sense
+of expectant awe, and to permeate all the urgent concerns of my life
+with its shadowy presence. Even the thought of Cynthia, who indeed was
+always in my mind, became obscured with the dimness of this obscure
+anticipation.
+
+One day Amroth stood beside me as I worked; he was very grave and
+serious, but with a joyful kind of courage about him. I pushed my books
+and papers away, and rose to greet him, saying half-unconsciously, and
+just putting my thought into words:
+
+"So it has come!"
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "it has come! I have known it for some little time,
+and my thought has mingled with yours. I tell you frankly that I did
+not quite expect it; but one never knows here. You must come with me at
+once. You are to see the last mystery; and though I am glad for your
+sake that it is come, yet I tremble for you, because it is unlike any
+other experience; and one can never be the same again."
+
+I felt myself oppressed by a sudden terror of darkness, but, half to
+reassure myself, I answered lightly:
+
+"But it does not seem to have affected you, Amroth! You are always
+light-hearted and cheerful, and not overshadowed by any dark or gloomy
+thoughts."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Amroth hurriedly. "It is easy enough, when it is once
+over. Nothing that is behind one matters; but this is a thing that one
+cannot jest about. Of course there is nothing to fear; but to be brought
+face to face with the greatest thing in the world is not a light matter.
+Let me say this. I am to be with you all through; and my only word to
+you is that you must do exactly what I tell you, and at once, without
+any doubting or flinching. Then all will be well! But we must not delay.
+Come at once, and keep your mind perfectly quiet."
+
+We went out together; and there seemed to have fallen a sense of gravity
+over all whom we met. My companions did not speak to me as we walked
+out, but stood aside to see me pass, and even looked at me, I thought,
+with an air half of reverence, half of a sort of natural compassion, as
+one might watch a dear friend go to be tried for his life.
+
+We came out of the door, and found, it seemed to me, an unusual
+stillness everywhere. The wind, which often blew high on the bare moor,
+had dropped. We took a path, which I had never seen, which struck off
+over the hills. We walked for a long time, almost in silence. But I
+could not bear the strange curiosity which was straining at my heart,
+and I said presently to Amroth:
+
+"Give me some idea what I am to see or to endure. Is it some judgment
+which I am to face, or am I to suffer pain? I would rather know the best
+and the worst of it."
+
+"It is everything," said Amroth; "you are to see God. All is comprised
+in that."
+
+His words fell with a shocking distinctness in the calm air, and I felt
+my heart and limbs fail me, and a dizziness came over my mind. Hardly
+knowing what I did or said, I came to a stop.
+
+"But I did not know that it was possible," I said. "I thought that God
+was everywhere--within us, about us, beyond us? How can that be?"
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "God is indeed everywhere, and no place contains
+Him; neither can any of us see or comprehend Him. I cannot explain
+it; but there is a centre, so to speak, near to which the unclean
+and the evil cannot come, where the fire of His thought burns the
+hottest.... Oh," he said, "neither word nor thought is of any use here;
+you will see what you will see!"
+
+Perhaps the hardest thing I had to bear in all my wanderings was the
+sight of Amroth's own fear. It was unmistakable. His spirit seemed
+prepared for it, perfectly courageous and sincere as it was; but there
+was a shuddering awe upon him, for all that, which infected me with an
+extremity of terror. Was it that he thought me unequal to the
+experience? I could not tell. But we walked as men dragging themselves
+into some fiery and dreadful martyrdom.
+
+Again I could not bear it, and I cried out suddenly:
+
+"But, Amroth, He is Love; and we can enter without fear into the
+presence of Love!"
+
+"Have you not yet guessed," said Amroth sternly, "how terrible Love can
+be? It is the most terrible thing in the world, because it is the
+strongest. If Death is dreadful, what must that be which is stronger
+than Death? Come, let us be silent, for we are near the place, and this
+is no time for words;" and then he added with a look of the deepest
+compassion and tenderness, "I wish I could speak differently, brother,
+at this hour; but I am myself afraid."
+
+And at that we gave up all speech, and only our thoughts sprang together
+and intertwined, like two children that clasp each other close in a
+burning house, when the smoke comes volleying from the door.
+
+We were coming now to what looked like a ridge of rocks ahead of us; and
+I saw here a wonderful thing, a great light of incredible pureness and
+whiteness, which struck upwards from the farther side. This began to
+light up our own pale faces, and to throw our backs into a dark shadow,
+even though the radiance of the heavenly day was all about us. And at
+last we came to the place.
+
+It was the edge of a precipice so vast, so stupendous, that no word can
+even dimly describe its depth; it was all illuminated with incredible
+clearness by the light which struck upwards from below. It was
+absolutely sheer, great pale cliffs of white stone running downwards
+into the depth. To left and right the precipice ran, with an irregular
+outline, so that one could see the cliff-fronts gleam how many millions
+of leagues below! There seemed no end to it. But at a certain point far
+down in the abyss the light seemed stronger and purer. I was at first so
+amazed by the sight that I gazed in silence. Then a dreadful dizziness
+came over me, and I felt Amroth's hand put round me to sustain me. Then
+in a faint whisper, that was almost inaudible, Amroth, pointing with his
+finger downwards, said:
+
+"Watch that place where the light seems clearest."
+
+I did so. Suddenly there came, as from the face of the cliff, a thing
+like a cloudy jet of golden steam. It passed out into the clear air,
+shaping itself in strange and intricate curves; then it grew darker in
+colour, hung for an instant like a cloud of smoke, and then faded into
+the sky.
+
+"What is that?" I said, surprised out of my terror.
+
+"I may tell you that," said Amroth, "that you may know what you see.
+There is no time here; and you have seen a universe made, and live its
+life, and die. You have seen the worlds created. That cloud of whirling
+suns, each with its planets, has taken shape before your eyes; life has
+arisen there, has developed; men like ourselves have lived, have
+wrestled with evil, have formed states, have died and vanished. That is
+all but a single thought of God."
+
+Another came, and then another of the golden jets, each fading into
+darkness and dispersing.
+
+"And now," said Amroth, "the moment has come. You are to make the last
+sacrifice of the soul. Do not shrink back, fear nothing. Leap into the
+abyss!"
+
+The thought fell upon me with an infinity and an incredulity of horror
+that I cannot express in words. I covered my eyes with my hands.
+
+"Oh, I cannot, I cannot," I said; "anything but this! God be merciful;
+let me go rather to some infinite place of torment where at least I may
+feel myself alive. Do not ask this of me!"
+
+Amroth made no answer, and I saw that he was regarding me fixedly,
+himself pale to the lips; but with a touch of anger and even of
+contempt, mixed with a world of compassion and love. There was something
+in this look which seemed to entreat me mutely for my own sake and his
+own to act. I do not know what the impulse was that came to
+me--self-contempt, trust, curiosity, the yearning of love. I closed my
+eyes, I took a faltering step, and stumbled, huddling and aghast, over
+the edge. The air flew up past me with a sort of shriek; I opened my
+eyes once, and saw the white cliffs speeding past. Then an
+unconsciousness came over me and I knew no more.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+I came to myself very gradually and dimly, with no recollection at first
+of what had happened. I was lying on my back on some soft grassy place,
+with the air blowing cool over me. I thought I saw Amroth bending over
+me with a look of extraordinary happiness, and felt his arm about me;
+but again I became unconscious, yet all the time with a blissfulness of
+repose and joy, far beyond what I had experienced at my first waking on
+the sunlit sea. Again life dawned upon me. I was there, I was myself.
+What had happened to me? I could not tell. So I lay for a long time half
+dreaming and half swooning; till at last life seemed to come back
+suddenly to me, and I sat up. Amroth was holding me in his arms close to
+the spot from which I had sprung.
+
+"Have I been dreaming?" I said. "Was it here? and when? I cannot
+remember. It seems impossible, but was I told to jump down? What has
+happened to me? I am confused."
+
+"You will know presently," said Amroth, in a tone from which all the
+fear seemed to have vanished. "It is all over, and I am thankful. Do not
+try to recollect; it will come back to you presently. Just rest now; you
+have been through strange things."
+
+Suddenly a thought began to shape itself in my mind, a thought of
+perfect and irresistible joy.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I remember now. We were afraid, both of us, and you told
+me to leap down. But what was it that I saw, and what was it that was
+told me? I cannot recall it. Oh," I said at last, "I know now; it comes
+back to me. I fell, in hideous cowardice and misery. The wind blew
+shrill. I saw the cliffs stream past; then I was unconscious, I think.
+I seem to have died; but part of me was not dead. My flight was stayed,
+and I floated out somewhere. I was joined to something that was like
+both fire and water in one. I was seen and known and understood and
+loved, perfectly and unutterably and for ever. But there was pain,
+somewhere, Amroth! How was that? I am sure there was pain."
+
+"Of course, dear child," said Amroth, "there was pain, because there was
+everything."
+
+"But," I said, "I cannot understand yet; why was that terrible leap
+demanded of me? And why did I confront it with such abject cowardice and
+dismay? Surely one need not go stumbling and cowed into the presence of
+God?"
+
+"There is no other way," said Amroth; "you do not understand how
+terrible perfect love is. It is because it is perfect that it is
+terrible. Our own imperfect love has some weakness in it. It is mixed
+with pleasure, and then it is not a sacrifice; one gives as much of
+oneself as one chooses; one is known just so far as one wishes to be
+known. But here with God there must be no concealment--though even there
+a man can withhold his heart from God--God never uses compulsion; and
+the will can prevail even against Him. But the reason of the leap that
+must be taken is this: it is the last surrender, and it cannot be made
+on our terms and conditions; it must be absolute. And what I feared for
+you was not anything that would happen if you did commit yourself to
+God, but what would happen if you did not; for, of course, you could
+have resisted, and then you would have had to begin again."
+
+I was silent for a little, and then I said: "I remember now more
+clearly, but did I really see Him? It seems so absolutely simple.
+Nothing happened. I just became one with the heart and life of the
+world; I came home at last. Yet how am I here? How is it I was not
+merged in light and life?"
+
+"Ah," said Amroth, "it is the new birth. You can never be the same
+again. But you are not yet lost in Him. The time for that is not yet.
+It is a mystery; but as yet God works outward, radiates energy and force
+and love; the time will come when all will draw inward again, and be
+merged in Him. But the world is as yet in its dawning. The rising sun
+scatters light and heat, and the hot and silent noon is yet to come;
+then the shadows move eastward, and after that comes the waning sunset
+and the evening light, and last of all the huge and starlit peace of the
+night."
+
+"But," I said, "if this is really so, if I have been gathered close to
+God's heart, why is it that instead of feeling stronger, I only feel
+weak and unstrung? I have indeed an inner sense of peace and happiness,
+but I have no will or purpose of my own that I can discern."
+
+"That," said Amroth, "is because you have given up all. The sense of
+strength is part of our weakness. Our plans, our schemes, our ambitions,
+all the things that make us enjoy and hope and arrange, are but signs
+of our incompleteness. Your will is still as molten metal, it has borne
+the fierce heat of inner love; and this has taken all that is hard and
+stubborn and complacent out of you--for a time. But when you return to
+the life of the body, as you will return, there will be this great
+difference in you. You will have to toil and suffer, and even sin. But
+there will be one thing that you will not do: you will never be
+complacent or self-righteous, you will not judge others hardly. You will
+be able to forgive and to make allowances; you will concern yourself
+with loving others, not with trying to improve them up to your own
+standard. You will wish them to be different, but you will not condemn
+them for being different; and hereafter the lives you live on earth will
+be of the humblest. You will have none of the temptations of authority,
+or influence, or ambition again--all that will be far behind you. You
+will live among the poor, you will do the most menial and commonplace
+drudgery, you will have none of the delights of life. You will be
+despised and contemned for being ugly and humble and serviceable and
+meek. You will be one of those who will be thought to have no spirit to
+rise, no power of making men serve your turn. You will miss what are
+called your chances, you will be a failure; but you will be trusted and
+loved by children and simple people; they will depend upon you, and you
+will make the atmosphere in which you live one of peace and joy. You
+will have selfish employers, tyrannical masters, thankless children
+perhaps, for whom you will slave lovingly. They will slight you and even
+despise you, but their hearts will turn to you again and again, and
+yours will be the face that they will remember when they come to die, as
+that of the one person who loved them truly and unquestioningly. That
+will be your destiny; one of utter obscurity and nothingness upon earth.
+Yet each time, when you return hither, your work will be higher and
+holier, and nearer to the heart of God. And now I have said enough; for
+you have seen God, as I too saw Him long ago; and our hope is
+henceforward the same."
+
+"Yes," I said to Amroth, "I am content. I had thought that I should be
+exalted and elated by my privileges; but I have no thought or dream of
+that. I only desire to go where I am sent, to do what is desired of me.
+I have laid my burden down."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+Presently Amroth rose, and said that we must be going onward.
+
+"And now," he said, "I have a further thing to tell you, and that is
+that I have very soon to leave you. To bring you hither was the last of
+my appointed tasks, and my work is now done. It is strange to remember
+how I bore you in my arms out of life, like a little sleeping child, and
+how much we have been together."
+
+"Do not leave me now," I said to Amroth. "There seems so much that I
+have to ask you. And if your work with me is done, where are you now
+going?"
+
+"Where am I going, brother?" said Amroth. "Back to life again, and
+immediately. And there is one thing more that is permitted, and that is
+that you should be with me to the last. Strange that I should have
+attended you here, to the very crown and sum of life, and that you
+should now attend me where I am going! But so it is."
+
+"And what do you feel about it?" I said.
+
+"Oh," said Amroth, "I do not like it, of course. To be so free and
+active here, and to be bound again in the body, in the close, suffering,
+ill-savoured house of life! But I have much to gain by it. I have a
+sharpness of temper and a peremptoriness--of which indeed," he said,
+smiling, "you have had experience. I am fond of doing things in my own
+way, inconsiderate of others, and impatient if they do not go right. I
+am hard, and perhaps even vulgar. But now I am going like a board to the
+carpenter, to have some of my roughness planed out of me, and I hope to
+do better."
+
+"Well," I said, "I am too full of wonder and hope just now to be alarmed
+for you. I could even wish I were myself departing. But I have a desire
+to see Cynthia again."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "and you will see her; but you will not be long
+after me, brother; comfort yourself with that!"
+
+We walked a little farther across the moorland, talking softly at
+intervals, till suddenly I discerned a solitary figure which was
+approaching us swiftly.
+
+"Ah," said Amroth, "my time has indeed come. I am summoned."
+
+He waved his hand to the man, who came up quickly and even breathlessly,
+and handed Amroth a sealed paper. Amroth tore it open, read it
+smilingly, gave a nod to the officer, saying "Many thanks." The officer
+saluted him; he was a brisk young man, with a fresh air; and he then,
+without a word, turned from us and went over the moorland.
+
+"Come," said Amroth, "let us descend. You can do this for yourself now;
+you do not need my help." He took my hand, and a mist enveloped us.
+Suddenly the mist broke up and streamed away. I looked round me in
+curiosity.
+
+We were standing in a very mean street of brick-built houses, with
+slated roofs; over the roofs we could see a spire, and the chimneys of
+mills, spouting smoke. The houses had tiny smoke-dried gardens in front
+of them. At the end of the street was an ugly, ill-tended field, on
+which much rubbish lay. There were some dirty children playing about,
+and a few women, with shawls over their heads, were standing together
+watching a house opposite. The window of an upper room was open, and out
+of it came cries and moans.
+
+"It's going very badly with her," said one of the women, "poor soul; but
+the doctor will be here soon. She was about this morning too. I had a
+word with her, and she was feeling very bad. I said she ought to be in
+bed, but she said she had her work to do first."
+
+The women glanced at the window with a hushed sort of sympathy. A young
+woman, evidently soon to become a mother, looked pale and apprehensive.
+
+"Will she get through?" she said timidly.
+
+"Oh, don't you fear, Sarah," said one of the women, kindly enough. "She
+will be all right. Bless you, I've been through it five times myself,
+and I am none the worse. And when it's over she'll be as comfortable as
+never was. It seems worth it then."
+
+A man suddenly turned the corner of the street; he was dressed in a
+shabby overcoat with a bowler hat, and he carried a bag in his hand. He
+came past us. He looked a busy, overtried man, but he had a
+good-humoured air. He nodded pleasantly to the women. One said:
+
+"You are wanted badly in there, doctor."
+
+"Yes," he said cheerfully, "I am making all the haste I can. Where's
+John?"
+
+"Oh, he's at work," said the woman. "He didn't expect it to-day. But
+he's better out of the way: he 'd be no good; he'd only be interfering
+and grumbling; but I'll come across with you, and when it's over, I'll
+just run down and tell him."
+
+"That's right," said the doctor, "come along--the nurse will be round
+in a minute; and I can make things easy meantime."
+
+Strange to say, it had hardly dawned upon me what was happening. I
+turned to Amroth, who stood there smiling, but a little pale, his arm in
+mine; fresh and upright, with his slim and graceful limbs, his bright
+curled hair, a strange contrast to the slatternly women and the
+heavily-built doctor.
+
+"So this," he said, "is where I am to spend a few years; my new father
+is a hardworking man, I believe, perhaps a little given to drink but
+kind enough; and I daresay some of these children are my brothers and
+sisters. A score of years or more to spend here, no doubt! Well, it
+might be worse. You will think of me while you can, and if you have the
+time, you may pay me a visit, though I don't suppose I shall recognise
+you."
+
+"It seems rather dreadful to me," said I, "I must confess! Who would
+have thought that I should have forgotten my visions so soon? Amroth,
+dear, I can't bear this--that you should suffer such a change."
+
+"Sentiment again, brother," said Amroth. "To me it is curious and
+interesting, even exciting. Well, good-bye; my time is just up, I
+think."
+
+The doctor had gone into the house, and the cries died away. A moment
+after a woman in the dress of a nurse came quickly along the street,
+knocked, opened the door, and went in. I could see into the room, a
+poorly furnished one. A girl sat nursing a baby by the fire, and looked
+very much frightened. A little boy played in the corner. A woman was
+bustling about, making some preparations for a meal.
+
+"Let me do you the honours of my new establishment," said Amroth with a
+smile. "No, dear man, don't go with me any farther. We will part here,
+and when we meet again we shall have some new stories to tell. Bless
+you." He took his hand from my arm, caught up my hand, kissed it, said,
+"There, that is for you," and disappeared smiling into the house.
+
+A moment later there came the cry of a new-born child from the window
+above. The doctor came out and went down the street; one of the women
+joined him and walked with him. A few minutes later she returned with a
+young and sturdy workman, looking rather anxious.
+
+"It's all right," I heard her say, "it's a fine boy, and Annie is doing
+well--she'll be about again soon enough."
+
+They disappeared into the house, and I turned away.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+It is difficult to describe the strange emotions with which the
+departure of Amroth filled me. I think that, when I first entered the
+heavenly country, the strongest feeling I experienced was the sense of
+security--the thought that the earthly life was over and done with, and
+that there remained the rest and tranquillity of heaven. What I cannot
+even now understand is this. I am dimly aware that I have lived a great
+series of lives, in each of which I have had to exist blindly, not
+knowing that my life was not bounded and terminated by death, and only
+darkly guessing and hoping, in passionate glimpses, that there might be
+a permanent life of the soul behind the life of the body. And yet, at
+first, on entering the heavenly country, I did not remember having
+entered it before; it was not familiar to me, nor did I at first recall
+in memory that I had been there before. The earthly life seems to
+obliterate for a time even the heavenly memory. But the departure of
+Amroth swept away once and for all the sense of security. One felt of
+the earthly life, indeed, as a busy man may think of a troublesome visit
+he has to pay, which breaks across the normal current of his life, while
+he anticipates with pleasure his return to the usual activities of home
+across the interval of social distraction, which he does not exactly
+desire, but yet is glad that it should intervene, if only for the
+heightened sense of delight with which he will resume his real life. I
+had been happy in heaven, though with periods of discontent and moments
+of dismay. But I no longer desired a dreamful ease; I only wished
+passionately to be employed. And now I saw that I must resign all
+expectation of that. As so often happens, both on earth and in heaven, I
+had found something of which I was not in search, while the work which I
+had estimated so highly, and prepared myself so ardently for, had never
+been given to me to do at all.
+
+But for the moment I had but one single thought. I was to see Cynthia
+again, and I might then expect my own summons to return to life. What
+surprised me, on looking back at my present sojourn, was the extreme
+apparent fortuitousness of it. It had not been seemingly organised or
+laid out on any plan; and yet it had shown me this, that my own
+intentions and desires counted for nothing. I had meant to work, and I
+had been mostly idle; I had intended to study psychology, and I had
+found love. How much wiser and deeper it had all been than anything
+which I had designed!
+
+Even now I was uncertain how to find Cynthia. But recollecting that
+Amroth had warned me that I had gained new powers which I might
+exercise, I set myself to use them. I concentrated myself upon the
+thought of Cynthia; and in a moment, just as the hand of a man in a
+dark room, feeling for some familiar object, encounters and closes upon
+the thing he is seeking, I seemed to touch and embrace the thought of
+Cynthia. I directed myself thither. The breeze fanned my hair, and as I
+opened my eyes I saw that I was in an unfamiliar place--not the forest
+where I had left Cynthia, but in a terraced garden, under a great hill,
+wooded to the peak. Stone steps ran up through the terraces, the topmost
+of which was crowned by a long irregular building, very quaintly
+designed. I went up the steps, and, looking about me, caught sight of
+two figures seated on a wooden seat at a little distance from me,
+overlooking the valley. One of these was Cynthia. The other was a young
+and beautiful woman; the two were talking earnestly together. Suddenly
+Cynthia turned and saw me, and rising quickly, came to me and caught me
+in her arms.
+
+"I was sure you were somewhere near me, dearest," she said; "I dreamed
+of you last night, and you have been in my thoughts all day."
+
+My darling was in some way altered. She looked older, wiser, and calmer,
+but she was in my eyes even more beautiful. The other girl, who had
+looked at us in surprise for a moment, rose too and came shyly forwards.
+Cynthia caught her hand, and presented her to me, adding, "And now you
+must leave us alone for a little, if you will forgive me for asking it,
+for we have much to ask and to say."
+
+The girl smiled and went off, looking back at us, I thought,
+half-enviously.
+
+We went and sat down on the seat, and Cynthia said:
+
+"Something has happened to you, dear one, I see, since I saw you
+last--something great and glorious."
+
+"Yes," I said, "you are right; I have seen the beginning and the end;
+and I have not yet learned to understand it. But I am the same, Cynthia,
+and yours utterly. We will speak of this later. Tell me first what has
+happened to you, and what this place is. I will not waste time in
+talking; I want to hear you talk and to see you talk. How often have I
+longed for that!"
+
+Cynthia took my hand in both of her own, and then unfolded to me her
+story. She had lived long in the forest, alone with the child, and then
+the day had come when the desire to go farther had arisen in his mind,
+and he had left her, and she had felt strangely desolate, till she too
+had been summoned.
+
+"And this place--how can I describe it?" she said. "It is a home for
+spirits who have desired love on earth, and who yet, from some accident
+of circumstance, have never found one to love them with any intimacy of
+passion. How strange it is to think," she went on, "that I, just by the
+inheritance of beauty, was surrounded with love and the wrong sort of
+love, so that I never learned to love rightly and truly; while so many,
+just from some lack of beauty, some homeliness or ungainliness of
+feature or carriage, missed the one kind of love that would have
+sustained and fed them--have never been held in a lover's arms, or held
+a child of their own against their heart. And so," she went on smiling,
+"many of them lavished their tenderness upon animals or crafty servants
+or selfish relations; and grew old and fanciful and petulant before
+their time. It seems a sad waste of life that! Because so many of them
+are spirits that could have loved finely and devotedly all the time. But
+here," she said, "they unlearn their caprices, and live a life by
+strict rule--and they go out hence to have the care of children, or to
+tend broken lives into tranquillity--and some of them, nay most of them,
+find heavenly lovers of their own. They are odd, fractious people at
+first, curiously concerned about health and occupation and one can often
+do nothing but listen to their complaints. But they find their way out
+in time, and one can help them a little, as soon as they begin to
+desire to hear something of other lives but their own. They have to
+learn to turn love outwards instead of inwards; just as I," she added
+laughing, "had to turn my own love inwards instead of outwards."
+
+Then I told Cynthia what I could tell of my own experiences, and she
+heard them with astonishment. Then I said:
+
+"What surprises me about it, is that I seem somehow to have been given
+more than I can hold. I have a very shallow and trivial nature, like a
+stream that sparkles pleasantly enough over a pebbly bottom, but in
+which no boat or man can swim. I have always been absorbed in the
+observation of details and in the outside of things. I spent so much
+energy in watching the faces and gestures and utterances and tricks of
+those about me that I never had the leisure to look into their hearts.
+And now these great depths have opened before me, and I feel more
+childish and feeble than ever, like a frail glass which holds a most
+precious liquor, and gains brightness and glory from the hues of the
+wine it holds, but is not like the gem, compact of colour and radiance."
+
+Cynthia laughed at me.
+
+"At all events, you have not forgotten how to make metaphors," she said.
+
+"No," said I, "that is part of the mischief, that I see the likenesses
+of things and not their essences." At which she laughed again more
+softly, and rested her cheek on my shoulder.
+
+Then I told her of the departure of Amroth.
+
+"That is wonderful," she said.
+
+And then I told her of my own approaching departure, at which she grew
+sad for a moment. Then she said, "But come, let us not waste time in
+forebodings. Will you come with me into the house to see the likenesses
+of things, or shall we have an hour alone together, and try to look into
+essences?"
+
+I caught her by the hand.
+
+"No," I said, "I care no more about the machinery of these
+institutions. I am the pilgrim of love, and not the student of
+organisations. If you may quit your task, and leave your ladies to
+regretful memories of their lap-dogs, let us go out together for a
+little, and say what we can--for I am sure that my time is approaching."
+
+Cynthia smiled and left me, and returned running; and then we rambled
+off together, up the steep paths of the woodland, to the mountain-top,
+from which we had a wide prospect of the heavenly country, a great blue
+well-watered plain lying out for leagues before us, with the shapes of
+mysterious mountains in the distance. But I can give no account of all
+we said or did, for heart mingled with heart, and there was little need
+of speech. And even so, in those last sweet hours, I could not help
+marvelling at how utterly different Cynthia's heart and mind were from
+my own; even then it was a constant shock of surprise that we should
+understand each other so perfectly, and yet feel so differently about
+so much. It seemed to me that, even after all I had seen and suffered,
+my heart was still bent on taking and Cynthia's on giving. I seemed to
+see my own heart through Cynthia's, while she appeared to see mine but
+through her own. We spoke of our experiences, and of our many friends,
+now hidden from us--and at last we spoke of Lucius. And then Cynthia
+said:
+
+"It is strange, dearest, that now and then there should yet remain any
+doubt at all in my mind about your wish or desire; but I must speak; and
+before I speak, I will say that whatever you desire, I will do. But I
+think that Lucius has need of me, and I am his, in a way which I cannot
+describe. He is halting now in his way, and he is unhappy because his
+life is incomplete. May I help him?"
+
+At this there struck through me a sharp and jealous pang; and a dark
+cloud seemed to float across my mind for a moment. But I set all aside,
+and thought for an instant of the vision of God. And then I said:
+
+"Yes, Cynthia! I had wondered too; and it seems perhaps like the last
+taint of earth, that I would, as it were, condemn you to a sort of
+widowhood of love when I am gone. But you must follow your own heart,
+and its pure and sweet advice, and the Will of Love; and you must use
+your treasure, not hoard it for me in solitude. Dearest, I trust you and
+worship you utterly and entirely. It is through you and your love that I
+have found my way to the heart of God; and if indeed you can take
+another heart thither, you must do it for love's own sake." And after
+this we were silent for a long space, heart blending wholly with heart.
+
+Then suddenly I became aware that some one was coming up through the
+wood, to the rocks where we sat: and Cynthia clung close to me, and I
+knew that she was sorrowful to death. And then I saw Lucius come up out
+of the wood, and halt for a moment at the sight of us together. Then he
+came on almost reverently, and I saw that he carried in his hand a
+sealed paper like that which had been given to Amroth; and I read it and
+found my summons written.
+
+Then while Lucius stood beside me, with his eyes upon the ground, I
+said:
+
+"I must go in haste; and I have but one thing to do. We have spoken,
+Cynthia and I, of the love you have long borne her; and she is yours
+now, to comfort and lead you as she has led and comforted me. This is
+the last sacrifice of love, to give up love itself; and this I do very
+willingly for the sake of Him that loves us: and here," I said, "is a
+strange thing, that at the very crown and summit of life, for I am sure
+that this is so, we should be three hearts, so full of love, and yet so
+sorrowing and suffering as we are. Is pain indeed the end of all?"
+
+"No," said Cynthia, "it is not the end, and yet only by it can we
+measure the depth and height of love. If we look into our hearts, we
+know that in spite of all we are more than rewarded, and more than
+conquerors."
+
+Then I took Cynthia's hand and laid it in the hand of Lucius; and I left
+them there upon the peak, and turned no more. And no more woeful spirit
+was in the land of heaven that day than mine as I stumbled wearily down
+the slope, and found the valley. And then, for I did not know the way to
+descend, I commended myself to God; and He took me.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+I saw that I was standing in a narrow muddy road, with deep ruts, which
+led up from the bank of a wide river--a tidal river, as I could see,
+from the great mudflats fringed with seaweed. The sun blazed down upon
+the whole scene. Just below was a sort of landing-place, where lay a
+number of long, low boats, shaded with mats curved like the hood of a
+waggon; a little farther out was a big quaint ship, with a high stern
+and yellow sails. Beyond the river rose great hills, thickly clothed
+with vegetation. In front of me, along the roadside, stood a number of
+mud-walled huts, thatched with some sort of reeds; beyond these, on the
+left, was the entrance of a larger house, surrounded with high walls,
+the tops of trees, with a strange red foliage, appearing over the
+enclosure, and the tiled roofs of buildings. Farther still were the
+walls of a great town, huge earthworks crowned with plastered
+fortifications, and a gate, with a curious roof to it, running out at
+each end into horns carved of wood. At some distance, out of a grove to
+the right, rose a round tapering tower of mouldering brickwork. The rest
+of the nearer country seemed laid out in low plantations of some
+green-leaved shrub, with rice-fields interspersed in the more level
+ground.
+
+There were only a few people in sight. Some men with arms and legs
+bare, and big hats made of reeds, were carrying up goods from the
+landing-place, and a number of children, pale and small-eyed, dirty and
+half-naked, were playing about by the roadside. I went a few paces up
+the road, and stopped beside a house, a little larger than the rest,
+with a rough verandah by the door. Here a middle-aged man was seated,
+plaiting something out of reeds, but evidently listening for sounds
+within the house, with an air half-tranquil, half-anxious; by him on a
+slab stood something that looked like a drum, and a spray of azalea
+flowers. While I watched, a man of a rather superior rank, with a dark
+flowered jacket and a curious hat, looked out of a door which opened on
+the verandah and beckoned him in; a sound of low subdued wailing came
+out from the house, and I knew that my time was hard at hand. It was
+strange and terrible to me at the moment to realise that my life was to
+be bound up, I knew not for how long, with this remote place; but I was
+conscious too of a deep excitement, as of a man about to start upon a
+race on which much depends. There came a groan from the interior of the
+house, and through the half-open door I could see two or three dim
+figures standing round a bed in a dark and ill-furnished room. One of
+the figures bent down, and I could see the face of a woman, very pale,
+the eyes closed, and the lips open, her arms drawn up over her head as
+in an agony of pain. Then a sudden dimness came over me, and a deadly
+faintness. I stumbled through the verandah to the open door. The
+darkness closed in upon me, and I knew no more.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Child of the Dawn, by Arthur Christopher Benson
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+Project Gutenberg's The Child of the Dawn, by Arthur Christopher Benson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Child of the Dawn
+
+Author: Arthur Christopher Benson
+
+Release Date: May 31, 2005 [EBook #15964]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHILD OF THE DAWN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         THE CHILD OF THE DAWN
+
+                     By ARTHUR CHRISTOPHER BENSON
+
+                 FELLOW OF MAGDALENE COLLEGE CAMBRIDGE
+
+      [Greek: edu ti tharsaleais ton makron teiein bion elpisin]
+
+Author of THE UPTON LETTERS, FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW, BESIDE STILL WATERS,
+THE ALTAR FIRE, THE SCHOOLMASTER, AT LARGE, THE GATE OF DEATH, THE
+SILENT ISLE, JOHN RUSKIN, LEAVES OF THE TREE, CHILD OF THE DAWN, PAUL
+THE MINSTREL
+
+                                 1912
+
+
+
+
+To MY BEST AND DEAREST FRIEND
+HERBERT FRANCIS WILLIAM TATHAM
+IN LOVE AND HOPE
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+I think that a book like the following, which deals with a subject so
+great and so mysterious as our hope of immortality, by means of an
+allegory or fantasy, needs a few words of preface, in order to clear
+away at the outset any misunderstandings which may possibly arise in a
+reader's mind. Nothing is further from my wish than to attempt any
+philosophical or ontological exposition of what is hidden behind the
+veil of death. But one may be permitted to deal with the subject
+imaginatively or poetically, to translate hopes into visions, as I have
+tried to do.
+
+The fact that underlies the book is this: that in the course of a very
+sad and strange experience--an illness which lasted for some two years,
+involving me in a dark cloud of dejection--I came to believe
+practically, instead of merely theoretically, in the personal
+immortality of the human soul. I was conscious, during the whole time,
+that though the physical machinery of the nerves was out of gear, the
+soul and the mind remained, not only intact, but practically unaffected
+by the disease, imprisoned, like a bird in a cage, but perfectly free in
+themselves, and uninjured by the bodily weakness which enveloped them.
+This was not all. I was led to perceive that I had been living life
+with an entirely distorted standard of values; I had been ambitious,
+covetous, eager for comfort and respect, absorbed in trivial dreams and
+childish fancies. I saw, in the course of my illness, that what really
+mattered to the soul was the relation in which it stood to other souls;
+that affection was the native air of the spirit; and that anything which
+distracted the heart from the duty of love was a kind of bodily
+delusion, and simply hindered the spirit in its pilgrimage.
+
+It is easy to learn this, to attain to a sense of certainty about it,
+and yet to be unable to put it into practice as simply and frankly as
+one desires to do! The body grows strong again and reasserts itself; but
+the blessed consciousness of a great possibility apprehended and grasped
+remains.
+
+There came to me, too, a sense that one of the saddest effects of
+what is practically a widespread disbelief in immortality, which
+affects many people who would nominally disclaim it, is that we think
+of the soul after death as a thing so altered as to be practically
+unrecognisable--as a meek and pious emanation, without qualities or aims
+or passions or traits--as a sort of amiable and weak-kneed sacristan in
+the temple of God; and this is the unhappy result of our so often making
+religion a pursuit apart from life--an occupation, not an atmosphere; so
+that it seems impious to think of the departed spirit as interested in
+anything but a vague species of liturgical exercise.
+
+I read the other day the account of the death-bed of a great statesman,
+which was written from what I may call a somewhat clerical point of
+view. It was recorded with much gusto that the dying politician took no
+interest in his schemes of government and cares of State, but found
+perpetual solace in the repetition of childish hymns. This fact had, or
+might have had, a certain beauty of its own, if it had been expressly
+stated that it was a proof that the tired and broken mind fell back upon
+old, simple, and dear recollections of bygone love. But there was
+manifest in the record a kind of sanctimonious triumph in the extinction
+of all the great man's insight and wisdom. It seemed to me that the
+right treatment of the episode was rather to insist that those great
+qualities, won by brave experience and unselfish effort, were only
+temporarily obscured, and belonged actually and essentially to the
+spirit of the man; and that if heaven is indeed, as we may thankfully
+believe, a place of work and progress, those qualities would be actively
+and energetically employed as soon as the soul was freed from the
+trammels of the failing body.
+
+Another point may also be mentioned. The idea of transmigration and
+reincarnation is here used as a possible solution for the extreme
+difficulties which beset the question of the apparently fortuitous
+brevity of some human lives. I do not, of course, propound it as
+literally and precisely as it is here set down--it is not a forecast of
+the future, so much as a symbolising of the forces of life--but _the
+renewal of conscious experience_, in some form or other, seems to be the
+only way out of the difficulty, and it is that which is here indicated.
+If life is a probation for those who have to face experience and
+temptation, how can it be a probation for infants and children, who die
+before the faculty of moral choice is developed? Again, I find it very
+hard to believe in any multiplication of human souls. It is even more
+difficult for me to believe in the creation of new souls than in the
+creation of new matter. Science has shown us that there is no actual
+addition made to the sum of matter, and that the apparent creation of
+new forms of plants or animals is nothing more than a rearrangement of
+existing particles--that if a new form appears in one place, it merely
+means that so much matter is transferred thither from another place. I
+find it, I say, hard to believe that the sum total of life is actually
+increased. To put it very simply for the sake of clearness, and
+accepting the assumption that human life had some time a beginning on
+this planet, it seems impossible to think that when, let us say, the two
+first progenitors of the race died, there were but two souls in heaven;
+that when the next generation died there were, let us say, ten souls in
+heaven; and that this number has been added to by thousands and
+millions, until the unseen world is peopled, as it must be now, if no
+reincarnation is possible, by myriads of human identities, who, after
+a single brief taste of incarnate life, join some vast community of
+spirits in which they eternally reside. I do not say that this latter
+belief may not be true; I only say that in default of evidence, it seems
+to me a difficult faith to hold; while a reincarnation of spirits, if
+one could believe it, would seem to me both to equalise the inequalities
+of human experience, and give one a lively belief in the virtue and
+worth of human endeavour. But all this is set down, as I say, in a
+tentative and not in a philosophical form.
+
+And I have also in these pages kept advisedly clear of Christian
+doctrines and beliefs; not because I do not believe wholeheartedly in
+the divine origin and unexhausted vitality of the Christian revelation,
+but because I do not intend to lay rash and profane hands upon the
+highest and holiest of mysteries.
+
+I will add one word about the genesis of the book. Some time ago I
+wrote a number of short tales of an allegorical type. It was a curious
+experience. I seemed to have come upon them in my mind, as one comes
+upon a covey of birds in a field. One by one they took wings and flew;
+and when I had finished, though I was anxious to write more tales, I
+could not discover any more, though I beat the covert patiently to
+dislodge them.
+
+This particular tale rose unbidden in my mind. I was never conscious
+of creating any of its incidents. It seemed to be all there from the
+beginning; and I felt throughout like a man making his way along a road,
+and describing what he sees as he goes. The road stretched ahead of me;
+I could not see beyond the next turn at any moment; it just unrolled
+itself inevitably and, I will add, very swiftly to my view, and was thus
+a strange and momentous experience.
+
+I will only add that the book is all based upon an intense belief in
+God, and a no less intense conviction of personal immortality and
+personal responsibility. It aims at bringing out the fact that our life
+is a very real pilgrimage to high and far-off things from mean and
+sordid beginnings, and that the key of the mystery lies in the frank
+facing of experience, as a blessed process by which the secret purpose
+of God is made known to us; and, even more, in a passionate belief in
+Love, the love of friend and neighbour, and the love of God; and in the
+absolute faith that we are all of us, from the lowest and most degraded
+human soul to the loftiest and wisest, knit together with chains of
+infinite nearness and dearness, under God, and in Him, and through Him,
+now and hereafter and for evermore.
+
+A.C.B.
+
+THE OLD LODGE, MAGDALENE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, _January_, 1912.
+
+
+
+
+The Child of the Dawn
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Certainly the last few moments of my former material, worn-out life, as
+I must still call it, were made horrible enough for me. I came to, after
+the operation, in a deadly sickness and ghastly confusion of thought. I
+was just dimly conscious of the trim, bare room, the white bed, a figure
+or two, but everything else was swallowed up in the pain, which filled
+all my senses at once. Yet surely, I thought, it is all something
+outside me? ... my brain began to wander, and the pain became a thing.
+It was a tower of stone, high and blank, with a little sinister window
+high up, from which something was every now and then waved above the
+house-roofs.... The tower was gone in a moment, and there was a heap
+piled up on the floor of a great room with open beams--a granary,
+perhaps. The heap was of curved sharp steel things like sickles:
+something moved and muttered underneath it, and blood ran out on the
+floor. Then I was instantly myself, and the pain was with me again; and
+then there fell on me a sense of faintness, so that the cold sweat-drops
+ran suddenly out on my brow. There came a smell of drugs, sharp and
+pungent, on the air. I heard a door open softly, and a voice said, "He
+is sinking fast--they must be sent for at once." Then there were more
+people in the room, people whom I thought I had known once, long ago;
+but I was buried and crushed under the pain, like the thing beneath the
+heap of sickles. There swept over me a dreadful fear; and I could see
+that the fear was reflected in the faces above me; but now they were
+strangely distorted and elongated, so that I could have laughed, if only
+I had had the time; but I had to move the weight off me, which was
+crushing me. Then a roaring sound began to come and go upon the air,
+louder and louder, faster and faster; the strange pungent scent came
+again; and then I was thrust down under the weight, monstrous,
+insupportable; further and further down; and there came a sharp bright
+streak, like a blade severing the strands of a rope drawn taut and
+tense; another and another; one was left, and the blade drew near....
+
+I fell suddenly out of the sound and scent and pain into the most
+incredible and blessed peace and silence. It would have been like a
+sleep, but I was still perfectly conscious, with a sense of unutterable
+and blissful fatigue; a picture passed before me, of a calm sea, of vast
+depth and clearness. There were cliffs at a little distance, great
+headlands and rocky spires. I seemed to myself to have left them, to
+have come down through them, to have embarked. There was a pale light
+everywhere, flushed with rose-colour, like the light of a summer dawn;
+and I felt as I had once felt as a child, awakened early in the little
+old house among the orchards, on a spring morning; I had risen from my
+bed, and leaning out of my window, filled with a delightful wonder,
+I had seen the cool morning quicken into light among the dewy
+apple-blossoms. That was what I felt like, as I lay upon the moving
+tide, glad to rest, not wondering or hoping, not fearing or expecting
+anything--just there, and at peace.
+
+There seemed to be no time in that other blessed morning, no need to
+do anything. The cliffs, I did not know how, faded from me, and the
+boundless sea was about me on every side; but I cannot describe the
+timelessness of it. There are no human words for it all, yet I must
+speak of it in terms of time and space, because both time and space
+were there, though I was not bound by them.
+
+And here first I will say a few words about the manner of speech I shall
+use. It is very hard to make clear, but I think I can explain it in an
+image. I once walked alone, on a perfect summer day, on the South Downs.
+The great smooth shoulders of the hills lay left and right, and, in
+front of me, the rich tufted grass ran suddenly down to the plain, which
+stretched out before me like a map. I saw the fields and woods, the
+minute tiled hamlet-roofs, the white roads, on which crawled tiny carts.
+A shepherd, far below, drove his flock along a little deep-cut lane
+among high hedges. The sounds of earth came faintly and sweetly up,
+obscure sounds of which I could not tell the origin; but the tinkling of
+sheep-bells was the clearest, and the barking of the shepherd-dog. My
+own dog sat beside me, watching my face, impatient to be gone. But at
+the barking he pricked up his ears, put his head on one side, and
+wondered, I saw, where that companionable sound came from. What he made
+of the scene I do not know; the sight of the fruitful earth, the homes
+of men, the fields and waters, filled me with an inexpressible emotion,
+a wide-flung hope, a sense of the immensity and intricacy of life. But
+to my dog it meant nothing at all, though he saw just what I did. To him
+it was nothing but a great excavation in the earth, patched and streaked
+with green. It was not then the scene itself that I loved; that was only
+a symbol of emotions and ideas within me. It touched the spring of a
+host of beautiful thoughts; but the beauty and the sweetness were the
+contribution of my own heart and mind.
+
+Now in the new world in which I found myself, I approached the thoughts
+of beauty and loveliness direct, without any intervening symbols at all.
+The emotions which beautiful things had aroused in me upon earth were
+all there, in the new life, but not confused or blurred, as they had
+been in the old life, by the intruding symbols of ugly, painful, evil
+things. That was all gone like a mist. I could not think an evil or an
+ugly thought.
+
+For a period it was so with me. For a long time--I will use the words
+of earth henceforth without any explanation--I abode in the same calm,
+untroubled peace, partly in memory of the old days, partly in the new
+visions. My senses seemed all blended in one sense; it was not sight or
+hearing or touch--it was but an instant apprehension of the essence of
+things. All that time I was absolutely alone, though I had a sense of
+being watched and tended in a sort of helpless and happy infancy. It was
+always the quiet sea, and the dawning light. I lived over the scenes of
+the old life in a vague, blissful memory. For the joy of the new life
+was that all that had befallen me had a strange and perfect
+significance. I had lived like other men. I had rejoiced, toiled,
+schemed, suffered, sinned. But it was all one now. I saw that each
+influence had somehow been shaping and moulding me. The evil I had done,
+was it indeed evil? It had been the flowering of a root of bitterness,
+the impact of material forces and influences. Had I ever desired it?
+Not in my spirit, I now felt. Sin had brought me shame and sorrow, and
+they had done their work. Repentance, contrition--ugly words! I laughed
+softly at the thought of how different it all was from what I had
+dreamed. I was as the lost sheep found, as the wayward son taken home;
+and should I spoil my joy with recalling what was past and done with for
+ever? Forgiveness was not a process, then, a thing to be sued for and to
+be withheld; it was all involved in the glad return to the breast of God.
+
+What was the mystery, then? The things that I had wrought, ignoble,
+cruel, base, mean, selfish--had I ever willed to do them? It seemed
+impossible, incredible. Were those grievous things still growing,
+seeding, flowering in other lives left behind? Had they invaded,
+corrupted, hurt other poor wills and lives? I could think of them no
+longer, any more than I could think of the wrongs done to myself. Those
+had not hurt me either. Perhaps I had still to suffer, but I could not
+think of that. I was too much overwhelmed with joy. The whole thing
+seemed so infinitely little and far away. So for a time I floated on the
+moving crystal of the translucent sea, over the glimmering deeps, the
+dawn above me, the scenes of the old life growing and shaping themselves
+and fading without any will of my own, nothing within or without me but
+ineffable peace and perfect joy.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I knew quite well what had happened to me; that I had passed through
+what mortals call Death: and two thoughts came to me; one was this.
+There had been times on earth when one had felt sure with a sort of deep
+instinct that one could not really ever die; yet there had been hours of
+weariness and despair when one had wondered whether death would not mean
+a silent blankness. That thought had troubled me most, when I had
+followed to the grave some friend or some beloved. The mouldering form,
+shut into the narrow box, was thrust with a sense of shame and disgrace
+into the clay, and no word or sign returned to show that the spirit
+lived on, or that one would ever find that dear proximity again. How
+foolish it seemed now ever to have doubted, ever to have been troubled!
+Of course it was all eternal and everlasting. And then, too, came a
+second thought. One had learned in life, alas, so often to separate what
+was holy and sacred from daily life; there were prayers, liturgies,
+religious exercises, solemnities, Sabbaths--an oppressive strain, too
+often, and a banishing of active life. Brought up as one had been, there
+had been a mournful overshadowing of thought, that after death, and with
+God, it would be all grave and constrained and serious, a perpetual
+liturgy, an unending Sabbath. But now all was deliciously merged
+together. All of beautiful and gracious that there had been in religion,
+all of joyful and animated and eager that there had been in secular
+life, everything that amused, interested, excited, all fine pictures,
+great poems, lovely scenes, intrepid thoughts, exercise, work, jests,
+laughter, perceptions, fancies--they were all one now; only sorrow and
+weariness and dulness and ugliness and greediness were gone. The
+thought was fresh, pure, delicate, full of a great and mirthful content.
+
+There were no divisions of time in my great peace; past, present, and
+future were alike all merged. How can I explain that? It seems so
+impossible, having once seen it, that it should be otherwise. The day
+did not broaden to the noon, nor fade to evening. There was no night
+there. More than that. In the other life, the dark low-hung days, one
+seemed to have lived so little, and always to have been making
+arrangements to live; so much time spent in plans and schemes, in
+alterations and regrets. There was this to be done and that to be
+completed; one thing to be begun, another to be cleared away; always in
+search of the peace which one never found; and if one did achieve it,
+then it was surrounded, like some cast carrion, by a cloud of poisonous
+thoughts, like buzzing blue-flies. Now at last one lived indeed; but
+there grew up in the soul, very gradually and sweetly, the sense that
+one was resting, growing accustomed to something, learning the ways of
+the new place. I became more and more aware that I was not alone; it was
+not that I met, or encountered, or was definitely conscious of any
+thought that was not my own; but there were motions as of great winds in
+the untroubled calm in which I lay, of vast deeps drawing past me. There
+were hoverings and poisings of unseen creatures, which gave me neither
+awe nor surprise, because they were not in the range of my thought as
+yet; but it was enough to show me that I was not alone, that there was
+life about me, purposes going forward, high activities.
+
+The first time I experienced anything more definite was when suddenly I
+became aware of a great crystalline globe that rose like a bubble out of
+the sea. It was of an incredible vastness; but I was conscious that I
+did not perceive it as I had perceived things upon the earth, but that
+I apprehended it all together, within and without. It rose softly and
+swiftly out of the expanse. The surface of it was all alive. It had
+seas and continents, hills and valleys, woods and fields, like our own
+earth. There were cities and houses thronged with living beings; it was
+a world like our own, and yet there was hardly a form upon it that
+resembled any earthly form, though all were articulate and definite,
+ranging from growths which I knew to be vegetable, with a dumb and
+sightless life of their own, up to beings of intelligence and purpose.
+It was a world, in fact, on which a history like that of our own world
+was working itself out; but the whole was of a crystalline texture, if
+texture it can be called; there was no colour or solidity, nothing but
+form and silence, and I realised that I saw, if not materially yet in
+thought, and recognised then, that all the qualities of matter, the
+sounds, the colours, the scents--all that depends upon material
+vibration--were abstracted from it; while form, of which the idea exists
+in the mind apart from all concrete manifestations, was still present.
+For some time after that, a series of these crystalline globes passed
+through the atmosphere where I dwelt, some near, some far; and I saw in
+an instant, in each case, the life and history of each. Some were still
+all aflame, mere currents of molten heat and flying vapour. Some had the
+first signs of rudimentary life--some, again, had a full and organised
+life, such as ours on earth, with a clash of nations, a stream of
+commerce, a perfecting of knowledge. Others were growing cold, and the
+life upon them was artificial and strange, only achieved by a highly
+intellectual and noble race, with an extraordinary command of natural
+forces, fighting in wonderfully constructed and guarded dwellings
+against the growing deathliness of a frozen world, and with a tortured
+despair in their minds at the extinction which threatened them. There
+were others, again, which were frozen and dead, where the drifting snow
+piled itself up over the gigantic and pathetic contrivances of a race
+living underground, with huge vents and chimneys, burrowing further
+into the earth in search of shelter, and nurturing life by amazing
+processes which I cannot here describe. They were marvellously wise,
+those pale and shadowy creatures, with a vitality infinitely ahead of
+our own, a vitality out of which all weakly or diseased elements had
+long been eliminated. And again there were globes upon which all seemed
+dead and frozen to the core, slipping onwards in some infinite progress.
+But though I saw life under a myriad of new conditions, and with an
+endless variety of forms, the nature of it was the same as ours. There
+was the same ignorance of the future, the same doubts and uncertainties,
+the same pathetic leaning of heart to heart, the same wistful desire
+after permanence and happiness, which could not be there or so attained.
+
+Then, too, I saw wild eddies of matter taking shape, of a subtlety that
+is as far beyond any known earthly conditions of matter as steam is
+above frozen stone. Great tornadoes whirled and poised; globes of
+spinning fire flew off on distant errands of their own, as when the
+heavens were made; and I saw, too, the crash of world with world, when
+satellites that had lost their impetus drooped inwards upon some central
+sun, and merged themselves at last with a titanic leap. All this enacted
+itself before me, while life itself flew like a pulse from system to
+system, never diminished, never increased, withdrawn from one to settle
+on another. All this I saw and knew.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+I thought I could never be satiated by this infinite procession of
+wonders. But at last there rose in my mind, like a rising star, the need
+to be alone no longer. I was passing through a kind of heavenly infancy;
+and just as a day comes when a child puts out a hand with a conscious
+intention, not merely a blind groping, but with a need to clasp and
+caress, or answers a smile by a smile, a word by a purposeful cry, so in
+a moment I was aware of some one with me and near me, with a heart and a
+nature that leaned to mine and had need of me, as I of him. I knew him
+to be one who had lived as I had lived, on the earth that was
+ours,--lived many lives, indeed; and it was then first that I became
+aware that I had myself lived many lives too. My human life, which I had
+last left, was the fullest and clearest of all my existences; but they
+had been many and various, though always progressive. I must not now
+tell of the strange life histories that had enfolded me--they had risen
+in dignity and worth from a life far back, unimaginably elementary and
+instinctive; but I felt in a moment that my new friend's life had been
+far richer and more perfect than my own, though I saw that there were
+still experiences ahead of both of us; but not yet. I may describe his
+presence in human similitudes, a presence perfectly defined, though
+apprehended with no human sight. He bore a name which described
+something clear, strong, full of force, and yet gentle of access, like
+water. It was just that; a thing perfectly pure and pervading, which
+could be stained and troubled, and yet could retain no defilement or
+agitation; which a child could scatter and divide, and yet was
+absolutely powerful and insuperable. I will call him Amroth. Him, I say,
+because though there was no thought of sex left in my consciousness,
+his was a courageous, inventive, masterful spirit, which gave rather
+than received, and was withal of a perfect kindness and directness, love
+undefiled and strong. The moment I became aware of his presence, I felt
+him to be like one of those wonderful, pure youths of an Italian
+picture, whose whole mind is set on manful things, untroubled by the
+love of woman, and yet finding all the world intensely gracious and
+beautiful, full of eager frankness, even impatience, with long, slim,
+straight limbs and close-curled hair. I knew him to be the sort of being
+that painters and poets had been feeling after when they represented or
+spoke of angels. And I could not help laughing outright at the thought
+of the meek, mild, statuesque draped figures, with absurd wings and
+depressing smiles, that encumbered pictures and churches, with whom no
+human communication would be possible, and whose grave and discomfiting
+glance would be fatal to all ease or merriment. I recognised in Amroth
+a mirthful soul, full of humour and laughter, who could not be shocked
+by any truth, or hold anything uncomfortably sacred--though indeed he
+held all things sacred with a kind of eagerness that charmed me. Instead
+of meeting him in dolorous pietistic mood, I met him, I remember, as at
+school or college one suddenly met a frank, smiling, high-spirited youth
+or boy, who was ready at once to take comradeship for granted, and
+walked away with one from a gathering, with an outrush of talk and plans
+for further meetings. It was all so utterly unlike the subdued and
+cautious and sensitive atmosphere of devotion that it stirred us both,
+I was aware, to a delicious kind of laughter. And then came a swift
+interchange of thought, which I must try to represent by speech, though
+speech was none.
+
+"I am glad to find you, Amroth," I said. "I was just beginning to wonder
+if I was not going to be lonely."
+
+"Ah," he said, "one has what one desires here; you had too much to see
+and learn at first to want my company. And yet I have been with you,
+pointing out a thousand things, ever since you came here."
+
+"Was it you," I said, "that have been showing me all this? I thought I
+was alone."
+
+At which Amroth laughed again, a laugh full of content. "Yes," he said,
+"the crags and the sunset--do you not remember? I came down with you,
+carrying you like a child in my arms, while you slept; and then I saw
+you awake. You had to rest a long time at first; you had had much to
+bear--uncertainty--that is what tires one, even more than pain. And I
+have been telling you things ever since, when you could listen."
+
+"Oh," I said, "I have a hundred things to ask you; how strange it is to
+see so much and understand so little!"
+
+"Ask away," said Amroth, putting an arm through mine.
+
+"I was afraid," I said, "that it would all be so different--like a
+catechism 'Dost thou believe--is this thy desire?' But instead it seems
+so entirely natural and simple!"
+
+"Ah," he said, "that is how we bewilder ourselves on earth. Why, it is
+hard to say! But all the real things remain. It is all just as
+surprising and interesting and amusing and curious as it ever was: the
+only things that are gone--for a time, that is--are the things that are
+ugly and sad. But they are useful too in their way, though you have no
+need to think of them now. Those are just the discipline, the training."
+
+"But," I said, "what makes people so different from each other down
+there--so many people who are sordid, grubby, quarrelsome, cruel,
+selfish, spiteful? Only a few who are bold and kind--like you, for
+instance?"
+
+"No," he said, answering the thought that rose in my mind, "of course I
+don't mind--I like compliments as well as ever, if they come naturally!
+But don't you see that all the little poky, sensual, mean, disgusting
+lives are simply those of spirits struggling to be free; we begin by
+being enchained by matter at first, and then the stream runs clearer.
+The divine things are imagination and sympathy. That is the secret."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Once I said:
+
+"Which kind of people do you find it hardest to help along?"
+
+"The young people," said Amroth, with a smile.
+
+"Youth!" I said. "Why, down below, we think of youth as being so
+generous and ardent and imitative! We speak of youth as the time to
+learn, and form fine habits; if a man is wilful and selfish in
+after-life, we say that it was because he was too much indulged in
+childhood--and we attach great importance to the impressions of youth."
+
+"That is quite right," said Amroth, "because the impressions of youth
+are swift and keen; but of course, here, age is not a question of years
+or failing powers. The old, here, are the wise and gracious and patient
+and gentle; the youth of the spirit is stupidity and unimaginativeness.
+On the one hand are the stolid and placid, and on the other are the
+brutal and cruel and selfish and unrestrained."
+
+"You confuse me greatly," I said; "surely you do not mean that spiritual
+life and progress are a matter of intellectual energy?"
+
+"No, not at all," said he; "the so-called intellectual people are often
+the most stupid and youngest of all. The intellect counts for nothing:
+that is only a kind of dexterity, a pretty game. The imagination is what
+matters."
+
+"Worse and worse!" I said. "Does salvation belong to poets and
+novelists?"
+
+"No, no," said Amroth, "that is a game too! The imagination I speak of
+is the power of entering into other people's minds and hearts, of
+putting yourself in their place--of loving them, in fact. The more you
+know of people, the better chance there is of loving them; and you can
+only find your way into their minds by imaginative sympathy. I will
+tell you a story which will show you what I mean. There was once a
+famous writer on earth, of whose wisdom people spoke with bated breath.
+Men went to see him with fear and reverence, and came away, saying, 'How
+wonderful!' And this man, in his age, was waited upon by a little maid,
+an ugly, tired, tiny creature. People used to say that they wondered he
+had not a better servant. But she knew all that he liked and wanted,
+where his books and papers were, what was good for him to do. She did
+not understand a word of what he said, but she knew both when he had
+talked too much, and when he had not talked enough, so that his mind was
+pent up in itself, and he became cross and fractious. Now, in reality,
+the little maid was one of the oldest and most beautiful of spirits. She
+had lived many lives, each apparently humbler than the last. She never
+grumbled about her work, or wanted to amuse herself. She loved the silly
+flies that darted about her kitchen, or brushed their black heads on
+the ceiling; she loved the ivy tendrils that tapped on her window in the
+breeze. She did not go to church, she had no time for that; or if she
+had gone, she would not have understood what was said, though she would
+have loved all the people there, and noticed how they looked and sang.
+But the wise man himself was one of the youngest and stupidest of
+spirits, so young and stupid that he had to have a very old and wise
+spirit to look after him. He was eaten up with ideas and vanity, so that
+he had no time to look at any one or think of anybody, unless they
+praised him. He has a very long pilgrimage before him, though he wrote
+pretty songs enough, and his mortal body, or one of them, lies in the
+Poets' Corner of the Abbey, and people come and put wreaths there with
+tears in their eyes."
+
+"It is very bewildering," I said, "but I see a little more than I did.
+It is all a matter of feeling, then? But it seems hard on people that
+they should be so dull and stupid about it all,--that the truth should
+lie so close to their hand and yet be so carefully concealed."
+
+"Oh, they grow out of dulness!" he said, with a movement of his hand;
+"that is what experience does for us--it is always going on; we get
+widened and deepened. Why," he added, "I have seen a great man, as they
+called him, clever and alert, who held a high position in the State. He
+was laid aside by a long and painful illness, so that all his work was
+put away. He was brave about it, too, I remember; but he used to think
+to himself how sad and wasteful it was, that when he was most energetic
+and capable he should be put on the shelf--all the fine work he might
+have done interrupted; all the great speeches he would have made
+unuttered. But as a matter of fact, he was then for the first time
+growing fast, because he had to look into the minds and hearts of all
+sorrowful and disappointed people, and to learn that what we do matters
+so little, and that what we are matters so much. When he did at last
+get back to the world, people said, 'What a sad pity to see so fine a
+career spoilt!' But out of all the years of all his lives, those years
+had been his very best and richest, when he sat half the day feeble in
+the sun, and could not even look at the papers which lay beside him, or
+when he woke in the grey mornings, with the thought of another miserable
+day of idleness and pain before him."
+
+I said, "Then is it a bad thing to be busy in the world, because it
+takes off your mind from the things which matter?"
+
+"No," said Amroth, "not a bad thing at all: because two things are going
+on. Partly the framework of society and life is being made, so that men
+are not ground down into that sordid struggle, when little experience is
+possible because of the drudgery which clouds all the mind. Though even
+that has its opportunities! And all depends, for the individual, upon
+how he is doing his work. If he has other people in mind all the time,
+and does his work for them, and not to be praised for it, then all is
+well. But if he is thinking of his credit and his position, then he does
+not grow at all; that is pomposity--a very youthful thing indeed; but
+the worst case of all is if a man sees that the world must be helped and
+made, and that one can win credit thus, and so engages in work of that
+kind, and deals in all the jargon of it, about using influence and
+living for others, when he is really thinking of himself all the time,
+and trying to keep the eyes of the world upon him. But it is all growth
+really, though sometimes, as on the beach when the tide is coming in,
+the waves seem to draw backward from the land, and poise themselves in a
+crest of troubled water."
+
+"But is a great position in the world," I said, "whether inherited or
+attained, a dangerous thing?"
+
+"Nothing is _dangerous_, child," he said. "You must put all that out of
+your mind. But men in high posts and stations are often not progressing
+evenly, only in great jogs and starts. They learn very often, with a
+sudden surprise, which is not always painful, and sometimes is very
+beautiful and sweet, that all the ceremony and pomp, the great house,
+the bows and the smiles, mean nothing at all--absolutely nothing, except
+the chance, the opportunity of not being taken in by them. That is the
+use of all pleasures and all satisfactions--the frame of mind which made
+the old king say, 'Is not this great Babylon, which I have
+builded?'--they are nothing but the work of another class in the great
+school of life. A great many people are put to school with
+self-satisfaction, that they may know the fine joy of humiliation, the
+delight of learning that it is not effectiveness and applause that
+matters, but love and peacefulness. And the great thing is that we
+should feel that we are growing, not in hardness or indifference, nor
+necessarily even in courage or patience, but in our power to feel and
+our power to suffer. As love multiplies, suffering must multiply too.
+The very Heart of God is full of infinite, joyful, hopeful suffering;
+the whole thing is so vast, so slow, so quiet, that the end of suffering
+is yet far off. But when we suffer, we climb fast; the spirit grows old
+and wise in faith and love; and suffering is the one thing we cannot
+dispense with, because it is the condition of our fullest and purest
+life."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+I said suddenly, "The joy of this place is not the security of it, but
+the fact that one has not to think about security. I am not afraid of
+anything that may happen, and there is no weariness of thought. One does
+not think till one is tired, but till one has finished thinking."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "that was the misery of the poor body!"
+
+"And yet I used to think," I said, "in the old days that I was grateful
+to the body for many pleasant things it gave me--breathing the air,
+feeling the sun, eating and drinking, games and exercise, and the
+strange thing one called love."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "all those things have to be made pleasant, or to
+appear so; otherwise no one could submit to the discipline at all; but
+of course the pleasure only got in the way of the thought and of the
+happiness; it was not what one saw, tasted, smelt, felt, that one
+desired, but the real thing behind it; even the purest thing of all, the
+sight and contact of one whom one loved, let us say, with no sensual
+passion at all, but with a perfectly pure love; what a torment that
+was--desiring something which one could not get, the real fusion of
+feeling and thought! But the poor body was always in the way then,
+saying, 'Here am I--please me, amuse me.'"
+
+"But then," I said, "what is the use of all that? Why should the pure,
+clear, joyful, sleepless life I now feel be tainted and hampered and
+drugged by the body? I don't feel that I am losing anything by losing
+the body."
+
+"No, not losing," said Amroth, "but, happy though you are, you are not
+gaining things as fast now--it is your time of rest and refreshment--but
+we shall go back, both of us, to the other life again, when the time
+comes: and the point is this, that we have got to win the best things
+through trouble and struggle."
+
+"But even so," I said, "there are many things I do not understand--the
+child that opens its eyes upon the world and closes them again; the
+young child that suffers and dies, just when it is the darling of the
+home; and at the other end of the scale, the helpless, fractious
+invalid, or the old man who lives in weariness, wakeful and tortured,
+and who is glad just to sit in the sun, indifferent to every one and
+everything, past feeling and hoping and thinking--or, worst of all, the
+people with diseased minds, whose pain makes them suspicious and
+malignant. What is the meaning of all this pain, which seems to do
+people nothing but harm, and makes them a burden to themselves and
+others too?"
+
+"Oh," said he, "it is difficult enough; but you must remember that we
+are all bound up with the hearts and lives of others; the child that
+dies in its helplessness has a meaning for its parents; the child that
+lives long enough to be the light of its home, that has a significance
+deep enough; and all those who have to tend and care for the sick, to
+lighten the burden and the sorrow for them, that has a meaning surely
+for all concerned? The reason why we feel as we do about broken lives,
+why they seem so utterly purposeless, is because we have the proportion
+so wrong. We do not really, in fact, believe in immortality, when we are
+bound in the body--some few of us do, and many of us say that we do. But
+we do not realise that the little life is but one in a great chain of
+lives, that each spirit lives many times, over and over. There is no
+such thing as waste or sacrifice of life. The life is meant to do just
+what it does, no more and no less; bound in the body, it all seems so
+long or so short, so complete or so incomplete; but now and here we can
+see that the whole thing is so endless, so immense, that we think no
+more of entering life, say, for a few days, or entering it for ninety
+years, than we should think of counting one or ninety water-drops in the
+river that pours in a cataract over the lip of the rocks. Where we do
+lose, in life, is in not taking the particular experience, be it small
+or great, to heart. We try to forget things, to put them out of our
+minds, to banish them. Of course it is very hard to do otherwise, in a
+body so finite, tossed and whirled in a stream so infinite; and thus we
+are happiest if we can live very simply and quietly, not straining to
+multiply our uneasy activities, but just getting the most and the best
+out of the elements of life as they come to us. As we get older in
+spirit, we do that naturally; the things that men call ambitions and
+schemes are the signs of immaturity; and when we grow older, those slip
+off us and concern us no more; while the real vitality of feeling and
+emotion runs ever more clear and strong."
+
+"But," I said, "can one revive the old lives at will? Can one look back
+into the long range of previous lives? Is that permitted?"
+
+"Yes, of course it is permitted," said Amroth, smiling; "there are no
+rules here; but one does not care to do it overmuch. One is just glad it
+is all done, and that one has learnt the lesson. Look back if you
+like--there are all the lives behind you."
+
+I had a curious sensation--I saw myself suddenly a stalwart savage,
+strangely attired for war, near a hut in a forest clearing. I was going
+away somewhere; there were other huts at hand; there was a fire, in the
+side of a mound, where some women seemed to be cooking something and
+wrangling over it; the smoke went up into the still air. A child came
+out of the hut, and ran to me. I bent down and kissed it, and it clung
+to me. I was sorry, in a dim way, to be going out--for I saw other
+figures armed too, standing about the clearing. There was to be fighting
+that day, and though I wished to fight, I thought I might not return.
+But the mind of myself, as I discerned it, was full of hurtful, cruel,
+rapacious thoughts, and I was sad to think that this could ever have
+been I.
+
+"It is not very nice," said Amroth with a smile; "one does not care to
+revive that! You were young then, and had much before you."
+
+Another picture flashed into the mind. Was it true? I was a woman, it
+seemed, looking out of a window on the street in a town with high, dark
+houses, strongly built of stone: there was a towered gate at a little
+distance, with some figures drawing up sacks with a pulley to a door in
+the gate. A man came up behind me, pulled me roughly back, and spoke
+angrily; I answered him fiercely and shrilly. The room I was in seemed
+to be a shop or store; there were barrels of wine, and bags of corn. I
+felt that I was busy and anxious--it was not a pleasant retrospect.
+
+"Yet you were better then," said Amroth "you thought little of your
+drudgery, and much of your children."
+
+Yes, I had had children, I saw. Their names and appearance floated
+before me. I had loved them tenderly. Had they passed out of my life? I
+felt bewildered.
+
+Amroth laid a hand on my arm and smiled again. "No, you came near to
+some of them again. Do you not remember another life in which you loved
+a friend with a strange love, that surprised you by its nearness? He had
+been your child long before; and one never quite loses that."
+
+I saw in a flash the other life he spoke of. I was a student, it seemed,
+at some university, where there was a boy of my own age, a curious,
+wilful, perverse, tactless creature, always saying and doing the wrong
+thing, for whom I had felt a curious and unreasonable responsibility. I
+had always tried to explain him to other people, to justify him; and he
+had turned to me fop help and companionship in a singular way. I saw
+myself walking with him in the country, expostulating, gesticulating;
+and I saw him angry and perplexed.... The vision vanished.
+
+"But what becomes of all those whom we have loved?" I said; "it cannot
+be as if we had never loved them."
+
+"No, indeed," said Amroth, "they are all there or here; but there lies
+one of the great mysteries which we cannot yet attain to. We shall be
+all brought together some time, closely and perfectly; but even now, in
+the world of matter, the spirit half remembers; and when one is
+strangely and lovingly drawn to another soul, when that love is not of
+the body, and has nothing of passion in it, then it is some close
+ancient tie reasserting itself. Do you not know how old and remote some
+of our friendships seemed--so much older and larger than could be
+accounted for by the brief days of companionship? That strange hunger
+for the past of one we love is nothing but the faint memory of what has
+been. Indeed, when you have rested happily a little longer, you will
+move farther afield, and you will come near to spirits you have loved.
+You cannot bear it yet, though they are all about you; but one regains
+the spiritual sense slowly after a life like yours."
+
+"Can I revisit," I said, "the scene of my last life--see and know what
+those I loved are doing and feeling?"
+
+"Not yet," said Amroth; "that would not profit either you or them. The
+sorrow of earth would not be sorrow, it would have no cleansing power,
+if the parted spirit could return at once. You do not guess, either, how
+much of time has passed already since you came here--it seems to you
+like yesterday, no doubt, since you last suffered death. To meet loss
+and sorrow upon earth, without either comfort or hope, is one of the
+finest of lessons. When we are there, we must live blindly, and if we
+here could make our presence known at once to the friends we leave
+behind, it would be all too easy. It is in the silence of death that its
+virtue lies."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I do not desire to return. This is all too wonderful. It
+is the freshness and sweetness of it all that comes home to me. I do
+not desire to think of the body, and, strange to say, if I do think of
+it, the times that I remember gratefully are those when the body was
+faint and weary. The old joys and triumphs, when one laughed and loved
+and exulted, seem to me to have something ugly about them, because one
+was content, and wished things to remain for ever as they were. It was
+the longing for something different that helped me; the acquiescence was
+the shame."
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+One day I said to Amroth, "What a comfort it is to find that there is no
+religion here!"
+
+"I know what you mean," he said. "I think it is one of the things that
+one wonders at most, to remember into how very small and narrow a thing
+religion was made, and how much that was religious was never supposed to
+be so."
+
+"Yes," I said, "as I think of it now, it seems to have been a game
+played by a few players, a game with a great many rules."
+
+"Yes," he said, "it was a game often enough; but of course the mischief
+of it was, that when it was most a game it most pretended to be
+something else--to contain the secret of life and all knowledge."
+
+"I used to think," I said, "that religion was like a noble and generous
+boy with the lyrical heart of a poet, made by some sad chance into a
+king, surrounded by obsequious respect and pomp and etiquette, bound by
+a hundred ceremonious rules, forbidden to do this and that, taught to
+think that his one duty was to be magnificently attired, to acquire
+graceful arts of posture and courtesy, subtly and gently prevented from
+obeying natural and simple impulses, made powerless--a crowned slave; so
+that, instead of being the freest and sincerest thing in the world, it
+became the prisoner of respectability and convention, just a part of the
+social machine."
+
+"That was only one side of it," said Amroth. "It was often where it was
+least supposed to be."
+
+"Yes," I said, "as far as I resent anything now, I resent the conversion
+of so much religion from an inspiring force into a repressive force. One
+learnt as a child to think of it, not as a great moving flood of energy
+and joy, but as an awful power apart from life, rejoicing in petty
+restrictions, and mainly concerned with creating an unreal atmosphere of
+narrow piety, hostile to natural talk and laughter and freedom. God's
+aid was invoked, in childhood, mostly when one was naughty and
+disobedient, so that one grew to think of Him as grim, severe,
+irritable, anxious to interfere. What wonder that one lost all wish to
+meet God and all natural desire to know Him! One thought of Him as
+impossible to please except by behaving in a way in which it was not
+natural to behave; and one thought of religion as a stern and dreadful
+process going on somewhere, like a law-court or a prison, which one had
+to keep clear of if one could. Yet I hardly see how, in the interests of
+discipline, it could have been avoided. If only one could have begun at
+the other end!"
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "but that is because religion has fallen so much
+into the hands of the wrong people, and is grievously misrepresented.
+It has too often come to be identified, as you say, with human law, as a
+power which leaves one severely alone, if one behaves oneself, and which
+punishes harshly and mechanically if one outsteps the limit. It comes
+into the world as a great joyful motive; and then it becomes identified
+with respectability, and it is sad to think that it is simply from the
+fact that it has won the confidence of the world that it gains its awful
+power of silencing and oppressing. It becomes hostile to frankness and
+independence, and puts a premium on caution and submissiveness; but that
+is the misuse of it and the degradation of it; and religion is still the
+most pure and beautiful thing in the world for all that; the doctrine
+itself is fine and true in a way, if one can view it without impatience;
+it upholds the right things; it all makes for peace and order, and even
+for humility and just kindliness; it insists, or tries to insist, on the
+fact that property and position and material things do not matter, and
+that quality and method do matter. Of course it is terribly distorted,
+and gets into the hands of the wrong people--the people who want to keep
+things as they are. Now the Gospel, as it first came, was a perfectly
+beautiful thing--the idea that one must act by tender impulse, that one
+must always forgive, and forget, and love; that one must take a natural
+joy in the simplest things, find every one and everything interesting
+and delightful ... the perfectly natural, just, good-humoured,
+uncalculating life--that was the idea of it; and that one was not to be
+superior to the hard facts of the world, not to try to put sorrow or
+pain out of sight, but to live eagerly and hopefully in them and through
+them; not to try to school oneself into hardness or indifference, but to
+love lovable things, and not to condemn or despise the unlovable. That
+was indeed a message out of the very heart of God. But of course all the
+acrid divisions and subdivisions of it come, not from itself, but from
+the material part of the world, that determines to traffic with the
+beautiful secret, and make it serve its turn. But there are plenty of
+true souls within it all, true teachers, faithful learners--and the
+world cannot do without it yet, though it is strangely fettered and
+bound. Indeed, men can never do without it, because the spiritual force
+is there; it is full of poetry and mystery, that ageless brotherhood of
+saints and true-hearted disciples; but one has to learn that many that
+claim its powers have them not, while many who are outside all
+organisations have the secret."
+
+"Yes," I said, "all that is true and good; it is the exclusive claim and
+not the inclusive which one regrets. It is the voice which says, 'Accept
+my exact faith, or you have no part in the inheritance,' which is wrong.
+The real voice of religion is that which says, 'You are my brother and
+my sister, though you know it not.' And if one says, 'We are all at
+fault, we are all far from the truth, but we live as best we can,
+looking for the larger hope and for the dawn of love,' that is the
+secret. The sacrament of God is offered and eaten at many a social meal,
+and the Spirit of Love finds utterance in quiet words from smiling lips.
+One cannot teach by harsh precept, only by desirable example; and the
+worst of the correct profession of religion is that it is often little
+more than taking out a licence to disapprove."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "you are very near a great truth. The mistake we
+make is like the mistake so often made on earth in matters of human
+government--the opposing of the individual to the State, as if the State
+were something above and different to the individual--like the old
+thought of the Spirit moving on the face of the waters. The individual
+is the State; and it is the same with the soul and God. God is not above
+the soul, seeing and judging, apart in isolation. The Spirit of God is
+the spirit of humanity, the spirit of admiration, the spirit of love. It
+matters little what the soul admires and loves, whether it be a flower
+or a mountain, a face or a cause, a gem or a doctrine. It is that
+wonderful power that the current of the soul has of setting towards
+something that is beautiful: the need to admire, to worship, to love. A
+regiment of soldiers in the street, a procession of priests to a
+sanctuary, a march of disordered women clamouring for their rights--if
+the idea thrills you, if it uplifts you, it matters nothing whether
+other people dislike or despise or deride it--it is the voice of God for
+you. We must advance from what is merely brilliant to what is true; and
+though in the single life many a man seems to halt at a certain point,
+to have tied up his little packet of admirations once and for all, there
+are other lives where he will pass on to further loves, his passion
+growing more intense and pure. We are not limited by our circle, by our
+generation, by our age; and the things which youthful spirits are
+divining and proclaiming as great and wonderful discoveries, are often
+being practised and done by silent and humble souls. It is not the
+concise or impressive statement of a truth that matters, it is the
+intensity of the inner impulse towards what is high and true which
+differentiates. The more we live by that, the less are we inclined to
+argue and dispute about it. The base, the impure desire is only the
+imperfect desire; if it is gratified, it reveals its imperfections, and
+the soul knows that not there can it stay; but it must have faced and
+tested everything. If the soul, out of timidity and conventionality,
+says 'No' to its eager impulses, it halts upon its pilgrimage. Some of
+the most grievous and shameful lives on earth have been fruitful enough
+in reality. The reason why we mourn and despond over them is, again,
+that we limit our hope to the single life. There is time for everything;
+we must not be impatient. We must despair of nothing and of no one; the
+true life consists not in what a man's reason approves or disapproves,
+not in what he does or says, but in what he sees. It is useless to
+explain things to souls; they must experience them to apprehend them.
+The one treachery is to speak of mistakes as irreparable, and of sins as
+unforgivable. The sin against the Spirit is to doubt the Spirit, and the
+sin against life is not to use it generously and freely; we are happiest
+if we love others well enough to give our life to them; but it is better
+to use life for ourselves than not to use it at all."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+One day I said to Amroth, "Are there no rules of life here? It seems
+almost too good to be true, not to be found fault with and censured and
+advised and blamed."
+
+"Oh," said Amroth, laughing, "there are plenty of _rules_, as you call
+them; but one feels them, one is not told them; it is like breathing and
+seeing."
+
+"Yes," I replied, "yet it was like that, too, in the old days; the
+misery was when one suddenly discovered that when one was acting in what
+seemed the most natural way possible, it gave pain and concern to some
+one whom one respected and even loved. One knew that one's action was
+not wrong, and yet one desired to please and satisfy one's friends; and
+so one fell back into conventional ways, not because one liked them but
+because other people did, and it was not worth while making a fuss--it
+was a sort of cowardice, I suppose?"
+
+"Not quite," said Amroth; "you were more on the right lines than the
+people who interfered with you, no doubt; but of course the truth is
+that our principles ought to be used, like a stick, to support
+ourselves, not like a rod to beat other people with. The most difficult
+people to teach, as you will see hereafter, are the self-righteous
+people, whose lives are really pure and good, but who allow their
+preferences about amusements, occupations, ways of life, to become
+matters of principle. The worst temptation in the world is the habit of
+influence and authority, the desire to direct other lives and to conform
+them to one's own standard. The only way in which we can help other
+people is by loving them; by frightening another out of something which
+he is apt to do and of which one does not approve, one effects
+absolutely nothing: sin cannot be scared away; the spirit must learn to
+desire to cast it away, because it sees that goodness is beautiful and
+fine; and this can only be done by example, never by precept."
+
+"But it is the entire absence of both that puzzles me here," I said.
+"Nothing to do and a friend to talk to; it's a lazy business, I think."
+
+Amroth looked at me with amusement. "It's a sign," he said, "if you feel
+that, that you are getting rested, and ready to move on; but you will be
+very much surprised when you know a little more about the life here. You
+are like a baby in a cradle at present; when you come to enter one of
+our communities here, you will find it as complicated a business as you
+could wish. Part of the difficulty is that there are no rules, to use
+your own phrase. It is real democracy, but it is not complicated by any
+questions of property, which is the thing that clogs all political
+progress in the world below. There is nothing to scheme for, no
+ambitions to gratify, nothing to gain at the expense of others; the only
+thing that matters is one's personal relation to others; and this is
+what makes it at once so simple and so complex. But I do not think it is
+of any use to tell you all this; you will see it in a flash, when the
+time comes. But it may be as well for you to remember that there will be
+no one to command you or compel you or advise you. Your own heart and
+spirit will be your only guides. There is no such thing as compulsion or
+force in heaven. Nothing can be done to you that you do not choose or
+allow to be done."
+
+"Yes," I said, "it is the blessed and beautiful sense of freedom from
+all ties and influences and fears that is so utterly blissful."
+
+"But this is not all," said Amroth, shaking his head with a smile.
+"This is a time of rest for you, but things are very different elsewhere.
+When you come to enter heaven itself, you will be constantly surprised.
+There are labour and fear and sorrow to be faced; and you must not
+think it is a place for drifting pleasantly along. The moral struggle
+is the same--indeed it is fiercer and stronger than ever, because there
+is no bodily languor or fatigue to distract. There are choices to be
+made, duties to perform, evil to be faced. The bodily temptations
+are absent, but there is still that which lay behind the bodily
+frailties--curiosity, love of sensation, excitement, desire; the strong
+duality of nature--the knowledge of duty on the one hand and the
+indolent shrinking from performance--that is all there; there is the
+same sense of isolation, and the same need for patient endeavour as upon
+earth. All that one gets is a certain freedom of movement; one is not
+bound to places and employments by the material ties of earth; but you
+must not think that it is all to be easy and straightforward. We can
+each of us by using our wills shorten our probation, by not resisting
+influences, by putting our hearts and minds in unison with the will of
+God for us; and that is easier in heaven than upon earth, because there
+is less to distract us. But on the other hand, there is more temptation
+to drift, because there are no material consequences to stimulate us.
+There are many people on earth who exercise a sort of practical virtue
+simply to avoid material inconveniences, while there is no such motive
+in heaven; I say all this not to disturb your present tranquillity,
+which it is your duty now to enjoy, but just to prepare you. You must be
+prepared for effort and for endeavour, and even for strife. You must use
+right judgment, and, above all, common sense; one does not get out of
+the reach of that in heaven!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+These are only some of the many talks I had with Amroth. They ranged
+over a great many subjects and thoughts. What I cannot indicate,
+however, is the lightness and freshness of them; and above all, their
+entire frankness and amusingness. There were times when we talked like
+two children, revived old simple adventures of life--he had lived far
+more largely and fully than I had done--and I never tired of hearing the
+tales of his old lives, so much more varied and wonderful than my own.
+Sometimes we merely told each other stories out of our imaginations and
+hearts. We even played games, which I cannot describe, but they were
+like the games of earth. We seemed at times to walk and wander together;
+but I had a sense all this time that I was, so to speak, in hospital,
+being tended and cared for, and not allowed to do anything wearisome or
+demanding effort. But I became more and more aware of other spirits
+about me, like birds that chirp and twitter in the ivy of a tower, or in
+the thick bushes of a shrubbery. Amroth told me one day that I must
+prepare for a great change soon, and I found myself wondering what it
+would be like, half excited about it, and half afraid, unwilling as I
+was to lose the sweet rest, and the dear companionship of a friend who
+seemed like the crown and sum of all hopes of friendship. Amroth became
+utterly dear to me, and it was a joy beyond all joys to feel his happy
+and smiling nature bent upon me, hour by hour, in sympathy and
+understanding and love. He said to me laughingly once that I had much of
+earth about me yet, and that I must soon learn not to bend my thoughts
+so exclusively one way and on one friend.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I am not fit for heaven yet! I believe I am jealous; I
+cannot bear to think that you will leave me, or that any other soul
+deserves your attention."
+
+"Oh," he said lightly, "this is my business and delight now--but you
+will soon have to do for others what I am doing for you. You like this
+easy life at present, but you can hardly imagine how interesting it is
+to have some one given you for your own, as you were given to me. It is
+the delight of motherhood and fatherhood in one; and when I was allowed
+to take you away out of the room where you lay--I admit it was not a
+pleasant scene--I felt just like a child who is given a kitten for its
+very own."
+
+"Well," I said, "I have been a very satisfactory pet--I have done little
+else but purr." I felt his eyes upon me in a wonderful nearness of love;
+and then I looked up and I saw that we were not alone.
+
+It was then that I first perceived that there could be grief in heaven.
+I say "first perceived," but I had known it all along. But by Amroth's
+gentle power that had been for a time kept away from me, that I might
+rest and rejoice.
+
+The form before me was that of a very young and beautiful woman--so
+beautiful that for a moment all my thought seemed to be concentrated
+upon her. But I saw, too, that all was not well with her. She was not at
+peace with herself, or her surroundings. In her great wide eyes there
+was a look of pain, and of rebellious pain. She was attired in a robe
+that was a blaze of colour; and when I wondered at this, for it was
+unlike the clear hues, pearly grey and gold, and soft roseate light that
+had hitherto encompassed me, the voice of Amroth answered my unuttered
+question, and said, "It is the image of her thought." Her slim white
+hands moved aimlessly over the robe, and seemed to finger the jewels
+which adorned it. Her lips were parted, and anything more beautiful than
+the pure curves of her chin and neck I had seldom seen, though she
+seemed never to be still, as Amroth was still, but to move restlessly
+and wearily about. I knew by a sort of intuition that she was unaware
+of Amroth and only aware of myself. She seemed startled and surprised at
+the sight of me, and I wondered in what form I appeared to her; in a
+moment she spoke, and her voice was low and thrilling.
+
+"I am so glad," she said in a half-courteous, half-distracted way, "to
+find some one in the place to whom I can speak. I seem to be always
+moving in a crowd, and yet to see no one--they are afraid of me, I
+think; and it is not what I expected, not what I am used to. I am in
+need of help, I feel, and yet I do not know what sort of help it is that
+I want. May I stay with you a little?"
+
+"Why, yes," I said; "there is no question of 'may' here."
+
+She came up to me with a sort of proud confidence, and looked at me
+fixedly. "Yes," she said, "I see that I can trust you; and I am tired of
+being deceived!" Then she added with a sort of pettishness, "I have
+nowhere to go, nothing to do--it is all dull and cold. On earth it was
+just the opposite. I had only too much attention and love.... Oh, yes,"
+she added with a strange glance, "it was what you would probably call
+sinful. The only man I ever loved did not care for me, and I was loved
+by many for whom I did not care. Well, I had my pleasures, and I suppose
+I must pay for them. I do not complain of that. But I am determined not
+to give way: it is unjust and cruel. I never had a chance. I was always
+brought up to be admired from the first. We were rich at my home, and in
+society--you understand? I made what was called a good match, and I
+never cared for my husband, but amused myself with other people; and it
+was splendid while it lasted: then all kinds of horrible things
+happened--scenes, explanations, a lawsuit--it makes me shudder to
+remember it all; and then I was ill, I suppose, and suddenly it was all
+over, and I was alone, with a feeling that I must try to take up with
+all kinds of tiresome things--all the things that bored me most. But now
+it may be going to be better; you can tell me where I can find people,
+perhaps? I am not quite unpresentable, even here? No, I can see that in
+your face. Well, take me somewhere, show me something, find something
+for me to do in this deadly place. I seem to have got into a perpetual
+sunset, and I am so sick of it all."
+
+I felt very helpless before this beautiful creature who seemed so
+troubled and discontented. "No," said the voice of Amroth beside me, "it
+is of no use to talk; let her talk to you; let her make friends with you
+if she can."
+
+"That's better," she said, looking at me. "I was afraid you were going
+to be grave and serious. I felt for a minute as if I was going to be
+confirmed."
+
+"No," I said, "you need not be disturbed; nothing will be done to you
+against your wish. One has but to wish here, or to be willing, and the
+right thing happens."
+
+She came close to me as I said this, and said, "Well, I think I shall
+like you, if only you can promise not to be serious." Then she turned,
+and stood for a moment disconsolate, looking away from me.
+
+All this while the atmosphere around me had been becoming lighter and
+clearer, as though a mist were rising. Suddenly Amroth said, "You will
+have to go with her for a time, and do what you can. I must leave you
+for a little, but I shall not be far off; and if you need me, I shall be
+at hand. But do not call for me unless you are quite sure you need me."
+He gave me a hand-clasp and a smile, and was gone.
+
+Then, looking about me, I saw at last that I was in a place. Lonely and
+bare though it was, it seemed to me very beautiful. It was like a grassy
+upland, with rocky heights to left and right. They were most delicate in
+outline, those crags, like the crags in an old picture, with sharp,
+smooth curves, like a fractured crystal. They seemed to be of a creamy
+stone, and the shadows fell blue and distinct. Down below was a great
+plain full of trees and waters, all very dim. A path, worn lightly in
+the grass, lay at my feet, and I knew that we must descend it. The girl
+with me--I will call her Cynthia--was gazing at it with delight. "Ah,"
+she said, "I can see clearly now. This is something like a real place,
+instead of mist and light. We can find people down here, no doubt; it
+looks inhabited out there." She pointed with her hand, and it seemed to
+me that I could see spires and towers and roofs, of a fine and airy
+architecture, at the end of a long horn of water which lay very blue
+among the woods of the plain. It puzzled me, because I had the sense
+that it was all unreal, and, indeed, I soon perceived that it was the
+girl's own thought that in some way affected mine. "Quick, let us go,"
+she said; "what are we waiting for?"
+
+The descent was easy and gradual. We came down, following the path, over
+the hill-shoulders. A stream of clear water dripped among stones; it
+all brought back to me with an intense delight the recollection of long
+days spent among such hills in holiday times on earth, but all without
+regret; I only wished that an old and dear friend of mine, with whom I
+had often gone, might be with me. He had quitted life before me, and I
+knew somehow or hoped that I should before long see him; but I did not
+wish things to be otherwise; and, indeed, I had a strange interest in
+the fretful, silly, lovely girl with me, and in what lay before us. She
+prattled on, and seemed to be recovering her spirits and her confidence
+at the sights around us. If I could but find anything that would draw
+her out of her restless mood into the peace of the morning! She had a
+charm for me, though her impatience and desire for amusement seemed
+uninteresting enough; and I found myself talking to her as an elder
+brother might, with terms of familiar endearment, which she seemed to be
+grateful for. It was strange in a way, and yet it all appeared natural.
+The more we drew away from the hills, the happier she became. "Ah," she
+said once, "we have got out of that hateful place, and now perhaps we
+may be more comfortable,"--and when we came down beside the stream to a
+grove of trees, and saw something which seemed like a road beneath us,
+she was delighted. "That's more like it," she said, "and now we may find
+some real people perhaps,"--she turned to me with a smile--"though you
+are real enough too, and very kind to me; but I still have an idea that
+you are a clergyman, and are only waiting your time to draw a moral."
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Now before I go on to tell the tale of what happened to us in the valley
+there were two very curious things that I observed or began to observe.
+
+The first was that I could not really see into the girl's thought. I
+became aware that though I could see into the thought of Amroth as
+easily and directly as one can look into a clear sea-pool, with all its
+rounded pebbles and its swaying fringes of seaweed, there was in the
+girl's mind a centre of thought to which I was not admitted, a fortress
+of personality into which I could not force my way. More than that. When
+she mistrusted or suspected me, there came a kind of cloud out from the
+central thought, as if a turbid stream were poured into the sea-pool,
+which obscured her thoughts from me, though when she came to know me
+and to trust me, as she did later, the cloud was gradually withdrawn;
+and I perceived that there must be a perfect sacrifice of will, an
+intention that the mind should lie open and unashamed before the thought
+of one's friend and companion, before the vision can be complete. With
+Amroth I desired to conceal nothing, and he had no concealment from me.
+But with the girl it was different. There was something in her heart
+that she hid from me, and by no effort could I penetrate it; and I saw
+then that there is something at the centre of the soul which is our very
+own, and into which God Himself cannot even look, unless we desire that
+He should look; and even if we desire that He should look into our
+souls, if there is any timidity or shame or shrinking about us, we
+cannot open our souls to Him. I must speak about this later, when the
+great and wonderful day came to me, when I beheld God and was beheld by
+Him. But now, though when the girl trusted me I could see much of her
+thought, the inmost cell of it was still hidden from me.
+
+And then, too, I perceived another strange thing; that the landscape in
+which we walked was very plain to me, but that she did not see the same
+things that I saw. With me, the landscape was such as I had loved most
+in my last experience of life; it was a land to me like the English
+hill-country which I loved the best; little fields of pasture mostly,
+with hedgerow ashes and sycamores, and here and there a clear stream of
+water running by the wood-ends. There were buildings, too, low
+white-walled farms, roughly slated, much-weathered, with evidences of
+homely life, byre and barn and granary, all about them. These sloping
+fields ran up into high moorlands and little grey crags, with the trees
+and thickets growing in the rock fronts. I could not think that people
+lived in these houses and practised agriculture, though I saw with
+surprise and pleasure that there were animals about, horses and sheep
+grazing, and dogs that frisked in and out. I had always believed and
+hoped that animals had their share in the inheritance of light, and now
+I thought that this was a proof that it was indeed so, though I could
+not be sure of it, because I realised that it might be but the thoughts
+of my mind taking shape, for, as I say, I was gradually aware that the
+girl did not see what I saw. To her it was a different scene, of some
+southern country, because she seemed to see vineyards, and high-walled
+lanes, hill-crests crowded with houses and crowned with churches, such
+as one sees at a distance in the Campagna, where the plain breaks into
+chestnut-clad hills. But this difference of sight did not make me feel
+that the scene was in any degree unreal; it was the idea of the
+landscape which we loved, its pretty associations and familiar features,
+and the mind did the rest, translating it all into a vision of scenes
+which had given us joy on earth, just as we do in dreams when we are in
+the body, when the sleeping mind creates sights which give us pleasure,
+and yet we have no knowledge that we are ourselves creating them. So we
+walked together, until I perceived that we were drawing near to the town
+which we had discerned.
+
+And now we became aware of people going to and fro. Sometimes they
+stopped and looked upon us with smiles, and even greetings; and
+sometimes they went past absorbed in thought.
+
+Houses appeared, both small wayside abodes and larger mansions with
+sheltered gardens. What it all meant I hardly knew; but just as we have
+perfectly decided tastes on earth as to what sort of a house we like and
+why we like it, whether we prefer high, bright rooms, or rooms low and
+with subdued light, so in that other country the mind creates what it
+desires.
+
+Presently the houses grew thicker, and soon we were in a street--the
+town to my eyes was like the little towns one sees in the Cotswold
+country, of a beautiful golden stone, with deep plinths and cornices,
+with older and simpler buildings interspersed. My companion became
+strangely excited, glancing this way and that. And presently, as if we
+were certainly expected, there came up to us a kindly and grave person,
+who welcomed us formally to the place, and said a few courteous words
+about his pleasure that we should have chosen to visit it.
+
+I do not know how it was, but I did not wholly trust our host. His mind
+was hidden from me; and indeed I began to have a sense, not of evil,
+indeed, or of oppression, but a feeling that it was not the place
+appointed for me, but only where my business was to lie for a season. A
+group of people came up to us and welcomed my companion with great
+cheerfulness, and she was soon absorbed in talk.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Now before I come to tell this next part of my story, there are several
+things which seem in want of explanation. I speak of people as looking
+old and young, and of there being relations between them such as
+fatherly and motherly, son-like and lover-like. It bewildered me at
+first, but I came to guess at the truth. It would seem that in the
+further world spirits do preserve for a long time the characteristics of
+the age at which they last left the earth; but I saw no very young
+children anywhere at first, though I came afterwards to know what befell
+them. It seemed to me that, in the first place I visited, the only
+spirits I saw were of those who had been able to make a deliberate
+choice of how they would live in the world and which kind of desires
+they would serve; it is very hard to say when this choice takes place
+in the world below, but I came to believe that, early or late, there
+does come a time when there is an opening out of two paths before each
+human soul, and when it realises that a choice must be made. Sometimes
+this is made early in life; but sometimes a soul drifts on, guileless in
+a sense, though its life may be evil and purposeless, not looking
+backwards or forwards, but simply acting as its nature bids it act. What
+it is that decides the awakening of the will I hardly know; it is all a
+secret growth, I think; but the older that the spirit is, in the sense
+of spiritual experience, the earlier in mortal life that choice is made;
+and this is only another proof of one of the things which Amroth showed
+me, that it is, after all, imagination which really makes the difference
+between souls, and not intellect or shrewdness or energy; all the real
+things of life--sympathy, the power of entering into fine relations,
+however simple they may be, with others, loyalty, patience, devotion,
+goodness--seem to grow out of this power of imagination; and the reason
+why the souls of whom I am going to speak were so content to dwell where
+they were, was simply that they had no imagination beyond, but dwelt
+happily among the delights which upon earth are represented by sound and
+colour and scent and comeliness and comfort. This was a perpetual
+surprise to me, because I saw in these fine creatures such a faculty of
+delicate perception, that I could not help believing again and again
+that their emotions were as deep and varied too; but I found little by
+little, that they were all bent, not on loving, and therefore on giving
+themselves away to what they loved, but in gathering in perceptions and
+sensations, and finding their delight in them; and I realised that what
+lies at the root of the artistic nature is its deep and vital
+indifference to anything except what can directly give it delight, and
+that these souls, for all their amazing subtlety and discrimination, had
+very little hold on life at all, except on its outer details and
+superficial harmonies; and that they were all very young in experience,
+and like shallow waters, easily troubled and easily appeased; and that
+therefore they were being dealt with like children, and allowed full
+scope for all their little sensitive fancies, until the time should come
+for them to go further yet. Of course they were one degree older than
+the people who in the world had been really immersed in what may be
+called solid interests and serious pursuits--science, politics,
+organisation, warfare, commerce--all these spirits were very youthful
+indeed, and they were, I suppose, in some very childish nursery of God.
+But what first bewildered me was the finding of the earthly proportions
+of things so strangely reversed, the serious matters of life so utterly
+set aside, and so much made of the things which many people take no sort
+of trouble about, as companionships and affections, which are so often
+turned into a matter of mere propinquity and circumstance. But of this
+I shall have to speak later in its place.
+
+Now it is difficult to describe the time I spent in the land of delight,
+because it was all so unlike the life of the world, and yet was so
+strangely like it. There was work going on there, I found, but the
+nature of it I could not discern, because that was kept hidden from me.
+Men and women excused themselves from our company, saying they must
+return to their work; but most of the time was spent in leisurely
+converse about things which I confess from the first did not interest
+me. There was much wit and laughter, and there were constant games and
+assemblies and amusements. There were feasts of delicious things, music,
+dramas. There were books read and discussed; it was just like a very
+cultivated and civilised society. But what struck me about the people
+there was that it was all very restless and highly-strung, a perpetual
+tasting of pleasures, which somehow never pleased. There were two people
+there who interested me most. One was a very handsome and courteous
+man, who seemed to desire my company, and spoke more freely than the
+rest; the other a young man, who was very much occupied with the girl,
+my companion, and made a great friendship with her. The elder of the
+two, for I must give them names, shall be called Charmides, which seems
+to correspond with his stately charm, and the younger may be known as
+Lucius.
+
+I sat one day with Charmides, listening to a great concert of stringed
+and wind instruments, in a portico which gave on a large sheltered
+garden. He was much absorbed in the music, which was now of a brisk and
+measured beauty, and now of a sweet seriousness which had a very
+luxurious effect upon my mind. "It is wonderful to me," said Charmides,
+as the last movement drew to a close of liquid melody, "that these
+sounds should pass into the heart like wine, heightening and uplifting
+the thought--there is nothing so beautiful as the discrimination of
+mood with which it affects one, weighing one delicate phrase against
+another, and finding all so perfect."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I can understand that; but I must confess that there
+seems to me something wanting in the melodies of this place. The music
+which I loved in the old days was the music which spoke to the soul of
+something further yet and unattainable; but here the music seems to have
+attained its end, and to have fulfilled its own desire."
+
+"Yes," said Charmides, "I know that you feel that; your mind is very
+clear to me, up to a certain point; and I have sometimes wondered why
+you spend your time here, because you are not one of us, as your friend
+Cynthia is."
+
+I glanced, as he spoke, to where Cynthia sat on a great carved settle
+among cushions, side by side with Lucius, whispering to him with a
+smile.
+
+"No," I said, "I do not think I have found my place yet, but I am here,
+I think, for a purpose, and I do not know what that purpose is."
+
+"Well," he said, "I have sometimes wondered myself. I feel that you may
+have something to tell me, some message for me. I thought that when I
+first saw you; but I cannot quite perceive what is in your mind, and I
+see that you do not wholly know what is in mine. I have been here for a
+long time, and I have a sense that I do not get on, do not move; and yet
+I have lived in extreme joy and contentment, except that I dread to
+return to life, as I know I must return. I have lived often, and always
+in joy--but in life there are constantly things to endure, little things
+which just ruffle the serenity of soul which I desire, and which I may
+fairly say I here enjoy. I have loved beauty, and not intemperately; and
+there have been other people--men and women--whom I have loved, in a
+sense; but the love of them has always seemed a sort of interruption to
+the life I desired, something disordered and strained, which hurt me,
+and kept me away from the peace I desired--from the fine weighing of
+sounds and colours, and the pleasure of beautiful forms and lines; and I
+dread to return to life, because one cannot avoid love and sorrow, and
+mean troubles, which waste the spirit in vain."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I can understand what you feel very well, because I too
+have known what it is to desire to live in peace and beauty, not to be
+disturbed or fretted; but the reason, I think, why it is dangerous, is
+not because life becomes too _easy_. That is not the danger at all--life
+is never easy, whatever it is! But the danger is that it grows too
+solemn! One is apt to become like a priest, always celebrating holy
+mysteries, always in a vision, with no time for laughter, and disputing,
+and quarrelling, and being silly and playing. It is the poor body again
+that is amiss. It is like the camel, poor thing; it groans and weeps,
+but it goes on. One cannot live wholly in a vision; and life does not
+become more simple so, but more complicated, for one's time and energy
+are spent in avoiding the sordid and the tiresome things which one
+cannot and must not avoid. I remember, in an illness which I had, when I
+was depressed and fanciful, a homely old doctor said to me, 'Don't be
+too careful of yourself: don't think you can't bear this and that--go
+out to dinner--eat and drink rather too much!' It seemed to be coarse
+advice, but it was wise."
+
+"Yes," said Charmides, "it was wise; but it is difficult to feel it so
+at the time. I wonder! I think perhaps I have made the mistake of being
+too fastidious. But it seemed so fine a goal that one had in sight, to
+chasten and temper all one's thoughts to what was beautiful--to judge
+and distinguish, to choose the right tones and harmonies, to be always
+rejecting and refining. It had its sorrows, of course. How often in the
+old days one came in contact with some gracious and beautiful
+personality, and flung oneself into close relations; and then one began
+to see this and that flaw. There were lapses in tact, petulances,
+littlenesses; one's friend did not rightly use his beautiful mind; he
+was jealous, suspicious, trivial, petty; it ended in disillusionment.
+Instead of taking him as a passenger on one's vessel, and determining to
+live at peace, to overlook, to accommodate, one began to watch for an
+opportunity of putting him down courteously at some stopping-place; and
+instead of being grateful for his friendship, one was vexed with him for
+disappointing one. We must speak more of these things. I seem to feel
+the want of something commoner and broader in my thoughts; but in this
+place it is hard to change."
+
+"Will you forgive me then," I said, "if I ask you plainly what this
+place is? It seems very strange to me, and yet I think I have been here
+before."
+
+Charmides looked at me with a smile. "It has been called," he said, "by
+many ugly names, and men have been unreasonably afraid of it. It is the
+place of satisfied desire, and, as you see, it is a comfortable place
+enough. The theologians in their coarse way call it Hell, though that is
+a word which is forbidden here; it is indeed a sort of treason to use
+the word, because of its unfortunate association--and you can see with
+your own eyes that I have done wrong even to speak of it."
+
+I looked round, and saw indeed that a visible tremor had fallen on the
+groups about us; it was as though a cold cloud, full of hail and
+darkness, had floated over a sunny sky. People were hurrying out of the
+garden, and some were regarding us askance and with frowns of
+disapproval. In a moment or two we were left alone.
+
+"I have been indiscreet," said Charmides, "but I feel somehow in a
+rebellious mood; and indeed it has long seemed absurd to me that you
+should be unaware of the fact, and so obviously guileless! But I will
+speak no more of this to-day. People come and go here very strangely,
+and I have sometimes wondered if it would not soon be time for me to go;
+but it would be idle to pretend that I have not been happy here."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+What Charmides had told me filled me with great astonishment; it seemed
+to me strange that I had not perceived the truth before. It made me feel
+that I had somehow been wasting time. I was tempted to call Amroth to my
+side, but I remembered what he had said, and I determined to resist the
+impulse. I half expected to find that our strange talk, and the very
+obvious disapproval of our words, had made some difference to me. But it
+was not the case. I found myself treated with the same smiling welcome
+as before, and indeed with an added kind of gentleness, such as older
+people give to a child who has been confronted with some hard fact of
+life, such as a sorrow or an illness. This in a way disconcerted me; for
+in the moment when I had perceived the truth, there had come over me the
+feeling that I ought in some way to bestir myself to preach, to warn,
+to advise. But the idea of finding any sort of fault with these
+contented, leisurely, interested people, seemed to me absurd, and so I
+continued as before, half enjoying the life about me, and half bored by
+it. It seemed so ludicrous in any way to pity the inhabitants of the
+place, and yet I dimly saw that none of them could possibly continue
+there. But I soon saw that there was no question of advice, because I
+had nothing to advise. To ask them to be discontented, to suffer, to
+inquire, seemed as absurd as to ask a man riding comfortably in a
+carriage to get out and walk; and yet I felt that it was just that which
+they needed. But one effect the incident had; it somehow seemed to draw
+me more to Cynthia. There followed a time of very close companionship
+with her. She sought me out, she began to confide in me, chattering
+about her happiness and her delight in her surroundings, as a child
+might chatter, and half chiding me, in a tender and pretty way, for not
+being more at ease in the place. "You always seem to me," she said, "as
+if you were only staying here, while I feel as if I could live here for
+ever. Of course you are very kind and patient about it all, but you are
+not at home--and I don't care a bit about your disapproval now." She
+talked to me much about Lucius, who seemed to have a great attraction
+for her. "He is all right," she said. "There is no nonsense about
+him,--we understand each other; I don't get tired of him, and we like
+the same things. I seem to know exactly what he feels about everything;
+and that is one of the comforts of this place, that no one asks
+questions or makes mischief; one can do just as one likes all the time.
+I did not think, when I was alive, that there could be anything so
+delightful as all this ahead of me."
+
+"Do you never think--?" I began, but she put her hand to my lips, like a
+child, to stop me, and said, "No, I never think, and I never mean to
+think, of all the old hateful things. I never wilfully did any harm; I
+only liked the people who liked me, and gave them all they asked--and
+now I know that I did right, though in old days serious people used to
+try to frighten me. God is very good to me," she went on, smiling, "to
+allow me to be happy in my own way."
+
+While we talked thus, sitting on a seat that overlooked the great
+city--I had never seen it look so stately and beautiful, so full of all
+that the heart could desire--Lucius himself drew near to us, smiling,
+and seated himself the other side of Cynthia. "Now is not this
+heavenly?" she said; "to be with the two people I like best--for you are
+a faithful old thing, you know--and not to be afraid of anything
+disagreeable or tiresome happening--not to have to explain or make
+excuses, what could be better?"
+
+"Yes," said Lucius, "it is happy enough," and he smiled at me in a
+friendly way. "The pleasantest point is that one can _wait_ in this
+charming place. In the old days, one was afraid of a hundred
+things--money, weather, illness, criticism. One had to make love in a
+hurry, because one missed the beautiful hour; and then there was the
+horror of growing old. But now if Cynthia chooses to amuse herself with
+other people, what do I care? She comes back as delightful as ever, and
+it is only so much more to be amused about. One is not even afraid of
+being lazy, and as for those ugly twinges of what one called
+conscience--which were only a sort of rheumatism after all--that is all
+gone too; and the delight of finding that one was right after all, and
+that there were really no such things as consequences!"
+
+I became aware, as Lucius spoke thus, in all his careless beauty, of a
+vague trouble of soul. I seemed to foresee a kind of conflict between
+myself and him. He felt it too, I was aware; for he drew Cynthia to him,
+and said something to her; and presently they went off laughing, like a
+pair of children, waving a farewell to me. I experienced a sense of
+desolation, knowing in my mind that all was not well, and yet feeling so
+powerless to contend with happiness so strong and wide.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+Presently I wandered off alone, and went out of the city with a sudden
+impulse. I thought I would go in the opposite direction to that by which
+I had entered it. I could see the great hills down which Cynthia and I
+had made our way in the dawn; but I had never gone in the further
+direction, where there stretched what seemed to be a great forest. The
+whole place lay bathed in a calm light, all unutterably beautiful. I
+wandered long by streams and wood-ends, every corner that I turned
+revealing new prospects of delight. I came at last to the edge of the
+forest, the mouths of little open glades running up into it, with fern
+and thorn-thickets. There were deer here browsing about the dingles,
+which let me come close to them and touch them, raising their heads from
+the grass, and regarding me with gentle and fearless eyes. Birds sang
+softly among the boughs, and even fluttered to my shoulder, as if
+pleased to be noticed. So this was what was called on earth the place of
+torment, a place into which it seemed as if nothing of sorrow or pain
+could ever intrude!
+
+Just on the edge of the wood stood a little cottage, surrounded by a
+quiet garden, bees humming about the flowers, the scents of which came
+with a homely sweetness on the air. But here I saw something which I did
+not at first understand. This was a group of three people, a man and a
+woman and a boy of about seventeen, beside the cottage porch. They had a
+rustic air about them, and the same sort of leisurely look that all the
+people of the land wore. They were all three beautiful, with a simple
+and appropriate kind of beauty, such as comes of a contented sojourn in
+the open air. But I became in a moment aware that there was a disturbing
+element among them. The two elders seemed to be trying to persuade the
+boy, who listened smilingly enough, but half turned away from them, as
+though he were going away on some errand of which they did not approve.
+They greeted me, as I drew near, with the same cordiality as one
+received everywhere, and the man said, "Perhaps you can help us, sir,
+for we are in a trouble?" The woman joined with a murmur in the request,
+and I said I would gladly do what I could; while I spoke, the boy
+watched me earnestly, and something drew me to him, because I saw a look
+that seemed to tell me that he was, like myself, a stranger in the
+place. Then the man said, "We have lived here together very happily a
+long time, we three--I do not know how we came together, but so it was;
+and we have been more at ease than words can tell, after hard lives in
+the other world; and now this lad here, who has been our delight, says
+that he must go elsewhere and cannot stay with us; and we would persuade
+him if we could; and perhaps you, sir, who no doubt know what lies
+beyond the fields and woods that we see, can satisfy him that it is
+better to remain."
+
+While he spoke, the other two had drawn near to me, and the eyes of the
+woman dwelt upon the boy with a look of intent love, while the boy
+looked in my face anxiously and inquiringly. I could see, I found, very
+deep into his heart, and I saw in him a need for further experience, and
+a desire to go further on; and I knew at once that this could only be
+satisfied in one way, and that something would grow out of it both for
+himself and for his companions. So I said, as smilingly as I could, "I
+do not indeed know much of the ways of this place, but this I know, that
+we must go where we are sent, that no harm can befall us, and that we
+are never far away from those whom we love. I myself have lately been
+sent to visit this strange land; it seems only yesterday since I left
+the mountains yonder, and yet I have seen an abundance of strange and
+beautiful things; we must remember that here there is no sickness or
+misfortune or growing old; and there is no reason, as there often seemed
+to be on earth, why we should fight against separation and departure. No
+one can, I think, be hindered here from going where he is bound. So I
+believe that you will let the boy go joyfully and willingly, for I am
+sure of this, that his journey holds not only great things for himself,
+but even greater things for both of you in the future. So be content and
+let him depart."
+
+At this the woman said, "Yes, that is right, the stranger is right, and
+we must hinder the child no longer. No harm can come of it, but only
+good; perhaps he will return, or we may follow him, when the day comes
+for that."
+
+I saw that the old man was not wholly satisfied with this. He shook his
+head and looked sadly on the boy; and then for a time we sat and talked
+of many things. One thing that the old man said surprised me very
+greatly. He seemed to have lived many lives, and always lives of labour;
+he had grown, I gathered from his simple talk, to have a great love of
+the earth, the lives of flocks and herds, and of all the plants that
+grew out of the earth or flourished in it. I had thought before, in a
+foolish way, that all this might be put away from the spirit, in the
+land where there was no need of such things; but I saw now that there
+was a claim for labour, and a love of common things, which did not
+belong only to the body, but was a real desire of the spirit. He spoke
+of the pleasures of tending cattle, of cutting fagots in the forest
+woodland among the copses, of ploughing and sowing, with the breath of
+the earth about one; till I saw that the toil of the world, which I had
+dimly thought of as a thing which no one would do if they were not
+obliged, was a real instinct of the spirit, and had its counterpart
+beyond the body. I had supposed indeed that in a region where all
+troublous accidents of matter were over and done with, and where there
+was no need of bodily sustenance, there could be nothing which
+resembled the old weary toil of the body; but now I saw gladly that this
+was not so, and that the primal needs of the spirit outlast the visible
+world. Though my own life had been spent mostly among books and things
+of the mind, I knew well the joys of the countryside, the blossoming of
+the orchard-close, the high-piled granary, the brightly-painted waggon
+loaded with hay, the creaking of the cider-press, the lowing of cattle
+in the stall, the stamping of horses in the stable, the mud-stained
+implements hanging in the high-roofed, cobwebbed barn. I had never known
+why I loved these things so well, and had invented many fancies to
+explain it; but now I saw that it was the natural delight in work and
+increase; and that the love which surrounded all these things was the
+sign that they were real indeed, and that in no part of life could they
+be put away. And then there came on me a sort of gentle laughter at the
+thought of how much of the religion of the world spent itself on bidding
+the heart turn away from vanities, and lose itself in dreams of wonders
+and doctrines, and what were called higher and holier things than barns
+and byres and sheep-pens. Yet the truth had been staring me in the face
+all the time, if only I could have seen it; that the sense of constraint
+and unreality that fell upon one in religious matters, when some curious
+and intricate matter was confusedly expounded, was perfectly natural and
+wholesome; and that the real life of man lay in the things to which one
+returned, on work-a-day mornings, with such relief--the acts of life,
+the work of homestead, library, barrack, office, and class-room, the
+sight and sound of humanity, the smiles and glances and unconsidered
+words.
+
+When we had sat together for a time, the boy made haste to depart. We
+three went with him to the edge of the wood, where a road passed up
+among the oaks. The three embraced and kissed and said many loving
+words; and then to ease the anxieties of the two, I said that I would
+myself set the boy forward on his way, and see him well bestowed. They
+thanked me, and we went together into the wood, the two lovingly waving
+and beckoning, and the boy stepping blithely by my side.
+
+I asked him whether he was not sorry to go and leave the quiet place and
+the pair that loved him. He smiled and said that he knew he was not
+leaving them at all, and that he was sure that they would soon follow;
+and that for himself the time had come to know more of the place. I
+learned from him that his last life had been an unhappy one, in a
+crowded street and a slovenly home, with much evil of talk and act about
+him; he had hated it all, he said, but for a little sister that he had
+loved, who had kissed and clasped him, weeping, when he lay dying of a
+miserable disease. He said that he thought he should find her, which
+made part of his joy of going; that for a long while there had come to
+him a sense of her remembrance and love; and that he had once sent his
+thought back to earth to find her, and she was in much grief and care;
+and that then all these messages had at once ceased, and he knew that
+she had left the body. He was a merry boy, full of delight and laughter,
+and we went very cheerfully together through the sunlit wood, with its
+green glades and open spaces, which seemed all full of life and
+happiness, creatures living together in goodwill and comfort. I saw in
+this journey that all things that ever lived a conscious life in one of
+the innumerable worlds had a place and life of their own, and a time of
+refreshment like myself. What I could not discern was whether there was
+any interchange of lives, whether the soul of the tree could become an
+animal, or the animal progress to be a man. It seemed to me that it was
+not so, but that each had a separate life of its own. But I saw how
+foolish was the fancy that I had pursued in old days, that there was a
+central reservoir of life, into which at death all little lives were
+merged; I was yet to learn how strangely all life was knit together,
+but now I saw that individuality was a real and separate thing, which
+could not be broken or lost, and that all things that had ever enjoyed a
+consciousness of the privilege of separate life had a true dignity and
+worth of existence; and that it was only the body that had made
+hostility necessary; that though the body could prey upon the bodies of
+animal and plant, yet that no soul could devour or incorporate any other
+soul. But as yet the merging of soul in soul through love was unseen and
+indeed unsuspected by me.
+
+Now as we went in the wood, the boy and I, it came into my mind in a
+flash that I had seen a great secret. I had seen, I knew, very little of
+the great land yet--and indeed I had been but in the lowest place of
+all: and I thought how base and dull our ideas had been upon earth of
+God and His care of men. We had thought of Him dimly as sweeping into
+His place of torment and despair all poisoned and diseased lives, all
+lives that had clung to the body and to the pleasures of the body, all
+who had sinned idly, or wilfully, or proudly; and I saw now that He used
+men far more wisely and lovingly than thus. Into this lowest place
+indeed passed all sad, and diseased, and unhappy spirits: and instead of
+being tormented or accursed, all was made delightful and beautiful for
+them there, because they needed not harsh and rough handling, but care
+and soft tendance. They were not to be frightened hence, or to live in
+fear and anguish, but to live deliciously according to their wish, and
+to be drawn to perceive in some quiet manner that all was not well with
+them; they were to have their heart's desire, and learn that it could
+not satisfy them; but the only thing that could draw them thence was the
+love of some other soul whom they must pursue and find, if they could.
+It was all so high and reasonable and just that I could not admire it
+enough. I saw that the boy was drawn thence by the love of his little
+sister, who was elsewhere; and that the love and loss of the boy would
+presently draw the older pair to follow him and to leave the place of
+heart's delight. And then I began to see that Cynthia and Charmides and
+Lucius were being made ready, each at his own time, to leave their
+little pleasures and ordered lives of happiness, and to follow
+heavenwards in due course. Because it was made plain to me that it was
+the love and worship of some other soul that was the constraining force;
+but what the end would be I could not discern.
+
+And now as we went through the wood, I began to feel a strange elation
+and joy of spirit, severe and bracing, very different from my languid
+and half-contented acquiescence in the place of beauty; and now the
+woods began to change their kind; there were fewer forest trees now, but
+bare heaths with patches of grey sand and scattered pines; and there
+began to drift across the light a grey vapour which hid the delicate
+hues and colours of the sunlight, and made everything appear pale and
+spare. Very soon we came out on the brow of a low hill, and saw, all
+spread out before us, a place which, for all its dulness and darkness,
+had a solemn beauty of its own. There were great stone buildings very
+solidly made, with high chimneys which seemed to stream with smoke; we
+could see men, as small as ants, moving in and out of the buildings; it
+seemed like a place of manufacture, with a busy life of its own. But
+here I suddenly felt that I could go no further, but must return. I
+hoped that I should see the grim place again, and I desired with all my
+soul to go down into it, and see what eager life it was that was being
+lived there. And the boy, I saw, felt this too, and was impatient to
+proceed. So we said farewell with much tenderness, and the boy went down
+swiftly across the moorland, till he met some one who was coming out of
+the city, and conferred a little with him; and then he turned and waved
+his hand to me, and I waved my hand from the brow of the hill, envying
+him in my heart, and went back in sorrow into the sunshine of the wood.
+
+And as I did so I had a great joy, because I saw Amroth come suddenly
+running to me out of the wood, who put his arm through mine, and walked
+with me. Then I told him of all I had seen and thought, while he smiled
+and nodded and told me it was much as I imagined. "Yes," he said, "it is
+even so. The souls you have seen in this fine country here are just as
+children who are given their fill of pleasant things. Many of them have
+come into the state in which you see them from no fault of their own,
+because their souls are young and ignorant. They have shrunk from all
+pain and effort and tedium, like a child that does not like his lessons.
+There is no thought of punishment, of course. No one learns anything of
+punishment except a cowardly fear. We never advance until we have the
+will to advance, and there is nothing in mere suffering, unless we learn
+to bear it gently for the sake of love. On earth it is not God but man
+who is cruel. There is indeed a place of sorrow, which you will see when
+you can bear the sight, where the self-righteous and the harsh go for a
+time, and all those who have made others suffer because they believed in
+their own justice and insight. You will find there all tyrants and
+conquerors, and many rich men, who used their wealth heedlessly; and
+even so you will be surprised when you see it. But those spirits are the
+hardest of all to help, because they have loved nothing but their own
+virtue or their own ambition; yet you will see how they too are drawn
+thence; and now that you have had a sight of the better country, tell me
+how you liked it."
+
+"Why," I said, "it is plain and austere enough; but I felt a great
+quickening of spirit, and a desire to join in the labours of the place."
+
+Amroth smiled, and said, "You will have little share in that. You will
+find your task, no doubt, when you are strong enough; and now you must
+go back and make unwilling holiday with your pleasant friends, you have
+not much longer to stay there; and surely"--he laughed as he spoke--"you
+can endure a little more of those pretty concerts and charming talk of
+art and its values and pulsations!"
+
+"I can endure it," I said, laughing, "for it does me good to see you and
+to hear you; but tell me, Amroth, what have you been about all this
+time? Have you had a thought of me?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Amroth, laughing. "I don't forget you, and I love
+your company; but I am a busy man myself, and have something pleasanter
+to do than to attend these elegant receptions of yours--at which,
+indeed, I have sometimes thought you out of place."
+
+As we thus talked we came to the forest lodge. The old pair came running
+out to greet me, and I told them that the boy was well bestowed. I could
+see in the woman's face that she would soon follow him, and even the
+old man had a look that I had not seen in him before; and here Amroth
+left me, and I returned to the city, where all was as peaceable as
+before.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+But when I saw Cynthia, as I presently did, she too was in a different
+mood. She had positively missed me, and told me so with many
+endearments. I was not to remain away so long. I was useful to her.
+Charmides had become tiresome and lost in thought, but Lucius was as
+sweet as ever. Some new-comers had arrived, all pleasant enough. She
+asked me where I had been, and I told her all the story. "Yes, that is
+beautiful enough," she said, "but I hate all this breaking up and going
+on. I am sure I do not wish for any change." She made a grimace of
+disgust at the idea of the ugly town I had seen, and then she said that
+she would go with me some time to look at it, because it would make her
+happier to return to her peace; and then she went off to tell Lucius.
+
+I soon found Charmides, and I told him my adventures. "That is a
+curious story," he said. "I like to think of people caring for each
+other so; that is picturesque! These simple emotions are interesting.
+And one likes to think that people who have none of the finer tastes
+should have something to fall back upon--something hot and strong, as we
+used to say."
+
+"But," I said, "tell me this, Charmides, was there never any one in the
+old days whom you cared for like that?"
+
+"I thought so often enough," said he, a little peevishly, "but you do
+not know how much a man like myself is at the mercy of little things! An
+ugly hand, a broken tooth, a fallen cheek ... it seems little enough,
+but one has a sort of standard. I had a microscopic eye, you know, and a
+little blemish was a serious thing to me. I was always in search of
+something that I could not find; then there were awkward strains in the
+characters of people--they were mean or greedy or selfish, and all my
+pleasure was suddenly dashed. I am speaking," he went on, "with a
+strange candour! I don't defend it or excuse it, but there it was. I did
+once, as a child, I believe, care for one person--an old nurse of
+mine--in the right way. Dear, how good she was to me! I remember once
+how she came all the way, after she had left us, to see me on my way
+through town. She just met me at a railway station, and she had bought a
+little book which she thought might amuse me, and a bag of oranges--she
+remembered that I used to like oranges. I recollect at the time thinking
+it was all very touching and devoted; but I was with a friend of mine,
+and had not time to say much. I can see her old face, smiling, with
+tears in her eyes, as we went off. I gave the book and the oranges away,
+I remember, to a child at the next station. It is curious how it all
+comes back to me now; I never saw her again, and I wish I had behaved
+better. I should like to see her again, and to tell her that I really
+cared! I wonder if that is possible? But there is really so much to do
+here and to enjoy; and there is no one to tell me where to go, so that I
+am puzzled. What is one to do?"
+
+"I think that if one desires a thing enough here, Charmides," I said,
+"one is in a fair way to obtain it. Never mind! a door will be opened.
+But one has got to care, I suppose; it is not enough to look upon it as
+a pretty effect, which one would just like to put in its place with
+other effects--'Open, sesame'--do you remember? There is a charm at
+which all doors fly open, even here!"
+
+"I will talk to you more about this," said Charmides, "when I have had
+time to arrange my thoughts a little. Who would have supposed that an
+old recollection like that would have disturbed me so much? It would
+make a good subject for a picture or a song."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+It was on one of these days that Amroth came suddenly upon me, with a
+very mirthful look on his face, his eyes sparkling like a man struggling
+with hidden laughter. "Come with me," he said; "you have been so dutiful
+lately that I am alarmed for your health." Then we went out of the
+garden where I was sitting, and we were suddenly in a street. I saw in a
+moment that it was a real street, in the suburb of an English town;
+there were electric trams running, and rows of small trees, and an open
+space planted with shrubs, with asphalt paths and ugly seats. On the
+other side of the road was a row of big villas, tasteless, dreary,
+comfortable houses, with meaningless turrets and balconies. I could not
+help feeling that it was very dismal that men and women should live in
+such places, think them neat and well-appointed, and even grow to love
+them. We went into one of these houses; it was early in the morning, and
+a little drizzle was falling, which made the whole place seem very
+cheerless. In a room with a bow-window looking on the road there were
+three persons. An old man was reading a paper in an arm-chair by the
+fire, with his back to the light. He looked a nice old man, with his
+clear skin and white hair; opposite him was an old lady in another
+chair, reading a letter. With his back to the fire stood a man of about
+thirty-five, sturdy-looking, but pale, and with an appearance of being
+somewhat overworked. He had a good face, but seemed a little
+uninteresting, as if he did not feed his mind. The table had been spread
+for breakfast, and the meal was finished and partly cleared away. The
+room was ugly and the furniture was a little shabby; there was a glazed
+bookcase, full of dull-looking books, a sideboard, a table with writing
+materials in the window, and some engravings of royal groups and
+celebrated men.
+
+The younger man, after a moment, said, "Well, I must be off." He nodded
+to his father, and bent down to kiss his mother, saying, "Take care of
+yourself--I shall be back in good time for tea." I had a sense that he
+was using these phrases in a mechanical way, and that they were
+customary with him. Then he went out, planting his feet solidly on the
+carpet, and presently the front door shut. I could not understand why we
+had come to this very unemphatic party, and examined the whole room
+carefully to see what was the object of our visit. A maid came in and
+removed the rest of the breakfast things, leaving the cloth still on the
+table, and some of the spoons and knives, with the salt-cellars, in
+their places. When she had finished and gone out, there was a silence,
+only broken by the crackling of the paper as the old man folded it.
+Presently the old lady said: "I wish Charles could get his holiday a
+little sooner; he looks so tired, and he does not eat well. He does
+stick so hard to his business."
+
+"Yes, dear, he does," said the old man, "but it is just the busiest
+time, and he tells me that they have had some large orders lately. They
+are doing very well, I understand."
+
+There was another silence, and then the old lady put down her letter,
+and looked for a moment at a picture, representing a boy, a large
+photograph a good deal faded, which hung close to her--underneath it was
+a small vase of flowers on a bracket. She gave a little sigh as she did
+this, and the old man looked at her over the top of his paper. "Just
+think, father," she said, "that Harry would have been thirty-eight this
+very week!"
+
+The old man made a comforting sort of little noise, half sympathetic and
+half deprecatory. "Yes, I know," said the old lady, "but I can't help
+thinking about him a great deal at this time of the year. I don't
+understand why he was taken away from us. He was always such a good
+boy--he would have been just like Charles, only handsomer--he was always
+handsomer and brighter; he had so much of your spirit! Not but what
+Charles has been the best of sons to us--I don't mean that--no one could
+be better or more easy to please! But Harry had a different way with
+him." Her eyes filled with tears, which she brushed away. "No," she
+added, "I won't fret about him. I daresay he is happier where he is--I
+am sure he is--and thinking of his mother too, my bonny boy, perhaps."
+
+The old man got up, put his paper down, went across to the old lady, and
+gave her a kiss on the brow. "There, there," he said soothingly, "we may
+be sure it's all for the best;" and he stood looking down fondly at her.
+Amroth crossed the room and stood beside the pair, with a hand on the
+shoulder of each. I saw in an instant that there was an unmistakable
+likeness between the three; but the contrast of the marvellous
+brilliance and beauty of Amroth with the old, world-wearied,
+simple-minded couple was the most extraordinary thing to behold. "Yes, I
+feel better already," said the old lady, smiling; "it always does me
+good to say out what I am feeling, father; and then you are sure to
+understand."
+
+The mist closed suddenly in upon the scene, and we were back in a moment
+in the garden with its porticoes, in the radiant, untroubled air. Amroth
+looked at me with a smile that was full, half of gaiety and half of
+tenderness. "There," he said, "what do you think of that? If all had
+gone well with me, as they say on earth, that is where I should be now,
+going down to the city with Charles. That is the prospect which to the
+dear old people seems so satisfactory compared with this! In that house
+I lay ill for some weeks, and from there my body was carried out. And
+they would have kept me there if they could--and I myself did not want
+to go. I was afraid. Oh, how I envied Charles going down to the city
+and coming back for tea, to read the magazines aloud or play backgammon.
+I am afraid I was not as nice as I should have been about all that--the
+evenings were certainly dull!"
+
+"But what do you feel about it now?" I said. "Don't you feel sorry for
+the muddle and ignorance and pathos of it all? Can't something be done
+to show everybody what a ghastly mistake it is, to get so tied down to
+the earth and the things of earth?"
+
+"A mistake?" said Amroth. "There is no such thing as a mistake. One
+cannot sorrow for their grief, any more than one can sorrow for the
+child who cries out in the tunnel and clasps his mother's hand. Don't
+you see that their grief and loss is the one beautiful thing in those
+lives, and all that it is doing for them, drawing them hither? Why, that
+is where we grow and become strong, in the hopeless suffering of love. I
+am glad and content that my own stay was made so brief. I wish it could
+be shortened for the three--and yet I do not, because they will gain so
+wonderfully by it. They are mounting fast; it is their very ignorance
+that teaches them. Not to know, not to perceive, but to be forced to
+believe in love, that is the point."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I see that; but what about the lives that are broken and
+poisoned by grief, in a stupor of pain--or the souls that do not feel it
+at all, except as a passing shadow--what about them?"
+
+"Oh," said Amroth lightly, "the sadder the dream the more blessed the
+awakening; and as for those who cannot feel--well, it will all come to
+them, as they grow older."
+
+"Yes," I said, "it has done me good to see all this--it makes many
+things plain; but can you bear to leave them thus?"
+
+"Leave them!" said Amroth. "Who knows but that I shall be sent to help
+them away, and carry them, as I carried you, to the crystal sea of
+peace? The darling mother, I shall be there at her awakening. They are
+old spirits, those two, old and wise; and there is a high place
+prepared for them."
+
+"But what about Charles?" I said.
+
+Amroth smiled. "Old Charles?" he said. "I must admit that he is not a
+very stirring figure at present. He is much immersed in his game of
+finance, and talks a great deal in his lighter moments about the
+commercial prospects of the Empire and the need of retaliatory tariffs.
+But he will outgrow all that! He is a very loyal soul, but not very
+adventurous just now. He would be sadly discomposed by an affection
+which came in between him and his figures. He would think he wanted a
+change--and he will have a thorough one, the good old fellow, one of
+these days. But he has a long journey before him."
+
+"Well," I said, "there are some surprises here! I am afraid I am very
+youthful yet."
+
+"Yes, dear child, you are very ingenuous," said Amroth, "and that is a
+great part of your charm. But we will find something for you to do
+before long! But here comes Charmides, to talk about the need of
+exquisite pulsations, and their symbolism--though I see a change in him
+too. And now I must go back to business. Take care of yourself, and I
+will be back to tea." And Amroth flashed away in a very cheerful mood.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+There were many things at that time that were full of mystery, things
+which I never came to understand. There was in particular a certain sort
+of people, whom one met occasionally, for whom I could never wholly
+account. They were unlike others in this fact, that they never appeared
+to belong to any particular place or community. They were both men and
+women, who seemed--I can express it in no other way--to be in the
+possession of a secret so great that it made everything else trivial and
+indifferent to them. Not that they were impatient or contemptuous--it
+was quite the other way; but to use a similitude, they were like
+good-natured, active, kindly elders at a children's party. They did not
+shun conversation, but if one talked with them, they used a kind of
+tender and gentle irony, which had something admiring and complimentary
+about it, which took away any sense of vexation or of baffled curiosity.
+It was simply as though their concern lay elsewhere; they joined in
+anything with a frank delight, not with any touch of condescension. They
+were even more kindly and affectionate than others, because they did not
+seem to have any small problems of their own, and could give their whole
+attention and thought to the person they were with. These inscrutable
+people puzzled me very much. I asked Amroth about them once.
+
+"Who are these people," I said, "whom one sometimes meets, who are so
+far removed from all of us? What are they doing here?"
+
+Amroth smiled. "So you have detected them!" he said. "You are quite
+right, and it does your observation credit. But you must find it out for
+yourself. I cannot explain, and if I could, you would not understand me
+yet."
+
+"Then I am not mistaken," I said, "but I wish you would give me a
+hint--they seem to know something more worth knowing than all beside."
+
+"Exactly," said Amroth. "You are very near the truth; it is staring you
+in the face; but it would spoil all if I told you. There is plenty about
+them in the old books you used to read--they have the secret of joy."
+And that is all that he would say.
+
+It was on a solitary ramble one day, outside of the place of delight,
+that I came nearer to one of these people than I ever did at any other
+time. I had wandered off into a pleasant place of grassy glades with
+little thorn-thickets everywhere. I went up a small eminence, which
+commanded a view of the beautiful plain with its blue distance and the
+enamelled green foreground of close-grown coverts. There I sat for a
+long time lost in pleasant thought and wonder, when I saw a man drawing
+near, walking slowly and looking about him with a serene and delighted
+air. He passed not far from me, and observing me, waved a hand of
+welcome, came up the slope, and greeting me in a friendly and open
+manner, asked if he might sit with me for a little.
+
+"This is a pleasant place," he said, "and you seem very agreeably
+occupied."
+
+"Yes," I said, looking into his smiling face, "one has no engagements
+here, and no need of business to fill the time--but indeed I am not sure
+that I am busy enough." As I spoke I was regarding him with some
+curiosity. He was a man of mature age, with a strong, firm-featured
+face, healthy and sunburnt of aspect, and he was dressed, not as I was
+for ease and repose, but with the garments of a traveller. His hat,
+which was large and of some soft grey cloth, was pushed to his back, and
+hung there by a cord round his neck. His hair was a little grizzled, and
+lay close-curled to his head; in his strong and muscular hand he carried
+a stick. He smiled again at my words, and said:
+
+"Oh, one need not trouble about being busy until the time comes; that
+is a feeling one inherits from the life of earth, and I am sure you have
+not left it long. You have a very fresh air about you, as if you had
+rested, and rested well."
+
+"Yes, I have rested," I said; "but though I am content enough, there is
+something unquiet in me, I am afraid!"
+
+"Ah!" he said, "there is that in all of us, and it would not be well
+with us if there were not. Will you tell me a little about yourself?
+That is one of the pleasures of this life here, that we have no need to
+be cautious, or to fear that we shall give ourselves away."
+
+I told him my adventures, and he listened with serious attention.
+
+"Ah, that is all very good," he said at last, "but you must not be in
+any hurry; it is a great thing that ideas should dawn upon us
+gradually--one gets the full truth of them so. It was the hurry of life
+which was so bewildering--the shocks, the surprises, the ugly
+reflections of one's conduct that one saw in other lives--the corners
+one had to turn. Things, indeed, come suddenly even here, but one is led
+up to them gently enough; allowed to enter the sea for oneself, not
+soused and ducked in it. You will need all the strength you can store up
+for what is before you, and I can see in your face that you are storing
+up strength--but the weariness is not quite gone out of your mind."
+
+He was silent for a little, musing, till I said, "Will you not tell me
+some of your own adventures? I am sure from your look that you have
+them; and you are a pilgrim, it seems. Where are you bound?"
+
+"Oh," he said lightly, "I am not one of the people who have
+adventures--just the journey and the talk beside the way."
+
+"But," I said, "I have seen some others like you, and I am puzzled about
+it. You seem, if I may say so--I do not mean anything disrespectful or
+impertinent--to be like the gipsies whom one meets in quiet country
+places, with a secret knowledge of their own, a pride too great to be
+worth expressing, not anxious about life, not weary or dissatisfied,
+caring not for localities or possessions, but with a sort of eager
+pleasure in freedom and movement."
+
+He laughed. "Yes," he said, "you are right! I am no doubt a sort of
+nomad, as you say, detached from life perhaps. I don't know that it is
+desirable; there is a great deal to be said for living in the same place
+and loving the same things. Most people are happier so, and learn what
+they have to learn in that manner."
+
+"Yes," I said, "that is true and beautiful--the same old house, the same
+trees and pastures, the stream and the water-plants that hide it, the
+blue hills beyond the nearer wood--the dear familiar things; but even so
+the road which passes through the fields, over the bridge, up the
+covert-side ... it leads somewhere, and the heart on sunny days leaps up
+to follow it! Talking with you here, I feel a hunger for something wider
+and more free; your voice has the sound of the wind, with the secret
+knowledge of strange hill-tops and solitary seas! Sometimes the heart
+settles down upon what it knows and loves, but sometimes it reaches out
+to all the love and beauty hidden in the world, and in the waters beyond
+the world, and would embrace it all if it could. The faces one sees as
+one passes through unfamiliar cities or villages, how one longs to talk,
+to question, to ask what gave them the look they wear.... And you, if I
+may say it, seem to have passed beyond the need of wanting or desiring
+anything ... but I must not talk thus to a stranger; you must forgive
+me."
+
+"Forgive you?" said the stranger; "that is only an earthly phrase--the
+old terror of indiscretion and caution. What are we here for but to get
+acquainted with one another--to let our inmost thoughts talk together?
+In the world we are bounded by time and space, and we have the terror of
+each other's glances and exteriors to contend with. We make friends on
+earth in spite of our limitations; but in heaven we get to know each
+other's hearts; and that blessing goes back with us to the dim fields
+and narrow houses of the earth. I see plainly enough that you are not
+perfectly happy; but one can only win content through discontent. Where
+you are now, you are not in accord with the souls about you. Never mind
+that! There are beautiful spirits within reach of your hand and heart; a
+little clouded by mistaking the quality of joy, no doubt, but great and
+everlasting for all that. You must try to draw near to them, and find
+spirits to love. Do you not remember in the days of earth how one felt
+sometimes in an unfamiliar place--among a gathering of strangers--at
+church perhaps, or at some school which one visited, where one saw the
+young faces, which showed so clearly, before the world had stamped
+itself in frowns and heaviness upon them, the quality of the soul
+within? Don't you remember the feeling at such times of how many there
+were in the world whom one might love, if one had leisure and
+opportunity and energy? Well, there is no need to resist that, or to
+deplore it here; one may go where one's will inclines one, and speak as
+one's heart tells one to speak. I think you are perhaps too conscious of
+waiting for something. Your task lies ahead of you, but the work of love
+can begin at once and anywhere."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I feel that now and here. Will you not tell me something
+of yourself in return? I cannot read your mind clearly--it is occupied
+with something I cannot grasp--what is your work in heaven?"
+
+"Oh," he said lightly, "that is easy enough, and yet you would not
+understand it. I have been led through the shadow of fear, and I have
+passed out on the other side. And my duty is to release others from
+fear, as far as I can. It is the darkest shadow of all, because it
+dwells in the unknown. Pain, without it, is no suffering at all; indeed
+pain is almost a pleasure, when one knows what it is doing for one. But
+fear is the doubt whether pain or suffering are really helping us; and
+just as memory never has any touch of fear about it, so hope may
+likewise have done with fear."
+
+"But how did you learn this?" I said.
+
+"Only by fearing to the uttermost," he replied. "The power--it is not
+courage, because that only defies fear--cannot be given one; it must be
+painfully won. You remember the blessing of the pure in heart, that they
+shall see God? There would be little hope in that promise for the soul
+that knew itself to be impure, if it were not for the other side of
+it--that the vision of God, which is the most terrible of all things,
+can give purity to the most sin-stained soul. In that vision, all desire
+and all fear have an end, because there is nothing left either to desire
+or to dread. That vision we may delay or hasten. We may delay it, if we
+allow our prudence, or our shame, or our comfort, to get in the way: we
+may hasten it, if we cast ourselves at every moment of our pilgrimage
+upon the mercy and the love of God. His one desire is that we should be
+satisfied; and if He seems to put obstacles in our way, to keep us
+waiting, to permit us to be miserable, that is only that we may learn to
+cast ourselves into love and service--which is the one way to His heart.
+But now I must be going, for I have said all that you can bear. Will you
+remember this--not to reserve yourself, not to think others unworthy or
+hostile, but to cast your love and trust freely and lavishly, everywhere
+and anywhere? We must gather nothing, hold on to nothing, just give
+ourselves away at every moment, flowing like the stream into every
+channel that is open, withholding nothing, retaining nothing. I see," he
+added, "very great and beautiful things ahead of you, and very sad and
+painful things as well. But you are close to the light, and it is
+breaking all about you with a splendour which you cannot guess."
+
+He rose up, he took my hand in his own and laid the other on my brow,
+and I felt his heart go out to mine and gather me to him, as a child is
+gathered to a father's arms. And then he went silently and lightly upon
+his way.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+The time moved on quietly enough in the land of delight. I made
+acquaintance with quite a number of the soft-voiced contented folk.
+Sometimes it interested me to see the change coming upon one or another,
+a wonder or a desire that made them sit withdrawn and abstracted, and
+breaking with a sort of effort out of the dreamful mood. Then they would
+leave us, sometimes quite suddenly, sometimes with courteous adieus.
+New-comers, too, kept arriving, to be made pleasantly at home. I found
+myself seeing more of Cynthia. She was much with Lucius, and they seemed
+as gay as ever, but I saw that she was sometimes puzzled. She said to me
+one day as we sat together, "I wish you would tell me what this is all
+about? I do not want to change it, and I am very happy, but isn't it all
+rather pointless? I believe you have some secret you are keeping from
+me." She was sitting close beside me, like a child, resting her head on
+my arm, and she took my hand in both of hers.
+
+"No," I said, "I am keeping nothing from you, pretty child! I could not
+explain to you what is in my mind, and it would spoil your pleasure if I
+could. It is all right, and you will see in good time."
+
+"I hate to be put off like that," she said. "You are not really
+interested in me; and you do not trust me; you do not care about the
+things I care about, and if you are so superior, you ought to explain to
+me why."
+
+"Well," I said, "I will try to explain. Do you ever remember having been
+very happy in a place, and having been obliged to leave it, always
+hoping to return; and then when you did return, finding that, though
+nothing was changed, you were yourself changed, and could not, even if
+you would, have taken up the old life again?"
+
+"Yes," said Cynthia, musing, "I remember that sort of thing happening
+once, about a house where I stayed as a child. It seemed so stupid and
+dull when I went back that I wondered how I could ever have really liked
+it."
+
+"Well," I said, "it is the same sort of thing here. I am only here for a
+time, and though I do not know where I am going or when, I think I shall
+not be here much longer."
+
+At this Cynthia did what she had never done before--she kissed me. Then
+she said, "Don't speak of such disagreeable things. I could not get on
+without you. You are so convenient, like a comfortable old arm-chair."
+
+"What a compliment!" I said. "But you see that you don't like my
+explanation. Why trouble about it? You have plenty of time. Is Lucius
+like an arm-chair, too?"
+
+"No," she said, "he is exciting, like a new necklace--and Charmides, he
+is exciting too, in a way, but rather too fine for me, like a
+ball-dress!"
+
+"Yes," I said, "I noticed that your own taste in dress is different of
+late. This is a much simpler thing than what you came in."
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, "it doesn't seem worth while to dress up now. I
+have made my friends, and I suppose I am getting lazy."
+
+We said little more, but she did not seem inclined to leave me, and was
+more with me for a time. I actually heard her tell Lucius once that she
+was tired, at which he laughed, not very pleasantly, and went away.
+
+But my own summons came to me so unexpectedly that I had but little time
+to make my farewell.
+
+I was sitting once in a garden-close watching a curious act proceeding,
+which I did not quite understand. It looked like a religious ceremony; a
+man in embroidered robes was being conducted by some boys in white
+dresses through the long cloister, carrying something carefully wrapped
+up in his arms, and I heard what sounded like an antique hymn of a fine
+stiff melody, rapidly sung.
+
+There had been nothing quite like this before, and I suddenly became
+aware that Amroth was beside me, and that he had a look of anger in his
+face. "You had better not look at this," he said to me; "it might not be
+very helpful, as they say."
+
+"Am I to come with you?" I said. "That is well--but I should like to say
+a word to one or two of my friends here."
+
+"No, not a word!" said Amroth quickly. He looked at me with a curious
+look, in which he seemed to be measuring my strength and courage. "Yes,
+that will do!" he added. "Come at once--don't be surprised--it will be
+different from what you expect."
+
+He took me by the arm, and we hurried from the place; one or two of the
+people who stood by looked at us in lazy wonder. We walked in silence
+down a long alley, to a great gate that I had often passed in my
+strolls. It was a barred iron gate, of a very stately air, with high
+stone gateposts. I had never been able to find my outward way to this,
+and there was a view from it of enchanting beauty, blue distant woods
+and rolling slopes. Amroth came quickly to the gate, seemed to unlock
+it, and held it open for me to pass. "One word," he said with his most
+beautiful smile, his eyes flashing and kindling with some secret
+emotion, "whatever happens, do not be _afraid_! There is nothing
+whatever to fear, only be prepared and wait." He motioned me through,
+and I heard him close the gate behind me.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+I was alone in an instant, and in terrible pain--pain not in any part of
+me, but all around and within me. A cold wind of a piercing bitterness
+seemed to blow upon me; but with it came a sense of immense energy and
+strength, so that the pain became suddenly delightful, like the
+stretching of a stiffened limb. I cannot put the pain into exact words.
+It was not attended by any horror; it seemed a sense of infinite grief
+and loss and loneliness, a deep yearning to be delivered and made free.
+I felt suddenly as though everything I loved had gone from me,
+irretrievably gone and lost. I looked round me, and I could discern
+through a mist the bases of some black and sinister rocks, that towered
+up intolerably above me; in between them were channels full of stones
+and drifted snow. Anything more stupendous than those black-ribbed
+crags, those toppling precipices, I had never seen. The wind howled
+among them, and sometimes there was a noise of rocks cast down. I knew
+in some obscure way that my path lay there, and my heart absolutely
+failed me. Instead of going straight to the rocks, I began to creep
+along the base to see whether I could find some easier track. Suddenly
+the voice of Amroth said, rather sharply, in my ear, "Don't be silly!"
+This homely direction, so peremptorily made, had an instantaneous
+effect. If he had said, "Be not faithless," or anything in the copybook
+manner, I should have sat down and resigned myself to solemn despair.
+But now I felt a fool and a coward as well.
+
+So I addressed myself, like a dog who hears the crack of a whip, to the
+rocks.
+
+It would be tedious to relate how I clambered and stumbled and agonised.
+There did not seem to me the slightest use in making the attempt, or the
+smallest hope of reaching the top, or the least expectation of finding
+anything worth finding. I hated everything I had ever seen or known;
+recollections of old lives and of the quiet garden I had left came upon
+me with a sort of mental nausea. This was very different from the
+amiable and easy-going treatment I had expected. Yet I did struggle on,
+with a hideous faintness and weariness--but would it never stop? It
+seemed like years to me, my hands frozen and wetted by snow and dripping
+water, my feet bruised and wounded by sharp stones, my garments
+strangely torn and rent, with stains of blood showing through in places.
+Still the hideous business continued, but progress was never quite
+impossible. At one place I found the rocks wholly impassable, and
+choosing the broader of two ledges which ran left and right, I worked
+out along the cliff, only to find that the ledge ran into the
+precipices, and I had to retrace my steps, if the shuffling motions I
+made could be so called. Then I took the harder of the two, which
+zigzagged backwards and forwards across the rocks. At one place I saw a
+thing which moved me very strangely. This was a heap of bones, green,
+slimy, and ill-smelling, with some tattered rags of cloth about them,
+which lay in a heap beneath a precipice. The thought that a man could
+fall and be killed in such a place moved me with a fresh misery. What
+that meant I could not tell. Were we not away from such things as
+mouldering flesh and broken bones? It seemed not; and I climbed madly
+away from them. Quite suddenly I came to the top, a bleak platform of
+rock, where I fell prostrate on my face and groaned.
+
+"Yes, that was an ugly business," said the voice of Amroth beside me,
+"but you got through it fairly well. How do you feel?"
+
+"I call it a perfect outrage," I said. "What is the meaning of this
+hateful business?"
+
+"The meaning?" said Amroth; "never mind about the meaning. The point is
+that you are here!"
+
+"Oh," I said, "I have had a horrible time. All my sense of security is
+gone from me. Is one indeed liable to this kind of interruption,
+Amroth?"
+
+"Of course," said Amroth, "there must be some tests; but you will be
+better very soon. It is all over for the present, I may tell you, and
+you will soon be able to enjoy it. There is no terror in past
+suffering--it is the purest joy."
+
+"Yes, I used to say so and think so," I said, closing my eyes. "But this
+was different--it was horrible! And the time it lasted, and the despair
+of it! It seems to have soaked into my whole life and poisoned it."
+
+Amroth said nothing for a minute, but watched me closely.
+
+Presently I went on. "And tell me one thing. There was a ghastly thing I
+saw, some mouldering bones on a ledge. Can people indeed fall and die
+there?"
+
+"Perhaps it was only a phantom," said Amroth, "put there like the
+sights in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, the fire that was fed secretly with
+oil, and the robin with his mouth full of spiders, as an encouragement
+for wayfarers!"
+
+"But that," I said, "would be too horrible for anything--to turn the
+terrors of death into a sort of conjuring trick--a dramatic
+entertainment, to make one's flesh creep! Why, that was the misery of
+some of the religion taught us in old days, that it seemed often only
+dramatic--a scene without cause or motive, just displayed to show us the
+anger or the mercy of God, so that one had the miserable sense that much
+of it was a spectacular affair, that He Himself did not really suffer or
+feel indignation, but thought it well to feign emotions, like a
+schoolmaster to impress his pupils.--and that people too were not
+punished for their own sakes, to help them, but just to startle or
+convince others."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "I was only jesting, and I see that my jests were
+out of place. Of course what you saw was real--there are no pretences
+here. Men and women do indeed suffer a kind of death--the second
+death--in these places, and have to begin again; but that is only for a
+certain sort of self-confident and sin-soaked person, whose will needs
+to be roughly broken. There are certain perverse sins of the spirit
+which need a spiritual death, as the sins of the body need a bodily
+death. Only thus can one be born again."
+
+"Well," I said, "I am amazed--but now what am I to do? I am fit for
+nothing, and I shall be fit for nothing hereafter."
+
+"If you talk like this," said Amroth, "you will only drive me away.
+There are certain things that it is better not to confess to one's
+dearest friend, not even to God. One must just be silent about them, try
+to forget them, hope they can never happen again. I tell you, you will
+soon be all right; and if you are not you will have to see a physician.
+But you had better not do that unless you are obliged."
+
+This made me feel ashamed of myself, and the shame took off my thoughts
+from what I had endured; but I could do nothing but lie aching and
+panting on the rocks for a long time, while Amroth sat beside me in
+silence.
+
+"Are you vexed?" I said after a long pause.
+
+"No, no, not vexed," said Amroth, "but I am not sure whether I have not
+made a mistake. It was I who urged that you might go forward, and I
+confess I am disappointed at the result. You are softer than I thought."
+
+"Indeed I am not," I said. "I will go down the rocks and come up again,
+if that will satisfy you."
+
+"Come, that is a little better," said Amroth, "and I will tell you now
+that you did well--better indeed at the time than I expected. You did
+the thing in very good time, as we used to say."
+
+By this time I felt very drowsy, and suddenly dropped off into a
+sleep--such a deep and dreamless sleep, to descend into which was like
+flinging oneself into a river-pool by a bubbling weir on a hot and dusty
+day of summer.
+
+I awoke suddenly with a pressure on my arm, and, waking up with a sense
+of renewed freshness, I saw Amroth looking at me anxiously. "Do not
+say anything," he said. "Can you manage to hobble a few steps? If you
+cannot, I will get some help, and we shall be all right--but there may
+be an unpleasant encounter, and it is best avoided." I scrambled to my
+feet, and Amroth helped me a little higher up the rocks, looking
+carefully into the mist as he did so. Close behind us was a steep rock
+with ledges. Amroth flung himself upon them, with an agile scramble or
+two. Then he held his hand down, lying on the top; I took it, and,
+stiffened as I was, I contrived to get up beside him. "That is right,"
+he said in a whisper. "Now lie here quietly, don't speak a word, and
+just watch."
+
+I lay, with a sense of something evil about. Presently I heard the sound
+of voices in the mist to the left of us; and in an instant there loomed
+out of the mist the form of a man, who was immediately followed by three
+others. They were different from all the other spirits I had yet
+seen--tall, lean, dark men, very spare and strong. They looked carefully
+about them, mostly glancing down the cliff, and sometimes conferred
+together. They were dressed in close-fitting dark clothes, which seemed
+as if made out of some kind of skin or untanned leather, and their whole
+air was sinister and terrifying. They passed quite close beneath us, so
+that I saw the bald head of one of them, who carried a sort of hook in
+his hands.
+
+When they got to the place where my climb had ended, they stopped and
+examined the stones carefully: one of them clambered a few feet down the
+cliff. Then he came back and seemed to make a brief report, after which
+they appeared undecided what to do; they even looked up at the rock
+where we lay; but while they did this, another man, very similar, came
+hurriedly out of the mist, said something to the group, and they all
+disappeared very quickly into the darkness the same way they had come.
+Then there was a silence. I should have spoken, but Amroth put a finger
+on his lips. Presently there came a sound of falling stones, and after
+that there broke out among the rocks below a horrible crying, as of a
+man in sore straits and instant fear. Amroth jumped quickly to his feet.
+"This will not do," he said. "Stay here for me." And then leaping down
+the rock, he disappeared, shouting words of help--"Hold on--I am
+coming."
+
+He came back some little time afterwards, and I saw that he was not
+alone. He had with him an old stumbling man, evidently in the last
+extremity of terror and pain, with beads of sweat on his brow and blood
+running down from his hands. He seemed dazed and bewildered. And Amroth
+too looked ruffled and almost weary, as I had never seen him look. I
+came down the rock to meet them. But Amroth said, "Wait here for me; it
+has been a troublesome business, and I must go and bestow this poor
+creature in a place of safety--I will return." He led the old man away
+among the rocks, and I waited a long time, wondering very heavily what
+it was that I had seen.
+
+When Amroth came back to the rock he was fresh and smiling again: he
+swung himself up, and sat by me, with his hands clasped round his knees.
+Then he looked at me, and said, "I daresay you are surprised? You did
+not expect to see such terrors and dangers here? And it is a great
+mystery."
+
+"You must be kind," I said, "and explain to me what has happened."
+
+"Well," said Amroth, "there is a large gang of men who infest this
+place, who have got up here by their agility, and can go no further,
+who make it their business to prevent all they can from coming up. I
+confess that it is the hardest thing of all to understand why it is
+allowed; but if you expect all to be plain sailing up here, you are
+mistaken. One needs to be wary and strong. They do much harm here, and
+will continue to do it."
+
+"What would have happened if they had found us here?" I said.
+
+"Nothing very much," said Amroth; "a good deal of talk no doubt, and
+some blows perhaps. But it was well I was with you, because I could have
+summoned help. They are not as strong as they look either--it is mostly
+fear that aids them."
+
+"Well, but _who_ are they?" I said.
+
+"They are the most troublesome crew of all," said Amroth, "and come
+nearest to the old idea of fiends--they are indeed the origin of that
+notion. To speak plainly, they are men who have lived virtuous lives,
+and have done cruel things from good motives. There are some kings and
+statesmen among them, but they are mostly priests and schoolmasters,
+I imagine--people with high ideals, of course! But they are not
+replenished so fast as they used to be, I think. Their difficulty is
+that they can never see that they are wrong. Their notion is that this
+is a bad place to come to, and that people are better left in ignorance
+and bliss, obedient and submissive. A good many of them have given up
+the old rough methods, and hang about the base of the cliff, dissuading
+souls from climbing: they do the most harm of all, because if one does
+turn back here, it is long before one may make a new attempt. But enough
+of this," he added; "it makes me sick to think of them--the old fellow
+you saw with me had an awful fright--he was nearly done as it was! But I
+see you are feeling stronger, and I think we had better be going. One
+does not stay here by choice, though the place has a beauty of its own.
+And now you will have an easier time for awhile."
+
+We descended from our rock, and Amroth led the way, through a long
+cleft, with rocks, very rough and black, on either side, and fallen
+fragments under foot. It was steep at first; but soon the rocks grew
+lower; and we came out presently on to a great desolate plain, with
+stones lying thickly about, among a coarse kind of grass. At each step I
+seemed to grow stronger, and walked more lightly, and in the thin fine
+air my horrors left me, though I still had a dumb sense of suffering
+which, strange to say, I found it almost pleasant to resist. And so we
+walked for a time in friendly silence, Amroth occasionally indicating
+the way. The hill began to slope downwards very slowly, and the wind to
+subside. The mist drew off little by little, till at last I saw ahead of
+us a great bare-looking fortress with high walls and little windows, and
+a great blank tower over all.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+We were received at the guarded door of the fortress by a porter, who
+seemed to be well acquainted with Amroth. Within, it was a big, bare
+place, with, stone-arched cloisters and corridors, more like a monastery
+than a castle. Amroth led me briskly along the passages, and took me
+into a large room very sparely furnished, where an elderly man sat
+writing at a table with his back to the light. He rose when we entered,
+and I had a sudden sense that I was coming to school again, as indeed I
+was. Amroth greeted him with a mixture of freedom and respect, as a
+well-loved pupil might treat an old schoolmaster. The man himself was
+tall and upright, and serious-looking, but for a twinkle of humour that
+lurked in his eye; yet I felt he was one who expected to be obeyed. He
+took Amroth into the embrasure of a window, and talked with him in low
+tones. Then he came back to me and asked me a few questions of which I
+did not then understand the drift--but it seemed a kind of very informal
+examination. Then he made us a little bow of dismissal, and sat down at
+once to his writing without giving us another look. Amroth took me out,
+and led me up many stone stairs, along whitewashed passages, with narrow
+windows looking out on the plain, to a small cell or room near the top
+of the castle. It was very austerely furnished, but it had a little door
+which took us out on the leads, and I then saw what a very large place
+the fortress was, consisting of several courts with a great central
+tower.
+
+"Where on earth have we got to now?" I said.
+
+"Nowhere '_on earth_,'" said Amroth. "You are at school again, and you
+will find it very interesting, I hope and expect, but it will be hard
+work. I will tell you plainly that you are lucky to be here, because if
+you do well, you will have the best sort of work to do."
+
+"But what am I to do, and where am I to go?" I said. "I feel like a new
+boy, with all sorts of dreadful rules in the background."
+
+"That will all be explained to you," said Amroth. "And now good-bye for
+the present. Let me hear a good report of you," he added, with a
+parental air, "when I come again. What would not we older fellows give
+to be back here!" he added with a half-mocking smile. "Let me tell you,
+my boy, you have got the happiest time of your life ahead of you. Well,
+be a credit to your friends!"
+
+He gave me a nod and was gone. I stood for a little looking out rather
+desolately into the plain. There came a brisk tap at my door, and a man
+entered. He greeted me pleasantly, gave me a few directions, and I
+gathered that he was one of the instructors. "You will find it hard
+work," he said; "we do not waste time here. But I gather that you have
+had rather a troublesome ascent, so you can rest a little. When you are
+required, you will be summoned."
+
+When he left me, I still felt very weary, and lay down on a little couch
+in the room, falling presently asleep. I was roused by the entry of a
+young man, who said he had been sent to fetch me: we went down along the
+passages, while he talked pleasantly in low tones about the arrangements
+of the place. As we went along the passages, the doors of the cells kept
+opening, and we were joined by young men and women, who spoke to me or
+to each other, but all in the same subdued voices, till at last we
+entered a big, bare, arched room, lit by high windows, with rows of
+seats, and a great desk or pulpit at the end. I looked round me in great
+curiosity. There must have been several hundred people present, sitting
+in rows. There was a murmur of talk over the hall, till a bell suddenly
+sounded somewhere in the castle, a door opened, a man stepped quickly
+into the pulpit, and began to speak in a very clear and distinct tone.
+
+The discourse--and all the other discourses to which I listened in the
+place--was of a psychological kind, dealing entirely with the relations
+of human beings with each other, and the effect and interplay of
+emotions. It was extremely scientific, but couched in the simplest
+phraseology, and made many things clear to me which had formerly been
+obscure. There is nothing in the world so bewildering as the selective
+instinct of humanity, the reasons which draw people to each other, the
+attractive power of similarity and dissimilarity, the effects of class
+and caste, the abrupt approaches of passion, the influence of the body
+on the soul and of the soul on the body. It came upon me with a shock of
+surprise that while these things are the most serious realities in the
+world, and undoubtedly more important than any other thing, little
+attempt is made by humanity to unravel or classify them. I cannot here
+enter into the details of these instructions, which indeed would be
+unintelligible, but they showed me at first what I had not at all
+apprehended, namely the proportionate importance and unimportance of all
+the passions and emotions which regulate our relations with other souls.
+These discourses were given at regular intervals, and much of our time
+was spent in discussing together or working out in solitude the details
+of psychological problems, which we did with the exactness of chemical
+analysis.
+
+What I soon came to understand was that the whole of psychology is ruled
+by the most exact and immutable laws, in which there is nothing
+fortuitous or abnormal, and that the exact course of an emotion can be
+predicted with perfect certainty if only all the data are known.
+
+One of the most striking parts of these discourses was the fact that
+they were accompanied by illustrations. I will describe the first of
+these which I saw. The lecturer stopped for an instant and held up his
+hand. In the middle of one of the side-walls of the room was a great
+shallow arched recess. In this recess there suddenly appeared a scene,
+not as though it were cast by a lantern on the wall, but as if the wall
+were broken down, and showed a room beyond.
+
+In the room, a comfortably furnished apartment, there sat two people, a
+husband and wife, middle-aged people, who were engaged in a miserable
+dispute about some very trivial matter. The wife was shrill and
+provocative, the husband curt and contemptuous. They were obviously not
+really concerned about the subject they were discussing--it only formed
+a ground for disagreeable personalities. Presently the man went out,
+saying harshly that it was very pleasant to come back from his work, day
+after day, to these scenes; to which the woman fiercely retorted that it
+was all his own fault; and when he was gone, she sat for a time
+mechanically knitting, with the tears trickling down her cheeks, and
+every now and then glancing at the door. After which, with great
+secrecy, she helped herself to some spirits which she took from a
+cupboard.
+
+The scene was one of the most vulgar and debasing that can be described
+or imagined; and it was curious to watch the expressions on the faces of
+my companions. They wore the air of trained doctors or nurses, watching
+some disagreeable symptoms, with a sort of trained and serene
+compassion, neither shocked nor grieved. Then the situation was
+discussed and analysed, and various suggestions were made which were
+dealt with by the lecturer, in a way which showed me that there was much
+for us to master and to understand.
+
+There were many other such illustrations given. They were, I discovered,
+by no means imaginary cases, projected into our minds by a kind of
+mental suggestion, but actual things happening upon earth. We saw many
+strange scenes of tragedy, we had a glimpse of lunatic asylums and
+hospitals, of murder even, and of evil passions of anger and lust. We
+saw scenes of grief and terror; and, stranger still, we saw many things
+that were being enacted not on the earth, but upon other planets, where
+the forms and appearances of the creatures concerned were fantastic and
+strange enough, but where the motive and the emotion were all perfectly
+clear. At times, too, we saw scenes that were beautiful and touching,
+high and heroic beyond words. These seemed to come rather by contrast
+and for encouragement; for the work was distinctly pathological, and
+dealt with the disasters and complications of emotions, as a rule,
+rather than with their glories and radiances. But it was all incredibly
+absorbing and interesting, though what it was to lead up to I did not
+quite discern. What struck me was the concentration of effort upon human
+emotion, and still more the fact that other hopes and passions, such as
+ambition and acquisitiveness, as well as all material and economic
+problems, were treated as infinitely insignificant, as just the
+framework of human life, only interesting in so far as the baser and
+meaner elements of circumstance can just influence, refining or
+coarsening, the highest traits of character and emotion.
+
+We were given special cases, too, to study and consider, and here I had
+the first inkling of how far it is possible for disembodied spirits to
+be in touch with those who are still in the body.
+
+As far as I can see, no direct intellectual contact is possible, except
+under certain circumstances. There is, of course, a great deal of
+thought-vibration taking place in the world, to which the best analogy
+is wireless telegraphy. There exists an all-pervading emotional medium,
+into which every thought that is tinged with emotion sends a ripple.
+Thoughts which are concerned with personal emotion send the firmest
+ripple into this medium, and all other thoughts and passions affect it,
+not in proportion to the intensity of the thought, but to the nature of
+the thought. The scale is perfectly determined and quite unalterable;
+thus a thought, however strong and intense, which is concerned with
+wealth or with personal ambition sends a very little ripple into the
+medium, while a thought of affection is very noticeable indeed, and more
+noticeable in proportion as it is purer and less concerned with any kind
+of bodily passion. Thus, strange to say, the thought of a father for a
+child is a stronger thought than that of a lover for his beloved. I do
+not know the exact scale of force, which is as exact as that of chemical
+values--and of course such emotions are apt to be complex and intricate;
+but the purer and simpler the thought is, the greater is its force.
+Perhaps the prayers that one prays for those whom one loves send the
+strongest ripple of all. If it happens that two of these ripples of
+personal emotion are closely similar, a reflex action takes place; and
+thus is explained the phenomenon which often takes place, the sudden
+sense of a friend's personality, if that friend, in absence, writes one
+a letter, or bends his mind intently upon one. It also explains the way
+in which some national or cosmic emotion suddenly gains simultaneous
+force, and vibrates in thousands of minds at the same time.
+
+The body, by its joys and sufferings alike, offers a great obstruction
+to these emotional waves. In the land of spirits, as I have indicated,
+an intention of congenial wills gives an instantaneous perception; but
+this seems impossible between an embodied spirit and a disembodied
+spirit. The only communication which seems possible is that of a vague
+emotion; and it seems quite impossible for any sort of intellectual idea
+to be directly communicated by a disembodied spirit to an embodied
+spirit.
+
+On the other hand, the intellectual processes of an embodied spirit are
+to a certain extent perceptible by a disembodied spirit; but there is a
+condition to this, and that is that some emotional sympathy must have
+existed between the two on earth. If there is no such sympathy, then the
+body is an absolute bar.
+
+I could look into the mind of Amroth and see his thought take shape, as
+I could look into a stream, and see a fish dart from a covert of weed.
+But with those still in the body it is different. And I will therefore
+proceed to describe a single experience which will illustrate my point.
+
+I was ordered to study the case of a former friend of my own who was
+still living upon earth. Nothing was told me about him, but, sitting in
+my cell, I put myself into communication with him upon earth. He had
+been a contemporary of mine at the university, and we had many interests
+in common. He was a lawyer; we did not very often meet, but when we did
+meet it was always with great cordiality and sympathy. I now found him
+ill and suffering from overwork, in a very melancholy state. When I
+first visited him, he was sitting alone, in the garden of a little
+house in the country. I could see that he was ill and sad; he was making
+pretence to read, but the book was wholly disregarded.
+
+When I attempted to put my mind into communication with his, it was very
+difficult to see the drift of his thoughts. I was like a man walking in
+a dense fog, who can just discern at intervals recognisable objects as
+they come within his view; but there was no general prospect and no
+distance. His mind seemed a confused current of distressing memories;
+but there came a time when his thought dwelt for a moment upon myself;
+he wished that I could be with him, that he might speak of some of his
+perplexities. In that instant, the whole grew clearer, and little by
+little I was enabled to trace the drift of his thoughts. I became aware
+that though he was indeed suffering from overwork, yet that his enforced
+rest only removed the mental distraction of his work, and left his mind
+free to revive a whole troop of painful thoughts. He had been a man of
+strong personal ambitions, and had for twenty years been endeavouring to
+realise them. Now a sense of the comparative worthlessness of his aims
+had come upon him. He had despised and slighted other emotions; and his
+mind had in consequence drifted away like a boat into a bitter and
+barren sea. He was a lonely man, and he was feeling that he had done ill
+in not multiplying human emotions and relations. He reflected much upon
+the way in which he had neglected and despised his home affections,
+while he had formed no ties of his own. Now, too, his career seemed to
+him at an end, and he had nothing to look forward to but a maimed and
+invalided life of solitude and failure. Many of his thoughts I could not
+discern at all--the mist, so to speak, involved them--while many were
+obscure to me. When he thought about scenes and people whom I had never
+known, the thought loomed shapeless and dark; but when he thought, as he
+often did, about his school and university days, and about his home
+circle, all of which scenes were familiar to me, I could read his mind
+with perfect clearness. At the bottom of all lay a sense of deep
+disappointment and resentment. He doubted the justice of God, and blamed
+himself but little for his miseries. It was a sad experience at first,
+because he was falling day by day into more hopeless dejection; while he
+refused the pathetic overtures of sympathy which the relations in whose
+house he was--a married sister with her husband and children--offered
+him. He bore himself with courtesy and consideration, but he was so much
+worn with fatigue and despondency that he could not take any initiative.
+But I became aware very gradually that he was learning the true worth
+and proportion of things--and the months which passed so heavily for him
+brought him perceptions of the value of which he was hardly aware. Let
+me say that it was now that the incredible swiftness of time in the
+spiritual region made itself felt for me. A month of his sufferings
+passed to me, contemplating them, like an hour.
+
+I found to my surprise that his thoughts of myself were becoming more
+frequent; and one day when he was turning over some old letters and
+reading a number of mine, it seemed to me that his spirit almost
+recognised my presence in the words which came to his lips, "It seems
+like yesterday!" I then became blessedly aware that I was actually
+helping him, and that the very intentness of my own thought was
+quickening his own.
+
+I discussed the whole case very closely and carefully with one of our
+instructors, who set me right on several points and made the whole state
+of things clear to me.
+
+I said to him, "One thing bewilders me; it would almost seem that a
+man's work upon earth constituted an interruption and a distraction from
+spiritual influences. It cannot surely be that people in the body should
+avoid employment, and give themselves to secluded meditation? If the
+soul grows fast in sadness and despondency, it would seem that one
+should almost have courted sorrow on earth; and yet I cannot believe
+that to be the case."
+
+"No," he said, "it is not the case; the body has here to be considered.
+No amount of active exertion clouds the eye of the soul, if only the
+motive of it is pure and lofty, and if the soul is only set patiently
+and faithfully upon the true end of life. The body indeed requires due
+labour and exercise, and the soul can gain health and clearness thereby.
+But what does cloud the spirit is if it gives itself wholly up to narrow
+personal aims and ambitions, and uses friendship and love as mere
+recreations and amusements. Sickness and sorrow are not, as we used to
+think, fortuitous things; they are given to those who need them, as high
+and rich opportunities; and they come as truly blessed gifts, when they
+break a man's thought off from material things, and make him fall back
+upon the loving affections and relations of life. When one re-enters
+the world, a woman's life is sometimes granted to a spirit, because a
+woman by circumstance and temperament is less tempted to decline upon
+meaner ambitions and interests than a man; but work and activity are no
+hindrances to spiritual growth, so long as the soul waits upon God, and
+desires to learn the lessons of life, rather than to enforce its own
+conclusions upon others."
+
+"Yes," I said, "I see that. What, then, is the great hindrance in the
+life of men?"
+
+"Authority," he said, "whether given or taken. That is by far the
+greatest difficulty that a soul has to contend with. The knowledge of
+the true conditions of life is so minute and yet so imperfect, when one
+is in the body, that the man or woman who thinks it a duty to
+disapprove, to correct, to censure, is in the gravest danger. In the
+first place it is so impossible to disentangle the true conditions of
+any human life; to know how far those failures which are lightly called
+sins are inherited instincts of the body, or the manifestation of
+immaturity of spirit. Complacency, hard righteousness, spiritual
+security, severe judgments, are the real foes of spiritual growth; and
+if a man is in a position to enforce his influence and his will upon
+others, he can fall very low indeed, and suspend his own growth for a
+very long and sad period. It is not the criticism or the analysis of
+others which hurts the soul, so long as it remains modest and sincere
+and conscious of its own weaknesses. It is when we indulge in secure or
+compassionate comparisons of our own superior worth that we go
+backwards."
+
+This was but one of the many cases which I had to investigate. I do not
+say that this is the work of all spirits in the other world--it is not
+so; there are many kinds of work and occupation. This was the one now
+allotted to me; but I did become aware of the intense and loving
+interest which is bent upon the souls of the living by those who are
+departed. There is not a soul alive who is not being thus watched and
+tended, and helped, as far as help is possible; for no one is ever
+forced or compelled or frightened into truth, only drawn and wooed by
+love and care.
+
+I must say a word, too, of the great and noble friendships which I
+formed at this period of my existence. We were not free to make many of
+these at a time. Love seems to be the one thing that demands an entire
+concentration, and though in the world of spirits I became aware that
+one could be conscious of many of the thoughts of those about me
+simultaneously, yet the emotion of love, in the earlier stages, is
+single and exclusive.
+
+I will speak of two only. There were a young man and a young woman who
+were much associated with me at that time, whom I will call Philip and
+Anna. Philip was one of the most beautiful of all the spirits I ever
+came near. His last life upon earth had been a long one, and he had been
+a teacher. I used to tell him that I wished I had been under him as a
+pupil, to which he replied, laughing, that I should have found him very
+uninteresting. He said to me once that the way in which he had always
+distinguished the two kinds of teachers on earth had been by whether
+they were always anxious to teach new books and new subjects, or went on
+contentedly with the old. "The pleasure," he said, "was in the teaching,
+in making the thought clear, in tempting the boys to find out what they
+knew all the time; and the oftener I taught a subject the better I liked
+it; it was like a big cog-wheel, with a number of little cog-wheels
+turning with it. But the men who were always wanting to change their
+subjects were the men who thought of their own intellectual interest
+first, and very little of the small interests revolving upon it." The
+charm of Philip was the charm of extreme ingenuousness combined with
+daring insight. He never seemed to be shocked or distressed by anything.
+He said one day, "It was not the sensual or the timid or the
+ill-tempered boys who used to make me anxious. Those were definite
+faults and brought definite punishment; it was the hard-hearted,
+virtuous, ambitious, sensible boys, who were good-humoured and
+respectable and selfish, who bothered me; one wanted to shake them as a
+terrier shakes a rat--but there was nothing to get hold of. They were a
+credit to themselves and to their parents and to the school; and yet
+they went downhill with every success."
+
+Anna was a woman of singularly unselfish and courageous temperament. She
+had been, in the course of her last life upon earth, a hospital nurse;
+and she used to speak gratefully of the long periods when she was
+nursing some anxious case, when she had interchanged day and night,
+sleeping when the world was awake, and sitting with a book or needlework
+by the sick-bed, through the long darkness. "People used to say to me
+that it must be so depressing; but those were my happiest hours, as the
+dark brightened into dawn, when many of the strange mysteries of life
+and pain and death gave up their secrets to me. But of course," she
+added with a smile, "it was all very dim to me. I felt the truth rather
+than saw it; and it is a great joy to me to perceive now what was
+happening, and how the sad, bewildered hours of pain and misery leave
+their blessed marks upon the soul, like the tools of the graver on the
+gem. If only we could learn to plan a little less and to believe a
+little more, how much simpler it would all be!"
+
+These two became very dear to me, and I learnt much heavenly wisdom from
+them in long, quiet conferences, where we spoke frankly of all we had
+felt and known.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+It was at this time, I think, that a great change came over my thoughts,
+or rather that I realised that a great change had gradually taken place.
+Till now, I had been dominated and haunted by memories of my latest life
+upon earth; but at intervals there had visited me a sense of older and
+purer recollections. I cannot describe exactly how it came about--and,
+indeed, the memory of what my heavenly progress had hitherto been, as
+opposed to my earthly experience, was never very clear to me; but I
+became aware that my life in heaven--I will call it heaven for want of a
+better name--was my real continuous life, my home-life, so to speak,
+while my earthly lives had been, to pursue the metaphor, like terms
+which a boy spends at school, in which he is aware that he not only
+learns definite and tangible things, but that his character is hardened
+and consolidated by coming into contact with the rougher facts of
+life--duty, responsibility, friendships, angers, treacheries,
+temptations, routine. The boy returns with gladness to the serener and
+sweeter atmosphere of home; and just in the same way I felt I had
+returned to the larger and purer life of heaven. But, as I say, the
+recollection of my earlier life in heaven, my occupations and
+experience, was never clear to me, but rather as a luminous and haunting
+mist. I questioned Amroth about this once, and he said that this was the
+universal experience, and that the earthly lives one lived were like
+deep trenches cut across a path, and seemed to interrupt the heavenly
+sequence; but that as the spirit grew more pure and wise, the
+consciousness of the heavenly life became more distinct and secure. But
+he added, what I did not quite understand, that there was little need of
+memory in the life of heaven, and that it was to a great extent the
+inheritance of the body. Memory, he said, was to a great extent an
+interruption to life; the thought of past failures and mistakes, and
+especially of unkindnesses and misunderstandings, tended to obscure and
+complicate one's relations with other souls; but that in heaven, where
+activity and energy were untiring and unceasing, one lived far more in
+the emotion and work of the moment, and less in retrospect and prospect.
+What mattered was actual experience and the effect of experience; memory
+itself was but an artistic method of dealing with the past, and
+corresponded to fanciful and delightful anticipations of the future.
+"The truth is," he said, "that the indulgence of memory is to a great
+extent a mere sentimental weakness; to live much in recollection is a
+sign of exhausted and depleted vitality. The further you are removed
+from your last earthly life, the less tempted you will be to recall it.
+The highest spirits of all here," he said, "have no temptation ever to
+revert to retrospect, because the pure energies of the moment are
+all-sustaining and all-sufficing."
+
+The only trace I ever noticed of any memory of my past life in heaven
+was that things sometimes seemed surprisingly familiar to me, and that I
+had the sense of a serene permanence, which possessed and encompassed
+me. Indeed I came to believe that the strange feeling of permanence
+which haunts one upon earth, when one is happy and content, even though
+one knows that everything is changing and shifting around one, and that
+all is precarious and uncertain, is in itself a memory of the serene and
+untroubled continuance of heaven, and a desire to taste it and realise
+it.
+
+Be this as it may, from the time of my finding my settled task and
+ordered place in the heavenly community the memories of my old life upon
+earth began to fade from my thoughts. I could, indeed, always recall
+them by an effort, but there seemed less and less inclination to do so
+the more I became absorbed in my heavenly activities.
+
+One thing I noticed in these days; it surprised me very greatly, till I
+reflected that my surprise was but the consequence of the strange and
+mournful blindness with regard to spiritual things in which we live
+under the dark skies of earth. We have there a false idea that somehow
+or other death takes all the individuality out of a man, obliterating
+all the whims, prejudices, the thorny and unreasonable dislikes and
+fancies, oddities, tempers, roughnesses, and subtlenesses from a
+temperament. Of course there are a good many of these things which
+disappear together with the body, such as the glooms, suspicions, and
+cloudy irritabilities, which are caused by fatigue and malaise, and by
+ill-health generally. But a man's whims and fancies and dislikes do not
+by any means disappear on earth when he is in good health; on the
+contrary, they are often apt to be accentuated and emphasised when he is
+free from pain and care and anxiety, and riding blithely over the waves
+of life. Indeed there are men whom I have known who are never kind or
+sympathetic till they are in some wearing trouble of their own; when
+they are prosperous and cheerful, they are frankly intolerable, because
+their mirth turns to derision and insolence.
+
+But one of the reasons why the heavenly life is apt to appear in
+prospect so wearisome a thing is, because we are brought up to feel that
+the whole character is flattened out and charged with a serene kind of
+priggishness, which takes all the salt out of life. The word "saintly,"
+so terribly misapplied on earth, grows to mean, to many of us, an
+irritating sort of kindness, which treats the interests and animated
+elements of life with a painful condescension, and a sympathy of which
+the basis is duty rather than love. The true sanctification, which I
+came to perceive something of later, is the result of a process of
+endless patience and infinite delay, and the attainment of it implies a
+humility, seven times refined in the fires of self-contempt, in which
+there remains no smallest touch of superiority or aloofness. How utterly
+depressing is the feigned interest of the imperfect human saint in
+matters of mundane concern! How it takes at once both the joy out of
+holiness and the spirit out of human effort! It is as dreary as the
+professional sympathy of the secluded student for the news of athletic
+contests, as the tolerance of the shrewd man of science for the feminine
+logic of religious sentiment!
+
+But I found to my great content that whatever change had passed over the
+spirits of my companions, they had at least lost no fibre of their
+individuality. The change that had passed over them was like the change
+that passes over a young man, who has lived at the University among
+dilettante literary designs and mild sociological theorising, when he
+finds himself plunged into the urgent practical activities of the world.
+Our happiness was the happiness which comes of intense toil, with no
+fatigue to dog it, and from a consciousness of the vital issues which
+we were pursuing. But my companions had still intellectual faults and
+preferences, self-confidence, critical intolerance, boisterousness,
+wilfulness. Stranger still, I found coldness, anger, jealousy, still at
+work. Of course in the latter case reconciliation was easier, both in
+the light of common enthusiasm and, still more, because mental
+communication was so much swifter and easier than it had been on earth.
+There was no need of those protracted talks, those tiresome explanations
+which clever people, who really love and esteem each other, fall into on
+earth--the statements which affirm nothing, the explanations which
+elucidate nothing, because of the intricacies of human speech and the
+fact that people use the same words with such different implications and
+meanings. All those became unnecessary, because one could pierce
+instantaneously into the very essence of the soul, and manifest, without
+the need of expression, the regard and affection which lay beneath the
+cross-currents of emotion. But love and affection waxed and waned in
+heaven as on earth; it was weakened and it was transferred. Few souls
+are so serene on earth as to see with perfect equanimity a friend, whom
+one loves and trusts, becoming absorbed in some new and exciting
+emotion, which may not perhaps obliterate the original regard, but which
+must withdraw from it for a time the energy which fed the flame of the
+intermitted relation.
+
+It was very strange to me to realise the fact that friendships and
+intimacies were formed as on earth, and that they lost their freshness,
+either from some lack of real congeniality or from some divergence of
+development. Sometimes, I may add, our teachers were consulted by the
+aggrieved, sometimes they even intervened unasked.
+
+I will freely confess that this all immensely heightened the interests
+to me of our common life. One could see two spirits drawn together by
+some secret tie of emotion, and one could see some further influence
+strike across and suspend it. One case of this I will mention, which is
+typical of many. There came among us an extremely lively and rather
+whimsical spirit, more like a boy than a man. I wondered at first why he
+was chosen for this work, because he seemed both fitful and even
+capricious; but I gradually realised in him an extraordinary fineness of
+perception, and a swiftness of intuition almost unrivalled. He had a
+power of weighing almost by instinct the constituent elements of
+character, which seemed to me something like the power of tonality in a
+musician, the gift of recognising, by pure faculty, what any notes may
+be, however confusedly jangled on an instrument. It was wonderful to me
+how often his instantaneous judgments proved more sagacious than our
+carefully formed conclusions.
+
+This boy became extraordinarily attractive to an older woman who was one
+of our number, who was solitary and abstracted, and of an intense
+seriousness of devotion to her work. It was evident both that she felt
+his charm intensely and that her disposition was wholly alien to the
+disposition of the boy himself. In fact, she simply bored him. He took
+all that he did lightly, and achieved by an intense momentary
+concentration what she could only achieve by slow reflection. This
+devotion had in it something that was strangely pathetic, because it
+took the form in her of making her wish to conciliate the boy's
+admiration, by treating thoughts and ideas with a lightness and a humour
+to which she could by no means attain, and which made things worse
+rather than better, because she could read so easily, in the thoughts of
+others, the impression that she was attempting a handling of topics
+which she could not in the least accomplish. But advice was useless.
+There it was, the old, fierce, constraining attraction of love, as it
+had been of old, making havoc of comfortable arrangements, attempting
+the impossible; and yet one knew that she would gain by the process,
+that she was opening a door in her heart that had hitherto been closed,
+and learning a largeness of view and sympathy in the process. Her fault
+had ever been, no doubt, to estimate slow and accurate methods too
+highly, and to believe that all was insecure and untrustworthy that was
+not painfully accumulated. Now she saw that genius could accomplish
+without effort or trouble what no amount of homely energy could effect,
+and a new horizon was unveiled to her. But on the boy it did not seem to
+have the right result. He might have learned to extend his sympathy to a
+nature so dumb and plodding; and this coldness of his called down a
+rebuke of what seemed almost undue sternness from one of our teachers.
+It was not given in my presence, but the boy, bewildered by the severity
+which he did not anticipate, coupled indeed with a hint that he must be
+prepared, if he could not exhibit a more elastic sympathy, to have his
+course suspended in favour of some more simple discipline, told me the
+whole matter. "What am I to do?" he said. "I cannot care for Barbara;
+her whole nature upsets me and revolts me. I know she is very good and
+all that, but I simply am not myself when she is by; it is like taking a
+run with a tortoise!"
+
+"Well," I said, "no one expects you to give up all your time to taking
+tortoises for runs; but I suppose that tortoises have their rights, and
+must not be jerked along on their backs, like a sledge."
+
+"Oh," said he, "you are all against me, I know; and I am not sure that
+this place is not rather too solemn for me. What is the good of being
+wiser than the aged, if one has more commandments to keep?"
+
+Things, however, settled down in time. Barbara, I think, must have been
+taken to task as well, because she gave up her attempts at wit; and the
+end of it was that a quiet friendship sprang up between the incongruous
+pair, like that between a wayward young brother and a plain, kindly,
+and elderly sister, of a very fine and chivalrous kind.
+
+It must not be thought that we spent our time wholly in these emotional
+relations. It was a place of hard and urgent work; but I came to realise
+that, just as on earth, institutions like schools and colleges, where a
+great variety of natures are gathered in close and daily contact, are
+shot through and through with strange currents of emotion, which some
+people pay no attention to, and others dismiss as mere sentimentality,
+so it was also bound to be beyond, with this difference, that whereas on
+earth we are shy and awkward with our friendships, and all sorts of
+physical complications intervene, in the other world they assume their
+frank importance. I saw that much of what is called the serious business
+of life is simply and solely necessitated by bodily needs, and is really
+entirely temporary and trivial, while the real life of the soul, which
+underlies it all, stifled and subdued, pent-up uneasily and cramped
+unkindly like a bright spring of water under the superincumbent earth,
+finds its way at last to the light. On earth we awkwardly divide this
+impulse; we speak of the relation of the soul to others and of the
+relation of the soul to God as two separate things. We pass over the
+words of Christ in the Gospel, which directly contradict this, and which
+make the one absolutely dependent on, and conditional on, the other. We
+speak of human affection as a thing which may come in between the soul
+and God, while it is in reality the swiftest access thither. We speak as
+though ambition were itself made more noble, if it sternly abjures all
+multiplication of human tenderness. We speak of a life which sacrifices
+material success to emotion as a failure and an irresponsible affair.
+The truth is the precise opposite. All the ambitions which have their
+end in personal prestige are wholly barren; the ambitions which aim at
+social amelioration have a certain nobility about them, though they
+substitute a tortuous by-path for a direct highway. And the plain truth
+is that all social amelioration would grow up as naturally and as
+fragrantly as a flower, if we could but refine and strengthen and awaken
+our slumbering emotions, and let them grow out freely to gladden the
+little circle of earth in which we live and move.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+It was at this time that I had a memorable interview with the Master of
+the College. He appeared very little among us, though, he occasionally
+gave us a short instruction, in which he summed up the teaching on a
+certain point. He was a man of extraordinary impressiveness, mainly, I
+think, because he gave the sense of being occupied in much larger and
+wider interests. I often pondered over the question why the short,
+clear, rather dry discourses which fell from his lips appeared to be so
+far more weighty and momentous than anything else that was ever said to
+us. He used no arts of exhortation, showed no emotion, seemed hardly
+conscious of our presence; and if one caught his eye as he spoke, one
+became aware of a curious tremor of awe. He never made any appeal to our
+hearts or feelings; but it always seemed as if he had condescended for
+a moment to put aside far bigger and loftier designs in order to drop a
+fruit of ripened wisdom in our way. He came among us, indeed, like a
+statesman rather than like a teacher. The brief interviews we had with
+him were regarded with a sort of terror, but produced, in me at least,
+an almost fanatical respect and admiration. And yet I had no reason to
+suppose that he was not, like all of us, subject to the law of life and
+pilgrimage, though one could not conceive of him as having to enter the
+arena of life again as a helpless child!
+
+On this occasion I was summoned suddenly to his presence. I found him,
+as usual, bent over his work, which he did not intermit, but merely
+motioned me to be seated. Presently he put away his papers from him, and
+turned round upon me. One of the disconcerting things about him was the
+fact that his thought had a peculiarly compelling tendency, and that
+while he read one's mind in a flash, his own thoughts remained very
+nearly impenetrable. On this occasion he commended me for my work and my
+relations with my fellow-students, adding that I had made rapid
+progress. He then said, "I have two questions to ask you. Have you any
+special relations, either with any one whom you have left behind you on
+earth, or with any one with whom you have made acquaintance since you
+quitted it, which you desire to pursue?"
+
+I told him, which was the truth, that since my stay in the College I had
+become so much absorbed in the studies of the place that I seemed to
+have became strangely oblivious of my external friends, but that it was
+more a suspension than a destruction of would-be relations.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I perceive that that is your temperament. It has its
+effectiveness, no doubt, but it also has its dangers; and, whatever
+happens, one ought never to be able to accuse oneself justly of any
+disloyalty."
+
+He seemed to wait for me to speak, whereupon I mentioned a very dear
+friend of my days of earth; but I added that most of those whom I had
+loved best had predeceased me, and that I had looked forward to a
+renewal of our intercourse. I also mentioned the names of Charmides and
+Cynthia, the latter of whom was in memory strangely near to my heart.
+
+He seemed satisfied with this. Then he said, "It is true that we have to
+multiply relationships with others, both in the world and out of it; but
+we must also practise economy. We must not abandon ourselves to passing
+fancies, or be subservient to charm, while if we have made an emotional
+mistake, and have been disappointed with one whom we have taken the
+trouble to win, we must guard such conquests with a close and peculiar
+tenderness. But enough of that, for I have to ask you if there is any
+special work for which you feel yourself disposed. There is a great
+choice of employment here. You may choose, if you will, just to live
+the spiritual life and discharge whatever duties of citizenship you may
+be called upon to perform. That is what most spirits do. I need not
+perhaps tell you"--here he smiled--"that freedom from the body does not
+confer upon any one, as our poor brothers and sisters upon earth seem to
+think, a heavenly vocation. Neither of course is the earthly fallacy
+about a mere absorption in worship a true one--only to a very few is
+that conceded. Still less is this a life of leisure. To be leisurely
+here is permitted only to the wearied, and to those childish creatures
+with whom you have spent some time in their barren security. I do not
+think you are suited for the work of recording the great scheme of life,
+nor do I think you are made for a teacher. You are not sufficiently
+impartial! For mere labour you are not suited; and yet I hardly think
+you would be fit to adopt the most honourable task which your friend
+Amroth so finely fulfils--a guide and messenger. What do you think?"
+
+I said at once that I did not wish to have to make a decision, but that
+I preferred to leave it to him. I added that though I was conscious of
+my deficiencies, I did not feel conscious of any particular capacities,
+except that I found character a very fascinating study, especially in
+connection with the circumstances of life upon earth.
+
+"Very well," he said, "I think that you may perhaps be best suited to
+the work of deciding what sort of life will best befit the souls who are
+prepared to take up their life upon earth again. That is a task of deep
+and infinite concern; it may surprise you," he added, "to learn that
+this is left to the decision of other souls. But it is, of course, the
+goal at which all earthly social systems are aiming, the right
+apportionment of circumstances to temperament, and you must not be
+surprised to find that here we have gone much further in that direction,
+though even here the system is not perfected; and you cannot begin to
+apprehend that fact too soon. It is unfortunate that on earth it is
+commonly believed, owing to the deadening influence of material causes,
+that beyond the grave everything is done with a Divine unanimity. But of
+course, if that were so, further growth and development would be
+impossible, and in view of infinite perfectibility there is yet very
+much that is faulty and incomplete. But I am not sure what lies before
+you; there is something in your temperament which a little baffles me,
+and our plans may have to be changed. Your very absorption in your work,
+your quick power of forgetting and throwing off impressions has its
+dangers. But I will bear in mind what you have said, and you may for the
+present resume your studies, and I will once more commend you; you have
+done well hitherto, and I will say frankly that I regard you as capable
+of useful and honourable work." He bowed in token of dismissal, and I
+went back to my work with unbounded gratitude and enthusiasm.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+Some time after this I was surprised one morning at the sudden entrance
+of Amroth into my cell. He came in with a very bright and holiday
+aspect, and, assuming a paternal air, said that he had heard a very
+creditable account of my work and conduct, and that he had obtained
+leave for me to have an exeat. I suppose that I showed signs of
+impatience at the interruption, for he broke into a laugh, and said,
+"Well, I am going to insist. I believe you are working too hard, and we
+must not overstrain our faculties. It was bad enough, in the old days,
+but then it was generally the poor body which suffered first. But indeed
+it is quite possible to overwork here, and you have the dim air of the
+pale student. Come," he said, "whatever happens, do not become priggish.
+Not to want a holiday is a sign of spiritual pride. Besides, I have
+some curious things to show you."
+
+I got up and said that I was ready, and Amroth led the way like a boy
+out for a holiday. He was brimming over with talk, and told me some
+stories about my friends in the land of delight, interspersing them with
+imitation of their manner and gesture, which made me giggle--Amroth was
+an admirable mimic. "I had hopes of Charmides," he said; "your stay
+there aroused his curiosity. But he has gone back to his absurd tones
+and half-tones, and is nearly insupportable. Cynthia is much more
+sensible, but Lucius is a nuisance, and Charmides, by the way, has
+become absurdly jealous of him. They really are very silly; but I have a
+pleasant plot, which I will unfold to you."
+
+As we went down the interminable stairs, I said to Amroth, "There is a
+question I want to ask you. Why do we have to go and come, up and down,
+backwards and forwards, in this absurd way, as if we were still in the
+body? Why not just slip off the leads, and fly down over the crags like
+a pair of pigeons? It all seems to me so terribly material."
+
+Amroth looked at me with a smile. "I don't advise you to try," he said.
+"Why, little brother, of course we are just as limited here in these
+ways. The material laws of earth are only a type of the laws here. They
+all have a meaning which remains true."
+
+"But," I said, "we can visit the earth with incredible rapidity?"
+
+"How can I explain?" said Amroth. "Of course we can do that, because the
+material universe is so extremely small in comparison. All the stars in
+the world are here but as a heap of sand, like the motes which dance in
+a sunbeam. There is no question of size, of course! But there is such a
+thing as spiritual nearness and spiritual distance for all that. The
+souls who do not return to earth are very far off, as you will sometime
+see. But we messengers have our short cuts, and I shall take advantage
+of them to-day."
+
+We went out of the great door of the fortress, and I felt a sense of
+relief. It was good to put it all behind one. For a long time I talked
+to Amroth about all my doings. "Come," he said at last, "this will never
+do! You are becoming something of a bore! Do you know that your talk is
+very provincial? You seem to have forgotten about every one and
+everything except your Philips and Annas--very worthy creatures, no
+doubt--and the Master, who is a very able man, but not the little
+demigod you believe. You are hypnotised! It is indeed time for you to
+have a holiday. Why, I believe you have half forgotten about me, and yet
+you made a great fuss when I quitted you."
+
+I smiled, frowned, blushed. It was indeed true. Now that he was with me
+I loved him as well, indeed better than ever; but I had not been
+thinking very much about him.
+
+We went over the moorlands in the keen air, Amroth striding cleanly and
+lightly over the heather. Then we began to descend into the valley,
+through a fine forest country, somewhat like the chestnut-woods of the
+Apennines. The view was of incomparable beauty and width. I could see a
+great city far out in the plain, with a river entering it and leaving
+it, like a ribbon of silver. There were rolling ridges beyond. On the
+left rose huge, shadowy, snow-clad hills, rising to one tremendous dome
+of snow.
+
+"Where are you going to take me?" I said to Amroth.
+
+"Never mind," said he; "it's my day and my plan for once. You shall see
+what you shall see, and it will amuse me to hear your ingenuous
+conjectures."
+
+We were soon on the outskirts of the city we had seen, which seemed a
+different kind of place from any I had yet visited. It was built, I
+perceived, upon an exactly conceived plan, of a stately, classical kind
+of architecture, with great gateways and colonnades. There were people
+about, rather silent and serious-looking, soberly clad, who saluted us
+as we passed, but made no attempt to talk to us. "This is rather a
+tiresome place, I always think," said Amroth; "but you ought to see it."
+
+We went along the great street and reached a square. I was surprised at
+the elderly air of all we met. We found ourselves opposite a great
+building with a dome, like a church. People were going in under the
+portico, and we went in with them. They treated us as strangers, and
+made courteous way for us to pass.
+
+Inside, the footfalls fell dumbly upon a great carpeted floor. It was
+very like a great church, except that there was no altar or sign of
+worship. At the far end, under an alcove, was a statue of white marble
+gleaming white, with head and hand uplifted. The whole place had a
+solemn and noble air. Out of the central nave there opened a series of
+great vaulted chapels; and I could now see that in each chapel there
+was a dark figure, in a sort of pulpit, addressing a standing audience.
+There were names on scrolls over the doors of the light iron-work
+screens which separated the chapels from the nave, but they were in a
+language I did not understand.
+
+Amroth stopped at the third of the chapels, and said, "Here, this will
+do." We came in, and as before there was a courteous notice taken of us.
+A man in black came forward, and led us to a high seat, like a pew, near
+the preacher, from which we could survey the crowd. I was struck with
+their look of weariness combined with intentness.
+
+The lecturer, a young man, had made a pause, but upon our taking our
+places, he resumed his speech. It was a discourse, as far as I could
+make out, on the development of poetry; he was speaking of lyrical
+poetry. I will not here reproduce it. I will only say that anything more
+acute, delicate, and discriminating, and, I must add, more entirely
+valueless and pedantic, I do not think I ever heard. It must have
+required immense and complicated knowledge. He was tracing the
+development of a certain kind of dramatic lyric, and what surprised me
+was that he supplied the subtle intellectual connection, the missing
+links, so to speak, of which there is no earthly record. Let me give a
+single instance. He was accounting for a rather sudden change of thought
+in a well-known poet, and he showed that it had been brought about by
+his making the acquaintance of a certain friend who had introduced him
+to a new range of subjects, and by his study of certain books. These
+facts are unrecorded in his published biography, but the analysis of the
+lecturer, done in a few pointed sentences, not only carried conviction
+to the mind, but just, so to speak, laid the truth bare. And yet it was
+all to me incredibly sterile and arid. Not the slightest interest was
+taken in the emotional or psychological side; it was all purely and
+exactly scientific. We waited until the end of the address, which was
+greeted with decorous applause, and the hall was emptied in a moment.
+
+We visited other chapels where the same sort of thing was going on in
+other subjects. It all produced in me a sort of stupefaction, both at
+the amazing knowledge involved, and in the essential futility of it all.
+
+Before we left the building we went up to the statue, which represented
+a female figure, looking upwards, with a pure and delicate beauty of
+form and gesture that was inexpressibly and coldly lovely.
+
+We went out in silence, which seemed to be the rule of the place.
+
+When we came away from the building we were accosted by a very grave and
+courteous person, who said that he perceived that we were strangers, and
+asked if he could be of any service to us, and whether we proposed to
+make a stay of any duration. Amroth thanked him, and said smilingly that
+we were only passing through. The gentleman said that it was a pity,
+because there was much of interest to hear. "In this place," he said
+with a deprecating gesture, "we grudge every hour that is not devoted to
+thought." He went on to inquire if we were following any particular line
+of study, and as our answers were unsatisfactory, he said that we could
+not do better than begin by attending the school of literature. "I
+observed," he said, "that you were listening to our Professor, Sylvanus,
+with attention. He is devoting himself to the development of poetical
+form. It is a rich subject. It has generally been believed that poets
+work by a sort of native inspiration, and that the poetic gift is a sort
+of heightening of temperament. But Sylvanus has proved--I think I may go
+so far as to say this--that this is all pure fancy, and what is worse,
+unsound fancy. It is all merely a matter of heredity, and the apparent
+accidents on which poetical expression depends can be analysed exactly
+and precisely into the most commonplace and simple elements. It is only
+a question of proportion. Now we who value clearness of mind above
+everything, find this a very refreshing thought. The real crown and sum
+of human achievement, in the intellectual domain, is to see things
+clearly and exactly, and upon that clearness all progress depends. We
+have disposed by this time of most illusions; and the same scientific
+method is being strenuously applied to all other processes of human
+endeavour. It is even hinted that Sylvanus has practically proved that
+the imaginative element in literature is purely a taint of barbarism,
+though he has not yet announced the fact. But many of his class are
+looking forward to his final lecture on the subject as to a profoundly
+sensational event, which is likely to set a deep mark upon all our
+conceptions of literary endeavour. So that," he said with a tolerant
+smile, gently rubbing his hands together, "our life here is not by any
+means destitute of the elements of excitement, though we most of us, of
+course, aim at the acquisition of a serene and philosophic temper. But
+I must not delay you," he added; "there is much to see and to hear, and
+you will be welcomed everywhere: and indeed I am myself somewhat closely
+engaged, though in a subject which is not fraught with such polite
+emollience. I attend the school of metaphysics, from which we have at
+last, I hope, eliminated the last traces of that debasing element of
+psychology, which has so long vitiated the exact study of the subject."
+
+He took himself off with a bow, and I gazed blankly at Amroth. "The
+conversation of that very polite person," I said, "is like a bad dream!
+What is this extraordinarily depressing place? Shall I have to undergo a
+course here?"
+
+"No, my dear boy," said Amroth. "This is rather out of your depth. But I
+am somewhat disappointed at your view of the situation. Surely these are
+all very important matters? Your disposition is, I am afraid, incurably
+frivolous! How could people be more worthily employed than in getting
+rid of the last traces of intellectual error, and in referring
+everything to its actual origin? Did not your heart burn within you at
+his luminous exposition? I had always thought you a boy of intellectual
+promise."
+
+"Amroth," I said, "I will not be made fun of. This is the most dreadful
+place I have ever seen or conceived of! It frightens me. The dryness of
+pure science is terrifying enough, but after all that has a kind of
+strange beauty, because it deals either with transcendental ideas of
+mathematical relation, or with the deducing of principle from
+accumulated facts. But here the object appears to be to eliminate the
+human element from humanity. I insist upon knowing where you have
+brought me, and what is going on here."
+
+"Well, then," said Amroth, "I will conceal it from you no longer. This
+is the paradise of thought, where meagre and spurious philosophers, and
+all who have submerged life in intellect, have their reward. It _is_,
+as you say, a very dreary place for children of nature like you and me.
+But I do not suppose that there is a happier or a busier place in all
+our dominions. The worst of it is that it is so terribly hard to get out
+of. It is a blind alley and leads nowhere. Every step has to be
+retraced. These people have to get a very severe dose of homely life to
+do them any good; and the worst of it is that they are so entirely
+virtuous. They have never had the time or the inclination to be anything
+else. And they are among the most troublesome and undisciplined of all
+our people. But I see you have had enough; and unless you wish to wait
+for Professor Sylvanus's sensational pronouncement, we will go
+elsewhere, and have some other sort of fun. But you must not be so much
+upset by these things."
+
+"It would kill me," I said, "to hear any more of these lectures, and if
+I had to listen to much of our polite friend's conversation, I should go
+out of my mind. I would rather fall into the hands of the cragmen! I
+would rather have a stand-up fight than be slowly stifled with
+interesting information. But where do these unhappy people come from?"
+
+"A few come from universities," said Amroth, "but they are not as a rule
+really learned men. They are more the sort of people who subscribe to
+libraries, and belong to local literary societies, and go into a good
+many subjects on their own account. But really learned men are almost
+always more aware of their ignorance than of their knowledge, and
+recognise the vitality of life, even if they do not always exhibit it.
+But come, we are losing time, and we must go further afield."
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+We went some considerable distance, after leaving our intellectual
+friends, through very beautiful wooded country, and as we went we talked
+with much animation about the intellectual life and its dangers. It had
+always, I confess, appeared to me a harmless life enough; not very
+effective, perhaps, and possibly liable to encourage a man in a trivial
+sort of self-conceit; but I had always looked upon that as an
+instinctive kind of self-respect, which kept an intellectual person from
+dwelling too sorely upon the sense of ineffectiveness; as an addiction
+not more serious in its effects upon character than the practice of
+playing golf, a thing in which a leisurely person might immerse himself,
+and cultivate a decent sense of self-importance. But Amroth showed me
+that the danger of it lay in the tendency to consider the intellect to
+be the basis of all life and progress. "The intellectual man," he said,
+"is inclined to confuse his own acute perception of the movement of
+thought with the originating impulse of that movement. But of course
+thought is a thing which ebbs and flows, like public opinion, according
+to its own laws, and is not originated but only perceived by men of
+intellectual ability. The danger of it is a particularly arid sort of
+self-conceit. It is as if the Lady of Shalott were to suppose that she
+created life by observing and rendering it in her magic web, whereas her
+devotion to her task simply isolates her from the contact with other
+minds and hearts, which is the one thing worth having. That is, of
+course, the danger of the artist as well as of the philosopher. They
+both stand aside from the throng, and are so much absorbed in the aspect
+of thought and emotion that they do not realise that they are separated
+from it. They are consequently spared, when they come here, the
+punishment which falls upon those who have mixed greedily, selfishly,
+and cruelly with life, of which you will have a sight before long. But
+that place of punishment is not nearly so sad or depressing a place as
+the paradise of delight, and the paradise of intellect, because the
+sufferers have no desire to stay there, can repent and feel ashamed, and
+therefore can suffer, which is always hopeful. But the artistic and
+intellectual have really starved their capacity for suffering, the one
+by treating all emotion as spectacular, and the other by treating it as
+a puerile interruption to serious things. It takes people a long time to
+work their way out of self-satisfaction! But there is another curious
+place I wish you to visit. It is a dreadful place in a way, but by no
+means consciously unhappy," and Amroth pointed to a great building which
+stood on a slope of the hill above the forest, with a wide and beautiful
+view from it. Before very long we came to a high stone wall with a gate
+carefully guarded. Here Amroth said a few words to a porter, and we went
+up through a beautiful terraced park. In the park we saw little knots of
+people walking aimlessly about, and a few more solitary figures. But in
+each case they were accompanied by people whom I saw to be warders. We
+passed indeed close to an elderly man, rather fantastically dressed, who
+looked possessed with a kind of flighty cheerfulness. He was talking to
+himself with odd, emphatic gestures, as if he were ticking off the
+points of a speech. He came up to us and made us an effusive greeting,
+praising the situation and convenience of the place, and wishing us a
+pleasant sojourn. He then was silent for a moment, and added, "Now there
+is a matter of some importance on which I should like your opinion." At
+this the warder who was with him, a strong, stolid-looking man, with an
+expression at once slightly contemptuous and obviously kind, held up his
+hand and said, "You will, no doubt, sir, remember that you have
+undertaken--" "Not a word, not a word," said our friend; "of course you
+are right! I have really nothing to say to these gentlemen."
+
+We went up to the building, which now became visible, with its long and
+stately front of stone. Here again we were admitted with some
+precaution, and after a few minutes there came a tall and
+benevolent-looking man, to whom Amroth spoke at some length. The man
+then came up to me, said that he was very glad to welcome me, and that
+he would be delighted to show us the place.
+
+We went through fine and airy corridors, into which many doors, as of
+cells, opened. Occasionally a man or a woman, attended by a male or a
+female warder, passed us. The inmates had all the same kind of air--a
+sort of amused dignity, which was very marked. Presently our companion
+opened a door with his key and we went in. It was a small,
+pleasantly-furnished room. Some books, apparently of devotion, lay on
+the table. There was a little kneeling-desk near the window, and the
+room had a half-monastic air about it. When we entered, an elderly man,
+with a very serene face, was looking earnestly into the door of a
+cupboard in the wall, which he was holding open; there was, so far as I
+could see, nothing in the cupboard; but the inmate seemed to be
+struggling with an access of rather overpowering mirth. He bowed to us.
+Our conductor greeted him respectfully, and then said, "There is a
+stranger here who would like a little conversation with you, if you can
+spare the time."
+
+"By all means," said the inmate, with a very ingratiating smile. "It is
+very kind of him to call upon me, and my time is entirely at his
+disposal."
+
+Our conductor said to me that he and Amroth had some brief business to
+transact, and that they would call for me again in a moment. The inmate
+bowed, and seemed almost impatient for them to depart. He motioned me to
+a chair, and the moment they left us he began to talk with great
+animation. He asked me if I was a new inmate, and when I said no, only a
+visitor, he looked at me compassionately, saying that he hoped I might
+some day attain to the privilege. "This," he said, "is the abode of
+final and lasting peace. No one is admitted here unless his convictions
+are of the firmest and most ardent character; it is a reward for
+faithful service. But as our time is short, I must tell you," he said,
+"of a very curious experience I have had this very morning--a spiritual
+experience of the most reassuring character. You must know that I held a
+high official position in the religious world--I will mention no
+details--and I found at an early age, I am glad to say, the imperative
+necessity of forming absolutely impregnable convictions. I went to work
+in the most business-like way. I devoted some years to hard reading and
+solid thought, and I found that the sect to which I belonged was lacking
+in certain definite notes of divine truth, while the weight of evidence
+pointed in the clearest possible manner to the fact that one particular
+section of the Church had preserved absolutely intact the primitive
+faith of the Saints, and was without any shadow of doubt the perfectly
+logical development of the principles of the Gospel. Mine is not a
+nature that can admit of compromise; and at considerable sacrifice of
+worldly prospects I transferred my allegiance, and was instantly
+rewarded by a perfect serenity of conviction which has never faltered.
+
+"I had a friend with whom I had often discussed the matter, who was much
+of my way of thinking. But though I showed him the illogical nature of
+his position, he hung back--whether from material motives or from mere
+emotional associations I will not now stop to inquire. But I could not
+palter with the truth. I expostulated with him, and pointed out to him
+in the sternest terms the eternal distinctions involved. I broke off all
+relations with him ultimately. And after a life spent in the most
+solemn and candid denunciation of the fluidity of religious belief,
+which is the curse of our age, though it involved me in many of the
+heart-rending suspensions of human intercourse with my nearest and
+dearest so plainly indicated in the Gospel, I passed at length, in
+complete tranquillity, to my final rest. The first duty of the sincere
+believer is inflexible intolerance. If a man will not recognise the
+truth when it is plainly presented to him, he must accept the eternal
+consequences of his act--separation from God, and absorption in guilty
+and awestruck regret, which admits of no repentance.
+
+"One of the privileges of our sojourn here is that we have a strange and
+beautiful device--a window, I will call it--which admits one to a sight
+of the spiritual world. I was to-day contemplating, not without pain,
+but with absolute confidence in its justice, the sufferings of some of
+these lost souls, and I observed, I cannot say with satisfaction, but
+with complete submission, the form of my friend, whom my testimony might
+have saved, in eternal misery. I have the tenderest heart of any man
+alive. It has cost me a sore struggle to subdue it--it is more unruly
+even than the will--but you may imagine that it is a matter of deep and
+comforting assurance to reflect that on earth the door, the one door, to
+salvation is clearly and plainly indicated--though few there be that
+find it--and that this signal mercy has been vouchsafed to me. I have
+then the peace of knowing, not only that my choice was right, but that
+all those to whom the truth is revealed have the power to choose it. I
+am a firm believer in the uncovenanted mercies vouchsafed to those who
+have not had the advantages of clear presentment, but for the
+deliberately unfaithful, for all sinners against light, the sentence is
+inflexible."
+
+He closed his eyes, and a smile played over his features.
+
+I found it very difficult to say anything in answer to this monologue;
+but I asked my companion whether he did not think that some clearer
+revelation might be made, after the bodily death, to those who for some
+human frailty were unable to receive it.
+
+"An intelligent question," said my companion, "but I am obliged to
+answer in the negative. Of course the case is different for those who
+have accepted the truth loyally, even if their record is stained by the
+foulest and most detestable of crimes. It is the moral and intellectual
+adhesion that matters; that once secured, conduct is comparatively
+unimportant, if the soul duly recurs to the medicine of penitence and
+contrition so mercifully provided. I have the utmost indulgence for
+every form of human frailty. I may say that I never shrank from contact
+with the grossest and vilest forms of continuous wrong-doing, so long as
+I was assured that the true doctrines were unhesitatingly and
+submissively accepted. A soul which admits the supremacy of authority
+can go astray like a sheep that is lost, but as long as it recognises
+its fold and the authority of the divine law, it can be sought and
+found.
+
+"The little window of which I spoke has given me indubitable testimony
+of this. There was a man I knew in the flesh, who was regarded as a
+monster of cruelty and selfishness. He ill-treated his wife and misused
+his children; his life was spent in gross debauchery, and his conduct on
+several occasions outstepped the sanctions of legality. He was a forger
+and an embezzler. I do not attempt to palliate his faults, and there
+will be a heavy reckoning to pay. But he made his submission at the
+last, after a long and prostrating illness; and I have ocular
+demonstration of the fact that, after a mercifully brief period of
+suffering, he is numbered among the blest. That is a sustaining
+thought."
+
+He then with much courtesy invited me to partake of some refreshment,
+which I gratefully declined. Once or twice he rose, and opening the
+little cupboard door, which revealed nothing but a white wall, he drank
+in encouragement from some hidden sight. He then invited me to kneel
+with him, and prayed fervently and with some emotion that light might be
+vouchsafed to souls on earth who were in darkness. Just as he concluded,
+Amroth appeared with our conductor. The latter made a courteous inquiry
+after my host's health and comfort. "I am perfectly happy here," he
+said, "perfectly happy. The attentions I receive are indeed more than I
+deserve; and I am specially grateful to my kind visitor, whose
+indulgence I must beg for my somewhat prolonged statement--but when one
+has a cause much at heart," he added with a smile, "some prolixity is
+easily excused."
+
+As we re-entered the corridor, our conductor asked me if I would care to
+pay any more visits. "The case you have seen," he said, "is an extremely
+typical and interesting one."
+
+"Have you any hope," said Amroth, "of recovery?"
+
+"Of course, of course," said our conductor with a smile. "Nothing is
+hopeless here; our cures are complete and even rapid; but this is a
+particularly obstinate one!"
+
+"Well," said Amroth, "would you like to see more?"
+
+"No," I said, "I have seen enough. I cannot now bear any more."
+
+Our conductor smiled indulgently.
+
+"Yes," he said, "it is bewildering at first; but one sees wonderful
+things here! This is our library," he added, leading us to a great airy
+room, full of books and reading-desks, where a large number of inmates
+were sitting reading and writing. They glanced up at us with friendly
+and contented smiles. A little further on we came to another cell,
+before which our conductor stopped, and looked at me. "I should like,"
+he said, "if you are not too tired, just to take you in here; there is
+a patient, who is very near recovery indeed, in here, and it would do
+him good to have a little talk with a stranger."
+
+I bowed, and we went in. A man was sitting in a chair with his head in
+his hands. An attendant was sitting near the window reading a book. The
+patient, at our entry, removed his hands from his face and looked up,
+half impatiently, with an air of great suffering, and then slowly rose.
+
+"How are you feeling, dear sir?" said our conductor quietly.
+
+"Oh," said the man, looking at us, "I am better, much better. The light
+is breaking in, but it is a sore business, when I was so strong in my
+pride."
+
+"Ah," said our guide, "it is indeed a slow process; but happiness and
+health must be purchased; and every day I see clearly that you are
+drawing nearer to the end of your troubles--you will soon be leaving us!
+But now I want you kindly to bestir yourself, and talk a little to this
+friend of ours, who has not been long with us, and finds the place
+somewhat, bewildering. You will be able to tell him something of what is
+passing in your mind; it will do you good to put it into words, and it
+will be a help to him."
+
+"Very well," said the man gravely, "I will do my best." And the others
+withdrew, leaving me with the man. When they had gone, the man asked me
+to be seated, and leaning his head upon his hand he said, "I do not know
+how much you know and how little, so I will tell you that I left the
+world very confident in a particular form of faith, and very much
+disposed to despise and even to dislike those who did not agree with me.
+I had lived, I may say, uprightly and purely, and I will confess that I
+even welcomed all signs of laxity and sinfulness in my opponents,
+because it proved what I believed, that wrong conduct sprang naturally
+from wrong belief. I came here in great content, and thought that this
+place was the reward of faithful living. But I had a great shock. I was
+very tenderly attached to one whom I left on earth, and the severest
+grief of my life was that she did not think as I did, but used to plead
+with me for a wider outlook and a larger faith in the designs of God.
+She used to say to me that she felt that God had different ways of
+saving different people, and that people were saved by love and not by
+doctrine. And this I combated with all my might. I used to say,
+'Doctrine first, and love afterwards,' to which she often said, 'No,
+love is first!'
+
+"Well, some time ago I had a sight of her; she had died, and entered
+this world of ours. She was in a very different place from this, but she
+thought of me without ceasing, and her desire prevailed. I saw her,
+though I was hidden from her, and looked into her heart, and discerned
+that the one thing which spoiled her joy was that I was parted from her.
+
+"And after that I had no more delight in my security. I began to suffer
+and to yearn. And then, little by little, I began to see that it is
+love after all which binds us together, and which draws us to God; but
+my difficulty is this, that I still believe that my faith is true; and
+if that is true, then other faiths cannot be true also, and then I fall
+into sad bewilderment and despair." He stopped and looked at me fixedly.
+
+"But," I said, "if I may carry the thought further, might not all be
+true? Two men may be very unlike each other in form and face and
+thought--yet both are very man. It would be foolish arguing, if a man
+were to say, 'I am indeed a man, and because my friend is unlike
+me--taller, lighter-complexioned, swifter of thought--therefore he
+cannot be a man.' Or, again, two men may travel by the same road, and
+see many different things, yet it is the same road they have both
+travelled; and one need not say to the other, 'You cannot have travelled
+by the same road, because you did not see the violets on the bank under
+the wood, or the spire that peeped through the trees at the folding of
+the valleys--and therefore you are a liar and a deceiver!' If one
+believes firmly in one's own faith, one need not therefore say that all
+who do not hold it are perverse and wilful. There is no excuse, indeed,
+for not holding to what we believe to be true, but there is no excuse
+either for interfering with the sincere belief of another, unless one
+can persuade him he is wrong. Is not the mistake to think that one holds
+the truth in its entirety, and that one has no more to learn and to
+perceive? I myself should welcome differences of faith, because it shows
+me that faith is a larger thing even than I know. What another sees may
+be but a thought that is hidden from me, because the truth may be seen
+from a different angle. To complain that we cannot see it all is as
+foolish as when the child is vexed because it cannot see the back of the
+moon. And it seems to me that our duty is not to quarrel with others who
+see things that we do not see, but to rejoice with them, if they will
+allow us, and meanwhile to discern what is shown to us as faithfully as
+we can."
+
+The man heard me with a strange smile. "Yes," he said, "you are
+certainly right, and I bless the goodness that sent you hither; but when
+you are gone, I doubt that I shall fall back into my old perplexities,
+and say to myself that though men may see different parts of the same
+thing, they cannot see the same thing differently."
+
+"I think," I said, "that even that is possible, because on earth things
+are often mere symbols, and clothe themselves in material forms; and it
+is the form which deludes us. I do not myself doubt that grace flows
+into us by very different channels. We may not deny the claim of any one
+to derive grace from any source or symbol that he can. The only thing we
+may and must dare to dispute is the claim that only by one channel may
+grace flow. But I think that the words of the one whom you loved, of
+whom you spoke, are indeed true, and that the love of each other and of
+God is the force which draws us, by whatever rite or symbol or doctrine
+it may be interpreted. That, as I read it, is the message of Christ, who
+gave up all things for utter love."
+
+As I said this, our guide and Amroth entered the cell. The man rose up
+quickly, and drawing me apart, thanked me very heartily and with tears
+in his eyes; and so we said farewell. When we were outside, I said to
+the guide, "May I ask you one question? Would it be of use if I remained
+here for a time to talk with that poor man? It seemed a relief to him to
+open his heart, and I would gladly be with him and try to comfort him."
+
+The guide shook his head kindly. "No," he said, "I think not. I
+recognise your kindness very fully--but a soul like this must find the
+way alone; and there is one who is helping him faster than any of us can
+avail to do; and besides," he added, "he is very near indeed to his
+release."
+
+So we went to the door, and said farewell; and Amroth and I went
+forward. Then I said to him as we went down through the terraced garden,
+and saw the inmates wandering about, lost in dreams, "This must be a sad
+place to live in, Amroth!"
+
+"No, indeed," said he, "I do not think that there are any happier than
+those who have the charge here. When the patients are in the grip of
+this disease, they are themselves only too well content; and it is a
+blessed thing to see the approach of doubt and suffering, which means
+that health draws near. There is no place in all our realm where one
+sees so clearly and beautifully the instant and perfect mercy of God,
+and the joy of pain." And so we passed together out of the guarded gate.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+"Well," said Amroth, with a smile, as we went out into the forest, "I am
+afraid that the last two visits have been rather a strain. We must find
+something a little less serious; but I am going to fill up all your
+time. You had got too much taken up with your psychology, and we must
+not live too much on theory, and spin problems, like the spider, out of
+our own insides; but we will not spend too much time in trudging over
+this country, though it is well worth it. Did you ever see anything more
+beautiful than those pine-trees on the slope there, with the blue
+distance between their stems? But we must not make a business of
+landscape-gazing like our friend Charmides! We are men of affairs, you
+and I. Come, I will show you a thing. Shut your eyes for a minute and
+give me your hand. Now!"
+
+A sudden breeze fanned my face, sweet and odorous, like the wind out of
+a wood. "Now," said Amroth, "we have arrived! Where do you think we
+are?"
+
+The scene had changed in an instant. We were in a wide, level country,
+in green water-meadows, with a full stream brimming its grassy banks, in
+willowy loops. Not far away, on a gently rising ground, lay a long,
+straggling village, of gabled houses, among high trees. It was like the
+sort of village that you may find in the pleasant Wiltshire countryside,
+and the sight filled me with a rush of old and joyful memories.
+
+"It is such a relief," I said, "to realise that if man is made in the
+image of God, heaven is made in the image of England!"
+
+"That is only how you see it, child," said Amroth. "Some of my own
+happiest days were spent at Tooting: would you be surprised if I said
+that it reminded me of Tooting?"
+
+"I am surprised at nothing," I said. "I only know that it is all very
+considerate!"
+
+We entered the village, and found a large number of people, mostly
+young, going cheerfully about all sorts of simple work. Many of them
+were gardening, and the gardens were full of old-fashioned flowers,
+blooming in wonderful profusion. There was an air of settled peace about
+the place, the peace that on earth one often dreamed of finding, and
+indeed thought one had found on visiting some secluded place--only to
+discover, alas! on a nearer acquaintance, that life was as full of
+anxieties and cares there as elsewhere. There were one or two elderly
+people going about, giving directions or advice, or lending a helping
+hand. The workers nodded blithely to us, but did not suspend their work.
+
+"What surprises me," I said to Amroth, "is to find every one so much
+occupied wherever we go. One heard so much on earth about craving for
+rest, that one grew to fancy that the other life was all going to be a
+sort of solemn meditation, with an occasional hymn."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Amroth, "it was the body that was tired--the soul is
+always fresh and strong--but rest is not idleness. There is no such
+thing as unemployment here, and there is hardly time, indeed, for all we
+have to do. Every one really loves work. The child plays at working, the
+man of leisure works at his play. The difference here is that work is
+always amusing--there is no such thing as drudgery here."
+
+We walked all through the village, which stretched far away into the
+country. The whole place hummed like a beehive on a July morning. Many
+sang to themselves as they went about their business, and sometimes a
+couple of girls, meeting in the roadway, would entwine their arms and
+dance a few steps together, with a kiss at parting. There was a sense of
+high spirits everywhere. At one place we found a group of children
+sitting in the shade of some trees, while a woman of middle age told
+them a story. We stood awhile to listen, the woman giving us a pleasant
+nod as we approached. It was a story of some pleasant adventure, with
+nothing moral or sentimental about it, like an old folk-tale. The
+children were listening with unconcealed delight.
+
+When we had walked a little further, Amroth said to me, "Come, I will
+give you three guesses. Who do you think, by the light of your
+psychology, are all these simple people?" I guessed in vain. "Well, I
+see I must tell you," he said. "Would it surprise you to learn that most
+of these people whom you see here passed upon earth for wicked and
+unsatisfactory characters? Yet it is true. Don't you know the kind of
+boys there were at school, who drifted into bad company and idle ways,
+mostly out of mere good-nature, went out into the world with a black
+mark against them, having been bullied in vain by virtuous masters, the
+despair of their parents, always losing their employments, and often
+coming what we used to call social croppers--untrustworthy, sensual,
+feckless, no one's enemy but their own, and yet preserving through it
+all a kind of simple good-nature, always ready to share things with
+others, never knowing how to take advantage of any one, trusting the
+most untrustworthy people; or if they were girls, getting into trouble,
+losing their good name, perhaps living lives of shame in big
+cities--yet, for all that, guileless, affectionate, never excusing
+themselves, believing they had deserved anything that befell them? These
+were the sort of people to whom Christ was so closely drawn. They have
+no respectability, no conventions; they act upon instinct, never by
+reason, often foolishly, but seldom unkindly or selfishly. They give all
+they have, they never take. They have the faults of children, and the
+trustful affection of children. They will do anything for any one who is
+kind to them and fond of them. Of course they are what is called
+hopeless, and they use their poor bodies very ill. In their last stages
+on earth they are often very deplorable objects, slinking into
+public-houses, plodding raggedly and dismally along highroads, suffering
+cruelly and complaining little, conscious that they are universally
+reprobated, and not exactly knowing why. They are the victims of
+society; they do its dirty work, and are cast away as offscourings. They
+are really youthful and often beautiful spirits, very void of offence,
+and needing to be treated as children. They live here in great
+happiness, and are conscious vaguely of the good and great intention of
+God towards them. They suffer in the world at the hands of cruel,
+selfish, and stupid people, because they are both humble and
+disinterested. But in all our realms I do not think there is a place of
+simpler and sweeter happiness than this, because they do not take their
+forgiveness as a right, but as a gracious and unexpected boon. And
+indeed the sights and sounds of this place are the best medicine for
+crabbed, worldly, conventional souls, who are often brought here when
+they are drawing near the truth."
+
+"Yes," I said, "this is just what I wanted. Interesting as my work has
+lately been, it has wanted simplicity. I have grown to consider life too
+much as a series of cases, and to forget that it is life itself that one
+must seek, and not pathology. This is the best sight I have seen, for it
+is so far removed from all sense of judgment. The song of the saints may
+be sometimes of mercy too."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+"And now," said Amroth, "that we have been refreshed by the sight of
+this guileless place, and as our time is running short, I am going to
+show you something very serious indeed. In fact, before I show it you I
+must remind you carefully of one thing which I shall beg you to keep in
+mind. There is nothing either cruel or hopeless here; all is implacably
+just and entirely merciful. Whatever a soul needs, that it receives; and
+it receives nothing that is vindictive or harsh. The ideas of punishment
+on earth are hopelessly confused; we do not know whether we are
+revenging ourselves for wrongs done to us, or safeguarding society, or
+deterring would-be offenders, or trying to amend and uplift the
+criminal. We end, as a rule, by making every one concerned, whether
+punisher or punished, worse. We encourage each other in vindictiveness
+and hypocrisy, we cow and brutalise the transgressor. We rescue no one,
+we amend nothing. And yet we cannot read the clear signs of all this.
+The milder our methods of punishment become, the less crime is there to
+punish. But instead of being at once kind and severe, which is perfectly
+possible, we are both cruel and sentimental. Now, there is no such thing
+as sentiment here, just as there is no cruelty. There is emotion in full
+measure, and severity in full measure; no one is either pettishly
+frightened or mildly forgiven; and the joy that awaits us is all the
+more worth having, because it cannot be rashly enjoyed or reached by any
+short cuts; but do not forget, in what you now see, that the end is
+joy."
+
+He spoke so solemnly that I was conscious of overmastering curiosity,
+not unmixed with awe. Again the way was abbreviated. Amroth took me by
+the hand and bade me close my eyes. The breeze beat upon my face for a
+moment. When I opened my eyes, we were on a bare hillside, full of
+stones, in a kind of grey and chilly haze which filled the air. Just
+ahead of us were some rough enclosures of stone, overlooked by a sort of
+tower. They were like the big sheepfolds which I have seen on northern
+wolds, into which the sheep of a whole hillside can be driven for
+shelter. We went round the wall, which was high and strong, and came to
+the entrance of the tower, the door of which stood open. There seemed to
+be no one about, no sign of life; the only sound a curious wailing note,
+which came at intervals from one of the enclosures, like the crying of a
+prisoned beast. We went up into the tower; the staircase ended in a bare
+room, with four apertures, one in each wall, each leading into a kind of
+balcony. Amroth led the way into one of the balconies, and pointed
+downwards. We were looking down into one of the enclosures which lay
+just at our feet, not very far below. The place was perfectly bare, and
+roughly flagged with stones. In the corner was a rough thatched shelter,
+in which was some straw. But what at once riveted my attention was the
+figure of a man, who half lay, half crouched upon the stones, his head
+in his hands, in an attitude of utter abandonment. He was dressed in a
+rough, weather-worn sort of cloak, and his whole appearance suggested
+the basest neglect; his hands were muscular and knotted; his ragged grey
+hair streamed over the collar of his cloak. While we looked at him, he
+drew himself up into a sitting posture, and turned his face blankly upon
+the sky. It was, or had been, a noble face enough, deeply lined, and
+with a look of command upon it; but anything like the hopeless and utter
+misery of the drawn cheeks and staring eyes I had never conceived. I
+involuntarily drew back, feeling that it was almost wrong to look at
+anything so fallen and so wretched. But Amroth detained me.
+
+"He is not aware of us," he said, "and I desire you to look at him."
+
+Presently the man rose wearily to his feet, and began to pace up and
+down round the walls, with the mechanical movements of a caged animal,
+avoiding the posts of the shelter without seeming to see them, and then
+cast himself down again upon the stones in a paroxysm of melancholy. He
+seemed to have no desire to escape, no energy, except to suffer. There
+was no hope about it all, no suggestion of prayer, nothing but blank and
+unadulterated suffering.
+
+Amroth drew me back into the tower, and motioned me to the next
+balcony. Again I went out. The sight that I saw was almost more terrible
+than the first, because the prisoner here, penned in a similar
+enclosure, was more restless, and seemed to suffer more acutely. This
+was a younger man, who walked swiftly and vaguely about, casting glances
+up at the wall which enclosed him. Sometimes he stopped, and seemed to
+be pursuing some dreadful train of solitary thought; he gesticulated,
+and even broke out into mutterings and cries--the cries that I had heard
+from without. I could not bear to look at this sight, and coming back,
+besought Amroth to lead me away. Amroth, who was himself, I perceived,
+deeply moved, and stood with lips compressed, nodded in token of assent.
+We went quickly down the stairway, and took our way up the hill among
+the stones, in silence. The shapes of similar enclosures were to be seen
+everywhere, and the indescribable blankness and grimness of the scene
+struck a chill to my heart.
+
+From the top of the ridge we could see the same bare valleys stretching
+in all directions, as far as the eye could see. The only other building
+in sight was a great circular tower of stone, far down in the valley,
+from which beat the pulse of some heavy machinery, which gave the sense,
+I do not know how, of a ghastly and watchful life at the centre of all.
+
+"That is the Tower of Pain," said Amroth, "and I will spare you the
+inner sight of that. Only our very bravest and strongest can enter there
+and preserve any hope. But it is well for you to know it is there, and
+that souls have to enter it. It is thence that all the pain of countless
+worlds emanates and vibrates, and the governor of the place is the most
+tried and bravest of all the servants of God. Thither we must go, for
+you shall have sight of him, though you shall not enter."
+
+We went down the hill with all the speed we might, and, I will confess
+it, with the darkest dismay I have ever experienced tugging at my heart.
+We were soon at the foot of the enormous structure. Amroth knocked at
+the gate, a low door, adorned with some vague and ghastly sculptures,
+things like worms and huddled forms drearily intertwined. The door
+opened, and revealed a fiery and smouldering light within. High up in
+the tower a great wheel whizzed and shivered, and moving shadows
+crossed and recrossed the firelit walls.
+
+But the figure that came out to us--how shall I describe him? It was the
+most beautiful and gracious sight of all that I saw in my pilgrimage. He
+was a man of tall stature, with snow-white, silvery hair and beard,
+dressed in a dark cloak with a gleaming clasp of gold. But for all his
+age he had a look of immortal youth. His clear and piercing eye had a
+glance of infinite tenderness, such as I had never conceived. There were
+many lines upon his brow and round his eyes, but his complexion was as
+fresh as that of a child, and he stepped as briskly as a youth. We bowed
+low to him, and he reached out his hands, taking Amroth's hand and mine
+in each of his. His touch had a curious thrill, the hand that held mine
+being firm and smooth and wonderfully warm.
+
+"Well, my children," he said in a clear, youthful voice, "I am glad to
+see you, because there are few who come hither willingly; and the old
+and weary are cheered by the sight of those that are young and strong.
+Amroth I know. But who are you, my child? You have not been among us
+long. Have you found your work and place here yet?" I told him my story
+in a few words, and he smiled indulgently. "There is nothing like being
+at work," he said. "Even my business here, which seems sad enough to
+most people, must be done; and I do it very willingly. Do not be
+frightened, my child," he said to me suddenly, drawing me nearer to him,
+and folding my arm beneath his own. "It is only on earth that we are
+frightened of pain; it spoils our poor plans, it makes us fretful and
+miserable, it brings us into the shadow of death. But for all that, as
+Amroth knows, it is the best and most fruitful of all the works that the
+Father does for man, and the thing dearest to His heart. We cannot
+prosper till we suffer, and suffering leads us very swiftly into joy and
+peace. Indeed this Tower of Pain, as it is called, is in fact nothing
+but the Tower of Love. Not until love is touched with pain does it
+become beautiful, and the joy that comes through pain is the only real
+thing in the world. Of course, when my great engine here sends a thrill
+into a careless life, it comes as a dark surprise; but then follow
+courage and patience and wonder, and all the dear tendance of Love. I
+have borne it all myself a hundred times, and I shall bear it again if
+the Father wills it. But when you leave me here, do not think of me as
+of one who works, grim and indifferent, wrecking lives and destroying
+homes. It is but the burning of the weeds of life; and it is as needful
+as the sunshine and the rain. Pain does not wander aimlessly, smiting
+down by mischance and by accident; it comes as the close and dear
+intention of the Father's heart, and is to a man as a trumpet-call from
+the land of life, not as a knell from the land of death. And now, dear
+children, you must leave me, for I have much to do. And I will give
+you," he added, turning to me, "a gift which shall be your comfort, and
+a token that you have been here, and seen the worst and the best that
+there is to see."
+
+He drew from under his cloak a ring, a circlet of gold holding a red
+stone with a flaming heart, and put it on my finger. There pierced
+through me a pang intenser than any I had ever experienced, in which all
+the love and sorrow I had ever known seemed to be suddenly mingled, and
+which left behind it a perfect and intense sense of joy.
+
+"There, that is my gift," he said, "and you shall have an old man's
+loving blessing too, for it is that, after all, that I live for." He
+drew me to him and kissed me on the brow, and in a moment he was gone.
+
+We walked away in silence, and for my part with an elation of spirit
+which I could hardly control, a desire to love and suffer, and do and be
+all that the mind of man could conceive. But my heart was too full to
+speak.
+
+"Come," said Amroth presently, "you are not as grateful as I had
+hoped--you are outgrowing me! Come down to my poor level for an instant,
+and beware of spiritual pride!" Then altering his tone he said, "Ah,
+yes, dear friend, I understand. There is nothing in the world like it,
+and you were most graciously and tenderly received--but the end is not
+yet."
+
+"Amroth," I said, "I am like one intoxicated with joy. I feel that I
+could endure anything and never make question of anything again. How
+infinitely good he was to me--like a dear father!"
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "he is very like the Father "--and he smiled at me a
+mysterious smile.
+
+"Amroth," I said, bewildered, "you cannot mean--?"
+
+"No, I mean nothing," said Amroth, "but you have to-day looked very far
+into the truth, farther than is given to many so soon; but you are a
+child of fortune, and seem to please every one. I declare that a little
+more would make me jealous."
+
+Presently, catching sight of one of the enclosures hard by, I said to
+Amroth, "But there are some questions I must ask. What has just
+happened had put it mostly out of my head. Those poor suffering souls
+that we saw just now--it is well, with them, I am sure, so near the
+Master of the Tower--he does not forget them, I am sure--but who are
+they, and what have they done to suffer so?"
+
+"I will tell you," said Amroth, "for it is a dark business. Those two
+that you have seen--well, you will know one of them by name and fame,
+and of the other you may have heard. The first, that old shaggy-haired
+man, who lay upon the stones, that was ----"
+
+He mentioned a name that was notorious in Europe at the time of my life
+on earth, though he was then long dead; a ruthless and ambitious
+conqueror, who poured a cataract of life away, in wars, for his own
+aggrandisement. Then he mentioned another name, a statesman who pursued
+a policy of terrorism and oppression, enriched himself by barbarous
+cruelty exercised in colonial possessions, and was famous for the
+calculated libertinism of his private life.
+
+"They were great sinners," said Amroth, "and the sorrows they made and
+flung so carelessly about them, beat back upon them now in a surge of
+pain. These men were strangely affected, each of them, by the smallest
+sight or sound of suffering--a tortured animal, a crying child; and yet
+they were utterly ruthless of the pain that they did not see. It was a
+lack, no doubt, of the imagination of which I spoke, and which makes all
+the difference. And now they have to contemplate the pain which they
+could not imagine; and they have to learn submission and humility. It is
+a terrible business in a way--the loneliness of it! There used to be an
+old saying that the strongest man was the man that was most alone. But
+it was just because these men practised loneliness on earth that they
+have to suffer so. They used others as counters in a game, they had
+neither friend nor beloved, except for their own pleasure. They depended
+upon no one, needed no one, desired no one. But there are many others
+here who did the same on a small scale--selfish fathers and mothers who
+made homes miserable; boys who were bullies at school and tyrants in the
+world, in offices, and places of authority. This is the place of
+discipline for all base selfishness and vile authority, for all who have
+oppressed and victimised mankind."
+
+"But," I said, "here is my difficulty. I understand the case of the
+oppressors well enough; but about the oppressed, what is the justice of
+that? Is there not a fortuitous element there, an interruption of the
+Divine plan? Take the case of the thousands of lives wasted by some
+brutal conqueror. Are souls sent into the world for that, to be driven
+in gangs, made to fight, let us say, for some abominable cause, and
+then recklessly dismissed from life?"
+
+"Ah," said Amroth, "you make too much of the dignity of life! You do not
+know how small a thing a single life is, not as regards the life of
+mankind, but in the life of one individual. Of course if a man had but
+one single life on earth, it would be an intolerable injustice; and that
+is the factor which sets all straight, the factor which most of us, in
+our time of bodily self-importance, overlook. These oppressors have no
+power over other lives except what God allows, and bewildered humanity
+concedes. Not only is the great plan whole in the mind of God, but every
+single minutest life is considered as well. In the very case you spoke
+of, the little conscript, torn from his home to fight a tyrant's
+battles, hectored and ill-treated, and then shot down upon some crowded
+battle-field, that is precisely the discipline which at that point of
+time his soul needs, and the blessedness of which he afterwards
+perceives; sometimes discipline is swift and urgent, sometimes it is
+slow and lingering: but all experience is exactly apportioned to the
+quality of which each soul is in need. The only reason why there seems
+to be an element of chance in it, is that the whole thing is so
+inconceivably vast and prolonged; and our happiness and our progress
+alike depend upon our realising at every moment that the smallest joy
+and the most trifling pleasure, as well as the tiniest ailment or the
+most subtle sorrow, are just the pieces of experience which we are meant
+at that moment to use and make our own. No one, not even God, can force
+us to understand this; we have to perceive it for ourselves, and to live
+in the knowledge of it."
+
+"Yes," I said, "it is true, all that. My heart tells me so; but it is
+very wonderful and mysterious, all the same. But, Amroth, I have seen
+and heard enough. My spirit desires with all its might to be at its own
+work, hastening on the mighty end. Now, I can hold no more of wonders.
+Let me return."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "you are right! These wonders are so familiar to me
+that I forget, perhaps, the shock with which they come to minds unused
+to them. Yet there are other things which you must assuredly see, when
+the time comes; but I must not let you bite off a larger piece than you
+can swallow."
+
+He took me by the hand; the breeze passed through my hair; and in an
+instant we were back at the fortress-gate, and I entered the beloved
+shelter, with a grateful sense that I was returning home.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+I returned, as I said, with a sense of serene pleasure and security to
+my work; but that serenity did not last long. What I had seen with
+Amroth, on that day of wandering, filled me with a strange restlessness,
+and a yearning for I knew not what. I plunged into my studies with
+determination rather than ardour, and I set myself to study what is the
+most difficult problem of all--the exact limits of individual
+responsibility. I had many conversations on the point with one of my
+teachers, a young man of very wide experience, who combined in an
+unusual way a close scientific knowledge of the subject with a peculiar
+emotional sympathy. He told me once that it was the best outfit for the
+scientific study of these problems, when the heart anticipated the
+slower judgment of the mind, and set the mind a goal, so to speak, to
+work up to; though he warned me that the danger was that the mind was
+often reluctant to abandon the more indulgent claims of the heart; and
+he advised me to mistrust alike scientific conclusions and emotional
+inferences.
+
+I had a very memorable conversation with him on the particular question
+of responsibility, which I will here give.
+
+"The mistake," I said to him, "of human moralists seems to me to be,
+that they treat all men as more or less equal in the matter of moral
+responsibility. How often," I added, "have I heard a school preacher
+tell boys that they could not all be athletic or clever or popular, but
+that high principle and moral courage were things within the reach of
+all. Whereas the more that I studied human nature, the more did the
+power of surveying and judging one's own moral progress, and the power
+of enforcing and executing the dictates of the conscience, seem to me
+faculties, like other faculties. Indeed, it appears to me," I said,
+"that on the one hand there are people who have a power of moral
+discrimination, when dealing with the retrospect of their actions, but
+no power of obeying the claims of principle, when confronted with a
+situation involving moral strain; while on the other hand there seem to
+me to be some few men with a great and resolute power of will, capable
+of swift decision and firm action, but without any instinct for morality
+at all."
+
+"Yes," he said, "you are quite right. The moral sense is in reality a
+high artistic sense. It is a power of discerning and being attracted by
+the beauty of moral action, just as the artist is attracted by form and
+colour, and the musician by delicate combinations of harmonies and the
+exquisite balance of sound. You know," he said, "what a suspension is in
+music--it is a chord which in itself is a discord, but which depends for
+its beauty on some impending resolution. It is just so with moral
+choice. The imagination plays a great part in it. The man whose
+morality is high and profound sees instinctively the approaching
+contingency, and his act of self-denial or self-forgetfulness depends
+for its force upon the way in which it will ultimately combine with
+other issues involved, even though at the moment that act may seem to be
+unnecessary and even perverse."
+
+"But," I said, "there are a good many people who attain to a sensible,
+well-balanced kind of temperance, after perhaps a few failures, from a
+purely prudential motive. What is the worth of that?"
+
+"Very small indeed," said my teacher. "In fact, the prudential morality,
+based on motives of health and reputation and success, is a thing that
+has often to be deliberately unlearnt at a later stage. The strange
+catastrophes which one sees so often in human life, where a man by one
+act of rashness, or moral folly, upsets the tranquil tenor of his
+life--a desperate love-affair, a passion of unreasonable anger, a piece
+of quixotic generosity--are often a symptom of a great effort of the
+soul to free itself from prudential considerations. A good thing done
+for a low motive has often a singularly degrading and deforming
+influence on the soul. One has to remember how terribly the heavenly
+values are obscured upon earth by the body, its needs and its desires;
+and current morality of a cautious and sensible kind is often worse than
+worthless, because it produces a kind of self-satisfaction, which is the
+hardest thing to overcome."
+
+"But," I said, "in the lives of some of the greatest moralists, one so
+often sees, or at all events hears it said, that their morality is
+useless because it is unpractical, too much out of the reach of the
+ordinary man, too contemptuous of simple human faculties. What is one to
+make of that?"
+
+"It is a difficult matter," he replied; "one does indeed, in the lives
+of great moralists, see sometimes that their work is vitiated by
+perverse and fantastic preferences, which they exalt out of all
+proportion to their real value. But for all that, it is better to be on
+the side of the saints; for they are gifted with the sort of instinctive
+appreciation of the beauty of high morality of which I spoke.
+Unselfishness, purity, peacefulness seem to them so beautiful and
+desirable that they are constrained to practise them. While controversy,
+bitterness, cruelty, meanness, vice, seem so utterly ugly and repulsive
+that they cannot for an instant entertain even so much as a thought of
+them."
+
+"But if a man sees that he is wanting in this kind of perception," I
+said, "what can he do? How is he to learn to love what he does not
+admire and to abhor what he does not hate? It all seems so fatalistic,
+so irresistible."
+
+"If he discerns his lack," said my teacher with a smile, "he is probably
+not so very far from the truth. The germ of the sense of moral beauty is
+there, and it only wants patience and endeavour to make it grow. But it
+cannot be all done in any single life, of course; that is where the
+human faith fails, in its limitations of a man's possibilities to a
+single life."
+
+"But what is the reason," I said, "why the morality, the high austerity
+of some persons, who are indubitably high-minded and pure-hearted, is so
+utterly discouraging and even repellent?"
+
+"Ah," he said, "there you touch on a great truth. The reason of that is
+that these have but a sterile sort of connoisseur-ship in virtue. Virtue
+cannot be attained in solitude, nor can it be made a matter of private
+enjoyment. The point is, of course, that it is not enough for a man to
+be himself; he must also give himself; and if a man is moral because of
+the delicate pleasure it brings him--and the artistic pleasure of
+asceticism is a very high one--he is apt to find himself here in very
+strange and distasteful company. In this, as in everything, the only
+safe motive is the motive of love. The man who takes pleasure in using
+influence, or setting a lofty example, is just as arid a dilettante as
+the musician who plays, or the artist who paints, for the sake of the
+applause and the admiration he wins; he is only regarding others as so
+many instruments for registering his own level of complacency. Every
+one, even the least complicated of mankind, must know the exquisite
+pleasure that comes from doing the simplest and humblest service to one
+whom he loves; how such love converts the most menial office into a
+luxurious joy; and the higher that a man goes, the more does he discern
+in every single human being with whom he is brought into contact a soul
+whom he can love and serve. Of course it is but an elementary pleasure
+to enjoy pleasing those whom we regard with some passion of affection,
+wife or child or friend, because, after all, one gains something oneself
+by that. But the purest morality of all discerns the infinitely lovable
+quality which is in the depth of every human soul, and lavishes its
+tenderness and its grace upon it, with a compassion that grows and
+increases, the more unthankful and clumsy and brutish is the soul which
+it sets out to serve."
+
+"But," I said, "beautiful as that thought is--and I see and recognise
+its beauty--it does limit the individual responsibility very greatly.
+Surely a prudential morality, the morality which is just because it
+fears reprisal, and is kind because it anticipates kindness, is better
+than none at all? The morality of which you speak can only belong to the
+noblest human creatures."
+
+"Only to the noblest," he said; "and I must repeat what I said before,
+that the prudential morality is useless, because it begins at the wrong
+end, and is set upon self throughout. I must say deliberately that the
+soul which loves unreasonably and unwisely, which even yields itself to
+the passion of others for the pleasure it gives rather than for the
+pleasure it receives--the thriftless, lavish, good-natured,
+affectionate people, who are said to make such a mess of their
+lives--are far higher in the scale of hope than the cautiously
+respectable, the prudently kind, the selfishly pure. There must be no
+mistake about this. One must somehow or other give one's heart away, and
+it is better to do it in error and disaster than to treasure it for
+oneself. Of course there are many lives on earth--and an increasing
+number as the world develops--which are generous and noble and
+unselfish, without any sacrifice of purity or self-respect. But the
+essence of morality is giving, and not receiving, or even practising;
+the point is free choice, and not compulsion; and if one cannot give
+_because_ one loves, one must give _until_ one loves."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+But all my speculations were cut short by a strange event which happened
+about this time. One day, without any warning, the thought of Cynthia
+darted urgently and irresistibly into my mind. Her image came between me
+and all my tasks; I saw her in innumerable positions and guises, but
+always with her eyes bent on me in a pitiful entreaty. After
+endeavouring to resist the thought for a little as some kind of fantasy,
+I became suddenly convinced that she was in need of me, and in urgent
+need. I asked for an interview with our Master, and told him the story;
+he heard me gravely, and then said that I might go in search of her; but
+I was not sure that he was wholly pleased, and he bent his eyes upon me
+with a very inquiring look. I hesitated whether or not to call Amroth to
+my aid, but decided that I had better not do so at first. The question
+was how to find her; the great crags lay between me and the land of
+delight; and when I hurried out of the college, the thought of the
+descent and its dangers fairly unmanned me. I knew, however, of no other
+way. But what was my surprise when, on arriving at the top, not far from
+the point where Amroth had greeted me after the ascent, I saw a little
+steep path, which wound itself down into the gulleys and chimneys of the
+black rocks. I took it without hesitation, and though again and again it
+seemed to come to an end in front of me, I found that it could be traced
+and followed without serious difficulty. The descent was accomplished
+with a singular rapidity, and I marvelled to find myself at the
+crag-base in so brief a time, considering the intolerable tedium of the
+ascent. I rapidly crossed the intervening valley, and was very soon at
+the gate of the careless land. To my intense joy, and not at all to my
+surprise, I found Cynthia at the gate itself, waiting for me with a
+look of expectancy. She came forwards, and threw herself passionately
+into my arms, murmuring words of delight and welcome, like a child.
+
+"I knew you would come," she said. "I am frightened--all sorts of
+dreadful things have happened. I have found out where I am--and I seem
+to have lost all my friends. Charmides is gone, and Lucius is cruel to
+me--he tells me that I have lost my spirits and my good looks, and am
+tiresome company."
+
+I looked at her--she was paler and frailer-looking than when I left her;
+and she was habited very differently, in simpler and graver dress. But
+she was to my eyes infinitely more beautiful and dearer, and I told her
+so. She smiled at that, but half tearfully; and we seated ourselves on a
+bench hard by, looking over the garden, which was strangely and
+luxuriantly beautiful.
+
+"You must take me away with you at once," she said. "I cannot live here
+without you. I thought at first, when you went, that it was rather a
+relief not to have your grave face at my shoulder,"--here she took my
+face in her hands--"always reminding me of something I did not want, and
+ought to have wanted--but oh, how I began to miss you! and then I got so
+tired of this silly, lazy place, and all the music and jokes and
+compliments. But I am a worthless creature, and not good for anything. I
+cannot work, and I hate being idle. Take me anywhere, _make_ me do
+something, beat me if you like, only force me to be different from what
+I am."
+
+"Very well," I said. "I will give you a good beating presently, of
+course, but just let me consider what will hurt you most, silly child!"
+
+"That is it," she said. "I want to be hurt and bruised, and shaken as my
+nurse used to shake me, when I was a naughty child. Oh dear, oh dear,
+how wretched I am!" and poor Cynthia laid her head on my shoulder and
+burst into tears.
+
+"Come, come," I said, "you must not do that--I want my wits about me;
+but if you cry, you will simply make a fool of me--and this is no time
+for love-making."
+
+"Then you do really _care_", said Cynthia in a quieter tone. "That is
+all I want to know! I want to be with you, and see you every hour and
+every minute. I can't help saying it, though it is really very
+undignified for me to be making love to you. I did many silly things on
+earth, but never anything quite so feeble as that!"
+
+I felt myself fairly bewildered by the situation. My psychology did not
+seem to help me; and here at least was something to love and rescue. I
+will say frankly that, in my stupidity and superiority, I did not really
+think of loving Cynthia in the way in which she needed to be loved. She
+was to me, with all my grave concerns and problems, as a charming and
+intelligent child, with whom I could not even speak of half the thoughts
+which absorbed me. So I just held her in my arms, and comforted her as
+best I could; but what to do and where to bestow her I could not tell.
+I saw that her time to leave the place of desire had come, but what she
+could turn to I could not conceive.
+
+Suddenly I looked up, and saw Lucius approaching, evidently in a very
+angry mood.
+
+"So this is the end of all our amusement?" he said, as he came near.
+"You bring Cynthia here in your tiresome, condescending way, you live
+among us like an almighty prig, smiling gravely at our fun, and then you
+go off when it is convenient to yourself; and then, when you want a
+little recreation, you come and sit here in a corner and hug your
+darling, when you have never given her a thought of late. You _know_
+that is true," he added menacingly.
+
+"Yes," I said, "it is true! I went of my own will, and I have come back
+of my own will; and you have all been out of my thoughts, because I have
+had much work to do. But what of that? Cynthia wants me and I have come
+back to her, and I will do whatever she desires. It is no good
+threatening me, Lucius--there is nothing you can do or say that will
+have the smallest effect on me."
+
+"We will see about that," said Lucius. "None of your airs here! We are
+peaceful enough when we are respectfully and fairly treated, but we have
+our own laws, and no one shall break them with impunity. We will have no
+half-hearted fools here. If you come among us with your damned
+missionary airs, you shall have what I expect you call the crown of
+martyrdom."
+
+He whistled loud and shrill. Half-a-dozen men sprang from the bushes and
+flung themselves upon me. I struggled, but was overpowered, and dragged
+away. The last sight I had was of Lucius standing with a disdainful
+smile, with Cynthia clinging to his arm; and to my horror and disgust
+she was smiling too.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+I had somehow never expected to be used with positive violence in the
+world of spirits, and least of all in that lazy and good-natured place.
+Considering, too, the errand on which I had come, not for my own
+convenience but for the sake of another, my treatment seemed to me very
+hard. What was still more humiliating was the fact that my spirit seemed
+just as powerless in the hands of these ruffians as my body would have
+been on earth. I was pushed, hustled, insulted, hurt. I could have
+summoned Amroth to my aid, but I felt too proud for that; yet the
+thought of the cragmen, and the possibility of the second death, did
+visit my mind with dismal iteration. I did not at all desire a further
+death; I felt very much alive, and full of interest and energy. Worst
+of all was my sense that Cynthia had gone over to the enemy. I had been
+so loftily kind with her, that I much resented having appeared in her
+sight as feeble and ridiculous. It is difficult to preserve any dignity
+of demeanour or thought, with a man's hand at one's neck and his knee in
+one's back: and I felt that Lucius had displayed a really Satanical
+malignity in using this particular means of degrading me in Cynthia's
+sight, and of regaining his own lost influence.
+
+I was thrust and driven before my captors along an alley in the garden,
+and what added to my discomfiture was that a good many people ran
+together to see us pass, and watched me with decided amusement. I was
+taken finally to a little pavilion of stone, with heavily barred
+windows, and a flagged marble floor. The room was absolutely bare, and
+contained neither seat nor table. Into this I was thrust, with some
+obscene jesting, and the door was locked upon me.
+
+The time passed very heavily. At intervals I heard music burst out
+among the alleys, and a good many people came to peep in upon me
+with an amused curiosity. I was entirely bewildered by my position,
+and did not see what I could have done to have incurred my punishment.
+But in the solitary hours that followed I began to have a suspicion
+of my fault. I had found myself hitherto the object of so much attention
+and praise, that I had developed a strong sense of complacency and
+self-satisfaction. I had an uncomfortable suspicion that there was even
+more behind, but I could not, by interrogating my mind and searching out
+my spirits, make out clearly what it was; yet I felt I was having a
+sharp lesson; and this made me resolve that I would ask for no kind of
+assistance from Amroth or any other power, but that I would try to meet
+whatever fell upon me with patience, and extract the full savour of my
+experience.
+
+I do not know how long I spent in the dismal cell. I was in some
+discomfort from the handling I had received, and in still greater
+dejection of mind. Suddenly I heard footsteps approaching. Three of my
+captors appeared, and told me roughly to go with them. So, a pitiable
+figure, I limped along between two of them, the third following behind,
+and was conducted through the central piazza of the place, between two
+lines of people who gave way to the most undisguised merriment, and even
+shouted opprobrious remarks at me, calling me spy and traitor and other
+unpleasant names. I could not have believed that these kind-mannered and
+courteous persons could have exhibited, all of a sudden, such frank
+brutality, and I saw many of my own acquaintance among them, who
+regarded me with obvious derision.
+
+I was taken into a big hall, in which I had often sat to hear a concert
+of music. On the dais at the upper end were seated a number of dignified
+persons, in a semicircle, with a very handsome and stately old man in
+the centre on a chair of state, whose face was new to me. Before this
+Court I was formally arraigned; I had to stand alone in the middle of
+the floor, in an open space. Two of my captors stood on each side of me;
+while the rest of the court was densely packed with people, who greeted
+me with obvious hostility.
+
+When silence was procured, the President said to me, with a show of
+great courtesy, that he could not disguise from himself that the charge
+against me was a serious one; but that justice would be done to me,
+fully and carefully. I should have ample opportunity to excuse myself.
+He then called upon one of those who sat with him to state the case
+briefly, and call witnesses and after that he promised I might speak for
+myself.
+
+A man rose from one of the seats, and, pleading somewhat rhetorically,
+said that the object of the great community, to which so many were proud
+to belong, was to secure to all the utmost amount of innocent
+enjoyment, and the most entire peace of mind; that no pressure was put
+upon any one who decided to stay there, and to observe the quiet customs
+of the place; but that it was always considered a heinous and
+ill-disposed thing to attempt to unsettle any one's convictions, or to
+attempt, by using undue influence, to bring about the migration of any
+citizen to conditions of which little was known, but which there was
+reason to believe were distinctly undesirable.
+
+"We are, above all," he said, "a religious community; our rites and our
+ceremonies are privileges open to all; we compel no one to attend them;
+all that we insist is that no one, by restless innovation or cynical
+contempt, should attempt to disturb the emotions of serene
+contemplation, distinguished courtesy, and artistic feeling, for which
+our society has been so long and justly celebrated."
+
+This was received with loud applause, indulgently checked by the
+President. Some witnesses were then called, who testified to the
+indifference and restlessness which I had on many occasions manifested.
+It was brought up against me that I had provoked a much-respected member
+of the community, Charmides, to utter some very treasonous and
+unpleasant language, and that it was believed that the rash and unhappy
+step, which he had lately taken, of leaving the place, had been entirely
+or mainly the result of my discontented and ill-advised suggestion.
+
+Then Lucius himself, wearing an air of extreme gravity and even
+despondency, was called, and a murmur of sympathy ran through the
+audience. Lucius, apparently struggling with deep emotion, said that he
+bore me no actual ill-will; that on my first arrival he had done his
+best to welcome me and make me feel at home; that it was probably known
+to all that I had been accompanied by an accomplished and justly popular
+lady, whom I had openly treated with scanty civility and undisguised
+contempt. That he had himself, under the laws of the place, contracted
+a close alliance with my unhappy protegee, and that their union had been
+duly accredited; but that I had lost no opportunity of attempting to
+undermine his happiness, and to maintain an unwholesome influence over
+her. That I had at last left the place myself, with a most uncivil
+abruptness; during the interval of absence my occupations were believed
+to have been of the most dubious character: it was more than suspected,
+indeed, that I had penetrated to places, the very name of which could
+hardly be mentioned without shame and consternation. That my associates
+had been persons of the vilest character and the most brutal
+antecedents; and at last, feeling in need of distraction, I had again
+returned with the deliberate intention of seducing his unhappy partner
+into accompanying me to one or other of the abandoned places I had
+visited. He added that Cynthia had been so much overcome by her emotion,
+and her natural compassion for an old acquaintance, that he had
+persuaded her not to subject herself to the painful strain of an
+appearance in public; but that for this action he threw himself upon the
+mercy of the Court, who would know that it was only dictated by
+chivalrous motives.
+
+At this there was subdued applause, and Lucius, after adding a few
+broken words to the effect that he lived only for the maintenance of
+order, peace, and happiness, and that he was devoted heart and soul to
+the best interests of the community, completely broke down, and was
+assisted from his place by friends.
+
+The whole thing was so malignant and ingenious a travesty of what had
+happened, that I was entirely at a loss to know what to say. The
+President, however, courteously intimated that though the case appeared
+to present a good many very unsatisfactory features, yet I was entirely
+at liberty to justify myself if I could, and, if not, to make
+submission; and added that I should be dealt with as leniently as
+possible.
+
+I summoned up my courage as well as I might. I began by saying that I
+claimed no more than the liberty of thought and action which I knew the
+Court desired to concede. I said that my arrival at the place was
+mysterious even to myself, and that I had simply acted under orders in
+accompanying Cynthia, and in seeing that she was securely bestowed. I
+said that I had never incited any rebellion, or any disobedience to laws
+of the scope of which I had never been informed. That I had indeed
+frankly discussed matters of general interest with any citizen who
+seemed to desire it; that I had been always treated with marked
+consideration and courtesy; and that, as far as I was aware, I had
+always followed the same policy myself. I said that I was sincerely
+attached to Cynthia, but added that, with all due respect, I could no
+longer consider myself a member of the community. I had transferred
+myself elsewhere under direct orders, with my own entire concurrence,
+and that I had since acted in accordance with the customs and
+regulations of the community to which I had been allotted. I went on to
+say that I had returned under the impression that my presence was
+desired by Cynthia, and that I must protest with all my power against
+the treatment I had received. I had been arrested and imprisoned with
+much violence and contumely, without having had any opportunity of
+hearing what my offence was supposed to have been, or having had any
+semblance of a trial, and that I could not consider that my usage had
+been consistent with the theory of courtesy, order, or justice so
+eloquently described by the President.
+
+This onslaught of mine produced an obvious revulsion in my favour. The
+President conferred hastily with his colleagues, and then said that my
+arrest had indeed been made upon the information of Lucius, and with the
+cognisance of the Court; but that he sincerely regretted that I had any
+complaint of unhandsome usage to make, and that the matter would be
+certainly inquired into. He then added that he understood from my words
+that I desired to make a complete submission, and that in that case I
+should be acquitted of any evil intentions. My fault appeared to be that
+I had yielded too easily to the promptings of an ill-balanced and
+speculative disposition, and that if I would undertake to disturb no
+longer the peace of the place, and to desist from all further tampering
+with the domestic happiness of a much-respected pair, I should be
+discharged with a caution, and indeed be admitted again to the
+privileges of orderly residence.
+
+"And I will undertake to say," he added, "that the kindness and courtesy
+of our community will overlook your fault, and make no further reference
+to a course of conduct which appears to have been misguided rather than
+deliberately malevolent. We have every desire not to disturb in any way
+the tranquillity which it is, above all things, our desire to maintain.
+May I conclude, then, that this is your intention?"
+
+"No, sir," I said, "certainly not! With all due respect to the Court,
+I cannot submit to the jurisdiction. The only privilege I claim is the
+privilege of an alien and a stranger, who in a perfectly peaceful
+manner, and with no seditious intent, has re-entered this land, and has
+thereupon been treated with gross and unjust violence. I do not for a
+moment contest the right of this community to make its own laws and
+regulations, but I do contest its right to fetter the thought and the
+liberty of speech of all who enter it. I make no submission. The Lady
+Cynthia came here under my protection, and if any undue influence has
+been used, it has been used by Lucius, whom I treated with a confidence
+he has abused. And I here appeal to a higher power and a higher court,
+which may indeed permit this unhappy community to make its own
+regulations, but will not permit any gross violation of elementary
+justice."
+
+I was carried away by great indignation in the course of my words, which
+had a very startling effect. A large number of the audience left the
+hall in haste. The judge grew white to the lips, whether with anger or
+fear I did not know, said a few words to his neighbour, and then with a
+great effort to control himself, said to me:
+
+"You put us, sir, by your words, in a very painful position. You do not
+know the conditions under which we live--that is evident--and
+intemperate language like yours has before now provoked an invasion of
+our peace of a most undesirable kind. I entreat you to calm yourself, to
+accept the apologies of the Court for the incidental and indeed
+unjustifiable violence with which you were treated. If you will only
+return to your own community, the nature of which I will not now stay to
+inquire, you may be assured that you will be conducted to our gates with
+the utmost honour. Will you pledge yourself as a gentleman, and, as I
+believe I am right in saying, as a Christian, to do this?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "upon one condition: that I may have an interview with
+the Lady Cynthia, and that she may be free to accompany me, if she
+wishes."
+
+The President was about to reply, when a sudden and unlooked-for
+interruption occurred. A man in a pearly-grey dress, with a cloak
+clasped with gold, came in at the end of the hall, and advanced with
+rapid steps and a curiously unconcerned air up the hall. The judges rose
+in their places with a hurried and disconcerted look. The stranger came
+up to me, tapped me on the shoulder, and bade me presently follow him.
+Then he turned to the President, and said in a clear, peremptory voice:
+
+"Dissolve the Court! Your powers have been grossly and insolently
+exceeded. See that nothing of this sort occurs again!" and then,
+ascending the dais, he struck the President with his open hand hard upon
+the cheek.
+
+The President gave a stifled cry and staggered in his place, and then,
+covering his face with his hands, went out at a door on the platform,
+followed by the rest of the Council in haste. Then the man came down
+again, and motioned me to follow him. I was not prepared for what
+happened. Outside in the square was a great, pale, silent crowd, in the
+most obvious and dreadful excitement and consternation. We went rapidly,
+in absolute stillness, through two lines of people, who watched us with
+an emotion I could not quite interpret, but it was something very like
+hatred.
+
+"Follow me quickly," said my guide; "do not look round!" and, as we
+went, I heard the crowd closing up in a menacing way behind us. But we
+walked straight forward, neither slowly nor hurriedly but at a
+deliberate pace, to the gateway which opened on the cliffs. At this
+point I saw a confusion in the crowd, as though some one were being kept
+back, and in the forefront of the throng, gesticulating and arguing,
+was Lucius himself, with his back to us. Just as we reached the gate I
+heard a cry; and from the crowd there ran Cynthia, with her hair
+unbound, in terror and faintness. Our guide opened the gate, and
+motioned us swiftly through, turning round to face the crowd, which now
+ran in upon us. I saw him wave his arm; and then he came quickly through
+the gate and closed it. He looked at us with a smile. "Don't be afraid,"
+he said; "that was a dangerous business. But they cannot touch us here."
+As he said the word, there burst from the gardens behind us a storm of
+the most hideous and horrible cries I had ever heard, like the howling
+of wild beasts. Cynthia clung to me in terror, and nearly swooned in my
+arms. "Never mind," said the guide; "they are disappointed, and no
+wonder. It was a near thing; but, poor creatures, they have no
+initiative; their life is not a fortifying one; and besides, they will
+have forgotten all about it to-morrow. Rut we had better not stop here.
+There is no use in facing disagreeable things, unless one is obliged."
+And he led the way down the valley.
+
+When we had got a little farther off, our guide told us to sit down and
+rest. Cynthia was still very much frightened, speechless with excitement
+and agitation, and, like all impulsive people, regretting her decision.
+I saw that it was useless to say anything to her at present. She sat
+wearily enough, her eyes closed, and her hands clasped. Our guide looked
+at me with a half-smile, and said:
+
+"That was rather an unpleasant business! It is astonishing how excited
+those placid and polite people can get if they think their privileges
+are being threatened. But really that Court was rather too much. They
+have tried it before with some success, and it is a clever trick. But
+they have had a lesson to-day, and it will not need to be repeated for a
+while."
+
+"You arrived just at the right moment," I said, "and I really cannot
+express how grateful I am to you for your help."
+
+"Oh," he said, "you were quite safe. It was just that touch of temper
+that saved you; but I was hard by all the time, to see that things did
+not go too far."
+
+"May I ask," I said, "exactly what they could have done to me, and what
+their real power is?"
+
+"They have none at all," he said. "They could not really have done
+anything to you, except imprison you. What helps them is not their own
+power, which is nothing, but the terror of their victims. If you had not
+been frightened when you were first attacked, they could not have
+overpowered you. It is all a kind of playacting, which they perform with
+remarkable skill. The Court was really an admirable piece of drama--they
+have a great gift for representation."
+
+"Do you mean to say," I said, "that they were actually aware that they
+had no sort of power to inflict any injury upon me?"
+
+"They could have made it very disagreeable for you," he said, "if they
+had frightened you, and kept you frightened. As long as that lasted,
+you would have been extremely uncomfortable. But as you saw, the moment
+you defied them they were helpless. The part played by Lucius was really
+unpardonable. I am afraid he is a great rascal."
+
+Cynthia faintly demurred to this. "Never mind," said the guide
+soothingly, "he has only shown you his good side, of course; and I don't
+deny that he is a very clever and attractive fellow. But he makes no
+progress, and I am really afraid that he will have to be transferred
+elsewhere; though there is indeed one hope for him."
+
+"Tell me what that is," said Cynthia faintly.
+
+"I don't think I need do that," said our friend, "you know better than
+I; and some day, I think, when you are stronger, you will find the way
+to release him."
+
+"Ah, you don't know him as I do," said Cynthia, and relapsed into
+silence; but did not withdraw her hand from mine.
+
+"Well," said our guide after a moment's pause, "I think I have done all
+I can for the time being, and I am wanted elsewhere."
+
+"But will you not advise me what to do next?" I said. "I do not see my
+way clear."
+
+"No," said the guide rather drily, "I am afraid I cannot do that. That
+lies outside my province. These delicate questions are not in my line. I
+will tell you plainly what I am. I am just a messenger, perhaps more
+like a policeman," he added, smiling, "than anything else. I just go and
+appear when I am wanted, if there is a row or a chance of one. Don't
+misunderstand me!" he said more kindly. "It is not from any lack of
+interest in you or our friend here. I should very much like to know what
+step you will take, but it is simply not my business: our duties here
+are very clearly defined, and I can just do my job, and nothing more."
+
+He made a courteous salute, and walked off without looking back, leaving
+on me the impression of a young military officer, perfectly courteous
+and reliable, not inclined to cultivate his emotions or to waste words,
+but absolutely effective, courageous, and dutiful.
+
+"Well," I said to Cynthia with a show of cheerfulness, "what shall we do
+next? Are you feeling strong enough to go on?"
+
+"I am sure I don't know," said Cynthia wearily. "Don't ask me. I have
+had a great fright, and I begin to wish I had stayed behind. How
+uncomfortable everything is! Why can one never have a moment's peace?
+There," she said to me, "don't be vexed, I am not blaming you; but I
+hated you for not showing more fight when those men set on you, and I
+hated Lucius for having done it; you must forgive me! I am sure you only
+did what was kind and right--but I have had a very trying time, and I
+don't like these bothers. Let me alone for a little, and I daresay I
+shall be more sensible."
+
+I sat by her in much perplexity, feeling singularly helpless and
+ineffective; and in a moment of weakness, not knowing what to do, I
+wished that Amroth were near me, to advise me; and to my relief saw him
+approaching, but also realised in a flash that I had acted wrongly, and
+that he was angry, as I had never seen him before.
+
+He came up to us, and bending down to Cynthia with great tenderness,
+took her hand, and said, "Will you stay here quietly a little, Cynthia,
+and rest? You are perfectly safe now, and no one will come near you. We
+two shall be close at hand; but we must have a talk together, and see
+what can be done."
+
+Cynthia smiled and released me. Amroth beckoned me to withdraw with him.
+When we had got out of earshot, he turned upon me very fiercely, and
+said, "You have made a great mess of this business."
+
+"I know it," I said feebly, "but I cannot for the life of me see where I
+was wrong."
+
+"You were wrong from beginning to end," he said. "Cannot you see that,
+whatever this place is, it is not a sentimental place? It is all this
+wretched sentiment that has done the mischief. Come," he added, "I have
+an unpleasant task before me, to unmask you to yourself. I don't like
+it, but I must do it. Don't make it harder for me."
+
+"Very good," I said, rather angrily too. "But allow me to say this
+first. This is a place of muddle. One is worked too hard, and shown too
+many things, till one is hopelessly confused. But I had rather have your
+criticism first, and then I will make mine."
+
+"Very well!" said Amroth facing me, looking at me fixedly with his blue
+eyes, and his nostrils a little distended. "The mischief lies in your
+temperament. You are precocious, and you are volatile. You have had
+special opportunities, and in a way you have used them well, but your
+head has been somewhat turned by your successes. You came to that place
+yonder, with Cynthia, with a sense of superiority. You thought yourself
+too good for it, and instead of just trying to see into the minds and
+hearts of the people you met, you despised them; instead of learning,
+you tried to teach. You took a feeble interest in Cynthia, made a pet of
+her; then, when I took you away, you forgot all about her. Even the
+great things I was allowed to show you did not make you humble. You took
+them as a compliment to your powers. And so when you had your chance to
+go back to help Cynthia, you thought out no plan, you asked no advice.
+You went down in a very self-sufficient mood, expecting that everything
+would be easy."
+
+"That is not true," I said. "I was very much perplexed."
+
+"It is only too true," said Amroth; "you enjoyed your perplexity; I
+daresay you called it faith to yourself! It was that which made you
+weak. You lost your temper with Lucius, you made a miserable fight of
+it--and even in prison you could not recognise that you were in fault.
+You did better at the trial--I fully admit that you behaved well
+there--but the fault is in this, that this girl gave you her heart and
+her confidence, and you despised them. Your mind was taken up with other
+things; a very little more, and you would be fit for the intellectual
+paradise. There," he said, "I have nearly done! You may be angry if you
+will, but that is the truth. You have a wrong idea of this place. It is
+not plain sailing here. Life here is a very serious, very intricate,
+very difficult business. The only complications which are removed are
+the complications of the body; but one has anxious and trying
+responsibilities all the same, and you have trifled with them. You must
+not delude yourself. You have many good qualities. You have some
+courage, much ingenuity, keen interests, and a good deal of
+conscientiousness; but you have the makings of a dilettante, the
+readiness to delude yourself that the particular little work you are
+engaged in is excessively and peculiarly important. You have got the
+proportion all wrong."
+
+I had a feeling of intense anger and bitterness at all this; but as he
+spoke, the scales seemed to fall from my eyes, and I saw that Amroth was
+right. I wrestled with myself in silence.
+
+Presently I said, "Amroth, I believe you are right, though I think at
+this moment that you have stated all this rather harshly. But I do see
+that it can be no pleasure to you to state it, though I fear I shall
+never regain my pleasure in your company."
+
+"There," said Amroth, "that is sentiment again!"
+
+This put me into a great passion.
+
+"Very well," I said, "I will say no more. Perhaps you will just be good
+enough to tell me what I am to do with Cynthia, and where I am to go,
+and then I will trouble you no longer."
+
+"Oh," said Amroth with a sneer, "I have no doubt you can find some very
+nice semidetached villas hereabouts. Why not settle down, and make the
+poor girl a little mote worthy of yourself?"
+
+At this I turned from him in great anger, and left him standing where he
+was. If ever I hated any one, I hated Amroth at that moment. I went back
+to Cynthia.
+
+"I have come back to you, dear," I said. "Can you trust me and go with
+me? No one here seems inclined to help us, and we must just help each
+other."
+
+At which Cynthia rose and flung herself into my arms.
+
+"That was what I wanted all along," she said, "to feel that I could be
+of use too. You will see how brave I can be. I can go anywhere with you
+and do anything, because I think I have loved you all the time."
+
+"And you must forgive me, Cynthia," I said, "as well. For I did not know
+till this moment that I loved you, but I know it now; and I shall love
+you to the end."
+
+As I said these words I turned, and saw Amroth smiling from afar; then
+with a wave of the hand to us, he turned and passed out of our sight.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+Left to ourselves, Cynthia and I sat awhile in silence, hand in hand,
+like children, she looking anxiously at me. Our talk had broken down all
+possible reserve between us; but what was strange to me was that I felt,
+not like a lover with any need to woo, but as though we two had long
+since been wedded, and had just come to a knowledge of each other's
+hearts. At last we rose; and strange and bewildering as it all was, I
+think I was perhaps happier at this time than at any other time in the
+land of light, before or after.
+
+And let me here say a word about these strange unions of soul that take
+place in that other land. There is there a whole range of affections,
+from courteous tolerance to intense passion. But there is a peculiar
+bond which springs up between pairs of people, not always of different
+sex, in that country. My relation with Amroth had nothing of that
+emotion about it. That was simply like a transcendental essence of
+perfect friendship; but there was a peculiar relation, between pairs of
+souls, which seems to imply some curious duality of nature, of which
+earthly passion is but a symbol. It is accompanied by an absolute
+clearness of vision into the inmost soul and being of the other.
+Cynthia's mind was as clear to me in those days as a crystal globe might
+be which one could hold in one's hand, and my mind was as clear to her.
+There is a sense accompanying it almost of identity, as if the other
+nature was the exact and perfect complement of one's own; I can explain
+this best by an image. Think of a sphere, let us say, of alabaster,
+broken into two pieces by a blow, and one piece put away or mislaid. The
+first piece, let us suppose, stands in its accustomed place, and the
+owner often thinks in a trivial way of having it restored. One day,
+turning over some lumber, he finds the other piece, and wonders if it
+is not the lost fragment. He takes it with him, and sees on applying it
+that the fractures correspond exactly, and that joined together the
+pieces complete the sphere.
+
+Even so did Cynthia's soul fit into mine. But I grew to understand later
+the words of the Gospel--"they neither marry nor are given in marriage."
+These unions are not permanent, any more than they are really permanent
+on earth. On earth, owing to material considerations such as children
+and property, a marriage is looked upon as indissoluble. But this takes
+no account of the development of souls; and indeed many of the unions of
+earth, the passion once over, do grow into a very noble and beautiful
+friendship. But sometimes, even on earth, it is the other way; and
+passion once extinct, two natures often realise their dissimilarities
+rather than their similarities; and this is the cause of much
+unhappiness. But in the other land, two souls may develop in quite
+different ways and at a different pace. And then this relation may also
+come quietly and simply to an end, without the least resentment or
+regret, and is succeeded invariably by a very tender and true
+friendship, each being sweetly and serenely content with all that has
+been given or received; and this friendship is not shaken or fretted,
+even if both of the lovers form new ties of close intimacy. Some natures
+form many of these ties, some few, some none at all. I believe that, as
+a matter of fact, each nature has its counterpart at all times, but does
+not always succeed in finding it. But the union, when it comes, seems to
+take precedence of all other emotions and all other work. I did not know
+this at the time; but I had a sense that my work was for a time over,
+because it seemed quite plain to me that as yet Cynthia was not in the
+least degree suited to the sort of work which I had been doing.
+
+We walked on together for some time, in a happy silence, though quiet
+communications of a blessed sort passed perpetually between us without
+any interchange of word. Our feet moved along the hillside, away from
+the crags, because I felt that Cynthia had no strength to climb them;
+and I wondered what our life would be.
+
+Presently a valley opened before us, folding quietly in among the hills,
+full of a golden haze; and it seemed to me that our further way lay down
+it. It fell softly and securely into a further plain, the country being
+quite unlike anything I had as yet seen--a land of high and craggy
+mountains, the lower parts of them much overgrown with woods; the valley
+itself widened out, and passed gently among the hills, with here and
+there a lake. Dotted all about the mountain-bases, at the edges of the
+woods, were little white houses, stone-walled and stone-tiled, with
+small gardens; and then the place seemed to become strangely familiar
+and homelike; and I became aware that I was coming home: the same
+thought occurred to Cynthia; and at last, when we turned a corner of
+the road, and saw lying a little back from the road a small house, with
+a garden in front of it, shaded by a group of sycamores, we darted
+forwards with a cry of delight to the home that was indeed our own. The
+door stood open as though we were certainly expected. It was the
+simplest little place, just a pair of rooms very roughly and plainly
+furnished. And there we embraced with tears of joy.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+The time that I spent in the valley home with Cynthia is the most
+difficult to describe of all my wanderings; because, indeed, there is
+nothing to describe. We were always together. Sometimes we wandered high
+up among the woods, and came out on the bleak mountain-heads. Sometimes
+we sat within and talked; and by a curious provision there were
+phenomena there that were more like changes of weather, and interchange
+of day and night, than at any other place in the heavenly country.
+Sometimes the whole valley would be shrouded with mists, sometimes it
+would be grey and overcast, sometimes the light was clear and radiant,
+but through it all there beat a pulse of light and darkness; and I do
+not know which was the more desirable--the hours when we walked in the
+forests, with the wind moving softly in the leaves overhead like a
+falling sea, or those calm and silent nights when we seemed to sleep and
+dream, or when, if I waked, I could hear Cynthia's breath coming and
+going evenly as the breath of a tired child. It seemed like the essence
+of human passion, the end that lovers desire, and discern faintly behind
+and beyond the accidents of sense and contact, like the sounding of a
+sweet chord, without satiety or fever of the sense.
+
+I learnt many strange and beautiful secrets of the human heart in those
+days: what the dreams of womanhood are--how wholly different from the
+dreams of man, in which there is always a combative element. The soul of
+Cynthia was like a silent cleft among the hills, which waits, in its own
+still content, until the horn of the shepherd winds the notes of a chord
+in the valley below; and then the cleft makes answer and returns an airy
+echo, blending the notes into a harmony of dulcet utterance. And she
+too, I doubt not, learnt something from my soul, which was eager and
+inventive enough, but restless and fugitive of purpose. And then there
+came a further joy to us. That which is fatherly and motherly in the
+world below is not a thing that is lost in heaven; and just as the love
+of man and woman can draw down and imprison a soul in a body of flesh,
+so in heaven the dear intention of one soul to another brings about a
+yearning, which grows day by day in intensity, for some further outlet
+of love and care.
+
+It was one quiet misty morning that, as we sat together in tranquil
+talk, we heard faltering steps within our garden. We had seen, let me
+say, very little of the other inhabitants of our valley. We had
+sometimes seen a pair of figures wandering at a distance, and we had
+even met neighbours and exchanged a greeting. But the valley had no
+social life of its own, and no one ever seemed, so far as we knew, to
+enter any other dwelling, though they met in quiet friendliness. Cynthia
+went to the door and opened it; then she darted out, and, just when I
+was about to follow, she returned, leading by the hand a tiny child, who
+looked at us with an air of perfect contentment and simplicity.
+
+"Where on earth has this enchanting baby sprung from?" said Cynthia,
+seating the child upon her lap, and beginning to talk to it in a
+strangely unintelligible language, which the child appeared to
+understand perfectly.
+
+I laughed. "Out of our two hearts, perhaps," I said. At which Cynthia
+blushed, and said that I did not understand or care for children. She
+added that men's only idea about children was to think how much they
+could teach them.
+
+"Yes," I said, "we will begin lessons to-morrow, and go on to the Latin
+Grammar very shortly."
+
+At which Cynthia folded the child in her arms, to defend it, and
+reassured it in a sentence which is far too silly to set down here.
+
+I think that sometimes on earth the arrival of a first child is a very
+trying time for a wedded pair. The husband is apt to find his wife's
+love almost withdrawn from him, and to see her nourishing all kinds of
+jealousies and vague ambitions for her child. Paternity is apt to be a
+very bewildered and often rather dramatic emotion. But it was not so
+with us. The child seemed the very thing we had been needing without
+knowing it. It was a constant source of interest and delight; and in
+spite of Cynthia's attempts to keep it ignorant and even fatuous, it did
+develop a very charming intelligence, or rather, as I soon saw, began to
+perceive what it already knew. It soon overwhelmed us with questions,
+and used to patter about the garden with me, airing all sorts of
+delicious and absurd fancies. But, for all that, it did seem to make an
+end of the first utter closeness of our love. Cynthia after this seldom
+went far afield, and I ranged the hills and woods alone; but it was all
+absurdly and continuously happy, though I began to wonder how long it
+could last, and whether my faculties and energies, such as they were,
+could continue thus unused. And I had, too, in my mind that other scene
+which I had beheld, of how the boy was withdrawn from the two old people
+in the other valley. Was it always thus, I wondered? Was it so, that
+souls were drawn upwards in ceaseless pilgrimage, loving and passing on,
+and leaving in the hearts of those who stayed behind a longing
+unassuaged, which was presently to draw them onwards from the peace
+which they loved perhaps too well?
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+The serene life came all to an end very suddenly, and with no warning.
+One day I had been sitting with Cynthia, and the child was playing on
+the floor with some little things--stones, bits of sticks, nuts--which
+it had collected. It was a mysterious game too, accompanied with much
+impressive talk and gesticulations, much emphatic lecturing of
+recalcitrant pebbles, with interludes of unaccountable laughter. We had
+been watching the child, when Cynthia leaned across to me and said:
+
+"There is something in your mind, dear, which I cannot quite see into.
+It has been there for a long time, and I have not liked to ask you about
+it. Won't you tell me what it is?"
+
+"Yes, of course," I said; "I will tell you anything I can."
+
+"It has nothing to do with me," said Cynthia, "nor with the child; it
+is about yourself, I think; and it is not altogether a happy thought."
+
+"It is not unhappy," I said, "because I am very happy and very
+well-content. It is just this, I think. You know, don't you, how I was
+being employed, before I came back, God be praised, to find you? I was
+being trained, very carefully and elaborately trained, I won't say to
+help people, but to be of use in a way. Well, I have been wondering why
+all that was suspended and cut short, just when I seemed to be finishing
+my training. I have been much happier here than I ever was before, of
+course. Indeed I have been so happy that I have sometimes thought it
+almost wrong that any one should have so much to enjoy. But I am
+puzzled, because the other work seems thrown away. If you wonder whether
+I want to leave our life here and go back to the other, of course I do
+not; but I have felt idle, and like a boy turned down from a high class
+at school to a low one."
+
+"That is not very complimentary to me!" said Cynthia, laughing. "Suppose
+we say a boy who has been working too hard for his health, and has been
+given a long holiday?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "that is better. It is as if a clerk was told that he
+need not attend his office, but stay at home; and though it is pleasant
+enough, he feels as if he ought to be at his work, that he appreciates
+his home all the more when he can't sit reading the paper all the
+morning, and that he does not love his home less, but rather more,
+because he is away all the day."
+
+"Yes," said Cynthia, "that is sensible enough; and I am amazed sometimes
+that you can be so good and patient about it all--so content to be so
+much with me and baby here; but I don't think it is quite--what shall I
+say?--quite healthy either!"
+
+"Well," I said, "I have no wish to change; and here, I am glad to think,
+there is never any doubt about what one is meant to do."
+
+And so the subject dropped.
+
+How little I thought then that this was to be the end of the old scene,
+and that the curtain was to draw up so suddenly upon a new one.
+
+But the following morning I had been wandering contentedly enough in the
+wood, watching the shafts of light strike in among the trees, upon the
+glittering fronds of the ferns, and thinking idly of all my strange
+experiences. I came home, and to my surprise, as I came to the door,
+I heard talk going on inside. I went hastily in, and saw that Cynthia
+was not alone. She was sitting, looking very grave and serious, and
+wonderfully beautiful--her beauty had grown and increased in a
+marvellous way of late. And there were two men, one sitting in a chair
+near her and regarding her with a look of love; it was Lucius; and I saw
+at a glance that he was strangely changed. He had the same spirited and
+mirthful look as of old, but there was something there which I had
+never seen before--the look of a man who had work of his own, and had
+learned something of the perplexity and suffering of responsibility. The
+other was Amroth, who was looking at the two with an air of
+irrepressible amusement. When I entered, Lucius rose, and Amroth said to
+me:
+
+"Here I am again, you see, and wondering whether you can regain the
+pleasure you once were kind enough to take in my company?"
+
+"What nonsense!" I said rather shamefacedly. "How often have I blushed
+in secret to think of that awful remark. But I was rather harried, you
+must admit."
+
+Amroth came across to me and put his arm through mine.
+
+"I forgive you," he said, "and I will admit that I was very provoking;
+but things were in a mess, and, besides, it was very inconvenient for me
+to be called away at that moment from my job!"
+
+But Lucius came up to me and said:
+
+"I have come to apologise to you. My behaviour was hideous and horrible.
+I won't make any excuses, and I don't suppose you can ever forget what I
+did. I was utterly and entirely in the wrong."
+
+"Thank you, Lucius," I said. "But please say no more about it. My own
+behaviour on that occasion was infamous too. And really we need not go
+back on all that. The whole affair has become quite an agreeable
+reminiscence. It is a pleasure, when it is all over, to have been
+thoroughly and wholesomely shown up, and to discover that one has been a
+pompous and priggish ass. And you and Amroth between you did me that
+blessed turn. I am not quite sure which of you I hated most. But I may
+say one thing, and that is that I am heartily glad to see you have left
+the land of delight."
+
+"It was a tedious place really," said Lucius, "but one felt bound in
+honour to make the best of it. But indeed after that day it was
+horrible. And I wearied for a sight of Cynthia! But you seem to have
+done very well for yourselves here. May I venture to say frankly how
+well she is looking, and you too? But I am not going to interrupt you.
+I have got my billet, I am thankful to say. It is not a very exalted one,
+but it is better than I deserve; and I shall try to make up for wasted
+time."
+
+"Hear, hear!" said Amroth; "a very creditable sentiment, to be sure!"
+
+Lucius smiled and blushed. Then he said:
+
+"I never was much of a hand at expressing myself correctly; but you know
+what I mean. Don't take the wind out of my sails!"
+
+And then Amroth turned to me, and said suddenly:
+
+"And now I have something else to tell you, and not wholly good news; so
+I will just say it at once, without beating about the bush. You are to
+come with us too."
+
+Cynthia looked up suddenly with a glance of pale inquiry. Amroth took
+her hand.
+
+"No, dear child," he said, "you are not to accompany him. You must stay
+here awhile, until the child is grown. But don't look like that! There
+is no such thing as separation here, or anywhere. Don't make it harder
+for us all. It is unpleasant of course; but, good heavens, what would
+become of us all if it were not for that! How dull we should be without
+suffering!"
+
+"Yes, yes," said Cynthia, "I know--and I will say nothing against it.
+But--" and she burst into tears.
+
+"Come, come," said Amroth cheerfully, "we must not go back to the old
+days, and behave as if there were partings and funerals. I will give you
+five minutes alone to say good-bye. Lucius, we must start," and, turning
+to me, he said, "Meet us in five minutes by the oak-tree in the road."
+
+They went out, Lucius kissing Cynthia's hand in silence.
+
+Cynthia came up to me and put her arms round my neck and her cheek to
+mine. We sobbed, I fear, like two children.
+
+"Don't forget me, dearest," she said.
+
+"My darling, what a word!" I said.
+
+"Oh, how happy we have been together!" she said.
+
+"Yes, and shall be happier still," I said.
+
+And then with more words and signs of love, too sacred even to be
+written down, we parted. It was over. I looked back once, and saw my
+darling gather the child to her heart, and look up once more at me. Then
+I closed the door; something seemed to surge up in my heart and
+overwhelm me; and then the ring on my finger sent a sharp pang through
+my whole frame, which recalled me to myself. And I say it with all the
+strength of my spirit, I saw how joyful a thing it was to suffer and
+grieve. I came down to the oak. The two were waiting in silence, and
+Lucius seemed to be in tears. Amroth put his arm through mine.
+
+"Come, brother," he said, "that was a bad business; I won't pretend
+otherwise; but these things had better come swiftly."
+
+"Yes," said Lucius, "but it is a cruel affair, and I can't say
+otherwise. Why cannot God leave us alone?"
+
+"Lucius," said Amroth very gravely, "here you may say and think as you
+will--and the thoughts of the heart are best uttered. But one must not
+blaspheme."
+
+"No, no," said Lucius, "I was wrong. I ought not to have spoken so. And
+indeed I know in my heart that somehow, far off, it is well. But I was
+thinking," he said, turning to me, and grasping my hand in both of his
+own, "not of you, but of Cynthia. I am glad with all my heart that you
+took her from me, and have made her happy. But what miserable creatures
+we all are; and how much more miserable we should be if we were not
+miserable!"
+
+And then we started. It was a dreary hour that, full of deep and gnawing
+pain. I pictured to myself Cynthia at every moment, what she was doing
+and thinking; how swiftly the good days had flown; how perfectly happy
+I had been; and so my wretched silent reverie went on.
+
+"I must say," said Amroth at length, breaking a dismal silence, "that
+this is very tedious. Can't you take some interest? I have very
+disagreeable things to do, but that is no reason why I should be bored
+as well!" And he then set himself to talk with much zest of all my old
+friends and companions, telling me how each was faring. Charmides, it
+seemed, had become a very accomplished architect and designer; Philip
+was a teacher at the College. And he went on until, in spite of my
+heaviness, I felt the whole of life beginning to widen and vibrate all
+about me, and a sense almost of shame creeping into my mind that I had
+become so oblivious of all the other friendships and relations I had
+formed. I forced myself to talk and to ask questions, and found myself
+walking more briskly. It was not very long before we parted with Lucius.
+He was left at the doors of a great barrack-like like building, and
+Amroth told me he was to be employed as an officer, very much in the
+same way as the young man who was sent to conduct me away from the
+trial; and I felt what a good officer Lucius would make--smart, prompt,
+polite, and not in the least sentimental.
+
+So we went on together rather gloomily; and then Amroth let me look for
+a little deep into his heart; and I saw that it was filled with a kind
+of noble pity for me in my suffering; but behind the pity lay that
+blissful certainty which made Amroth so light-hearted, that it was just
+so, through suffering, that one became wise; and he could no more think
+of it as irksome or sad than a jolly undergraduate thinks of the
+training for a race or the rowing in the race as painful, but takes it
+all with a kind of high-hearted zest, and finds even the nervousness an
+exciting thing, life lived at high pressure in a crowded hour.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+And thus we came ourselves to a new place, though I took but little note
+of all we passed, for my mind was bent inward upon itself and upon
+Cynthia. The place was a great solid stone building, in many courts,
+with fine tree-shaded fields all about; a school, it seemed to me, with
+boys and girls going in and out, playing games together. Amroth told me
+that children were bestowed here who had been of naturally fine and
+frank dispositions, but who had lived their life on earth under foul and
+cramped conditions, by which they had been fretted rather than tainted.
+It seemed a very happy and busy place. Amroth took me into a great room
+that seemed a sort of library or common-room. There was no one there,
+and I was glad to sit and rest; when suddenly the door opened, and a man
+came in with outstretched hands and a smile of welcome. I looked up,
+and it was none but the oldest and dearest friend of my last life, who
+had died before me. He had been a teacher, a man of the simplest and
+most guileless life, whose whole energy and delight was given to
+teaching and loving the young. The surprising thing about him had always
+been that he could meet one, after a long silence or a suspension of
+intercourse, as simply and easily as if one had but left him the day
+before; and it was just the same here. There was no effusiveness of
+greeting--we just fell at once into the old familiar talk.
+
+"You are just the same," I said to him, looking at the burly figure, the
+big, almost clumsy, head, and the irradiating smile. His great charm had
+always been an entire unworldliness and absence of ambition.
+
+He smiled at this and said:
+
+"Yes, I am afraid I am too easy-going." He had never cared to talk about
+himself, and now he said, "Well, yes, I go along in my old prosy way.
+It is just like the old schooldays, with half the difficulties gone. Of
+course the children are not always good, but that makes it the more
+amusing; and one can see much more easily what they are thinking of and
+dreaming about."
+
+I found myself telling him my adventures, which he heard with the same
+quiet attention and I was sure that he would never forget a single
+point--he never forgot anything in the old days.
+
+"Yes," he said at the end, "that's a wonderful story. You always had the
+trouble of the adventures, and I had the fun of hearing them."
+
+He asked me what I was now going to do, and I said that I had not the
+least idea.
+
+"Oh, that will be all right," he said.
+
+It was all so comfortable and simple, so obvious indeed, that I laughed
+to think of the bitter and miserable reveries I had indulged in when he
+was taken from me, and when the stay of my life seemed gone. The whole
+incident seemed to give me back a touch of the serenity which I had
+lost, and I saw how beautifully this joy of meeting had been planned for
+me, when I wanted it most. Presently he said that he must go off for a
+lesson, and asked me to come with him and see the children. We went into
+a big class-room, where some boys and girls were assembling. Here he was
+exactly the same as ever; no sentiment, but just a kind of bluff
+paternal kindness. The lesson was most informal--a good deal of
+questioning and answering; it was a biographical lecture, but devoted,
+I saw, in a simple way, to tracing the development of the hero's
+character. "What made him do that?" was a constant question. The answers
+were most ingenious and extraordinarily lively; but the order was
+perfect. At the end he called up two or three children who had shown
+some impatience or jealousy in the lesson, and said a few half-humorous
+words to them, with an air of affectionate interest.
+
+"They are jolly little creatures," he said when they had all gone out.
+
+"Yes," I said, with a sigh, "I do indeed envy you. I wish I could be set
+to something of the kind."
+
+"Oh, no, you don't," he said; "this is too simple for you! You want
+something more artistic and more psychological. This would bore you to
+extinction."
+
+We walked all round the place, saw the games going on, and were
+presently joined by Amroth, who seemed to be on terms of old
+acquaintanceship with my friend. I was surprised at this, and he said:
+
+"Why, yes, Amroth had the pleasure of bringing me here too. Things are
+done here in groups, you know; and Amroth knows all about our lot. It is
+very well organised, much better than one perceives at first. You
+remember how you and I drifted to school together, and the set of boys
+we found ourselves with--my word, what young ruffians some of us were!
+Well, of course all that had been planned, though we did not know it."
+
+"What!" said I; "the evil as well as the good?"
+
+The two looked at each other and smiled.
+
+"That is not a very real distinction," said Amroth. "Of course the poor
+bodies got in the way, as always; there was some fizzing and some
+precipitation, as they say in chemistry. But you each of you gave and
+received just what you were meant to give and receive; though these are
+complicated matters, like the higher mathematics; and we must not talk
+of them to-day. If one can escape the being shocked at things and yet be
+untainted by them, and, on the other hand, if one can avoid pomposity
+and yet learn self-respect, that is enough. But you are tired to-day,
+and I want you just to rest and be refreshed."
+
+Presently Amroth asked me if I should like to stay there awhile, and I
+most willingly consented.
+
+"You want something to do," he said, "and you shall have some light
+employment."
+
+That same day, before Amroth left me, I had a curious talk with him.
+
+I said to him: "Let me ask you one question. I had always had a sort of
+hope that when I came to the land of spirits, I should have a chance of
+seeing and hearing something of some of the great souls of earth. I had
+dimly imagined a sort of reception, where one could wander about and
+listen to the talk of the men one had admired and longed to see--Plato,
+let me say, and Shakespeare, Walter Scott, and Shelley--some of the
+immortals. But I don't seem to have seen anything of them--only just
+ordinary and simple people."
+
+Amroth laughed.
+
+"You do say the most extraordinarily ingenuous things," he said. "In the
+first place, of course, we have quite a different scale of values here.
+People do not take rank by their accomplishments, but by their power of
+loving. Many of the great men of earth--and this is particularly the
+case with writers and artists--are absolutely nothing here. They had, it
+is true, a fine and delicate brain, on which they played with great
+skill; but half the artists of the world are great as artists, simply
+because they do not care. They perceive and they express; but they would
+not have the heart to do it at all, if they really cared. Some of them,
+no doubt, were men of great hearts, and they have their place and work.
+But to claim to see all the highest spirits together is as absurd as if
+you called on a doctor in London at eleven o'clock and expected to meet
+all the great physicians at his house, intent on general conversation.
+Some of the great people, indeed, you have met, and they were very
+simple persons on earth. The greatest person you have hitherto seen was
+a butler on earth--the master of your College. And if it does not shock
+your aristocratic susceptibilities too much, the President of this place
+kept a small shop in a country village. But one of the teachers here
+was actually a marquis in the world! Does that uplift you? He teaches
+the little girls how to play cricket, and he is a very good dancer.
+Perhaps you would like to be introduced to him?"
+
+"Don't treat me as a child," I said, rather pettishly.
+
+"No, no," said Amroth, "it isn't that. But you are one of those
+impressible people; and they always find it harder to disentangle
+themselves from the old ideas."
+
+I spent a long and happy time in the school. I was given a little
+teaching to do, and found it perfectly enchanting. Imagine children with
+everything greedy and sensual gone, with none of the crossness or
+spitefulness that comes of fatigue or pressure, but with all the
+interesting passions of humanity, admiration, keenness, curiosity, and
+even jealousy, emulation, and anger, all alive and active in them. They
+were not angelic children at all, neither meek nor mild. But they were
+generous and affectionate, and it was easy to evoke these feelings. The
+one thing absent from the whole place was any touch of sentimentality,
+which arises from natural affections suppressed into a giggling kind of
+secrecy. They expressed affection loudly and frankly, just as they
+expressed indignation and annoyance. All the while I kept Cynthia in my
+heart; she was ever before me in a thousand sweet postures and with
+innumerable glances. But I saw much of my sturdy and wholesome-minded
+old friend; and the sore pain of parting faded away out of my heart, and
+left me with nothing but the purest and deepest love, which helped me in
+all I did or said, and made me patient and tender-hearted. And thus the
+period sped not unhappily away, though I had my times of agony and
+despair.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+I became aware at this time, very gradually and even solemnly, that some
+crisis of my life was approaching. How the monition came to me I hardly
+know; I felt like a man wandering in the dark, with eyes strained and
+hands outstretched, who is dimly aware of some great object, tree or
+haystack or house, looming up ahead of him, which he cannot directly
+see, but of which he is yet conscious by the vibration of some sixth
+sense. The wonder came by degrees to overshadow my thoughts with a sense
+of expectant awe, and to permeate all the urgent concerns of my life
+with its shadowy presence. Even the thought of Cynthia, who indeed was
+always in my mind, became obscured with the dimness of this obscure
+anticipation.
+
+One day Amroth stood beside me as I worked; he was very grave and
+serious, but with a joyful kind of courage about him. I pushed my books
+and papers away, and rose to greet him, saying half-unconsciously, and
+just putting my thought into words:
+
+"So it has come!"
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "it has come! I have known it for some little time,
+and my thought has mingled with yours. I tell you frankly that I did
+not quite expect it; but one never knows here. You must come with me at
+once. You are to see the last mystery; and though I am glad for your
+sake that it is come, yet I tremble for you, because it is unlike any
+other experience; and one can never be the same again."
+
+I felt myself oppressed by a sudden terror of darkness, but, half to
+reassure myself, I answered lightly:
+
+"But it does not seem to have affected you, Amroth! You are always
+light-hearted and cheerful, and not overshadowed by any dark or gloomy
+thoughts."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Amroth hurriedly. "It is easy enough, when it is once
+over. Nothing that is behind one matters; but this is a thing that one
+cannot jest about. Of course there is nothing to fear; but to be brought
+face to face with the greatest thing in the world is not a light matter.
+Let me say this. I am to be with you all through; and my only word to
+you is that you must do exactly what I tell you, and at once, without
+any doubting or flinching. Then all will be well! But we must not delay.
+Come at once, and keep your mind perfectly quiet."
+
+We went out together; and there seemed to have fallen a sense of gravity
+over all whom we met. My companions did not speak to me as we walked
+out, but stood aside to see me pass, and even looked at me, I thought,
+with an air half of reverence, half of a sort of natural compassion, as
+one might watch a dear friend go to be tried for his life.
+
+We came out of the door, and found, it seemed to me, an unusual
+stillness everywhere. The wind, which often blew high on the bare moor,
+had dropped. We took a path, which I had never seen, which struck off
+over the hills. We walked for a long time, almost in silence. But I
+could not bear the strange curiosity which was straining at my heart,
+and I said presently to Amroth:
+
+"Give me some idea what I am to see or to endure. Is it some judgment
+which I am to face, or am I to suffer pain? I would rather know the best
+and the worst of it."
+
+"It is everything," said Amroth; "you are to see God. All is comprised
+in that."
+
+His words fell with a shocking distinctness in the calm air, and I felt
+my heart and limbs fail me, and a dizziness came over my mind. Hardly
+knowing what I did or said, I came to a stop.
+
+"But I did not know that it was possible," I said. "I thought that God
+was everywhere--within us, about us, beyond us? How can that be?"
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "God is indeed everywhere, and no place contains
+Him; neither can any of us see or comprehend Him. I cannot explain
+it; but there is a centre, so to speak, near to which the unclean
+and the evil cannot come, where the fire of His thought burns the
+hottest.... Oh," he said, "neither word nor thought is of any use here;
+you will see what you will see!"
+
+Perhaps the hardest thing I had to bear in all my wanderings was the
+sight of Amroth's own fear. It was unmistakable. His spirit seemed
+prepared for it, perfectly courageous and sincere as it was; but there
+was a shuddering awe upon him, for all that, which infected me with an
+extremity of terror. Was it that he thought me unequal to the
+experience? I could not tell. But we walked as men dragging themselves
+into some fiery and dreadful martyrdom.
+
+Again I could not bear it, and I cried out suddenly:
+
+"But, Amroth, He is Love; and we can enter without fear into the
+presence of Love!"
+
+"Have you not yet guessed," said Amroth sternly, "how terrible Love can
+be? It is the most terrible thing in the world, because it is the
+strongest. If Death is dreadful, what must that be which is stronger
+than Death? Come, let us be silent, for we are near the place, and this
+is no time for words;" and then he added with a look of the deepest
+compassion and tenderness, "I wish I could speak differently, brother,
+at this hour; but I am myself afraid."
+
+And at that we gave up all speech, and only our thoughts sprang together
+and intertwined, like two children that clasp each other close in a
+burning house, when the smoke comes volleying from the door.
+
+We were coming now to what looked like a ridge of rocks ahead of us; and
+I saw here a wonderful thing, a great light of incredible pureness and
+whiteness, which struck upwards from the farther side. This began to
+light up our own pale faces, and to throw our backs into a dark shadow,
+even though the radiance of the heavenly day was all about us. And at
+last we came to the place.
+
+It was the edge of a precipice so vast, so stupendous, that no word can
+even dimly describe its depth; it was all illuminated with incredible
+clearness by the light which struck upwards from below. It was
+absolutely sheer, great pale cliffs of white stone running downwards
+into the depth. To left and right the precipice ran, with an irregular
+outline, so that one could see the cliff-fronts gleam how many millions
+of leagues below! There seemed no end to it. But at a certain point far
+down in the abyss the light seemed stronger and purer. I was at first so
+amazed by the sight that I gazed in silence. Then a dreadful dizziness
+came over me, and I felt Amroth's hand put round me to sustain me. Then
+in a faint whisper, that was almost inaudible, Amroth, pointing with his
+finger downwards, said:
+
+"Watch that place where the light seems clearest."
+
+I did so. Suddenly there came, as from the face of the cliff, a thing
+like a cloudy jet of golden steam. It passed out into the clear air,
+shaping itself in strange and intricate curves; then it grew darker in
+colour, hung for an instant like a cloud of smoke, and then faded into
+the sky.
+
+"What is that?" I said, surprised out of my terror.
+
+"I may tell you that," said Amroth, "that you may know what you see.
+There is no time here; and you have seen a universe made, and live its
+life, and die. You have seen the worlds created. That cloud of whirling
+suns, each with its planets, has taken shape before your eyes; life has
+arisen there, has developed; men like ourselves have lived, have
+wrestled with evil, have formed states, have died and vanished. That is
+all but a single thought of God."
+
+Another came, and then another of the golden jets, each fading into
+darkness and dispersing.
+
+"And now," said Amroth, "the moment has come. You are to make the last
+sacrifice of the soul. Do not shrink back, fear nothing. Leap into the
+abyss!"
+
+The thought fell upon me with an infinity and an incredulity of horror
+that I cannot express in words. I covered my eyes with my hands.
+
+"Oh, I cannot, I cannot," I said; "anything but this! God be merciful;
+let me go rather to some infinite place of torment where at least I may
+feel myself alive. Do not ask this of me!"
+
+Amroth made no answer, and I saw that he was regarding me fixedly,
+himself pale to the lips; but with a touch of anger and even of
+contempt, mixed with a world of compassion and love. There was something
+in this look which seemed to entreat me mutely for my own sake and his
+own to act. I do not know what the impulse was that came to
+me--self-contempt, trust, curiosity, the yearning of love. I closed my
+eyes, I took a faltering step, and stumbled, huddling and aghast, over
+the edge. The air flew up past me with a sort of shriek; I opened my
+eyes once, and saw the white cliffs speeding past. Then an
+unconsciousness came over me and I knew no more.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+I came to myself very gradually and dimly, with no recollection at first
+of what had happened. I was lying on my back on some soft grassy place,
+with the air blowing cool over me. I thought I saw Amroth bending over
+me with a look of extraordinary happiness, and felt his arm about me;
+but again I became unconscious, yet all the time with a blissfulness of
+repose and joy, far beyond what I had experienced at my first waking on
+the sunlit sea. Again life dawned upon me. I was there, I was myself.
+What had happened to me? I could not tell. So I lay for a long time half
+dreaming and half swooning; till at last life seemed to come back
+suddenly to me, and I sat up. Amroth was holding me in his arms close to
+the spot from which I had sprung.
+
+"Have I been dreaming?" I said. "Was it here? and when? I cannot
+remember. It seems impossible, but was I told to jump down? What has
+happened to me? I am confused."
+
+"You will know presently," said Amroth, in a tone from which all the
+fear seemed to have vanished. "It is all over, and I am thankful. Do not
+try to recollect; it will come back to you presently. Just rest now; you
+have been through strange things."
+
+Suddenly a thought began to shape itself in my mind, a thought of
+perfect and irresistible joy.
+
+"Yes," I said, "I remember now. We were afraid, both of us, and you told
+me to leap down. But what was it that I saw, and what was it that was
+told me? I cannot recall it. Oh," I said at last, "I know now; it comes
+back to me. I fell, in hideous cowardice and misery. The wind blew
+shrill. I saw the cliffs stream past; then I was unconscious, I think.
+I seem to have died; but part of me was not dead. My flight was stayed,
+and I floated out somewhere. I was joined to something that was like
+both fire and water in one. I was seen and known and understood and
+loved, perfectly and unutterably and for ever. But there was pain,
+somewhere, Amroth! How was that? I am sure there was pain."
+
+"Of course, dear child," said Amroth, "there was pain, because there was
+everything."
+
+"But," I said, "I cannot understand yet; why was that terrible leap
+demanded of me? And why did I confront it with such abject cowardice and
+dismay? Surely one need not go stumbling and cowed into the presence of
+God?"
+
+"There is no other way," said Amroth; "you do not understand how
+terrible perfect love is. It is because it is perfect that it is
+terrible. Our own imperfect love has some weakness in it. It is mixed
+with pleasure, and then it is not a sacrifice; one gives as much of
+oneself as one chooses; one is known just so far as one wishes to be
+known. But here with God there must be no concealment--though even there
+a man can withhold his heart from God--God never uses compulsion; and
+the will can prevail even against Him. But the reason of the leap that
+must be taken is this: it is the last surrender, and it cannot be made
+on our terms and conditions; it must be absolute. And what I feared for
+you was not anything that would happen if you did commit yourself to
+God, but what would happen if you did not; for, of course, you could
+have resisted, and then you would have had to begin again."
+
+I was silent for a little, and then I said: "I remember now more
+clearly, but did I really see Him? It seems so absolutely simple.
+Nothing happened. I just became one with the heart and life of the
+world; I came home at last. Yet how am I here? How is it I was not
+merged in light and life?"
+
+"Ah," said Amroth, "it is the new birth. You can never be the same
+again. But you are not yet lost in Him. The time for that is not yet.
+It is a mystery; but as yet God works outward, radiates energy and force
+and love; the time will come when all will draw inward again, and be
+merged in Him. But the world is as yet in its dawning. The rising sun
+scatters light and heat, and the hot and silent noon is yet to come;
+then the shadows move eastward, and after that comes the waning sunset
+and the evening light, and last of all the huge and starlit peace of the
+night."
+
+"But," I said, "if this is really so, if I have been gathered close to
+God's heart, why is it that instead of feeling stronger, I only feel
+weak and unstrung? I have indeed an inner sense of peace and happiness,
+but I have no will or purpose of my own that I can discern."
+
+"That," said Amroth, "is because you have given up all. The sense of
+strength is part of our weakness. Our plans, our schemes, our ambitions,
+all the things that make us enjoy and hope and arrange, are but signs
+of our incompleteness. Your will is still as molten metal, it has borne
+the fierce heat of inner love; and this has taken all that is hard and
+stubborn and complacent out of you--for a time. But when you return to
+the life of the body, as you will return, there will be this great
+difference in you. You will have to toil and suffer, and even sin. But
+there will be one thing that you will not do: you will never be
+complacent or self-righteous, you will not judge others hardly. You will
+be able to forgive and to make allowances; you will concern yourself
+with loving others, not with trying to improve them up to your own
+standard. You will wish them to be different, but you will not condemn
+them for being different; and hereafter the lives you live on earth will
+be of the humblest. You will have none of the temptations of authority,
+or influence, or ambition again--all that will be far behind you. You
+will live among the poor, you will do the most menial and commonplace
+drudgery, you will have none of the delights of life. You will be
+despised and contemned for being ugly and humble and serviceable and
+meek. You will be one of those who will be thought to have no spirit to
+rise, no power of making men serve your turn. You will miss what are
+called your chances, you will be a failure; but you will be trusted and
+loved by children and simple people; they will depend upon you, and you
+will make the atmosphere in which you live one of peace and joy. You
+will have selfish employers, tyrannical masters, thankless children
+perhaps, for whom you will slave lovingly. They will slight you and even
+despise you, but their hearts will turn to you again and again, and
+yours will be the face that they will remember when they come to die, as
+that of the one person who loved them truly and unquestioningly. That
+will be your destiny; one of utter obscurity and nothingness upon earth.
+Yet each time, when you return hither, your work will be higher and
+holier, and nearer to the heart of God. And now I have said enough; for
+you have seen God, as I too saw Him long ago; and our hope is
+henceforward the same."
+
+"Yes," I said to Amroth, "I am content. I had thought that I should be
+exalted and elated by my privileges; but I have no thought or dream of
+that. I only desire to go where I am sent, to do what is desired of me.
+I have laid my burden down."
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+Presently Amroth rose, and said that we must be going onward.
+
+"And now," he said, "I have a further thing to tell you, and that is
+that I have very soon to leave you. To bring you hither was the last of
+my appointed tasks, and my work is now done. It is strange to remember
+how I bore you in my arms out of life, like a little sleeping child, and
+how much we have been together."
+
+"Do not leave me now," I said to Amroth. "There seems so much that I
+have to ask you. And if your work with me is done, where are you now
+going?"
+
+"Where am I going, brother?" said Amroth. "Back to life again, and
+immediately. And there is one thing more that is permitted, and that is
+that you should be with me to the last. Strange that I should have
+attended you here, to the very crown and sum of life, and that you
+should now attend me where I am going! But so it is."
+
+"And what do you feel about it?" I said.
+
+"Oh," said Amroth, "I do not like it, of course. To be so free and
+active here, and to be bound again in the body, in the close, suffering,
+ill-savoured house of life! But I have much to gain by it. I have a
+sharpness of temper and a peremptoriness--of which indeed," he said,
+smiling, "you have had experience. I am fond of doing things in my own
+way, inconsiderate of others, and impatient if they do not go right. I
+am hard, and perhaps even vulgar. But now I am going like a board to the
+carpenter, to have some of my roughness planed out of me, and I hope to
+do better."
+
+"Well," I said, "I am too full of wonder and hope just now to be alarmed
+for you. I could even wish I were myself departing. But I have a desire
+to see Cynthia again."
+
+"Yes," said Amroth, "and you will see her; but you will not be long
+after me, brother; comfort yourself with that!"
+
+We walked a little farther across the moorland, talking softly at
+intervals, till suddenly I discerned a solitary figure which was
+approaching us swiftly.
+
+"Ah," said Amroth, "my time has indeed come. I am summoned."
+
+He waved his hand to the man, who came up quickly and even breathlessly,
+and handed Amroth a sealed paper. Amroth tore it open, read it
+smilingly, gave a nod to the officer, saying "Many thanks." The officer
+saluted him; he was a brisk young man, with a fresh air; and he then,
+without a word, turned from us and went over the moorland.
+
+"Come," said Amroth, "let us descend. You can do this for yourself now;
+you do not need my help." He took my hand, and a mist enveloped us.
+Suddenly the mist broke up and streamed away. I looked round me in
+curiosity.
+
+We were standing in a very mean street of brick-built houses, with
+slated roofs; over the roofs we could see a spire, and the chimneys of
+mills, spouting smoke. The houses had tiny smoke-dried gardens in front
+of them. At the end of the street was an ugly, ill-tended field, on
+which much rubbish lay. There were some dirty children playing about,
+and a few women, with shawls over their heads, were standing together
+watching a house opposite. The window of an upper room was open, and out
+of it came cries and moans.
+
+"It's going very badly with her," said one of the women, "poor soul; but
+the doctor will be here soon. She was about this morning too. I had a
+word with her, and she was feeling very bad. I said she ought to be in
+bed, but she said she had her work to do first."
+
+The women glanced at the window with a hushed sort of sympathy. A young
+woman, evidently soon to become a mother, looked pale and apprehensive.
+
+"Will she get through?" she said timidly.
+
+"Oh, don't you fear, Sarah," said one of the women, kindly enough. "She
+will be all right. Bless you, I've been through it five times myself,
+and I am none the worse. And when it's over she'll be as comfortable as
+never was. It seems worth it then."
+
+A man suddenly turned the corner of the street; he was dressed in a
+shabby overcoat with a bowler hat, and he carried a bag in his hand. He
+came past us. He looked a busy, overtried man, but he had a
+good-humoured air. He nodded pleasantly to the women. One said:
+
+"You are wanted badly in there, doctor."
+
+"Yes," he said cheerfully, "I am making all the haste I can. Where's
+John?"
+
+"Oh, he's at work," said the woman. "He didn't expect it to-day. But
+he's better out of the way: he 'd be no good; he'd only be interfering
+and grumbling; but I'll come across with you, and when it's over, I'll
+just run down and tell him."
+
+"That's right," said the doctor, "come along--the nurse will be round
+in a minute; and I can make things easy meantime."
+
+Strange to say, it had hardly dawned upon me what was happening. I
+turned to Amroth, who stood there smiling, but a little pale, his arm in
+mine; fresh and upright, with his slim and graceful limbs, his bright
+curled hair, a strange contrast to the slatternly women and the
+heavily-built doctor.
+
+"So this," he said, "is where I am to spend a few years; my new father
+is a hardworking man, I believe, perhaps a little given to drink but
+kind enough; and I daresay some of these children are my brothers and
+sisters. A score of years or more to spend here, no doubt! Well, it
+might be worse. You will think of me while you can, and if you have the
+time, you may pay me a visit, though I don't suppose I shall recognise
+you."
+
+"It seems rather dreadful to me," said I, "I must confess! Who would
+have thought that I should have forgotten my visions so soon? Amroth,
+dear, I can't bear this--that you should suffer such a change."
+
+"Sentiment again, brother," said Amroth. "To me it is curious and
+interesting, even exciting. Well, good-bye; my time is just up, I
+think."
+
+The doctor had gone into the house, and the cries died away. A moment
+after a woman in the dress of a nurse came quickly along the street,
+knocked, opened the door, and went in. I could see into the room, a
+poorly furnished one. A girl sat nursing a baby by the fire, and looked
+very much frightened. A little boy played in the corner. A woman was
+bustling about, making some preparations for a meal.
+
+"Let me do you the honours of my new establishment," said Amroth with a
+smile. "No, dear man, don't go with me any farther. We will part here,
+and when we meet again we shall have some new stories to tell. Bless
+you." He took his hand from my arm, caught up my hand, kissed it, said,
+"There, that is for you," and disappeared smiling into the house.
+
+A moment later there came the cry of a new-born child from the window
+above. The doctor came out and went down the street; one of the women
+joined him and walked with him. A few minutes later she returned with a
+young and sturdy workman, looking rather anxious.
+
+"It's all right," I heard her say, "it's a fine boy, and Annie is doing
+well--she'll be about again soon enough."
+
+They disappeared into the house, and I turned away.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+It is difficult to describe the strange emotions with which the
+departure of Amroth filled me. I think that, when I first entered the
+heavenly country, the strongest feeling I experienced was the sense of
+security--the thought that the earthly life was over and done with, and
+that there remained the rest and tranquillity of heaven. What I cannot
+even now understand is this. I am dimly aware that I have lived a great
+series of lives, in each of which I have had to exist blindly, not
+knowing that my life was not bounded and terminated by death, and only
+darkly guessing and hoping, in passionate glimpses, that there might be
+a permanent life of the soul behind the life of the body. And yet, at
+first, on entering the heavenly country, I did not remember having
+entered it before; it was not familiar to me, nor did I at first recall
+in memory that I had been there before. The earthly life seems to
+obliterate for a time even the heavenly memory. But the departure of
+Amroth swept away once and for all the sense of security. One felt of
+the earthly life, indeed, as a busy man may think of a troublesome visit
+he has to pay, which breaks across the normal current of his life, while
+he anticipates with pleasure his return to the usual activities of home
+across the interval of social distraction, which he does not exactly
+desire, but yet is glad that it should intervene, if only for the
+heightened sense of delight with which he will resume his real life. I
+had been happy in heaven, though with periods of discontent and moments
+of dismay. But I no longer desired a dreamful ease; I only wished
+passionately to be employed. And now I saw that I must resign all
+expectation of that. As so often happens, both on earth and in heaven, I
+had found something of which I was not in search, while the work which I
+had estimated so highly, and prepared myself so ardently for, had never
+been given to me to do at all.
+
+But for the moment I had but one single thought. I was to see Cynthia
+again, and I might then expect my own summons to return to life. What
+surprised me, on looking back at my present sojourn, was the extreme
+apparent fortuitousness of it. It had not been seemingly organised or
+laid out on any plan; and yet it had shown me this, that my own
+intentions and desires counted for nothing. I had meant to work, and I
+had been mostly idle; I had intended to study psychology, and I had
+found love. How much wiser and deeper it had all been than anything
+which I had designed!
+
+Even now I was uncertain how to find Cynthia. But recollecting that
+Amroth had warned me that I had gained new powers which I might
+exercise, I set myself to use them. I concentrated myself upon the
+thought of Cynthia; and in a moment, just as the hand of a man in a
+dark room, feeling for some familiar object, encounters and closes upon
+the thing he is seeking, I seemed to touch and embrace the thought of
+Cynthia. I directed myself thither. The breeze fanned my hair, and as I
+opened my eyes I saw that I was in an unfamiliar place--not the forest
+where I had left Cynthia, but in a terraced garden, under a great hill,
+wooded to the peak. Stone steps ran up through the terraces, the topmost
+of which was crowned by a long irregular building, very quaintly
+designed. I went up the steps, and, looking about me, caught sight of
+two figures seated on a wooden seat at a little distance from me,
+overlooking the valley. One of these was Cynthia. The other was a young
+and beautiful woman; the two were talking earnestly together. Suddenly
+Cynthia turned and saw me, and rising quickly, came to me and caught me
+in her arms.
+
+"I was sure you were somewhere near me, dearest," she said; "I dreamed
+of you last night, and you have been in my thoughts all day."
+
+My darling was in some way altered. She looked older, wiser, and calmer,
+but she was in my eyes even more beautiful. The other girl, who had
+looked at us in surprise for a moment, rose too and came shyly forwards.
+Cynthia caught her hand, and presented her to me, adding, "And now you
+must leave us alone for a little, if you will forgive me for asking it,
+for we have much to ask and to say."
+
+The girl smiled and went off, looking back at us, I thought,
+half-enviously.
+
+We went and sat down on the seat, and Cynthia said:
+
+"Something has happened to you, dear one, I see, since I saw you
+last--something great and glorious."
+
+"Yes," I said, "you are right; I have seen the beginning and the end;
+and I have not yet learned to understand it. But I am the same, Cynthia,
+and yours utterly. We will speak of this later. Tell me first what has
+happened to you, and what this place is. I will not waste time in
+talking; I want to hear you talk and to see you talk. How often have I
+longed for that!"
+
+Cynthia took my hand in both of her own, and then unfolded to me her
+story. She had lived long in the forest, alone with the child, and then
+the day had come when the desire to go farther had arisen in his mind,
+and he had left her, and she had felt strangely desolate, till she too
+had been summoned.
+
+"And this place--how can I describe it?" she said. "It is a home for
+spirits who have desired love on earth, and who yet, from some accident
+of circumstance, have never found one to love them with any intimacy of
+passion. How strange it is to think," she went on, "that I, just by the
+inheritance of beauty, was surrounded with love and the wrong sort of
+love, so that I never learned to love rightly and truly; while so many,
+just from some lack of beauty, some homeliness or ungainliness of
+feature or carriage, missed the one kind of love that would have
+sustained and fed them--have never been held in a lover's arms, or held
+a child of their own against their heart. And so," she went on smiling,
+"many of them lavished their tenderness upon animals or crafty servants
+or selfish relations; and grew old and fanciful and petulant before
+their time. It seems a sad waste of life that! Because so many of them
+are spirits that could have loved finely and devotedly all the time. But
+here," she said, "they unlearn their caprices, and live a life by
+strict rule--and they go out hence to have the care of children, or to
+tend broken lives into tranquillity--and some of them, nay most of them,
+find heavenly lovers of their own. They are odd, fractious people at
+first, curiously concerned about health and occupation and one can often
+do nothing but listen to their complaints. But they find their way out
+in time, and one can help them a little, as soon as they begin to
+desire to hear something of other lives but their own. They have to
+learn to turn love outwards instead of inwards; just as I," she added
+laughing, "had to turn my own love inwards instead of outwards."
+
+Then I told Cynthia what I could tell of my own experiences, and she
+heard them with astonishment. Then I said:
+
+"What surprises me about it, is that I seem somehow to have been given
+more than I can hold. I have a very shallow and trivial nature, like a
+stream that sparkles pleasantly enough over a pebbly bottom, but in
+which no boat or man can swim. I have always been absorbed in the
+observation of details and in the outside of things. I spent so much
+energy in watching the faces and gestures and utterances and tricks of
+those about me that I never had the leisure to look into their hearts.
+And now these great depths have opened before me, and I feel more
+childish and feeble than ever, like a frail glass which holds a most
+precious liquor, and gains brightness and glory from the hues of the
+wine it holds, but is not like the gem, compact of colour and radiance."
+
+Cynthia laughed at me.
+
+"At all events, you have not forgotten how to make metaphors," she said.
+
+"No," said I, "that is part of the mischief, that I see the likenesses
+of things and not their essences." At which she laughed again more
+softly, and rested her cheek on my shoulder.
+
+Then I told her of the departure of Amroth.
+
+"That is wonderful," she said.
+
+And then I told her of my own approaching departure, at which she grew
+sad for a moment. Then she said, "But come, let us not waste time in
+forebodings. Will you come with me into the house to see the likenesses
+of things, or shall we have an hour alone together, and try to look into
+essences?"
+
+I caught her by the hand.
+
+"No," I said, "I care no more about the machinery of these
+institutions. I am the pilgrim of love, and not the student of
+organisations. If you may quit your task, and leave your ladies to
+regretful memories of their lap-dogs, let us go out together for a
+little, and say what we can--for I am sure that my time is approaching."
+
+Cynthia smiled and left me, and returned running; and then we rambled
+off together, up the steep paths of the woodland, to the mountain-top,
+from which we had a wide prospect of the heavenly country, a great blue
+well-watered plain lying out for leagues before us, with the shapes of
+mysterious mountains in the distance. But I can give no account of all
+we said or did, for heart mingled with heart, and there was little need
+of speech. And even so, in those last sweet hours, I could not help
+marvelling at how utterly different Cynthia's heart and mind were from
+my own; even then it was a constant shock of surprise that we should
+understand each other so perfectly, and yet feel so differently about
+so much. It seemed to me that, even after all I had seen and suffered,
+my heart was still bent on taking and Cynthia's on giving. I seemed to
+see my own heart through Cynthia's, while she appeared to see mine but
+through her own. We spoke of our experiences, and of our many friends,
+now hidden from us--and at last we spoke of Lucius. And then Cynthia
+said:
+
+"It is strange, dearest, that now and then there should yet remain any
+doubt at all in my mind about your wish or desire; but I must speak; and
+before I speak, I will say that whatever you desire, I will do. But I
+think that Lucius has need of me, and I am his, in a way which I cannot
+describe. He is halting now in his way, and he is unhappy because his
+life is incomplete. May I help him?"
+
+At this there struck through me a sharp and jealous pang; and a dark
+cloud seemed to float across my mind for a moment. But I set all aside,
+and thought for an instant of the vision of God. And then I said:
+
+"Yes, Cynthia! I had wondered too; and it seems perhaps like the last
+taint of earth, that I would, as it were, condemn you to a sort of
+widowhood of love when I am gone. But you must follow your own heart,
+and its pure and sweet advice, and the Will of Love; and you must use
+your treasure, not hoard it for me in solitude. Dearest, I trust you and
+worship you utterly and entirely. It is through you and your love that I
+have found my way to the heart of God; and if indeed you can take
+another heart thither, you must do it for love's own sake." And after
+this we were silent for a long space, heart blending wholly with heart.
+
+Then suddenly I became aware that some one was coming up through the
+wood, to the rocks where we sat: and Cynthia clung close to me, and I
+knew that she was sorrowful to death. And then I saw Lucius come up out
+of the wood, and halt for a moment at the sight of us together. Then he
+came on almost reverently, and I saw that he carried in his hand a
+sealed paper like that which had been given to Amroth; and I read it and
+found my summons written.
+
+Then while Lucius stood beside me, with his eyes upon the ground, I
+said:
+
+"I must go in haste; and I have but one thing to do. We have spoken,
+Cynthia and I, of the love you have long borne her; and she is yours
+now, to comfort and lead you as she has led and comforted me. This is
+the last sacrifice of love, to give up love itself; and this I do very
+willingly for the sake of Him that loves us: and here," I said, "is a
+strange thing, that at the very crown and summit of life, for I am sure
+that this is so, we should be three hearts, so full of love, and yet so
+sorrowing and suffering as we are. Is pain indeed the end of all?"
+
+"No," said Cynthia, "it is not the end, and yet only by it can we
+measure the depth and height of love. If we look into our hearts, we
+know that in spite of all we are more than rewarded, and more than
+conquerors."
+
+Then I took Cynthia's hand and laid it in the hand of Lucius; and I left
+them there upon the peak, and turned no more. And no more woeful spirit
+was in the land of heaven that day than mine as I stumbled wearily down
+the slope, and found the valley. And then, for I did not know the way to
+descend, I commended myself to God; and He took me.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+I saw that I was standing in a narrow muddy road, with deep ruts, which
+led up from the bank of a wide river--a tidal river, as I could see,
+from the great mudflats fringed with seaweed. The sun blazed down upon
+the whole scene. Just below was a sort of landing-place, where lay a
+number of long, low boats, shaded with mats curved like the hood of a
+waggon; a little farther out was a big quaint ship, with a high stern
+and yellow sails. Beyond the river rose great hills, thickly clothed
+with vegetation. In front of me, along the roadside, stood a number of
+mud-walled huts, thatched with some sort of reeds; beyond these, on the
+left, was the entrance of a larger house, surrounded with high walls,
+the tops of trees, with a strange red foliage, appearing over the
+enclosure, and the tiled roofs of buildings. Farther still were the
+walls of a great town, huge earthworks crowned with plastered
+fortifications, and a gate, with a curious roof to it, running out at
+each end into horns carved of wood. At some distance, out of a grove to
+the right, rose a round tapering tower of mouldering brickwork. The rest
+of the nearer country seemed laid out in low plantations of some
+green-leaved shrub, with rice-fields interspersed in the more level
+ground.
+
+There were only a few people in sight. Some men with arms and legs
+bare, and big hats made of reeds, were carrying up goods from the
+landing-place, and a number of children, pale and small-eyed, dirty and
+half-naked, were playing about by the roadside. I went a few paces up
+the road, and stopped beside a house, a little larger than the rest,
+with a rough verandah by the door. Here a middle-aged man was seated,
+plaiting something out of reeds, but evidently listening for sounds
+within the house, with an air half-tranquil, half-anxious; by him on a
+slab stood something that looked like a drum, and a spray of azalea
+flowers. While I watched, a man of a rather superior rank, with a dark
+flowered jacket and a curious hat, looked out of a door which opened on
+the verandah and beckoned him in; a sound of low subdued wailing came
+out from the house, and I knew that my time was hard at hand. It was
+strange and terrible to me at the moment to realise that my life was to
+be bound up, I knew not for how long, with this remote place; but I was
+conscious too of a deep excitement, as of a man about to start upon a
+race on which much depends. There came a groan from the interior of the
+house, and through the half-open door I could see two or three dim
+figures standing round a bed in a dark and ill-furnished room. One of
+the figures bent down, and I could see the face of a woman, very pale,
+the eyes closed, and the lips open, her arms drawn up over her head as
+in an agony of pain. Then a sudden dimness came over me, and a deadly
+faintness. I stumbled through the verandah to the open door. The
+darkness closed in upon me, and I knew no more.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Child of the Dawn, by Arthur Christopher Benson
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